by J. R. Ward
“I have a shopping addiction,” Mel said sadly. “It started when I was a model.”
“This is epic.” He walked over and pulled out a blood-red crêpe de chine gown from its lineup of colleagues. “Dior?”
“Early eighties. I love vintage.”
“Me, too. Although I know more about men’s designers, of course.”
“So I don’t have to explain to you how someone from Southie ended up in love with fashion?”
“Not at all.” He wandered around, checking out Valentino skirts, and Chanel blouses, and Gaultier bustiers. “You have great taste.”
“Thank you.” She cleared her throat. “Do you mind if I take a bath? I’d like to get clean.”
“I should go.” He turned back to her. “And I still really think you should talk to the police.”
“I know.” Mel’s voice was that of a little girl who didn’t want to disappoint a parent. “Um, listen, can you stay while I wash up? I would feel better if someone was here while I get in and out of the tub. I’m a little woozy.”
Butch glanced over at the bathroom area. That tub on its riser seemed to be spotlit. On a stage. With a full orchestra.
“You won’t see anything, I promise,” Mel said with exhaustion. “I just don’t want to slip and fall and have no one around to know about it.”
Butch put his back to her and jacked up his leathers. All he wanted to do was leave. “Okay.”
“I won’t take long.”
“I’ll keep looking at your clothes.”
The sound of rushing water made him glance at the heavy door they’d come through. The locking mechanism was not a bog-standard dead bolt. Hell no. It was a bifurcated iron bar with a crank mechanism in the center. When you rotated the gear, the horizontal pegs plugged into brackets mounted on both sides of the jambs. Nobody was getting through that setup. Not unless they came with a battering ram.
Mounted on the front of an Army tank.
“How did you find this place?” he asked as he checked out some slacks. “I mean, is this living space even legal? It’s in a commercial building.”
“I am allowed certain—” She hissed on an inhale. Then cursed softly.
When she didn’t say anything else, he glanced behind himself. She was by the tub and facing away from him, struggling to unhitch the fastenings on her bustier with hands that were cranked around back to her shoulder blades. As a result of her contorted quarter-turn, the swell of her breasts and the drift of her hips was obvious… but that wasn’t the half of it. She had taken off her ruined panty hose and her skirt, nothing but a slide of black silk covering her bottom.
Butch looked away. Rubbed his face. Stared at the industrial door.
“Do you need help with that?” he asked roughly.
* * *
Technically, Syn was out in the field.
As he and Jo walked around a flat clearing large enough to host multiple games of soccer or football, he had springy, winter-dead grass under his boots, and there was a cold breeze in his face, and across the meadow bare-limbed trees stood at attention around the edges of the acreage.
Sure, okay, fine, it was just a field, instead of the field, but beggars/choosers/all that shit. Besides, he didn’t care if it was a playing field, a park lawn, or this scruffy, crappy expanse of formally-used-as at this abandoned school, he was not leaving Jo’s side. Slayers could be anywhere, and they would recognize her for what she was, even though she didn’t have a clue about her nature.
Yet, he reminded himself. She was going to turn and then…
Yeah, and then what? he thought. Happily ever after for the pair of them? Hardly.
“This is a waste of time,” she announced as she stopped and made a three-sixty.
Fuck.
When she put her hands up to her head, he said, “You seem exhausted. How about we go back?”
“If I could only get my brain to stop.” She dropped her arms. “I mean, there’s nothing here. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Let’s go back to the car.”
Jo looked over at him and a breeze teased out a strand of her hair. “You must think I’m nuts.”
“Not in the slightest.”
Her green eyes drifted to a ruined structure of some kind, its roof torn up, one wall collapsed into a collection of rotted, loose lumber that looked like a set of bad fangs.
“In the video,” she said, “something like that was attacked by the dragon. It was a shed, or… and…”
Syn had sworn to himself he wouldn’t touch her. He broke that vow by putting his arm around her waist and steering her away from what troubled her.
And, to be fair, what troubled him as well. He knew exactly what had attacked that out building. Rhage’s beast. But he couldn’t tell her that.
“You’re cold,” he said.
“Am I?”
“Your teeth are chattering.”
As he started them back up the hill, she touched her lips. “They are?”
He nodded and kept them ascending at a steady pace. He hadn’t minded the walk around with her. They had plenty of privacy, and his instincts, which he trusted more than any other thing about himself, were not firing, not yet: There were no scents on the air that shouldn’t have been there. No movement in the shadows that his keen eyes caught. No sounds other than, off in the distance, the occasional passing car on the city road they’d come in on.
But she was clearly out of gas, and at least her car appeared back into view soon enough. When they came up to it, Jo hesitated and glanced over her shoulder. Then she looked at what was ahead of them, the vacated classroom buildings and the dorms.
As her eyes roamed the campus, his stayed by her and tried to be patient. He really just wanted her to get some rest. The change was so brutal on the body, and she needed to be strong.
