by Virna DePaul
Mama, Papa. Je n'oublierai jamais. I will never forget.
The were continued talking. “Thanks for the money. Easiest cash I ever earned. But I won’t even bother to wish you luck. I don’t know what you’re hoping to do with the info on Dex. Bribe him? Play hardball? Dex plays harder than anyone I’ve ever met. Remember that.”
With that warning, he was gone. He’d wasted his breath.
She knew Dex played hardball. She’d watched him playing as he’d restrained the misguided shape-shifter who’d messed with Lucy Talbot in that Los Angeles sex club. But although Jesmina might look lithe and harmless next to a bulked-up, badass, motorcycle-riding werebeast, she could play hardball with the best of them.
Only in Dex’s case, she’d be playing hardball with tools she never liked to use—deceit and trickery, all unspoken but still quite effective. Of course, that was the very nature of playing hardball: you did what you had to do, no matter what.
She picked up her cell phone and dialed Kyle Mahone’s number. She’d taken a huge risk telling him about Dex and her intentions, but she stood by it. Dex worked for Mahone. That meant he had to trust him on some level. Plus, Mahone had the authority to give Jes the money she needed to keep her research going. And although he hadn’t given her information about Dex’s medical history, he’d known Dex carried a gold charm, which explained why she hadn’t been able to read his mind either time she’d attempted to.
Apparently dharmire Knox Devereaux didn’t mind sharing intel about his species with the Para-Ops team, which actually reassured Jes. Although she’d never met him, the vamp leader was rumored to have the highest regard for honesty and integrity. If he’d shared information with his team members about vampire weakness, Jes was right to have put her trust in them, too. That included Mahone.
When Mahone answered the line, she said, “I just talked to an old friend of Dex’s from the Ferals. Everything he said tells me what I believe is true. In order to be sure, I need to run those tests. Once I read his mind and exercise persuasion over him, I’ll draw his blood. Since we were interrupted the last time, I’m hoping he’ll come to me. If he doesn’t show up, I need you to push him in that direction. If I approach him again, he might become suspicious.”
She half-listened to Mahone’s response, her thoughts already on whether Dex would come to her. On whether he’d still be pissed at her for taking Lucy away from him. Whether she’d actually do what she planned—tempt him, then take his blood before he even knew what hit him—or let him do what she’d been fantasizing about…
Merde. Why was she even thinking in terms of options?
What she was about to do was bad enough. She wasn’t going to add whoring to her litany of sins. No matter how attracted she was to Dex Hunt, she wasn’t going to sleep with him to get what she needed.
But she wanted to.
And she had no delusions. She was always unfailingly honest with herself even if she couldn’t be honest with those around her. Yes, she suffered from survivor’s guilt. She also suffered from an unexpected case of lust and respect for Dex Hunt, a male she barely knew, and the one had nothing to do with the other. It would be easier if it did. Easier for her to see him as a means to an end. But it didn’t. And she didn’t.
She’d seen Dex working with his team, protecting Lucy and Wraith, putting himself at risk for felines he didn’t even know. She knew what he was.
A sexy male who’d done what he needed to do to survive.
An honorable male who pretended not to care because he cared too much.
A male who would despise her if he knew the truth.
CHAPTER FOUR
Until recently, the term fuck buddy had never meant anything to Dex. He’d always fucked for sheer pleasure—to receive it and to give it—but lately other needs drove him. With Lucy, his drive was friendship disguised with practicality. With Jes, his desire was driven by something alarmingly primal. Not just seeking pleasure for pleasure’s sake, but more like seeking to appease an intense, gnawing need. With each hour that passed, he had to fight the urge to go to her. To take what he’d actually been prepared to take when he’d pushed her into that damn elevator. To give part of himself he’d never been tempted to give anyone else.
Physically and emotionally.
Hell, he hadn’t known what he wanted to do most—mark Jes with his scent and his seed, or beg her to hold him while telling him everything about her.
How was that for bat-shit crazy?
Since he couldn’t afford even a temporary case of insanity, he’d managed to refrain from doing any of that.
Which meant for now, a fuck buddy was all he was going to be.
Still, while it wasn’t exactly torturous stuff, it wasn’t turning out to be as easy as it should be, either—not for him and not for Lucy.
“Let go, Lucy. Let me give you this.” As Dex spoke, he pressed himself deeper into the mage’s body, then pulled out slowly, stroking the tight inner muscles that fluttered around him. Gritting his teeth, he forced his mind to remain distant from the physical pleasure that was racking his body. From his memories of Jesmina.
This was for Lucy. All for Lucy, damn it.
He’d promised to help ease her sexual heat, the heat that lasted seven days and came every seven days simply because she was part feline. She’d agreed, but the fact that she was fighting the pleasure he was giving her, that she always fought the pleasure he gave her, only tortured them both. He fought release because it would only complicate matters between them, but Lucy fought release because she was ashamed of her body’s needs, ashamed she needed sexual release so badly that he’d offer to help her in the first place.
Of course, he never let her get away with it. In order to function during the day, her body needed the release that only male penetration and climax could provide her. If he spent his seed inside her, her relief would be even greater and last even longer. But Dex, unwilling to risk exposing another child to the cruelties of the world, always wore protection. Always.
