by Mara Leigh
“Why?” She casts her eyes down. “I wish you hadn’t seen what happened between me and Gray. I’m so sorry.” She looks back into my eyes, the pain and uncertainty in hers like daggers to my heart. “Is that why you won’t have sex with me? Because I did it with Grayson?”
I shake my head.
“Then why?” She hits my chest lightly. “I’m not some little girl, you know. Even though you may have been on this Earth a hundred years longer than me, I’m an adult. I know what I want and it’s insulting for you to treat me like a child.”
“That’s not it. Acushla…”
“Please, Rock.” Her hip rubs against my ribs, and she squirms, wiggling and pushing against me, clearly trying to move lower on my body or to get me to set her down so she can touch me down there.
“Stop it, Selina.” I set her down and quickly back away.
Her chest heaves, and her eyes fill with questions as she steps toward me.
I step away. “No.”
Her head snaps back, her hands land over her ears, and the glasses in my cupboards rattle.
I realize that I yelled. Except for that night when Selina was in danger from those cops, I haven’t raised my voice in decades. They might have heard me two stories up, but I don’t regret it.
The volume of my voice convinced her. Or at least it stopped her for the moment. She drops her hands off her ears.
“Why don’t you want me?” she asks quietly. “What’s wrong with me?”
I shake my head slowly, the pain of hurting her slicing through my chest. “Nothing. Selina. There is absolutely nothing wrong with you. This is all about me.”
“Then tell me. Please.” She takes a small step forward, but when I tense, she stops. “I love you, Rock. Whatever it is, you can tell me.”
I wish more than anything that were true. I have to tell her something, even if it isn’t the whole truth. Her pain is so palpable it might crush me.
“Let’s sit.” I drop into a chair and she slowly moves to the sofa and curls up in the corner.
“Sex…” I shake my head. “I know that you’ve had terrible experiences, and I’m glad that you’re healing from that. Truly happy. But for me...” How can I explain this without telling her what I’ve done? “For me, even the idea of sex is repulsive.”
She gasps, backing into the seat cushions, clearly hurt.
“Not sex with you.” I shake my head. “Sex with anyone. In the past…” I close my eyes for a moment. “My species, whatever I am. We aren’t made to have sex. I’m not compatible with you that way.”
“Oh.” Sadness and concern soften her expression. “I’m…I’m so sorry to hear that.”
“I’m the one who’s sorry, Acushla. I would give my life to be able to please you.”
“But you do please me.” She rises from the sofa and curls onto my lap.
As she wraps her hands around my neck, and rests her head against my chest, I shift to make sure the monster can’t press into her flesh.
“Don’t be sorry, Rock,” she whispers against my ear. “Everything about you pleases me. You please me very much.”
Chapter 21
Selina
“Can I borrow your phone?” I shout as I limp. Hunger floods my body as the man I called out to stops at the end of the alley and considers my request.
With a muscular build under a loose-fitting T-shirt and worn jeans, the man looks like maybe he’s come out of a sports bar, but he’s not super drunk. Just inebriated enough to step into a dark alley to help a stranger. I hope. And most importantly, he’s alone.
He steps a few feet in. “Sure.” He pulls out his phone. “Come here.”
To make my injury seem worse, I stumble on my next step and catch myself against the dumpster. “Could you come to me? I twisted my ankle pretty bad. My boyfriend lives a few blocks away. He’ll come as soon as I call him.”
I bank on my instincts. This man seems kind, not a predator. Not at all the type of meal container I used to go for. But I won’t feel bad about taking his vein. I know now that it’s as harmless as donating blood—in fact he will be donating blood. Donating his blood to me.
He shines the flashlight on his phone around, checking to confirm I’m alone, then he slowly walks toward me.
I’m not alone—not at all—but my companions are well hidden and won’t pose any danger to my meal container, not unless he tries to hurt me. I take comfort in their presence, even though I can handle myself with this man.
