by J. R. Ward
“Do not stop, healer,” she moaned as he thumbed her nipple in circles. “I feel . . . everything. . . .”
“You don’t worry about my stopping.”
Yeah, he was so not putting the brakes on this anytime soon—not that they were going to have sex. But still . . .
“Healer . . .” she said against his lips. “More, please.”
Licking his way into her mouth, he pinched her nipple ever so slightly. “Let me get this off you,” he said as he found the bottom of her johnny with his other hand. “I’m going to take care of you down below.”
She worked with him as he stripped her bare and discreetly removed her equipment. When she was utterly and completely naked, he was momentarily dry mouthed and immobile at the sight of her. Her breasts were perfectly formed, with little pink nipples, and her long, flat stomach led down to a bare cleft that had his head pounding.
“Healer . . . ?”
When all he did was swallow hard, she reached for the sheet to pull it across and hide her body.
“No . . .” He stopped her. “Sorry. I just need a minute.”
“To what?”
Climax, in a word. Unlike her, he knew precisely what all this naked was heading toward—in about a minute and a half, his mouth was going to be all over her. “You’re incredible . . . and you have nothing to be shy about.”
Her body was insane, all lean muscle and luscious, smooth skin—as far as he was concerned, she was the perfect female, bar none. Christ, he’d never been even half this desperate for those sticks-and-stones social X-rays, with their hard-as-nails boob jobs and their stringy arms.
Payne was powerful, and that was pure sex as far as he was concerned. But she was absolutely going to leave this experience with her virginity intact. Yeah, she wanted what he was giving her, but it wasn’t fair, under these circumstances, to take something she was never getting back: In the quest to return her legs to some sort of functioning, she might well go farther than she would have if it was just sex for the enjoyment of it.
This shit between them was all about purpose.
And the fact that that left him a little hollow was nothing he wanted to look too closely at.
Manny leaned into her. “Give me your mouth, bambina. Let me in.”
As she did what he asked, he inched his hand back to her perfect breast.
“Shh . . . easy,” he told her as she nearly jacked off the bed.
Fucking hell, she was lightning in a bottle, and for a moment he imagined what it would be like to ride those rocking hips and take her hard.
Cut that shit right now, Manello, he told himself.
Disengaging from her mouth, he nuzzled his way down the side of her neck and briefly sank his teeth into her collarbone—just enough so that she felt it, not enough to hurt. And as her hands dug into his hair, he knew by the strength of her grip and the way she panted that she wanted him to go exactly where he was heading.
Palming the outside of her breast, he extended his tongue and dragged a slow trail down to that tight pink top. Circling her nipple, he watched her bite down on her lower lip, her fangs cutting into the flesh and drawing a sliver of bright red blood.
Without conscious thought, he surged up and captured what had been shed, lapping it and swallowing—
His eyes slammed shut at the taste: rich and dark, thick and smooth on the back of his throat. His mouth tingled . . . and then so did his gut.
“No,” she said in a guttural voice. “You must not do that.”
As he forced his lids open, he watched her own tongue come out and do away with what little was left.
“Yes. I must,” he heard himself say. He needed more. So much more—
She put her fingertip on his lips and shook her head. “No. You shall go mad from it.”
He was going to go mad if he didn’t have a whole mouthful; that’s what he was going to do. Her blood was like cocaine and Scotch together on an intravenous drip: From that shallow swallow, his body had become Superman’s, his chest pumped up, all the muscles in him swelling with power.
As if she were reading his mind, she grew firm. “No, no . . . not safe.”
She was probably right—take out the probably. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try again, assuming he got another chance at it.
He went back to her nipple, sucking it in and flicking. When she arched again, he pushed his arm under her and lifted her up to him. All he could think about was getting in between her legs with his mouth . . . but he wasn’t sure how that was going to go over. He needed to keep her in this sweet zone of arousal—not spook her with the kind of shit men liked to do to their women.
