by A. C. Arthur
“We’re currently standing in the hallway in the middle of the night discussing whether or not I’m sleeping with someone else.”
She nodded. “Well, are you?”
He didn’t speak right away but stepped toward her. She probably should have backed up, his height combined with his thick build could be intimidating—very intimidating. But she stayed still until her breasts brushed against his torso.
“When I touch you, nobody else touches you. Got it?” was his terse reply.
Caprise shook her head. “We weren’t talking about me, buddy.” She lifted a palm, placed it right over his left pectoral, and let the beat of his heart vibrate through her fingers, up her arm, until it seemed like their rhythms matched … finally.
“For the time you’re in my bed, no one else is,” he said finally. “Does that satisfy you?”
Caprise licked her lips. “Not quite.”
“You don’t want to do this right now, Caprise. Just go back to your room and go to bed,” X told her solemnly.
His eyes were already shifting, the dark brown going to intense green in a matter of seconds. And that wasn’t the only change. A heady scent filled the air around them, circling them both and holding tight until Caprise felt like she was breathing the exact same air he was. She was smelling what he was; they were sharing something so acute and so intimate when they were both fully dressed and standing upright. It was an intense feeling, so much so that she swayed a bit and damn if her big brooding hero didn’t reach out and wrap a muscled arm securely around her waist.
“I know what I’m doing. And I’m not going to bed without you.”
* * *
“You don’t want this right now,” X said when they were closed in her room.
His mind was dark, fathomless, and void of anything real. Or at least that’s how he felt. It was that strange feeling that overcame him sometimes, the one that left him uncontrollable. His palms itched, fingers clenching and unclenching. Even the cat inside him was looming like it was ready to pounce at any moment. He could do anything right now, absolutely anything. Fuck, drink, run, or even kill. Nothing seemed to matter.
And then there was her scent. It had changed somehow, was stronger than the floral aroma that had originally drawn him to her. Heavier, more intense, this new scent clogged his lungs until he felt like he wanted to choke—to cough it up and finally be rid of it. Even his normally excellent vision seemed a little blurry around the edges.
Caprise stood at the end of her bed. She wore shorts that were too fucking short and a shirt that hugged her breasts too goddamn tight. His dick took the hint and perked the hell up instantly. X growled.
“I want you right now,” she said, her voice settling over him just like a full glass of Hennessy.
Hell, his mouth even watered the way it did just after the Hennessy slid down his throat. He licked his lips. She licked hers in response, keeping her eyes on his as she did.
He yanked at his shirt until it ripped and fell from his body. “This isn’t going to be pretty,” he told her as his hands went to his belt.
Her eyes grew darker and she pulled her shirt over her head. “I didn’t ask for pretty.”
“I mean it, Caprise. I don’t do soft whispers, cuddling, and all that shit.” His zipper down, he was about to push at his jeans but he remembered his boots.
Bending over, he untied them with record speed, probably broke the damn laces but didn’t care one way or the other. When he stood again he kicked them off, pushed his pants and boxers off, and looked back to Caprise to see if she was still interested.
She was naked. Like fucking Christmas morning the best damn gift sitting under a perfectly decorated tree, naked as the day she was born.
“I want you,” she repeated. “Just as you are.”
X didn’t believe in forcing females, had never done that a day in his life, no matter how out of control he felt. At the same time, no other female had said the words she’d just spoken to him. They rendered him still for about ten seconds. Then the darkness pressing firmly against his skull pushed him forward.
He grabbed her at the waist, his fingers pressing tightly into soft skin. She gasped, her hands moving to his biceps to hold on. She needed to hold on because he wasn’t going to be able to stop once he started. He knew this without a doubt and sighed, dropping his head so that his gaze fell solidly on the tattoo at her side.
The tattoo of her dead son’s name. She’d borne another man’s child and that child had died. She’d lost her parents and her son and she was still standing, ready and willing to take him with this darkness engulfing him inside her. The knowledge almost broke him. Almost.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said in a voice that didn’t sound like his own.
