by April Zyon
She sighed and closed her eyes again. Just before the elevator stopped, she looked up at him and asked, “I’m assuming that the heat under my cheek is your medallion?” At his look, she shrugged. “Why is it getting so nice and warm?
Clearing his throat, he took her hand in his and led her out of the elevator. None of the others followed, so they were alone in the corridor. “It is the medallion that was heating up. It’s never done that before, which means it’s all because of you,” he said.
“I feel completely calm and relaxed when you are touching me.” She walked along with him through the corridors and frowned. “How do you find your way in here? They all look the same.” Same walls, floor, ceiling. Everything in the three corridors they had been down had been identical.
“They are all the same except for a few minor differences. And the codes at the top and bottom of the walls at each of the corners of course. Besides, I’ve lived here for a while, was here during the initial construction and subsequent expansions, so I know it like the back of my hand. It’s easy enough to figure out once you have been here for a time.”
“Right. And am I going to be here long enough to figure it all out?” she asked as they made yet another turn, then another. When he didn’t answer, only smiled, she said, “Okay, how freaking many turns can we possibly make inside of one facility?”
“I’ll show you the map when we get to my suite,” he told her with a chuckle. “You’ll be rather stunned, I think.” They went a little further before stopping in front of a nondescript door just like every other one they’d passed. He put in a code and it swung open. Ushering her inside, he turned on the lights to reveal what looked like a stylish living room space straight out of one of those high-end magazines.
She glanced around and let out a low whistle. “This is beautiful,” she said in complete awe. The place had the best of the best—oversized furniture that looked as soft as clouds, a television that was as large as a car, and what looked like every gaming console ever invented. “Wow,” was all she said before looking at him. “You brought me to your home. I admit, I’m a little surprised.”
“Why are you surprised? If you’re uncomfortable here, I could get one of the other suites prepared for you instead,” he offered. Tugging on her fingers, he led her into an open-plan kitchen with an island that separated it from the dining room, which was across from the living room. “Do you want something to drink while you think on it?”
“No, I’m good.” She leaned against the island and watched him. “Why?” She’d asked him that back in New Orleans and was asking again. “That question fits so many that are flying around in my mind right now. Why do you want me to stay with you?” That was the biggest question she had right now, actually.
“Why wouldn’t I want you to stay?” he threw back with a mischievous look. Pulling out a bottle of water, he uncapped it and took a drink as he moved in closer to her. “I happen to like you, Krista. Besides that, the medallion has spoken, so I want to find out where this attraction leads to.”
“So, I’m not the only one feeling it?” she asked with a bit of a smile as she moved from where she was leaning and walked his way. “What happens now?”
“Now we get to know one another. But first we should probably help you figure your way around this place. After that, we’ll need to have a talk and give you your own history so that you know why Billy has such a fascination with you. If we have time after that, we can relax and just talk before crashing for the evening. I’ll also feed you a couple of times somewhere in there, so don’t worry about starving.”
Krista didn’t know why, but she felt drawn to this man. Eric. She wanted to open up and tell him everything. “Okay … that sounds like a plan.” She shifted so that she was close to him and spoke softly. “I was thrown out of my mother’s tribe when I was three. She wasn’t, but I was. I don’t know how, but she had to go through some sort of a cleansing. They said that I was the child of a monster, that it was why I could do what I do.” She couldn’t believe she had blurted that out like she had. She was looking at the counter behind Eric as she spoke. “I remember it, too. I remember them sending me out, putting me on the step of the local church. But it wasn’t just me.” She swallowed hard and added, “My great-grandmother was in love with a white man named Billy. And now I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he left or died or whatever.” She rolled her wrist as she spoke. “That her child was born eight months into her forced bonding with one of the men in the tribe and she was pale-skinned with blue eyes. Was it?” She now looked up at him and waited.
