by Cari Quinn
Woods at twilight? A couple days without sex—without Mia—had driven me stark raving mad.
“So the pale skin isn’t just incidental?” I tried futilely to swallow the cotton wool that had somehow embedded itself in my throat. I was pretty sure it had happened right about when Mia’s pale pink lips had slipped over the tips of my fingers and pulled. Each minute movement of her mouth throbbed through my cock.
I barely felt any wounds now. Blood? What blood? The fleeting pain had morphed into pleasure, drugging and sweet, making me lightheaded.
Could’ve been the platelet loss. Or it could’ve been the sense of impending doom because I was about to fall to my knees and beg for her to let me take her to bed. My bed.
“You’re a vampire.” The words tumbled out of me as her tongue snaked between my fingers and dipped over my knuckles. There wasn’t any blood in that particular spot, and she was taking little testing licks rather than sucking now at any rate. But a glow had stolen over her cheeks, lighting her up from within. That my blood had that effect on her was more reasonable than assuming she was enjoying…feasting on me.
Enjoying me, period.
While I stood there gawking, she released me to unzip her hoodie and rip off the bottom strip of her T-shirt. Despite the fact that the fabric had nearly worn through, her easy strength made my mouth go dry. That cotton wool feeling migrated to my head as she pressed the fabric against my hand, applying just the right amount of pressure to slow the already lessening bleeding. She still didn’t speak.
If she was trying to break me with her silence, she wouldn’t have to work too hard. The rational part of my brain—assuming I still had one—was lying in shards on the floor with that glass.
Too bad I hadn’t broken the scotch decanter instead.
“Don’t want you to bleed all over the hardwood floor.” Her voice sounded distant, tinny. “Let’s get you in the bathroom so I can make sure there’s no glass embedded in the cuts.”
I let her lead me down the hall to the bathroom. I sat on the toilet, watching with dull eyes as she sorted through the medicine cabinet and pulled out supplies. Dealing with injuries was part of my business, so I had the full array of gauze and wraps and antiseptic. Finding tweezers was harder, so she eventually settled on a toothpick and lots of rubbing alcohol.
I only screamed five, maybe six, times.
Once she finished, she bandaged me up then leaned against the sink and gazed at me with those eyes that had seen so much yet still managed to look unflinchingly at whatever they faced. If only I could be that honest. That brave.
“My father thinks I’m a loser.”
She didn’t laugh at me for my rich boy trauma. Just waited. And watched.
“He never wanted me to fight. I was supposed to stay in pre-law at Cornell and then go into the family firm. When I dropped out, he wanted to disown me, but he wasn’t about to let his cronies see his son not doing well financially. Reflects badly on him, you see. So he dropped money in my bank account, offered me this apartment, and basically shut me out of his life other than the monthly visits my mother still insists on.”
“They were here tonight.” She pursed her mouth at my nod. “Explains the scotch. I thought you were a Harp kind of guy.”
For some reason, that made me laugh. “See, that’s the thing. They don’t care what I am. They gave me a purebred dog—a great fucking dog—and named him after a sports car. I wasn’t going to change his name after they’d called him that for a few days, but it’s not me. I’d get a mutt at the pound and name him Fred.”
She gripped the sink behind her and looked up at the ceiling as if it contained the answers to all the world’s questions. “And fighting is you?”
I had no reason to tell her the truth. It wasn’t her business. “No.” Another laugh racked my chest, jarring my hand and making it throb. “Fighting is so far from me that it’s in another zip code.”
“So why do you do it?”
“When you want respect, sometimes you pick dumb ways to get it. I wanted to be my own man.” I shrugged, feeling like the biggest tool who’d ever lived. Oh yeah, so I got paid to bloody other guys’ faces. That made me awesome. “And I knew he’d hate it.”
“That’s not the only reason.” Her quiet certainty cut through the noise in my head. “You enjoyed it once.”