The next thing X felt was her hands at his cheeks, pulling upward until his gaze met hers.
“You won’t hurt me,” she told him in a strong and clear voice. “I trust you, Xavier.”
She didn’t. She couldn’t. She had no idea who or what he was, what he’d been through, how he came to be this beast that barely held on. He opened his mouth, determined to tell her, to warn her. But when he did she came up on tiptoe and covered his lips with hers, thrusting her tongue inside his mouth, rendering him totally speechless.
The kiss was like liquid fire moving through him. He gripped her tighter—if that were even possible without breaking her in two—his mouth sucking at hers hungrily. His teeth scraped along her bottom lip, clamped down and tugged until his tongue wanted to taste her once more. Her arms had gone around his neck and she pulled him closer, hugged him tighter.
Admittedly, kissing wasn’t X’s favorite pastime. The act never appeared during his sexual escapades because he didn’t allow it. Now, despite his past misgivings, X was drowning in this kiss. With his eyes wide open he watched her and she watched him. But he was falling, felt the weightlessness as their tongues touched and dueled. Inside, his cat growled and paced, wanting him to take more, take faster. He lifted her off the floor, dropping her onto the bed and breaking their kiss. She landed on her elbows, shook back her hair, and glared at him. Her cat’s eyes glowing, her teeth bared and sharp. “I’m okay,” she told him.
He hadn’t asked; in fact, the question was so far back in the recesses of his dark, addled mind, he wondered how she knew. With a shake of his head, a futile attempt to gain some clarity, X lowered himself until his face hovered just above her tattoo.
“I saw this that first night you were in Rome’s house. I wanted to lick you all over the second I knew you had been inked.”
He didn’t give her a chance to respond, but flattened his tongue over the tattoo and licked. Her hand went to the back of his head as he licked again and again, some small part of him wishing it had been his child. The thought led him to her stomach, where his tongue delved into her navel. Beneath him she spread her legs and it was like a beckoning. His hands slid down her thighs until he clasped her just behind the knees and pushed upward. The action opened her wide for his perusal and peruse he did, gladly.
With feral hunger gnawing at him, he looked down at the plump folds of her vagina, already glistening with her arousal. Her center opening creamed, and X’s cat growled. Lowering his head he caught the juices on the tip of his tongue, savored them for a moment, then licked her until he would swear she’d be bone-dry. But when he pulled back, she still glistened with wetness, her womanhood as beautiful as everything else about her. Waiting wasn’t an option … no, this time it had to be. X pushed back against the urgings, rising above her to cup her breasts. His dick hurt, the skin pulled so tightly over the bulbous head he feared a really bad result. But he didn’t care, as his palms worked over her breasts, his eyes closed, and that weightless feeling comforted him. It lulled him against the darkness like a huge pillow. He swore the scent had intensified like a pillowcase rubbing softly against his skin.
“Xavier.” She called his name and X heard her clearly. Not like before when it could hav
e been a whisper on the wind.
This time it was loud, or at least loud to his ears. “Say it again,” he urged her.
“Xavier” was her quick reply.
He still stood over her, hands on her breasts, eyes closed.
“Again.”
“Xavier.”
His hands moved quickly from her breasts to her wrists. Opening his eyes, he watched her closely as he pulled her arms up over her head. “Don’t move,” he told her.
Cursing, he wished like hell he was at his place where his things were. As it stood he’d have to make do. Climbing off the bed he found his jeans, pulled the belt from the hoops. He went to the headboard and grabbed Caprise’s wrists, tying them tightly to the heavy wood. To her credit she didn’t even wince.
X leaned down to her then, licked over her lips, then thrust deep into her mouth, kissing her until she was breathless. “Stop,” he told her. “All you have to say is stop and this is over.”
She nodded, licking her trembling lips. “I won’t.”
