by T. A. Grey
She climbed up his big body, running her hands up his chest. He was perfect. Hard, flat stomach with a dusting of dark hair that started at his stomach and stopped at his chest.
Moaning she climbed over his cock and pressed him to her center.
“No, baby. God, we shouldn’t do this. You’re drunk.” Vera threw back her head and laughed, the sound dark and husky and not all human.
“Jacks, your cock is so hard you could come in a few hard strokes. Don’t tell me we shouldn’t do this.” Jacks grabbed her hips in a hard grip, fingers biting into her soft flesh. Vera loved the strength in him, her beast relished in his power.
Human, he’s only human. She gulped and tried to ease herself down, but his grip kept her from moving an inch. Her wet, hot core teased the head of his cock like feathery touch, slipping along him.
“More please.” Short, gasping words from her arched throat. Fingers dug into his hard-muscled chest, clenching and releasing like claws.
He held her tighter, his arms faintly trembling with the effort to hold her. Vera looked down at him, saw the pained expression on his face, and softened. Leaning down to him, she gently kissed his mouth, his chin, his neck.
“I want you, Jackson.” She ran her hand through his short, coffee-colored hair. She didn’t know where it came from, but the next words out of her mouth weren’t a game or pretense but came from her heart. “I’ve never wanted anything so badly. You drive me wild.”
Jacks groaned, a deep rumble from his chest, and then slowly, steadily, inch-by-inch lowered her onto his cock. Vera gasped at the hot, wide press of him, and grabbed hard onto his shoulders as he entered her. Another inch, than another, squeezing hard past her unused muscles, until finally with a hard shove, he filled her completely.
“Fuck. You feel so good, baby,” he said deliriously. His hands reached to cup her bottom.
“Jacks, Jacks,” she chanted, and then they were both moving together. Slow at first, then faster she bobbed on top of him, her pussy swallowing his hard cock again and again. He stretched her so far, filled her so full, it was unlike anything she’d ever felt.
She was going to fall apart. He pushed inside, shoved her closer and closer to release. She panted into his ear, licked around the shell of it until he was driving into her faster, harder.
The bed shook and slammed into the wall with his driving thrusts. His gripped returned to her hips to push her into him in perfect harmony. His thigh muscles clenched and released under hers, working so hard to please her.
“Come, baby. I need to feel it,” he grunted hot breaths panting against her cheek.
Her cries escalated as her inner walls rippled, milking his cock. Her hips spasmed, thighs quaking and seizing as she fell over into the abyss.
“Oh, God, that’s it baby. Come hard. Oh fuck.” His cock felt like it was being milked and sucked at the same time. He drove himself into her, letting her orgasm flex over his cock. Oh, damn, but he was gone. Couldn’t believe he’d lasted this long inside her. Perfect didn’t begin to describe her.
He fucked her tightening muscles harder, faster, and then slammed in one last time as his balls drew up and his seed blasted from his cock like a rocket. He wrapped his arms around her waist, trapping her to him as he emptied his balls into her.
Gasping, his mind reeling, his body still spinning somewhere high in the sky, Vera pushed him aside and slid to a stand. It took him several blinks to realize that she was leaving him so quickly after sex and was already getting dressed.
He opened his mouth to order her back to bed, but then he caught a glimpse of her guarded eyes and stopped himself. She looked haunted, sad even. How could she manage to feel like that after such amazing sex?
Whatever was going on in her head, one thing Jacks knew for sure, he was going to find out what it was.
Chapter Five
Her brother Darien used to tell her to never begin a new day with yesterday’s shit. Vera snorted as she pulled on her shoes. While Darien may not always be eloquent, he was usually right--even in his own strange philosophical way.
Slipping on a denim skirt, some flats, and a black top, Vera frowned. Darien hadn’t talked to her since the accident with his woman. Even now he was on a Journey, could be in danger, and none of them would know about it. She’d do anything to ease her brother’s suffering, if only she knew how. She’d face the loss of a loved one too, but in a different way than Darien. Her love didn’t die, just didn’t want her anymore.