He settled for taking his hand where he wanted his lips to be, sweeping his palm slowly down her rib cage and to her stomach. Lower, to her hips. Lower, to her upper thighs.
“Open for me, Payne,” he told her, switching to her opposite nipple and working it with a suck. “Open yourself so I can touch you.”
She did just as he asked, her graceful legs parting.
“Trust me,” he said roughly. And she could. He already felt bad enough that all these firsts were happening with him. He was not going to violate the boundaries he’d set for them.
“I do,” she moaned.
God save them both, he thought as his palm slipped into the juncture—
“Fuck . . .” he groaned. Hot and slick, silky smooth. Undeniable.
His arm shot out, the sheets went flying, and his eyes whipped down to lock on the sight of his hand nestled in close to the core of her. As her body arched up, one of her legs fell to the side.
“Healer . . .” she groaned. “Please . . . don’t stop.”
“You don’t know what I want to do to you,” he said to himself.
“I am in pain.”
Manny gritted his teeth. “Where.”
“Where you have touched me and gone no farther. Do not stop this, I beg you.”
Manny’s mouth opened and he breathed through it.
“Do this thing you want to me, healer,” she moaned. “Whatever it is. I know you are holding back.”
A growl came out of him and he moved so fast that the only thing that could have stopped him was her saying no. And that word was evidently not in her vocabulary.
In a flash, he was between her thighs, his hands spreading her wider, her sex laid open and weeping in the face of his male urge to dominate and mate.
He gave in. Fuck him, but he let himself go and kissed her core. And there was nothing gradual or gentle about it; he dived in with his mouth, sucking at her and tonguing her as she cried out and scratched at his forearms.
Manny came. Hard. In spite of the number of times he’d orgasmed out there in the office. The tingling buzz in his blood and the sweet taste of her sex and the way she moved against his lips, rubbing herself, seeking even more . . . it was all too much.
“Healer . . . I am . . . on the verge of—I know not what I—”
He licked his way up off the top of her sex and then returned to get serious in a slow, thorough way. “Stay with me,” he said against her. “I’m going to make you feel good.”
Flicking his tongue lightly, he took one of his hands down and stroked her without entering her, giving her exactly what she wanted, just at a speed that made her struggle with impatience. But she was going to learn that this anticipation before the release was almost as good as the orgasm she was about to have.
God, she was incredible, that hard body of hers flexing, her muscles going tighter, her chin just visible on the far side of her perfect breasts as her head fell back and kicked the pillows off the bed.
He knew just when the snap in her sex happened. She gasped and grabbed the sheet that covered the mattress, ripping it with her nails as she stiffened from head to foot.
His tongue sneaked in.
He simply had to penetrate her a little . . . and those subtle pulses he felt left him dizzy.
When he was sure she had been finished properly, he pushed himself back
—and nearly bit his own lip in half. She was oh, so ready for him, glossy and glowing—
Abruptly, he shoved himself from the bed and had to pace it off. His cock felt like it had swollen to Empire State Building dimensions, and his balls were July Fourth blue—so desperate for a release they had their own marching band and fireworks brigade. But that wasn’t all. Something in him was roaring at the fact that he wasn’t inside of her . . . and the urge was about more than merely sex. He wanted to mark her in some way—which made absolutely no sense.
Strung out, panting, on the edge, he ended up planting his hands on the jambs of the door to the hall and leaning in until his forehead was against the steel. In a way, he almost hoped someone barged in and knocked him the fuck out.
“Healer . . . it persists. . . .”
For a moment, he squeezed his eyes shut. He wasn’t sure he could go through it again with her so soon. It was nearly killing him not to—
“Regard me,” she said.
He forced his head up, looked over his shoulder . . . and realized that she wasn’t talking about sex: She was sitting on the edge of the bed, her legs hanging off the side and inching toward the floor, her glow illuminating her from within. At first, all he could really see were her breasts, and the way they hung so full and rounded, the nipples tight from the cool air in the room. But then he realized she was rotating her ankles, one after the other.