Rock’s positioned at the other end of the alley. If needed he could be on this man in seconds. Gray’s on the rooftop above me and could be down even faster, and both Astrid and Malcolm are opposite the alley across the street. They were the ones who signaled to me that the man was approaching and alone.
But I can’t shake the feeling that there’s someone else around, too. Someone watching—following us, following me.
Pike. But it’s probably just paranoia. With my new friends, my love and my lover nearby, I know that I’m safe. If Pike came after me at all, he gave up.
The man reaches me, stopping a few feet away, and I lean back against the dumpster, favoring the supposedly injured leg.
“What happened?” he asks.
“So dumb.” I dangle a pair of sky-high heels from my hand. “I’m too much of a klutz for this kind of shoe.”
“Those look painful.” His smile is warm, adding to my gut belief that he’s a nice guy and would feed me willingly if he understood how vampires and humans are supposed to coexist.
“Believe me, they are.” I pretend to put weight on my allegedly hurt ankle and wince.
He holds out the phone toward me.
In a flash, I lift the man by his shoulders and position him in the shadowed corner next to the dumpster, where we’re out of sight of the security camera mounted at the back of a trendy furniture store and shaded from the streetlights at the corner.
Before he can react, I plunge my fangs into his neck and drink.
The warm liquid immediately fulfills my hunger, giving me what I need. Malcolm and Astrid have stopped suggesting that I go to FJS to feed on their staff, and everyone now seems to agree that the more I stay hidden from the vampire community, the better—until Xavier’s in custody or dead.
Satiated, I lick the man’s wounds to heal them and then gently rest him against the wall. He’ll wake in about fifteen minutes with no memory of the bite, and probably no memory of why he came into the alley. Malcolm and Astrid will wait to make sure no one mugs him.
I step back into the light.
Rock’s at my side in an instant. “Get what you needed?”
I nod. I’ve been meaning to ask Gray whether or not I can get my nourishment from Rock, mitigating the risk we all take going out to the streets for my meals, but if Rock’s species isn’t compatible with mine for sex, perhaps his blood isn’t either. And more importantly, Rock hasn’t offered to feed me.
He said sex is repulsive to him. Then, to clarify he said our species aren’t compatible, so it’s probably more that sex with a vampire’s repulsive, so I suspect feeding one would be, too.
And even if I’m wrong about that, I don’t want to give up these outings in the fresh night air. As much as I love living with Rock, after fourteen months in actual captivity, my life of supposed freedom seems so small, so contained two stories underground.
I wonder how far I’d have to run to make sure Xavier and Pike never find me.
Gray drops from the rooftop to land barely a foot in front of us. Rock instinctively pulls me back.
“Holy shit, man,” he says to Gray. “Don’t startle me like that.”
“Sorry.” The vampire grins, but his expression and the flash in his deep blue eyes make it clear he’s not sorry at all. He scared Rock on purpose, and I love this boyish side of Gray. His sense of play.
He falls into step on the other side of me. “All powered up and ready to train, princess?”
“Guess so.” I look up at his sharp, h
andsome features. I feel a tug in my bloodstream—and another between my legs. It’s been a week since we made love, almost two since I fed from his vein, and I want both so badly it’s sometimes hard to concentrate on anything else.
I take Rock’s hand.
Our shadows stretch ahead of us and the image of the three of us together makes me so happy. On one side I’ve got a massive wall of a man, close to two feet taller than me, and on the other a well-built but comparatively slim man whom I’d have considered tall if it weren’t for Rock. Gray must be six foot three.
My body casts a diminutive shadow between theirs. Diminutive but strong. And growing stronger every day.
We reach the warehouse where we’ve been training the past week, since the night the cops showed up in the bar, and Gray checks around us before using a combination to open the door.
Gray holds it open for me, then pushes in front of Rock to follow directly behind me.
“Asshole,” Rock says, but his tone makes it clear he doesn’t mean it.
“Snooze you lose,” Gray says as he wraps his arms around my body from behind. “Princess, you smell so good when you’re freshly fed.” His nose dips below my hair and he licks the skin over my pulsing vein.