She took a deep, calming breath and shoved that thought aside since the love in question was in this very house.
A new day equals new shit. So today she was strapping back on her usual grin and was going to act like an adult around Jacks. She couldn’t ignore the fact that she’d had sex with him yesterday, and she couldn’t ignore that she desperately wanted to do it again, so much so that her body was already preparing itself for him, softening.
Bodies were so unreliable.
In the heat of the moment when you needed strength, it eluded you. When you wanted to resist something, it taunts you, and when you don’t want to love someone--it says fuck you, and does it anyways. Then it shoves you with the rest of your bleeding heart in a torn package while wearing nasty smile.
Happy thoughts, new day. Going to act like a mature adult.
Speaking of sexy, err, mature adults, Vera peaked under her lashes and saw the dark figure of her thoughts staring out the window. Whatever was on the outside that he was glaring at she felt sorry for it. His arms were crossed over his big, hard chest, stretching his white t-shirt until she could see his tan skin through it. He wore jeans instead of his usual cargos and they hung slow and tight on his hips.
She tried to look at him and not remember last night, but it was like being hit with a car and sitting in the hospital room the next day…while in a full body cast swearing it never happened. She wasn’t that crazy. The sex between them had been intense, boiling hot, and her body was ready for a repeat experiment.
Not gonna happen, she told it. Her sex pouted in disappointment.
If there was one thing she couldn’t lie about though it was that she’d never had sex that felt like that. She’d been so hungry for him; it reminded her of her breeding cycle. Except she wasn’t breeding. Yet she’d wanted him with the same desperation as if she were. She still wanted him with a fervor that sent a flicker of unease skirting through her.
No, no, it couldn’t be.
Quickly burying the thought, she headed to the door and called out, “I want to go for a walk before the next meeting. You coming or--” Her words trailed off to a whisper as he turned to look at her. Her mouth dried up at the searing heat in his gaze. His blue eyes were darker than the sky at midnight--the same color they’d been when he was deep inside her last night. His arms fell to his sides; big hands that curled into even bigger fists.
She swallowed twice before her eyes fell down over his hard chest, remembering the hard, firm feel of him under her hands was sweet punishment. Then her eyes trailed down to his jeans where his cock filled out hard beneath his zipper.
“Do you see something you like?”
Hell yes.
Clearing her dirt dry throat she croaked, “Not really. I just really want to go for a walk.” She sounded desperate, even to her own ears.
He strode towards her with the hard, long steps of a general marching on the war front. She tried to side step him, but he grabbed her hips, thrust her into the wall, and crowded her with his body. Her body flushed with warm, delicious heat, softening just for him. His cock was a blatant reminder against her stomach.
Lips, kissing the corner of her mouth, across her flushed cheek, to the corner of her ear. Then he whispered dark and dangerous, “I think you like me, baby. I think you like me a lot. Your body’s on fire for me, I can feel. I can see it.”
She was shaking her head no, a ridiculous denial. Why she was denying it, she wasn’t sure. Except that what she’d done with him last night was a mis
take. Yet that incredible passion she felt then, she still felt. Her mind might be in a tug-o-war match over whether it was a mistake, or a huge mistake, but her body was practically fist pumping the air at his attention.
“No, eh?” He bent his knees and rubbed his cock along her pussy. Even through their clothes, it made Vera’s breath catch, her sex throb like a pulse. He pulled back to look down at her. This man was a soldier, a man who didn’t miss a thing. He caught her hooded eyes, her rapid pulse, her hard nipples in a split second.
His eyes fell on her lips like a predator assessing its prey. Her tongue darted out at his hungry expression.
His shoulders fell as if he just lost some great battle, then he growled a dark curse and took her mouth.