“Yeah,” I admitted reluctantly. “I did. It felt like vindication for a kid who’d been called pretty for way too long. The first time I broke my nose I deliberately waited to get it looked at, hoping it wouldn’t set right.” I shook my head. “I was fucked up back then. Still am.”
“You could’ve just phoned it in and whaled on guys however you could. But you studied the martial arts. You trained. It mattered.”
“Yeah, so what? It mattered then. It doesn’t anymore. I did what I set out to do, and my father still looks at me like the shit on the bottom of his shoe. I still—”
When I tightened my jaw and glanced away, she knelt between my knees and gripped my thighs. Her hands weren’t delicate. Hers could break things and did so with glee. And as it turned out, they could heal too. Her touch melted through denim and through skin and bone, easing the tension I’d become so used to carrying that I didn’t notice it anymore.
“Tray. Look at me.”
I looked. Something drew me to her in a way I didn’t understand. Before, I’d reassured myself by thinking that she aroused my rarely used protective instinct. Now she was trying to offer me comfort, though I knew she’d come over to my place to hand me my balls. Again.
“You don’t want the gloves,” I said dismissively, eager for a change of topic. I wasn’t going to confession for anyone—especially not Mia, who only saw me as a means to an end. “I’ll return them.”
An emotion I couldn’t name flashed over her face, dulling the brief flare of hope in her eyes. For a moment, she’d been out of her head and in mine. With two careless statements meant to shove her away, I’d snuffed out that light.
Oh yeah, I was a prince, all right. And I was about to prove it.
I lurched to my feet, my unexpected action nearly sending her back on her butt on the rug. Her super-quick reflexes kicked in and she rose, watching me warily.
My mood had shifted right back into anger after that temporary detour into self-pity. I wasn’t about to dwell on all that woe-is-me shit. Not when she was staring at me with wet lips and eyes like vats of dark chocolate surrounded by thick, tangled lashes. She made me into a poet and a heathen at the same time. I wanted to write goddamn sonnets to her fragile beauty and frightening strength and at the same time drag her to the floor and fuck her senseless.
It didn’t make sense. None of this did.
I stepped forward, deliberately getting in her face. She held her ground. Not shying away in any shape or form. Making me harder than I’d ever been.
“I want you. If you’re not prepared to deal with that, you need to leave.” In case she didn’t get the urgency of the situation, I shifted until she directed her attention beneath my waist. Something was throbbing again, and it wasn’t my hand. “Now.”
“You’re the one who said we shouldn’t see each other anymore.”
Her defiant tone coupled with her defensive pose worked as a one-two punch to my libido. Not that I needed much help. “You’ve said the same thing since day one. And you showed up at my door, not the other way around.” I cocked a brow, relying on machismo to cover up the fact that my muscles were quaking from the possibility she might walk. Again. “So which is it? In or out?”
She took my measure—actually, she stared at the outline of my cock through my jeans, and my cock didn’t mind—before lifting her shoulder. Clearly saying then do something about it.
Message received.
I bent and slid my arm under her butt, lifting her up and carting her toward the living room. My hand twinged more than a little at being called into service so soon, and I didn’t doubt I’d probably bleed right through her neat little ban
dage, but I wasn’t about to let a little pain and gore slow me down. I had a very clear image in my head of where I wanted to take Mia. Weren’t therapists always recommending replacing bad memories with good?
I was about to test that theory.
Expecting her to complain at my mode of transportation, I stopped moving down the hall when she made no sound at all. She’d retreated into that silent, observant space that made me ten times more desperate to earn her reaction.
Leaning in, I caught her lower lip between her teeth in the way I already knew she liked. “Since you like to watch so much, you’re going to watch my mouth move between your thighs.”
Just like that, she sparked back to life and shoved at my chest. “No.”
“Yes.” My voice was patient and calm, belying the storm of emotions brewing inside me. I wasn’t the kind of guy who pushed a woman into doing something she didn’t want to. Ever. Treading gently in this case was a smart tactic, especially considering Mia’s background. I hated the idea of scaring or hurting her for even a moment.