“It’s like I’m blind even though my eyes are working,” she murmured.
“You’re searching for answers.”
“I just don’t know the questions I’m trying to ask.”
“How about we go back to your place.”
“I want to take a look around for a little longer.”
Jo started to walk away from him, and he was well familiar with that vacant striving she was motivated by. It wasn’t going to release its grip on her until she got what she was actually looking for—the transition. Which would transform her from something that was mostly human with a little vampire in her, to mostly vampire with almost no human remaining.
There would be no peace until that happened and he would take on this miserable prodromal period for her if he could.
“Just a little longer,” she said. “I promise.”
“It’s okay.”
As they continued on, Syn’s eyes panned left to right to left, measuring the windows in the brick buildings. Checking rooflines. Assessing what was coming at them and what had been left behind. Even though he would have preferred to take her back to her home, he followed her readily into one of the buildings. He wasn’t going to force her to leave if she didn’t want to.
Prepared to protect her if he had to, Syn trailed her as she went up a set of creaking stairs, and then wandered along corridors that were strewn with fallen plaster from the ceiling and leaf debris that had blown in from broken windows. Given the number of doors they passed, he guessed they were in a dorm, and the skeletal bed frames and wilted, stained mattresses seemed to confirm his assumption.
“I wonder if this was where her room was,” Jo said.
“Your mother’s?”
“Yes.”
“Do you not know where she stayed?”
“I barely know more about her than her birthday and her wedding anniversary.”
Jo kept on going, the sound of her boots crunching over the plaster bits loud in the silence of the building. When she came to the end of the hall, the cold breeze drifting in through the busted panes of glass lifted her hair.
And that was when her scent changed.
&
nbsp; The arousal was a surprise.
“You’re right,” she said remotely. “We should go.”
As she turned toward him, she ducked her head and dropped her eyes. Putting her hands in the pockets of her coat, she seemed to retract into herself as she went to go by him.
Syn caught her arm. “I know what you want.”
Her eyes were shocked as they met his. “I don’t—I mean, I just think we should go home. You’re right. I am exhausted.”
Syn stepped in closer. “That’s not all you’re thinking about.”
“But—”
“And I know what you’re going to say.” He shook his head. “Use me. Let me give you what you want. I don’t care about myself.”
Jo shook her head and backed away from him. “That’s not fair—”
Syn’s body took over, moving into her, pushing her against the corridor’s wall. As her breasts came up against his chest, she gasped.
He didn’t wait for more commentary. He wasn’t interested in talking. Her scent told him everything he needed to know.
Dropping his mouth to hers, he took from her what she hesitated to give him because she didn’t want to use him for a one-sided pleasure session. But like he gave a fuck? He had been taken in the past by females he didn’t care about—and he had bonded with Jo. Plus she wanted him. Bad. So as she groaned in submission, he took advantage of the parting of her lips, licking inside of her, penetrating her with his tongue. Meanwhile, his hands made quick work of her coat’s buttons and then burrowed in to find her waist, stroking down to her hips and onto her backside.
He deliberately brought her lower body into contact with the erection that strained at the front of his hips—
Jo pushed against his shoulders and he reluctantly eased back. The high flush on her cheeks was what he wanted. This pausing thing was not.
“I don’t want to do anything if it ends with you in pain.”
Syn shook his head. “Don’t think about me. Just let me pleasure you, Jo. I can make it all go away. The whirlwind in your head. The anxiety in your chest. Even if it’s only for an orgasm or two, I can give you something else.”
“But what are you left with afterward?”
“The satisfaction of the satisfaction I gave you.” Syn moved a hand up to just below one of her breasts. “Don’t you want what I can give you?”
He cupped her through her clothes, his thumb finding her nipple even though there were layers between them. And as he stroked the tip, her eyes closed and her head fell back.
“That’s right,” he growled. “Just let yourself go. I’ll take care of everything.”
She murmured something, maybe it was about fairness, maybe it was about guilt, he didn’t know and didn’t care. And he wasn’t going to give her any more chances to think.
With his other hand, he pulled her ass in as he rolled his pelvis so that his arousal rubbed on her. Releasing her breast, he quickly drew the zipper of her fleece down and then he lifted her loose T-shirt up. Her bra had a front clasp and he released it.
Bending to her flesh, he nestled his way in through her clothes, his mouth seeking… finding.
As he sucked on what he sought, she gasped and grabbed the nape of his neck, urging him closer to the pillow of her breast. He more than obliged. And it wasn’t enough.
He was damn well going to fix that.
She was wearing sweatpants. Which was the best thing that had ever happened to him.
Putting his hand between her legs, he rubbed her sex through the soft folds as he nursed at her. Licked at her. Nibbled her.
As he worked her, she was panting, gripping any piece of him she could get ahold of, saying his name.
Syn let her nipple pop out of his mouth. Then he spun her around so she faced away from him. Grabbing onto her hips, he yanked her feet back and bent her over.
“Put your palms on the wall.”