She was ready for his kiss, born ready, but it still didn’t make the impact of it any less devastating. He claimed her lips hard with slick tongue and fiery lips. Hands roaming down her curvy backside, cupped her bottom, possessing her with his mere touch.
All thoughts of why this wasn’t a good idea, of keeping the hard shield erected around her wilted away like a dying flower in winter. He consumed her with a dizzying passion that bordered on madness. Vera clung to him and exchanged every ounce of passionate energy with him. Her thighs scissored in need, ached to be wrapped around his hard hips.
The door shuddered beneath her back and Jacks pulled back on an ugly curse.
“You’ve got be fucking kidding me. This place is fucking rigged,” he growled and tore away from her.
Her hand shook as she opened the door to whoever was knocking. Dmetri was standing there with a feral scowl on his face. With his sense of smell and hearing, he hadn’t missed her and Jacks’ exchange. She grinned, well good. It was more than he deserved really.
“Can I help you...again, Dmetri? The meeting isn’t for another two hours.”
“Yes, I know. I wanted to see if you’d take a walk with me.” He sent a withering glare to Jacks who seemed completely unaffected by it.
Vera snorted. “You don’t go for walks, Dmetri. What do you really want?” He shifted on his feet, a subtle tell, but one she was familiar with. He was getting uncomfortable.
She looked up into his handsome face, and for a moment, she almost wanted to cry. To break down and let it all out without a care for who saw her. This man had broken her heart into a million irreparable pieces.
“I wanted to talk.”
Vera’s smile faltered. Her heart felt like an anvil was sitting on it and her eyes watered. She quickly looked down and discreetly blinked them away, hoping like hell that he didn’t see that. She really needed to take a good sniff, but couldn’t with these two men around her--her old lover and her new one.
When she had her tears under control, she finally lifted her head—and knew from the tightening around his eyes that he’d noticed it.
In a cheery voice, she said, “Fine, I was going out anyways,” and stepped past him.
She couldn’t get out of there fast enough. She walked and didn’t stop until there was grass under her feet. Dmetri came up beside her, his long blonde hair reaching towards her in the breeze. The sunlight bounced off his pale skin giving him a faint, creamy glow.
A sudden thought had her snickering. “What?” Dmetri asked, looking at her.
“I was just thinking it’s funny that your skin doesn’t glitter in the sunlight.”
He looked at her as if she’d just escaped the nuthouse. “Why on earth would I glitter in the sunlight?”
After she had her laughter under control, she said with all seriousness, “Because you’re a vampire. Edward Cullen glitters in the sunlight, like a diamond twinkling in the light.”
“I don’t know who Edward Cullen is but vampires do not...twinkle.” He said the word with such disdain that she broke into a fit of laughter. His eyes softened as he looked down at her and her laughter quickly turned into hard coughs.
She knew he was there because she could smell his distinct scent but she looked behind her anyway to see Jacks trailing them. He looked every bit the bodyguard with his eyes alert on the environment—on Dmetri. Her heart leaped in her chest, stomach fluttered and danced as she looked at him. When she turned back to look at Dmetri, she didn’t miss the fact that she felt none of that for him.
“What did you want to talk about?”
“You, me, us.”
“There hasn’t been an ‘us’ for a long time, and there isn’t going to be.”
“God dammit, Vera, just give me a chance. I fucked up badly. I know that now and I want to fix it.” Some things were either too broken to fix or too old to bother with. She wasn’t sure which category they belonged it, but it was probably the former.
“You don’t really want me, Dmetri.” He started to argue but she held out a hand. “No wait, listen to me. You don’t. We were together for a whole year. A year that I spent loving you and you spent not loving me. You didn’t love me then and you don’t love me now. That’s why you ended things.”
Calm and cool, Vera took a deep breath and nearly smiled. She was doing good at this. Shock couldn’t begin to describe what she was feeling. More like her mind was in a blender and someone hit frappe. But neither she nor her beast was interested in his offer, which surprised her most of all.