Eric nodded slowly. “You’re related to Billy the Kid, and he knows it. He’s been watching over you from what we can tell for a while now. A former colleague outed you to him. I’m betting he was checking in on you today, saw Robert and I there, and had himself a right fine temper tantrum. Only downside to that is he’s fucking crazy enough to try and attack us here.”
“Because of me?” she asked, her eyes suddenly going wide. “That’s not good. Eric, I can’t let you be in danger like that from him. Not because of me,” she said in horror. “Please. I think you are going to have to send me somewhere else.” She reached out and put her hand over his medallion and chewed her lower lip for a moment.
“You’re not going anywhere, Krista.” Pressing his hand over hers, he held it to the medallion, which warmed even more under their combined touch. He stepped in closer to her so her breasts brushed to his chest. “He can try all he wants, but there is no way in hell he can get into the Mountain. We’ve taken all his pawns out of play, redone the security system, and have one of our own looking after it now. And she’s a fierce little thing who isn’t letting anyone in she wouldn’t trust around her mate implicitly.” He cupped her cheek gently. “Trust me.”
“I do, and that scares the bejesus out of me. I’ve never trusted someone so completely as I do you.” Which terrified her. “So what do we do now? I’m in your room and you are touching me and I like that, a lot, so what now?”
His hand came around to cup the back of her head as his own head lowered. “Now, my sweet. Now I’m going to taste you as I’ve wanted to since I first saw you in the flesh.” Without another word, he pressed his lips to hers in a firm kiss, taking full control from the first moment and demanding she open to him.
Krista found herself melting into this man. Her mouth opened obediently for him, and she moaned at the intrusion of his tongue. Her hands fisted in his shirt, and she found herself lifting up on her toes a bit more to take all that he was giving her with the kiss.
Large hands landed on her ass, lifting her further before taking her completely off her feet. The world spun, and she felt the countertop under her buttocks. Eric stepped in closer, pulling her to the edge so their torsos were pressed tightly to one another. Then his hands began to roam. One moved slowly up and down her thigh. The other landed on her rib cage so his thumb could tease the outer curve of her breast.
Krista gasped, pulling away from the kiss to end all kisses, and looked at him with wide eyes. “Eric.” She whispered his name and heard all of the need that she had for him in that one word. Her legs hooked around his waist and pulled him closer. “More, now.” It was a desperate demand for more kisses from him, more everything from him.
He slid his tongue slowly over his lips while giving her a heavy-lidded, hot look. Eric leaned in, but instead of going for her mouth, he diverted to her neck. He pushed off her jacket and worked his hands under her shirt while nibbling and licking at her skin.
She moved with him. “Tell me what you need. Please?” she asked with another smile and licked her lips. “I love it when you touch me,” she admitted. He scraped his teeth to her throat, then lifted his head while pulling up her shirt. Somehow he’d even gotten her bra off, so both articles of clothing went flying. “Beautiful,” he said with a bit of growl to his voice.
That had her shivering and she nodded. “You feel so good to me.” Him touching her in any way at all made her bite her lips
and want to do more to him, made her want to nibble on his skin. “Tell me why your medallion is hot to the touch?” She pressed kisses along his chest as she spoke.
Rubbing his thumbs over her nipples, he brushed a kiss to her lips. “It heats when my VV is near. It’s like a warning system from the goddess to the guardians. Her way of giving us hope and ensuring we don’t miss out on the chance. It is encoded to the one person in the entire universe that is mine. You.”
“If I am your VV, what does that mean for us? I know that there is chemistry and attraction out the ying yang, but what happens after that? I want you. I won’t lie about that. I very much would love to make love with you, but what happens when we do?”
“We bond,” he said, sliding his hands to cup her breasts. “No clue how it happens, only that it does. The medallion ties our two lives together. You gain my longevity, and I gain a gorgeous woman to call my own. There is a downside, too, that I should warn you about. If I die, you die. And if you die, I die. Period.”