“Listen to me,” he said louder. “It’s all you have to say.”
“I understand” was her next reply even though her eyes still said she planned to be defiant. X almost smiled at that. It was like a little ray of light spearing through the darkness.
His mouth covered one delectable breast, sucking the nipple in deeply as his hand grasped the other. He didn’t lay on top of her, so only his mouth and his hands touched her. She hissed loudly, her legs parting, lifting up off the bed then slamming back down as his ministrations grew stronger, harder. Her skin was such a perfectly creamy hue, he hated to bruise her, but knew that was probably going to be impossible.
She tasted like heaven, a place he’d never dreamed of, never even dared to mention. Yet here it was right in front of him. Switching to the other breast, he sucked his fill until he was intoxicated with the taste of her. When he pulled away it was because all his nerves were on end, every part of his body begging for something more. He straddled her at the shoulders then, lifting his length to guide it to her lips. She was so eager her lips were already parted, ready to accept him. Before she did X held his dick upward and she smiled. Her tongue lapped along the line of his piercings over and over until he was now saying her name through gritted teeth.
When she raised her head higher and scraped her teeth over the metal balls X roared, loud and long, with the pleasurable sensations ripping through his body. Pressing a finger on his shaft he aimed the tip at her moistened lips, watched as she took him in slowly. When he pumped his hips he wondered if she’d gag or try to turn her head. He should have known better.
Caprise sighed over his length, sucking him to the rhythm his hips moved. Moisture dripped from her lips onto his shaft until they were both glistening.
“Enough!” he finally yelled, pulling out of her mouth and reaching for her legs.
He pushed them back so far she could probably kiss her kneecaps. When he thrust his throbbing length inside her waiting pussy they both yelled. The room seemed to capture the sound so that it bounced back at them like an echo.
X didn’t care. Nothing and he meant absolutely nothing mattered at this moment but this pleasure. This woman. This shifter that had pushed her way into his space. His dick sank deeper and deeper with each stroke, her body sucking him in graciously. He wasn’t gentle and he knew he wasn’t small, but she rotated her hips, giving as well as she was receiving.
Spasms of light speared the darkness in his mind. His cat stood on hind legs, growling and hissing its pleasure. More and more was what he wanted from her. Everything and then some. Her legs trembled and shook in his hands. His name streaming from her lips over and over as her release took a strong hold.
His followed with a tightening at the base of his spine, the stiffening of his thighs and buttocks as he emptied himself completely inside of her.
When he was completely depleted, and only then, X closed his eyes once more.
The darkness was gone.
He opened them.
Caprise was still here.
Chapter 23
“Two more girls are dead,” Darel said with no more emotion than it took to announce there was a leak in one of the bathroom toilets. Even though one of the girls had been Raven, who had provided him with tremendous entertainment last week, he couldn’t muster a lot of sympathy for the pathetic strippers who would rather get free drugs than cold cash.
Sabar stood at the glass window that overlooked the main room of Athena’s. He wore a gray suit and black collarless dress shirt. His dreads had been pulled back from his face to fall like limp snakes down his back. His stance said he was pissed off without him even speaking.
“Sales are up,” he said with a low growl afterward.
“They died here in the club. Yandy found them when she went to get them to go out on stage,” he finished.
Sabar kept staring down at the floor. “Production’s still on schedule,” he said. “The warehouse is full of product that’s ready to go.”
“Did you hear what I said?” Darel asked, raising his voice slightly. He didn’t want an altercation right here, right now, with Sabar, but damn if he was going to keep his mouth shut this time. Especially not with all the leverage he now had against his so-called leader.
“I don’t give a damn about some fucking strippers. So they snorted too much and died. Fuck them! You need to get your mind off that petty stuff and start planning the expansion. I want to have locales like this in every state by the end of the year. You can start interviewing for the managers but I get the last say. I want to know who’s working with the money at all times.”