But God, I needed to taste her. To help her enjoy it. To love her without words.
“No.”
But her vehemence had weakened, and I could hear the curiosity bleeding through. She’d never voice it, never admit she was unsure.
I nuzzled that exquisitely soft patch of skin between her ear and her shoulder, drowning in the scent of her utilitarian soap. I blinked as I picked up a trace of something else, so faint that probably a bloodhound wouldn’t have detected it. But I did.
I reared back. “You’re wearing perfume?”
She flushed straight to her hairline and turned her face away. She hadn’t blushed when I’d mentioned going down on her, but mention the mere possibility that she’d done something girly on purpose and she turned magenta. Holy shit, I could totally fall for this girl.
I barely smothered a snort. Could fall. Right. Like I still had some choice in the matter. I’d lost my choices where Mia Anderson was concerned the day I’d heard her tossing around obscenities in Carmine’s back room. Even before that, when she’d swallowed me with her eyes on a crowded street.
“It’s Carly’s fault.” She blushed even redder and glanced down at herself. “Look, maybe I should go.”
“That is an option. The other is that I lay you out on that bar over there and taste every part of you until I’ve had my fill.”
“Put me down, Tray.”
Her using my real name acted as erotic fuel. As if I needed any more. “Okay.”
Momentarily fooled by my affable tone, she didn’t react as I carried her closer to the bar. But when I swept it of the bottles and glasses? Oh yeah, silent, watchful Mia gave quite the shriek, almost drowning out the sound of glass shattering on the hardwood floor. I might’ve laughed—actually, I’m pretty sure I did—but I was too busy setting her down and tugging on the zipper of her jeans with my good hand while I seized her hair with my bandaged one and yanked her mouth to mine.
Any protests she had vanished with the first thrust of my tongue between her parted lips. She didn’t respond at first, just stayed still and absorbed my kisses with that eerie detachment I hated. Then her lips began to warm, and her tongue started flicking against mine with growing boldness. I crushed my chest to hers and consumed her mouth without hesitation, daring her to keep up while my hand slipped past the barrier of denim to something silky and slick.
“What the hell?”
“It’s n-nothing.” She tried to grab my wrist. Not happening. I needed to see what she had going on under those jeans. “We should clean up. Where’s your puppy?” Her gaze darted in all directions. “He could step in the glass.”
“Vey’s probably asleep in his bed in the dining room. He’s not a fan of domestic disputes.” I tapped her bare belly, revealed by the frayed edge of her T-shirt. “Whatcha wearing under these clothes, fighter girl? A superhero costume?” My hand crept into the vee of her jeans again. “Feels like satin. Definite costume material.”
She shut her eyes. “There’s nothing wrong with wearing…lingerie.”
It was a miracle that my eyebrow didn’t shoot right across my forehead, it climbed so high. Unfortunately, she didn’t see. “No. Of course not. I’m wearing some right now too.”
Her eyes flew open and a laugh escaped her parted lips, ending abruptly as I bent to undress her. I untied her sneakers and removed her socks and jeans, then tossed them on the nearest armchair. The usual bruises in varying stages of healing dotted her pale skin, but that wasn’t what caught my eye. Nope, the object of my attention were the unforgivably tiny shorts that hugged the tops of her thighs in black satin with a fringe of lace. A tiny zipper hovered over her center, hiding her pouty lips from my gaze.
“I know it’s not me.” Annoyance veiled her words. “I don’t wear stuff like this.”
She obviously didn’t get that I was about to die from imminent cock strangulation and wiggled across the bar in obvious embarrassment. That was ending here and now.
For the millionth time since I read about Mia’s past, I questioned my instincts. Maybe I wasn’t handling this correctly. She’d had…trauma in her past. Should I be so aggressive? Just because I had been before I’d learned what she had gone through didn’t mean I’d made the right move. I could’ve fucked up royally over and over and not even known it.
Then her eyes flickered, lust clearly warming their depths, and I went with my gut.
“Stand up and bend over.”