Right, see . . . this was not about the sex, but her mobility.
Got that, asshole? he told himself. This was about her walking: sex as medicine—and he’d better not forget it. This was not about him or his cock.
Manny lurched over, hoping that she wouldn’t notice the remnants of the release he’d had. But he didn’t have to worry. Her eyes were locked on her feet, her concentration fierce.
“Here . . .” He had to clear his throat. “Let me help you stand.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Vishous’s fangs elongated as a ring of slayers formed around the opening of the alley. These were old-school numbers, he thought. Half a dozen at least—and they’d clearly been given coordinates by their fellow slayers. Otherwise the mhis would have hidden the carnage from them.
Given his mood, all the hi-how’re-ya should have been a great thing.
Problem: The alley’s construction meant there was only one way out—apart from rushing the enemy’s ranks—and that was pulling a disappearing act. Ordinarily, that wouldn’t have been an issue, as experienced fighters could, even in the heat of battle, calm themselves enough to focus and dematerialize—but you had to be relatively uninjured, and you couldn’t take any fallen-comrade types with you when you went.
So Butch was screwed if shit got out of hand. As a half-breed, that guy was grounded, literally incapable of scattering his molecules to safety.
V muttered under his breath, “Don’t be a hero, cop. Let us handle this.”
“You’re kidding me, right.” The glare was immediate and steady. “You worry about yourself.”
Not possible. He wasn’t losing the only two compass points he had on the same night.
“Hey, boys,” Hollywood called out to the enemy. “You just going to stand there or are we gonna do this?”
Annnnnnnnnnnd that was the ringside bell. The lessers streamed forward and met the Brotherhood face-to-face, fist-to-fist. To ensure they had the privacy they needed, V doubled up on his visual barrier, the buffering creating a mirage of nothing-doing in the event humans trolled on by.
As he started working out one of the enemy, he kept his eye on Butch. The fucker naturally got right in there, taking on a tall, lanky inductee with his bare hands. He loved to brawl, and heads were his favorite punching bags—but Vishous really wished the bastard would take up fencing or, even better, get into rocket launchers. From the rooftop. So he wasn’t anywhere near the fighting. He just hated that the cop got so close, because who the fuck knew what would come out of a pocket or how much damage could be done to the guy with a gun or a length of—
The kick came out of nowhere, sailing through the air like an anvil, catching V right in the side of the torso. As he flew back and slammed into the alley’s brick flank, he was reminded of what they’d taught their trainees when they’d had them: Rule number one of fighting? Pay the fuck attention to your damn opponent.
After all, you could have the best knife in the world, but if you were clueless? You ended up making like a Ping-Pong ball. Or worse.
V reinflated his lungs with a huge inhale and he used the oxygen rush to leap forward and catch the Rockette’s second kick at the ankle with his hands. The lesser had spectacular skills, however, and spun a Matrix move, using V’s hold as an anchor to twist around in midair. The combat boot nailed V right in the ear, his head snapping to the side as all kinds of tendons and muscles were yanked to hell and gone.
Good thing pain always focused him.
Gravity being what it was, the Rockette’s hit marked the top of its arc and after that, it went down, throwing its arms out to the asphalt to keep from face-planting it. And clearly the bastard was expecting its opponent to let go of the foot, thanks to the ringing snow globe that was now V’s skull.
Nope. Sorry, sweetheart.
Even with the nasty crack-and-sizzle aftermath, V tightened his grip on that ankle and wrenched it in the opposite direction of the pirouette.
Snap!
Something broke or was dislocated, and given that V was holding the foot and lower bones steady, he knew it was probably the knee, the fibula or the tibia.