Sabar hadn’t even turned to look at Darel as he talked. He was only the second-in-command, no need to give him any goddamn respect. Exactly the type of treatment Darel had grown sick of.
“Cops are all over the place now,” he continued. “They’re coming back with a search warrant because one of those dick-ass detectives found some blood out back. I’m telling you, this enhanced drug is bringing on too much attention. I think we should scale back and just peddle the normal shit for a while.”
Sabar did turn around then, in enough time to get right in Darel’s face.
“I don’t pay you to think. I tell you what to do and you do it!” he yelled, then took a step back, rubbing a hand over his face.
If Darel weren’t so pissed off and tired of bullshit he would have noticed that Sabar’s eyes looked a little red-rimmed and his shoulders slumped a bit.
“Everybody wants to be the boss. Bianca’s right about one thing: I’ve got to get a handle on you guys. Keep everyone in line all the time.”
Her name caught Darel’s attention and he opened his mouth to say something. What? Was he really going to tell Sabar that he’d fucked Bianca? No. Not yet. He’d tried to warn him but he hadn’t listened. Bianca wasn’t worth the time it took to say her name. She was a pretty good fuck, but nothing to write home about. Another fact that confused him about Sabar’s obsession with the conniving bitch.
Darel had a plan for her, though it wasn’t time to implement it yet. She was meeting him later tonight; he was sure for another round of what she considered her mind-blowing sex. Or maybe he should say mind altering after watching the unraveling of Sabar, the shifter he’d dedicated his life to working beside, following without qualm. All that had changed. It had to. Nobody controlled Darel now. They all thought they did, but that’s only because he allowed them to think it.
“We’re getting a big shipment on Friday. I need you and those two clowns out front there to go with me. I don’t want too many so that these suits get scared right off the bat. But I want to be covered and covered good by someone I trust.”
If Darel had feelings he might feel guilty for planning what he was and hearing Sabar say he trusted him.
“Where and what time?”
“I’ll text you later. Ears in here may not all be on our side. Like you said, there are cops every goddamn where.”
&nb
sp; He was looking out the window once more. “That one’s FBI,” he said, pointing.
Darel went to the window and looked down at the African American man who had just taken a seat at one of the back tables. He was clean-shaven, dressed in slacks and a button-down shirt. He looked out of place here even though he was trying to fit in.
“I’ve seen him here before,” Darel said. “Like four or five times this week.”
Sabar nodded. “Put one of your shifters on him. Find out why he’s become a return customer.”
“Sure thing,” Darel said. Then because he just couldn’t resist he asked, “Where’s Bianca tonight?”
Sabar’s neck could have snapped for how fast he turned to glare at Darel. “I told you not to even utter her name.”
Darel shrugged. “Just looking out for you. Fine woman like Bianca can get herself in a mess of trouble if she’s not kept on a tight leash.”
The sting of Sabar’s fist crashing into his jaw wasn’t a surprise. The fact that he held his stance, only allowing his head to jerk back slightly, fists at his sides, ready but not jumping just yet, was.
“That’s your last warning,” Sabar said, his sharp teeth cutting into his bottom lip as he stared at Darel for another second before walking out of the room.
“Likewise,” Darel said, rubbing along his jaw with one clawed hand. “That was your last warning, boss.”
* * *
X walked into Nick’s office with a ready frown. The message on his phone when he’d stepped out of the shower in Caprise’s room was not the kind of news a man wanted to hear after a night of phenomenal sex.
What it did was offer him a quick route out of Caprise’s room, before she could expound on the weird-ass scent that still lingered in there and the way said scent was making X feel. He’d left her a quick note since she was still in the bathroom and made a getaway in the style he hadn’t employed in ages.
Now he was in downtown DC about to visit his lawyer and most likely that jackass Dorian Wilson from the DEA.
Nick’s assistant was an attractive enough middle-aged woman with enough photos and plants on her desk to make the small space before Nick’s office look more like a person’s living room than an office.