Shock was too mild a word for her reaction. “W-what?”
“Stand up and bend over so I can see your ass in those shorts.” Though her stutter made me want to gentle my voice, I hoped she’d appreciate my firm hand later. She always had in the past. Well, the couple of times we’d had sex anyway. “Now, Mia.”
She slipped down and turned, bracing an unsteady hand on the bar. Then she bent from the waist, holding the position as I gripped her hips—damn useless left hand—and pressed my erection against her. “Feel that? That’s what you do to me. In your clothes, in these tiny shorts, and especially naked.” I tugged off her hoodie and threw it toward her jeans before I rolled up her T-shirt, driven onward by the shadowy dark outline under the thin fabric. “What’re you wearing, baby? A pretty bra to go with the shorts? Did you think I’d be peeling them off you after you yelled at me and told me to stay away?”
“No. It’s Carly’s fault. She made me buy these. I didn’t—I wouldn’t.” She huffed out a breath. “I don’t know how to seduce anyone.”
I leaned forward and laughed against her hair, grinding into her tight little ass while I banded an arm around her torso and hauled her close. “You’re so fucking wrong. You seduced me the first time you spoke to me. I saw your mouth and I wanted to be inside it. I wanted your thighs around my hips. And I wanted what I’m about to take between your legs, but not if you don’t give it to me.” I spoke close to her ear. “Tell me you want my mouth on you, Mia. Tell me you’re wet for me.”
Her broken cry surprised me, but I didn’t let go. Couldn’t. My forearm muscles trembled from holding back. And my heart quaked. I couldn’t live with myself if I scared her more. I only wanted to take her pain away.
“God. Please,” she whispered.
I exhaled. She wasn’t scared. I could feel her acquiescence in every line of her body. She craved this too.
Thank God.
“You want to know what it’s like for me to lick and kiss you there?” I banded my arm tighter. Afraid she might vanish if I didn’t cling with all my fucking might. “Goddamn it, tell me.”
She shuddered. “I don’t know if I’ll like it. It might be too much. Before—”
A wave of blinding fury seized me at the mere mention of her past. Not now. Not here. If she so much as mentioned that bastard Darren Winthrop, I’d search out his grave to unearth his bones from the dirt, just so I could light them on fire and watch them burn.
I only strengthened my hold and growled into her hair. “Mia.
”
“Yes, Tray. Please.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Mia
He whirled me around and lifted me onto the bar. His sea-colored eyes gleamed with violent sexual intent. He wanted to take me. Hard. Fast. No mercy.
I would let him. No, I would beg for it, as I just had.
Oh God, what had I asked for?
Tray’s hard stare made me shrink back until I remembered I wasn’t some weakling. Or, even worse, an innocent. Intellectually, I understood what he wanted to do. If I dug through my fuzzy memories of that time in Darren’s basement, I’m sure he’d done that to me. Maybe more than once. But this was something different entirely, because Darren’s touch had never inspired anything beyond revulsion. Even those times my body had betrayed me, my mind had never submitted.
Right now, with Tray…no part of me rebelled. Fear flickered and died in my belly, turning to another sensation, one I only knew with him.
Desire.
So why was I pressing my chin into my chest and shutting my eyes? This was no different than sex. I liked sex. I liked him. Too damn much.
“Baby, shh.” He ran his hand up my shoulder to cup my cheek.
I didn’t know why he’d told me to shh until I heard the frantic breaths echoing in my chest like wind through a barrel. As much as I wanted to brazen my way through this, my body had already begun to resist. Sometimes it felt like my mind was a separate entity from the shell that held my organs. I could steady my thoughts, but I couldn’t stifle my system’s natural inclination to fight.
“If you really don’t want this, if you want to just get dressed and go, that’s fine.” His tender voice soothed me even more than the words. “This is about you and what feels good. That’s all.”
I took a stuttering breath and unknotted my fingers from the edge of the bar. I never ran from a fight. Ever. It’d be ridiculous if I ran from pleasure.