“I can live with that,” she admitted with a small shrug. “I can live with it because I get an amazing, hot, and sexy man all for my own. Someone that will keep me.” She hesitated, then asked, “You will, right? Keep me, that is?” She tried to keep the worry out of her tone but wasn’t so sure if it was happening. She knew she had abandonment issues, out the wazoo, actually, but here she was ready to jump in with both feet to have him with her. To keep him.
Eric moved his hands to cup her face, tipping her chin up so they were eye to eye. “I would never let you go, Krista. I will kill for you, and I would die for you. You are mine, and anyone that thinks otherwise won’t live long enough to have another thought.”
“Good.” She leaned into his touch and smiled. “Because I’m never going to let you go either. I need you far too much, already,” she told him and rubbed her cheek to his. “Now that we’re on the same page, I really would like to see just how amazing you look without your clothes?”
Cocking a brow at her words, Eric got rid of the leather jacket he’d been wearing. Then, reaching over his head, he pulled his shirt off. “Not much to see except for a horrid amount of pale skin and a colossal number of freckles. Only thing I wish I could change about myself is the ability to get a tan. Then maybe I could hide a few of the bloody things.”
“I love that you are as pale as you are. And I love your red hair.” She reached out to touch his hair and grinned. “Your freckles are awesome. You know that, right?” She stroked her hand up and down his cheek lovingly. “So trust me, you are seriously hot just as you are.”
“I have hated my freckles from the day I realized they wouldn’t scrub off, and believe me I definitely tried my damnedest. We now have a standing and quite heated hatred of one another. Buggers multiply, too. They think I won’t notice, but I keep track and know when another migration has occurred.”
“How about if I lick each and every single one of your freckles so that you no longer hate them? I happen to love them and think that they are seriously sexy. I mean like whoa. I wish that I had freckles.” She hated her tanned skin.
“Your skin is so warm and soft and makes me want to nibble on you endlessly, Krista. You have beautiful skin, sweetheart.”
“You haven’t gotten to the scars yet,” she whispered, lifting her hands for him. “Eleven years ago, I tried to kill myself.” She saw him glancing at the scars on her inner wrists. “I was institutionalized after that and was treated with electroshock. Seems if you talk about seeing the dead, they think you are crazy. Add to it that I had no family by then.” She shrugged. “The people who had adopted me were an older couple and died just after my seventeenth birthday.”
Lifting her wrists, Eric took in each of the scars, rubbing his thumbs lightly to the marks. Then he raised each of her hands up to press gentle kisses to her scars. “You’re here now. You’re safe, and these are part of who you are and how you came to be here.”
She nodded. Then she rubbed her cheek to his and smiled. “So…” she said after a moment, “if we bond, I’ll live as long as you live and we will find happiness together, right? I won’t be alone anymore?”
“I will not leave you,” he vowed. Slipping his arms around her, he scooped her off the counter and carried her toward the hall. He brushed a kiss over her shoulder before easing her down onto the large bed.
She leaned her head to the side to allow him full access to her neck. “I like when you do that,” she told him, then pressed a kiss to his neck. “Please, more.” She couldn’t wait to have him naked with her.
Laughing softly, he scraped his teeth over her skin. Eric cupped her breasts gently and squeezed the mounds while his fingers found her nipples to roll gently.
“That feels so good.” She loved the feelings that he was inspiring inside of her. The way he moved his hands over her breasts and tweaked her nipples had her jumping, then relaxing. “Eric.” His name came out as a low moan of a sound.
“By the goddess, I love how you say my name.” He moved enough to put his mouth to one breast, his tongue darting out to tease the nipple. “Say it again, Krista,” he told her in a demanding tone.
“Eric…” It was a sound of pure need and she knew it. “I love the way you touch me.” His tongue lapped up her neck, which had her biting her lower lip again.
Turning her head, he captured her mouth in a hard, demanding kiss and took hold of her hands. After pressing them above her head to the pillows, he drew back from the kiss to give her little nips on her mouth. “I’m not a gentle lover, Krista. So I hope you’re prepared for hard, fast, intense, and wild sex between the two of us that will stretch the boundaries you thought you knew.”