“None of that,” Malcolm says from the door. I didn’t realize he’d followed us over here.
“You’re no fun,” Gray says to him as he lets me go.
Gray backs away, his eyes focused on me and his tongue dragging slowly over his released fangs.
“Hey, Malc,” Rock says. “You here to train with us?”
“Not exactly. Astrid and I need to talk to you about something. As soon as she gets here.”
Gray jumps up to grab a rafter more than forty feet above the floor.
“Show-off,” Rock mutters.
“Come on, princess.” Gray moves, hand over hand, along the rafter. “Dare you to join me.”
I look up. He’s more than two stories off the ground. I haven’t attempted anything like that. Not yet. And while I’ve jumped down one story with ease, I feel sure I’ll end up with a sprained ankle, or worse, if I land from that height—assuming I can get up there in the first place.
I meet Gray’s daring gaze, and he licks his fangs again as he stares into my eyes with so much desire my body feels like it would do anything to get up to him.
What the hell. At worst, an injury will kill the first half hour or so of tonight’s training session.
I bend my legs and leap, reaching up for the rafter. But I miss it and my hands strike the metal ceiling ten feet above that. Stunned, I almost miss it again as I drop, but manage to grab it with one hand.
Gray’s there in a split second, hanging from one arm, his other wrapped around my waist.
I kiss him, adrenaline coursing through me like hot spice.
As we each hold on to the rafter with one hand, I wrap my legs around him and deepen our kiss, more turned on than ever, and forgetting I’m forty feet off the ground—and being watched from below.
He breaks the kiss and looks at me with hunger in his eyes. “Good job, princess. I knew you could do it.”
I look down, then grab the rafter with both hands, my fingers gripping tightly. Rock and Malcolm seem so far away and fear creeps back inside me. “How do we get down?”
“Drop. You’ll be fine as long as you stay relaxed when you land.”
“If you say so.”
“I do say so. But just in case you die, one last kiss.” Pulling me against him, he kisses me hard, pushing his tongue into my mouth and gripping my ass with his free hand.
Rubbing his fingers between my legs from behind, he grinds against me, and I raise one leg to wrap around him and give his hardness better access.
I gasp in pleasure as we slide our bodies together and I want to push off my leggings and pull down his sweats. My libido revved up from my feeding, I want him inside me, now.
He moves his lips to my ear. “This is giving me some great ideas,” he growls.
“Me too.” The danger is heightening my desire.
“Some day, princess.” He licks my ear, then my throat. “Some day I’ll fuck you up in the rafters. That is a promise.”
I laugh. “A promise or a threat?” I remember how Pike delivered a similar threat and I shudder.
“Potato, potawto.” He winks, then drops, landing in a wide-legged crouch more than two stories beneath me.
“Careful.” Rock shouts up. “Aim for me, and I’ll catch you.”
“I’ve got a better idea.” Gray leaps. In an instant he’s hanging in front of me, again. “See if you can take Rock down,” he whispers.
“What?”
“One advantage of height is the element of surprise. Attacking an opponent from above.”
“But Rock knows I’m up here. Where’s the surprise in that?”
“I’ll distract him.” With a grin, Gray drops again. Then in a flash he moves away from his landing place. I twist around, trying to spot where he went.
The lights go off.
“Hey!” Rock shouts. He’s looking up, searching for me in the rafters, but in contrast to mine, it will take his eyes several seconds to adjust to the low light.
Take Rock down? Even with gravity and surprise on my side, it’s hard to imagine how I could tackle my giant, but I’m losing my window of opportunity.
Aiming behind him, I drop, landing silently in a crouch. I shift my weight to my hands behind me as I scissor my legs around his calves and pull his feet out from under him.
Rock thuds to the concrete floor like a fallen redwood tree, and I pounce on top of him, pinning one of his arms behind his broad back.
“Bravo!” Gray shouts.
