It’s here and it’s gone.”
Not for him. For him it, and the pain of loss, went on forever. “You don’t know my past.”
“I know that you aren’t. But you can’t live your life a certain way because of whatever happened to your brother. I get that his story is his to tell, but you’re life is yours to live as well, and yours to mold. No matter how tough you think you are, out fighting the bad guys and living on the road, you’re hiding. And you’re living in fear. That’s no life Aiden. Is that what you really want?” The truth of her words washed through him like a new morning sun did the darkness of a starless night, like new blood bleeding strength and power into him. Emotions thundered inside him, emotions long suppressed – one emotion he didn’t like, didn’t want, but had to own. Fear. Fear of loss. Fear, it had been controlling him since Darla’s death. But he already felt fear for Kelly – fear for her safety, fear of not knowing her, of not knowing what might have been, what could be. What might come of her, if he turned his back on her—if he didn’t. And if that fear had to exist, if there was no escaping it, he wanted it to exist with her in his arms, with her a part of his life. Even, he silently conceded, if it could be for only a short time.
“Since you aren’t saying anything,” she said, “then maybe conversation isn’t what’s important.” Suddenly, she was on her knees, hand sliding over his zipper. “Kelly,” he warned, trying not to moan when she caressed the ridge of his erection. “My brother is in the other room. Troy—“
“Can’t save you from me,” she promised. She pressed her lips to his jeans, against his cock, her hands caressing the hard ridges that proved just how aroused he’d been the instant she’d pressed her lush body close to his. She popped the snap on his jeans. “And I want you to have the same fond memories of this kitchen as I do.” She pulled down his zipper and he didn’t stop her. He knew he should, but he wasn’t sure why. Her hand pressed past denim, past his boxers. His head fell back against the refrigerator, all logic fading away at her soft touch, against his hard erection. She shoved down his boxers enough to free him, his erection jutting forward, her hand wrapping the base. Her sweet little pink tongue snaked out, licking the wet tip of his shaft, teasing him for a mere torturous, delicious instant, before her lips closed around him, and she suckled. Desire rose inside him, and the man faded away. There was just the vampire, the lust, the need – and the woman who created those feelings.
His hand went to her head, his eyes meeting hers as she drew him deeper, harder, her tongue swirling around him. “Harder,” he ordered, unable to hold back now. He was that primal creature that lived and breathed lust, desire, and blood. And he wanted hers. He wanted to taste her, to fuck her, to be inside her.
“Deeper.”
Her hand slid around his backside, pulling him against her, silently telling him that she not only approved of his command, she wanted more of him. He pumped into her mouth, her hot, wet mouth driving him absolutely fucking wild. “That’s perfect, baby,” he murmured, feeling the tightening of his balls, the build of release. “Suck me just like that. Don’t stop.” He moaned, and not quietly, not giving a damn about Troy at this point. His release exploded from him, rising up in a rush that had him shaking with the intensity.
Kelly sucked on him, licked on him, slowly eased the rhythm of her mouth, her hand, until she was licking the head of his cock, as if she didn’t want to miss one drop of his satisfaction. The prim and proper doctor, was so not prim and proper right now, and he was already getting hard again. “Come here,” he said, pulling her to her feet, bringing her hard against him.
Her hands went to his chest, keeping him from pulling her mouth to his. “Do you remember when you said you couldn’t fuck me and protect me?”
“I remember and I regret it.”
“Prove it,” she ordered instantly, a woman in control, a woman unafraid of the primal animal in him, that he knew she had to sense, to feel.
Aiden barely contained a smile that would have shown fang, “At your command.” He scooped her up and headed for her bedroom, where he was most certainly going to fuck her all night long, one lick and orgasm at a time.
Aiden entered her bedroom and kicked the door shut, flipping out the lights a moment later. No matter how much he craved her blood, no matter how erotic and pleasurable his bite would be to both of them, Aiden did not dare taste Kelly. The laws of the Vampire Council were clear. Humans were not to be left with memories of their kind. To allow such a thing would risk a war between races, perhaps even lead to mass casualties. He knew he had to lose Kelly, knew their worlds wouldn’t meld together. But he didn’t want to wipe her memories and he didn’t want her to never know he’d been here. And truth be told, he knew it was
the man in him she was trying to save. He wasn’t sure she’d feel the same about the vampire, and he didn’t want to find out.