That wouldn’t change, even if he ended up fucking Jesmina.
Especially then.
Of course, he reminded himself, that wasn’t going to happen. Yet, once the thought formed, so did other thoughts. Other images.
Suddenly, it was no longer Lucy beneath him, but Jesmina.
It was Jesmina’s body he covered, her thighs spread and flanking his hips, her heat surrounding him and fluttering with dual pleasure and resistance.
It was Jesmina who fought the pleasure he offered her at the same time that she strained for it.
It was Jesmina who suddenly made him want to lose control, to shoot himself into her creamy depths again and again, to take her several times, in several different ways…
“Dex!”
Lucy’s gasp brought him back to the present and he opened his eyes to stare down at her. Shit. He was pounding into her, stroking her breasts, giving her not just sex but taking her. Because he wanted—needed—to take Jesmina.
Cursing softly, he slowed his thrusts so they were once more controlled.
“Sorry,” he murmured. “Now come, Lucy. Please,” he choked out.
Lucy’s dark eyes were dazed, but he saw the guilt that flashed through them. It made him curse again. He hated the fact that she suffered. He felt compelled to help her but—
“Okay, Dex. Thank you.”
She closed her eyes. Took several hitching breaths and forced her body to relax. Within seconds, her climax took her. It was a mild one, as most of hers were, but he knew it would give her temporary peace before she needed him again.
He stayed inside her until the last of her tremors passed. Then he withdrew, grimacing at the friction that made his cock jerk from sheer biology.
“I’ll be right back,” he said. He excused himself to go to the bathroom and took himself in hand. It took mere seconds for him to get off. It took him only thinking of Jesmina.
When he returned to the bedroom, Lucy was covered with the sheet and layin
g on her side. He sat beside her and touched her hip over the sheet. “You okay?”
She nodded. “Yes. That was—that was wonderful. Thank you.”
Dex snorted and shook his head. “It wasn’t wonderful, but it can be better, Lucy. Far better. If you let yourself go, if not with me then with someone else, sex can be damn pleasurable. Your orgasm can be amazing.”
She smiled thinly. “It can’t be that great since you’re able to resist it.”
“That has nothing to do with you.”
“No? Does it have something to do with you not wanting to have a child? So much so that even using a condom isn’t enough assurance for you?”
Her question caught him unawares, mostly because it was so spot on. With Lucy’s steady gaze on his, Dex thought about lying, then simply shrugged. “I can’t have children. I won’t. Not even with you, babe.” Especially with her. He’d been ridiculed for his half-breed status. Even Knox had been ostracized by most of his clan. How much more would the child of a half-breed were and feline mage suffer?
“Listen, Mahone wants to talk to me about something. I’ll come back as soon as I’m done. I know you’re heading home tonight. We can—”
Lucy shook her head. “No, Dex. I should never have let this happen again. It’s time to stop.”
Agreement was on the tip of his tongue, instinctive and swift. But he knew that couldn’t be right. “You need it, Lucy.”
“I’ll always appreciate what you’ve done for me, Dex, but it’s not fair to you. You’re not into me, but you’re clearly into someone else. You should go see her—”
“Will you stop trying to push me and the vampire together?” he snapped.
“No, I won’t. If you’re too stubborn to see what’s so obvious, then I need to—”
He growled and did the only thing he could think of to shut her up. He dipped his head and placed a gentle kiss on her lips.
Lucy was so surprised she jerked back. He’d never kissed her, not on the lips. The intimate contact merely confirmed how platonic their feelings really were for each other. No thrill ran through him. No response besides shock was triggered in Lucy. It would be so much easier if he wanted her the same way he wanted Jesmina. It would be so much safer.
“You don’t get it, little one. I’m a werebeast, shunned by my own people. I couldn’t even fit in with the Ferals, a biker gang of werebeast criminals. My destiny is to be alone. I want only one thing, and that’s the reason I joined the Para-Ops team in the first place. Mahone promised each of us what we most wanted. You want a cure to your heat. I’m going to get my revenge on my grandfather. Soon. For now, you’re actually doing me a favor. I get sex with you. Get to hold a damn good-looking female without having to worry about someone getting clingy and demanding on me.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and tilted that adorably stubborn chin of hers. “You can’t fool me, Dex. Jacking off in the bathroom after servicing me is not ‘sex with me’ or something you should enjoy. It ends now.”
The little one was pushing her luck. “Never challenge a were, Lucy. Remember what I told you before all this started. I lead. You follow. It ends when I say it does.”
“You’re not my older brother. You can’t protect me forever.”
He got up. Dressed. “Look, I’ve got to go. We’ll talk about this later. I don’t want you worrying. If—if me taking you without achieving my own release is what’s got you hung up, then we’ll switch things up.” In fact, maybe it was time to do what he’d always known he should and get that vasectomy. Lucy’s heat cycles wouldn’t end anytime soon and if he was going to come inside her…
“I don’t know. This whole thing, it just doesn’t seem right, Dex.”