She complied, but seemed to do it blindly, fumbling before she found the brace.
Syn ripped her sweatpants down. And took her panties south with them.
Even in the dim light, her sex glistened, swollen and pink between the pale curves of her buttocks.
It was a glorious sight.
Syn was so glad they’d stayed a little longer.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Yes, I need help.”
Of course she did, Butch thought. And he should not have asked Mel that question.
Keeping the curses to himself, he backed over to where she was standing by the slowly filling tub. He turned around only when he had to, and as he unfastened the bustier, he looked solely at the claw hooks of the garment. He didn’t touch her creamy skin and he was not aroused—and God, he hoped she didn’t make a move on him. As beautiful as she was, he wasn’t tempted in the slightest, and he really didn’t want to have to humiliate her by shutting her down.
She didn’t need that kind of capper to this night—
The bustier fell off Mel’s body and landed in the rushing water.
As she let out a cry of dismay, she bent over, grabbed it, and straightened in a quick movement. Which caused her breasts to swing freely—
Butch wheeled away and went back to the racks of clothes, placing himself all the way across the apartment, the space, the whatever-the-hell this was. A moment later, the faucet was cut off and there was the dunk/dunk of two feet stepping into the deep-bellied basin… followed by the hiss of someone who was injured as they sank their sore bones into warm water.
“I’m sorry if I made you feel awkward.”
The words Mel spoke were soft and tinted with contrition.
“I’m not awkward.” Butch pulled out a black sequined skirt that had a ruffle of netting around the hem. “I know where I stand.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m in love with my wife, and she’s the only person I have any sexual interest in.” He tucked the skirt back into alignment and continued down the lineup. “So I’m good—wow, check out the McQueen.”
“Most of the men I know don’t have that kind of discipline.”
Butch glanced over at the tub. Mel had stretched out and leaned back into the curve of its far edge, her head propped on the lip, her brunette hair hanging down in thick ringlets that nearly reached the floor. That her eyes were closed with exhaustion made him worried, but at least there was a rosy blush coming back into her cheeks.
“It’s not a case of discipline,” he said. “You’re a gorgeous woman, but it’s not about you. It’s about who’s waiting for me at my home.”
Mel’s lids lifted and she stared into space for a moment. Then she turned her head and looked at him across the distance he’d put between them.
“Can I ask you something?” she murmured.
Butch refocused on the clothes, pulling out a black leather skirt that was the size of a napkin. “Sure.”
“What did she do?”
He frowned and glanced back toward the bath. “I’m sorry?”
“What did your wife do to make you fall that in love with her? Be so devoted to her? I mean, even that first night I saw you, when I wasn’t covered with bruises… you left me at the club. Most men would have come in and we would have… we woulda been together and not because you paid for me.”
Putting the skirt back, Butch wandered up to the bags and the shoes, although he didn’t see any of the thousands and thousands of dollars of high-end luxury goods. Even as his fingers brushed over the Hermès and the Louis, he was picturing instead the first time he’d seen his Marissa. It had been back at Darius’s house, back when the place had just been a flophouse for the Brotherhood. He’d been waiting in an elegant parlor to find out if he was going to be killed by what he assumed was a group of drug dealers—when bam! His life changed forever.
Marissa had walked into the archway, wearing a chiffon gown that belonged on a queen, her long, fair hair down to her hips, her clean, ocean scent tantalizing him. She had been so beautiful and so sad at the same time, an etherea
l goddess he was not worthy to gaze upon.
And then she had looked at him.
“Nothing,” he said in a gravel voice. “My wife didn’t have to do anything. She just walked into my sight and I knew. Everything about her was perfect as far as I was concerned, and absolutely nothing—nothing at all—has made me question that perfection since.”
“How long have you been together?”
“Three years.”
There was a soft sound of water, as if she were moving in the tub. “And you’ve never had an argument?”
“Not really. I mean, if we disagree, we don’t get angry. We both just want to figure out a compromise so we can get rid of the tension.”
“Does she dress for you? I mean, is that how she keeps your interest? Does she change her lingerie a lot? Do you role-play for sex?”
Butch regarded the racks of clothes, all the colors and fabrics, the styles and cuts, the eras, represented in the collection.
He shrugged. “She could be wearing a burlap sack. A ten-year-old T-shirt. A pair of long johns or a polyester track suit. It’s not about what she has on. And role-play? I want her. Anything else is inferior so why would she dress up for me?”
“She must do something. Her hair—what does her hair look like?”
“You’re searching for a physical explanation. Something tangible. You’re not going to find it because that’s not the point.” He touched his cross through his Under Armor. “It’s like faith. It just is.”
When Mel fell silent, he was happy enough to let the subject drop. Except then the scent of tears got his attention.
He looked back over to the tub. Mel was still staring straight ahead as she cried in silence, her tears landing in the water.
“Mel,” he said softly. “Please let me call that doctor friend of mine? It’s a female and she’s very good.”