“Dammit, I’m sorry about that Vera. I’ve been sorry about it ever since I said it, ever since I let you go. And why does love matter so much to you anyways? We didn’t need love then and we don’t need it now. We were good together, Vera. We both know it.”
Vera’s hands curled into fists. She may not be as strong as a vampire, but with the rage of her lykaen beast, she was certain she could get in a few, very gratifying shots before he could react. Something in her snapped. Coming to a hard stop, she shoved him hard in the chest.
“You’ve been sorry about it? What the hell does that mean. No, don’t answer that. I know what it means. It means you realized you fucked up and now you miss me. Well do you know what I have to say about that,” she looked left then right, then got up in his face and yelled, “too fucking bad!”
It felt good to be telling him how she felt. Hell, she’d been living with it for years. And now that she’d started, she couldn’t stop. She paced before him and ranted.
“You don’t know what love has to do with it? What are you Tina Turner? Love has everything to do with it. I loved you, Dmetri. I wanted to marry you and spend my life with you in that ridiculously huge castle you call a home.” She was shouting now but she didn’t care.
“We might have been ‘good’ together, but dammit I can do better. I can be great with someone, if I’m lucky we might even be perfect. And you know what, Dmetri? I’m glad you broke up with me. I’m ecstatic because it was the right thing to do. You didn’t love me, and that’s not what I want. I want a man who can actually say the words and mean them. A man who actually needs to hear that I love him too.”
Her voice lowered to a husky, shaking whisper. Unshed tears were shiny droplets hanging in her eyes, her body a shaking mass of wired flesh.
“And you don’t deserve this either. You don’t deserve a half a relationship. You deserve a woman you can love and a woman who loves you. You may not realize it yet, but it’s true.”
And with her words still lingering in the air, she turned and walked away, her old pain a fleeting memory.
# # #
Vera had to walk, couldn’t stop moving even as she pushed into the trees and felt her feet sinking into the soft, muddy soil. She looked up through the canopy of trees to see gray light filtering in like flashlight beams from heaven. A storm was moving in, it darkened the sky with dark puffy clouds as it rumbled and growled its way overhead.
She couldn’t catch her breath and her stupid heart was panicking in her chest.
What had she done?
Elation turned to excitement and buzzed in her veins like a drug, but regret and doubt clouded her mind with worry, making her climb her way over fallen trees and rocks with steely determination
.
A hand touched her shoulder and she screeched, spinning around with her hands held out. She blinked then cocked her head to the side. God, how had she forgotten he was here? This was so not what she needed. That last thing she wanted to think about was the newest complication in her life.
She squared off to face him. “What are you doing here?” Jacks narrowed his gaze on her.
“I’m here to protect you.”
“Oh yeah,” she said, throwing out her arms and spinning in an unsteady circle. “I really need your protection all the way out here in the middle of nowhere. Why don’t you do me a favor and meet me back at the house, okay?” There, she could be calm and reasonable.
“I can’t do that.” Vera didn’t know if she wanted to laugh or cry, but when she stopped spinning and faced him she realized he was much closer to her than before. Or maybe her mind was just out of it. God dammit, she really didn’t need this now. So she did the only thing she could do and plastered on her trademark cocky smile.
“Yes, you can do that. See it’s not very difficult. You just turn around and start walking.” She mimicked the motion with her two fingers. “See? Easy.”
Too late, she realized she’d said the wrong thing. His body seemed to grow bigger, stronger as he came towards her. Blue eyes darkened to the color of midnight and never left hers.
She could have backed up, but dammit, her legs were traitorous bastards and stayed frozen in place. She let him brush against her, wrap his arms around her, and when his mouth captured hers, the worry in her left like a fleeting wind. Leaving only a different kind of exhilaration. He lifted his lips and whispered her name—a haunted, husky ache of sound.
Thoughts fled her mind except one.