He turned her to face the bed, determined to go slow, no matter how fast and hot he wanted to take things.
He willed the vampire he’d let take command in the kitchen into submission. Tonight, he’d be a man making love to a woman, something he had not done in a very long time.
***
Troy leaned against the wall outside the kitchen and squeezed his eyes shut, as the bedroom door to Kelly’s room slammed shut. Unbidden, an emotion he hid from, that he didn’t want to feel, bled into the anger that kept him alive and fighting. Kelly had been right. He wasn’t like Aiden. Kelly, or either of his brother’s for that matter, knew how true that was. The wolf attack had changed so much more than his hair and eye colors. He wasn’t human and he wasn’t even fully vampire anymore. He was something else altogether, something dangerous, something dark. Something that he had long realized would destroy him, and everyone around him, if he let it. He’d been wrong to pull Aiden down with him, wrong in so many ways, about so many things. Wrong to try and save Kelly from Aiden, when she was saving Aiden from being destroyed by a brother who was barely a brother. A brother who was quickly becoming a monster, if he wasn’t already there.
Chapter Eleven
Kelly wasn’t sure what she expected from Aiden, but it hadn’t been him undressing her from behind, kissing her neck, her shoulder, her neck again. It wasn’t the gentle way he touched her body, the slow, sensual way he explored and teased sensitive places she didn’t even know she possessed.
“Don’t move,” he ordered softly, near her ear, his breath a warm trickle on her neck. He stepped back from her, and instinctively, she started to turn.
His hands came down on waist, a gentle, but insistent grip, while he laughed near her ear, a rumble of masculine sexuality that tingled a path through her body. “What part of don’t move means turn around?” She smiled into the darkness, wishing for the lights. “Why do you get to decide when I turn around?” She could feel his hips against her back side, the bulge of his arousal pressing against her, teasing her as his hands and mouth already had.
“Because,” he told her, nibbling at her neck, his teeth scraping deliciously on the sensitive flesh, making her knees weak and her heart race, before he added, “I’m the one about to do all kinds of wicked, wonderful things to you.”
“Oh,” she said, and the warmth of his breath might as well have been a touch. She felt it in the tightening of her nipples, the wet heat between her thighs. “Well, if you put it that way.” He laughed again and stepped away from her, and she could hear him undressing, and she oh so easily could imagine what he looked like. But she didn’t want to imagine. She wanted to see that long, hard body in all his naked glory. But the promise of that wicked pleasure he’d vowed gave her willpower to wait. She’d see him and soon, even if it wasn’t soon enough.
“Ready for me?” he asked, standing behind her – she could tell - but not touching her. She started to turn again.
He stopped her with his body, his shaft, hard and thick, pressing between her thighs. “I’m not done with you like this.” His hands caressing a path down her arms, until his fingers tangled with hers. He dragged her hands up her body, to her breasts, where he melded her palms. “How does that feel?”
“Like you’re teasing me and enjoying it way too much,” she said without hesitation. In some far corner of her mind she realized the directness she favored outside the bedroom had made its way inside it with Aiden. It was a first, and it was a good first. She knew he’d be gone soon, knew he wasn’t the stay around kind of guy, which meant she needed to enjoy every second of this freedom she felt with him.
And when he was suddenly on his knees, his hands and his mouth, exploring her legs, her cheeks, her hips, she was pretty sure that wasn’t going to be a difficult process. “Open for me, sweetheart,” he urged, his teeth scraping her back side while his hands nudging her legs apart.
Her bravado and daring, wanton self, slid into a moment of vulnerability over his dominant position. She had her back to him, her legs wide. It was terrifyingly erotic, and incredibly arousing. His fingers hooked forward and found her clit flicking it, even as he worked the wet, slick heat gathering around it.