Mr. High Stepper let out a scream, but V wasn’t finished as the bastard flopped on the ground. Popping free one of his black daggers, he sliced through the muscle in the back of the leg and then thought of Butch. Moving higher on the writhing body, he grabbed a hunk of hair, yanked up, and gave the SOB a nice little necklace with his blade.
Partial incapacitation just wasn’t enough tonight.
Spinning around, dripping knife in hand, he assessed the fights that were ongoing. Z and Phury were working out a pair of lessers. . . . Tohr was holding his own. . . . Rhage was toying with one of the enemy.... Where was Butch—
Over in the corner, the cop had asphalted a slayer and was leaning down over its face. The pair had locked eyes and the lesser’s open, bloodied mouth was working like a guppy’s, opening and closing slowly, as if it knew whatever was coming next couldn’t possibly be good news for it.
Butch’s blessing and curse went to work as he took a deep, even inhale. The transfer started on a wisp of inky smoke that passed from the slayer’s mouth into Butch’s, but soon grew to a river of the shit, the essence of the Omega funneling from one to another in a sickening rush.
When it was over, the slayer was going to be nothing but an ashy residue. And Butch was going to be sick as a dog and relatively useless.
V jogged over, ducking a throwing star and manhandling a pinwheeling lesser back into Hollywood’s punching zone.
“What the fuck are you doing,” he bitched as he peeled Butch off the pavement and dragged him out of his suck zone. “You wait until afterward, true.”
Butch curled over to the side and dry-heaved. He was semipolluted already, the stink of the enemy rising from out of his pores, his body struggling with its load of poison. He needed to be healed here and now, but V wasn’t going to take the chance of their—
Later, he would marvel at getting blindsided twice in one fight.
But such introspection was hours off, as it turned out.
The baseball bat caught him in the side of the knee and the fall that came right after the blow was a yard sale in the worse way. He went down hard, his leg pretzeling beneath his considerable weight at an angle that turned his hip into a screaming ball of agony—which suggested that karma might not be about payback so much as it struggled with independent thinking: As he was felled by an injury like the one he’d just given someone, he cursed himself and the bastard with the Louisville Slugger and the Johnny-disloyal-Damon aim.
Time for some quick thinking. He was flat on his back with a leg that hummed like an engine on overdrive. And that bat could do a lot of damage—
Butch came from out of nowhere, lurching with all the grace of a wounded buffalo, the bastard’s heavy body careening into the slayer just as that bat went over-the-shoulder with an aim at V’s head. The pair of them slammed into the bricks, and after a beat of motionless, fuckin’hell-that-was-a-stinger, the lesser pulled a full-torso jerk and gasped.
It was like watching eggs slide down the side of a kitchen cabinet: The slayer’s bones went liquid and the thing slumped onto the pavement, leaving Butch to collapse back with his black-blooded dagger in his hand.
He’d gutted the motherfucker.
“You . . . okay . . .” the cop groaned.
All V could do was look over at his best friend.
As the others continued fighting, the pair of them just stared at each other against the audio backdrop of grunts and metal-to-metal strikes and inventive cursing. There should be something said between them, V thought. There was just so much . . . to be said.
“I want it from you,” V bit out. “I need it.”
Butch nodded. “I know.”
“When.”
The cop nodded down at V’s fucked-up leg. “Get healed up first.” Butch groaned and got to his feet. “On that note, I’ll go get the Escalade.”
“Be careful. Take one of the brothers with—”
“Fuck off with that. And you stay put.”
“I’m not going anywhere with this knee, cop.”
Butch walked off, his stride only marginally better than V could have pulled off with the dislocated mess he was rocking. Craning his neck, he looked over at the others. They were prevailing—slowly but surely, the tide was turning in their favor.
Until about five minutes later.
When seven more slayers showed up at the alley.
Clearly the second wave had likewise called for backup, and these were also new recruits who were unsure how to handle the mhis: They’d obviously been provided an address by their comrades, but their eyes could see nothing but an empty alley.