“Let me worry about that. I’m going to talk to Mahone.” He headed for the door, pausing with his hand on the doorknob when Lucy spoke.
“Children aren’t a curse, you know…”
He turned back to her. He thought of the child he’d been. The horrors he’d seen and experienced in the dilapidated were orphanage his grandfather had sent him to. He’d certainly felt cursed back then and sometimes, when his guard was down and the memories sprang upon him, he still did. “Don’t, Lucy. I’m not going there.”
“You need to talk about it.”
She was wrong. Talking about his past, his family, himself, was the last thing he needed. “We’ll talk more when I get back. Just not about that.”
***
Lucy watched Dex shut the door behind him before screaming with frustration and flinging herself back on the bed. What a mess.
She adored Dex, but someone needed to knock some sense into the were.
Someone needed to knock some sense into her.
What had she been thinking, accepting his offer of sex?
Okay, she knew what she’d been thinking. That she was sick of suffering from the heat and that Dex was hot and she respected him and that she knew he cared about her so why not let him help her out?
Well, the “why not” had just walked out the door.
Sighing, she curled onto her side and stared out her small hotel window. Through the sheer curtains, she could just make out the cloudless California sky.
Bottom line, she’d let her own needs overshadow those of her friend’s. At least, she’d done so after Dex had met Jesmina. She’d seen for herself how attracted he was to Jes and the fact that Dex hadn’t been able to hide that attraction was telling.
Lucy stood, used the bathroom, then studied herself in the mirror. She looked the way she should. Like a female who’d just had sex. Her long dark brown hair was tousled eggbeater style around her face. Dex’s soul patch had left red marks near her neck and shoulders. She lightly traced the lines with the pads of her fingers.
Yes, she looked like someone’s lover even when she’d never really been one.
And maybe that was how it was supposed to be.
Things were changing.
The team was fracturing.
And that made her feel more panicked than she’d felt since peace had been declared.
What was she going to do?
When she was with her teammates, she was more than she’d ever been. More than a mage denying her feline blood. More than a youthful looking female who no one took seriously. Sure, she was the quietest one, the peacekeeper of the group, but that just emphasized the fact that she had a place among them.
Here, now, she was adrift without the others.
But that was something that was going to have to change.
Felicia had Knox, and Wraith had Caleb. Dex deserved his own chance at happiness. To give him that chance, she was going to have to break the fragile connection that he’d initiated between them. For his own good. And for hers.
She had to find her place, as well as the ability to stand in it on her own.
***
Mahone was an excellent FBI agent, Dex thought. He was an even better leader. Political enough to rise in the ranks, manipulative enough to recognize and move pawns where they needed to go, and unassuming enough to fly under the radar when he needed to, which was most of the time. But today something was different.
Dex stared at the human who was pacing his temporary space at the Bureau’s office in Los Angeles.
Today, Mahone seemed edgier. Tougher. In attitude and in appearance. It wasn’t like the guy really looked different exactly, at least not in an obvious way. Yet he seemed fitter when he’d always been fit. Sharper when he’d always been sharp. And younger…
Dex frowned. For some reason, Dex always thought of Mahone as fatherly, but why? He was mid-forties. No gray hair. Probably quite attractive to most females. Hell, even Knox’s mother had fallen for him.
Would Jesmina find him attractive?
Dex jolted at the random thought. Jesus, what was wrong with him? As much as he hated his preoccupation with the vampire, he understood it. The fact he was now thinking of her in terms of Mahone’s attractiveness told him he needed to get his shit together. Now
.
He returned his attention to Mahone.
Oblivious to Dex’s thoughts, Mahone kept right on talking. “…so I’d like you to go to France to check out the growing division among shape-shifters. Paris has the hottest pocket of infighting, with a rapidly escalating murder rate among the race, but we need to assess the situation before we go diving in.”
“What about the Quorum? Do you think they’re involved?”
“No reason to think so. Not yet. After what happened with Felicia and the felines, they seem to be lying low. Do you have contacts in Paris?”
He hadn’t. Not until recently, Dex thought. Not until he’d met Jesmina. She lived there and had told Dex on the night they’d met that she’d be returning at the end of the week.
That meant he had another excuse to see her again before she left.
He tried to temper any pleasure he felt with thoughts of Lucy, who was right in the middle of her heat. If he went to Paris alone, he’d be gone several days, which meant she’d suffer needlessly during that time. “I think I know someone who might be able to help once I get there, but why not let Lucy go with me? If I go alone, getting the info you want will be twice as difficult given the French bias toward weres.”
A bias was putting it mildly. The French were extremely hostile toward werewolves, creatures they deemed to have been cursed by the Gods and in league with the devil. Historically, more people had been tried and put to death for lycanthropy in France than in any other country in the world. Even Jesmina had used the word “were” with a hint of automatic disdain, and she’d been undeniably attracted to him.
“I’m glad you brought up Lucy,” Mahone said, looking displeased. “I’ve been meaning to discuss the amount of time you’ve been spending with her.”
Why? Because Lucy was a member of Mahone’s team and he didn’t like team members fraternizing? Maybe Mahone just felt protective of Lucy, as Dex did. She seemed to inspire that feeling in males.