She shifted just a bit and nodded. “I’m willing to do anything with you.” Which was true. She was willing to test all of her boundaries. “Tell me what you need from me? How can I be what you need?”
“Be you, and only you, Krista. Be honest and open with me at all times. If you’re unsure, say something, speak up. Be heard, because I will be listening. You are unique and so very special I’m not sure you can fully understand it. I may be a demanding beast in bed, but I would never push you past your comfort zone if that was truly your wish. Uncertainty, we can deal with. Fear, I won’t allow. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” she told him with a nod. She moved her leg so that it was against his ass now. “I … I want to be able to give up control. I have to hold on to such control in life to keep the dead from flooding me that I want to be able to just give that up sometimes. Will you help me?”
“Of course I will,” he said softly. “We’re in this together, Krista. Give and take, push and pull, we have to keep everything in balance by being open and honest with one another. Especially in the bedroom until we know if your tastes in all things match my own.” Lowering his head, Eric gave her a slow kiss while loosening his hold on her wrists. “Keep your arms up there, sweetheart.”
She put her hand on the headboard while watching him. “Like this?” She felt her body stretched out fully under him now and liked it, a lot. She loved the light touch of his hands on her as well.
Nodding, he pushed up on his arms to stare down at her. “Exactly like that,” he said with a crooked grin. Suddenly, he was off the bed. She noted he didn’t go all that far, only far enough to undo her boots and slip them and her socks off her feet. Then he moved to get rid of her pants but left her in her underwear. Sitting on the corner of the bed, he got rid of his own footwear, then stood to undo his jeans, slip them down his legs, and kick them away. As he straightened, she discovered he was fully naked, by which time it registered he was straddling her hips and using his finger to draw lazy designs on her belly.
“Oh my.” She had seen his cock. It stood long and hard and thick. Oh dear God how she wanted to taste it. Even his dick had freckles. “You look amazing. So sexy.”
“Says the sinfully sexy siren stretched out on my bed.” Pressing his hands to the bedding by her shoulders, he leaned
in close enough she could feel his breath on her lips. “You had a thought there a moment ago. What was it?” he asked.
“You have freckles on your dick, and I would really love to lick and taste each one of those. I want to start to show you just how much I love your freckles by starting from the bottom and working up,” she told him with a smile.
Eric’s eyebrows went up toward his hairline. Pulling back slightly, he looked down between their bodies, then back at her. “Pretty sure those are new.” He muttered something in a guttural language before sitting up again. Up on his knees, he moved close enough his member was in reach, then moved a little more. “Have at it, but don’t go trying to count the blasted things.”
“I get to?” she asked with wide eyes. When he told her she could, she didn’t hesitate. She leaned in and put her mouth onto his cock. Her tongue moved over the couple of freckles she saw and licked from balls to domed head while his hands threaded into her hair.
He was watching her under heavy lids as she learned the shape of him. She noted he really liked a little teeth, and he didn’t mind a light touch to his balls.
Krista stroked her hand up and down him while she was teasing his balls. She took one into her mouth and licked on it, tormenting him with her tongue and teeth. She looked up at him and licked her lips. “Do you like that?” She could tell that he did from the way he was growling low in the back of his throat.
Eric managed a jerky nod with a low moan follow up. One of his hands tightened in her hair as he pressed the other to the bed above her head. Leaning forward, he thrust into her mouth and hand.
She let him move in and out of her mouth and loved it. She moaned, taking the moment to suck harder on his dick. Her tongue swirled around the head. “You taste so good. I love this, so much. I could become so used to this. You have no idea.”
“You’d better. We have a very long life ahead of us, sweetheart.” Tipping her head back more, he rolled his hips to rub the head of his dick over her lips. The bead of precum he leaked slickened her lips.