“Are you okay?” I ask as Rock’s prone body heaves under mine.
“I’m fine.” His voice is tight. He tries to flip over, to pull his arm from my hold, but to my surprise, he can’t get free. I’m too strong.
“I’ve got you now,” I whisper in his ear.
“You already had me,” he growls. “Forever.”
I let his arm slip out of my hold, and he turns to his back beneath me. I bend to kiss him and he wraps his arms around me.
He flips me onto my back and pins me, one leg across my pelvis and his hands holding my shoulders. “Never let your guard down.” He grins.
I lift my legs and kip up to stand, throwing his massive weight off my body and settling on my feet as he lands on his ass.
A proud grin rises from inside me. My strength is beyond what I thought possible.
The lights come back on, and I reach down to help Rock to his feet. He pulls me forward, and I let it happen, going off balance and landing on top of his body.
“You didn’t even try,” he says.
“Or maybe I ended up exactly where I wanted to be.” Grinning, I bend down for another kiss.
He rolls me onto my back and kisses me, making sure he keeps his body weight off me, although I suspect I could take all three hundred and fifty pounds of him without being crushed. At least, that’s my guess at Rock’s all-muscle weight.
As our kiss deepens, I feel a hardening between his legs, and I slide against it, loving the low groan that rumbles from inside him. But he rolls to his back and pushes me off him.
I use the momentum to fly back, twisting in the air in a tight spiral to land in a combat-ready crouch. Rock slow-claps as he rises to his feet. Then he tugs at his pants to better hide the bulge. He must be wearing some kind of jockstrap because the bulge is more like a melon than a rod.
While I’ve still got my eyes on Rock’s crotch, Gray grabs me from behind, pinning my arms and locking his lips on my throat. I bend and twist, trying to gain the upper hand, but Gray’s still stronger, so I use my ultimate weapon against him.
I slide one arm behind me and rub his package, loving how it hardens instantly, even constrained in a jockstrap.
“None of that, princess.” He slides one of his hands to my breast—hypocrite—and then reaches his mouth aro
und to capture mine from the side.
His body grinds against my groping hand as his tongue and lips plunder. If my arms were free I’d be pulling off our clothing.
“You call this training?” Astrid asks.
I break the kiss. “When did you get here?”
“I’ve been here long enough to know you three need a better chaperone.” She shakes her head at Malcolm, who shrugs.
“Yeah,” Malcolm says. “If you can get your minds out of your dicks for a minute, Astrid has something important to tell you.”
“I don’t have a dick,” I say to Malcolm as Gray slowly releases me, tweaking my nipple before he lets me go.
“What’s up?” Rock asks Astrid.
Astrid gestures for us to follow and we all sit on wooden folding chairs at the side of the room. Everyone except Rock, that is, who sits on the floor. He’d crush these chairs.
“We’ve been hearing troubling things at FJS.”
Gray leans toward me. “Astrid’s head of security there.”
I nod.
“What kind of things?” Rock asks.
“Some of my staff have heard whispers—about Selina.”
I suck in a sharp breath. “Why would anyone at FJS be talking about me?”
Astrid shakes her head. “That’s what I’m worried about. Certainly none of us have mentioned you.” She glances at Malcolm and Gray, who both nod.
“Then what’s going on?” Gray leans forward in his chair, the first time I’ve seen him sit in anything but a totally relaxed position.
“FJS security has informants on the street,” Astrid says.
“Informants?” I ask.
She nods. “Lone vampires. Plus a few who give us information about their syndicates.”
“Spies?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Confidential informants. And one told us he’s been asked to stay on the lookout for a young female vampire.” Astrid pauses. “One with purple hair.”
I gasp, and Rock takes my hand. “Who?” he booms. “Who’s asking about Selina? And who is this informant working for? Where do I find him?”
“Cool your jets, Rock,” Astrid responds. “I’m looking into it, but I’ve got to assume it’s Xavier who’s asking around. Who else would it be?” She looks at Gray.