A Dark Kiss Of Rapture

CHAPTER 5

Raze looked at the video feed of a blackish rose arrangement perched on Vash’s desk and pronounced, “Creepy.”

“They’re for you.” She pushed them aside. “Salem found them on your porch about a half hour ago. No card, but we know who it’s from, don’t we?”

“Yeah, we do.”

“She’s his wife, by the way. Of a couple hundred years. Torque traced Baron-previously known as John Schmidt, Baron Seagrave in his mortal life-back to the Regency period, when he married Lady Francesca Harlow.”

“Torque’s the man.”

“Yes, he is. And you’re dealing with a woman who just lost the love of her life.” Vash’s fingers drummed on the table. “Take it from a woman who knows what that feels like: She wants your head on a pike and your nuts roasting on an open fire. She won’t let this go until one of you is dead.”

“I’m ready and waiting.” He glanced out the window at the gradually lightening dawn sky, then over at the closed bedroom door. “But I might be waiting in the wrong place if she’s gone to Raceport.”

“Torque traced the roses back to a florist in Chicago. If she did her homework at all, she’ll know you’re hanging around there. But she doesn’t know where. She’s hoping this’ll rattle your cage a little.”

“I’ll get out more today. Be seen. I don’t suppose we’d be lucky enough to have confirmation that the baroness is the woman in the video. A photo match, maybe?”

“Working on it.” Vash rocked back in her desk chair. “Listen, I know you like to do your loner thing, but I’d feel better if you had some backup.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ve got this.”

“When I find the bastards who killed Charron, an army isn’t going to save them. Hell hath no fury like a woman whose mate has been stolen from her. You can’t understand. You haven’t been there. You don’t know what you’re up against.”

Raze’s hands fisted. “I’ve. Got. This.”

“Fine.” She tossed up her hands. “Watch your stubborn ass. I can’t afford to lose you.”

She ended transmission, leaving him feeling pissed off and resentful. He was sick of everyone acting like there was an exclusive club that he was denied membership in.

He moved back into the bedroom and slid between the sheets, careful not to wake Kim, who slept soundly. Lying face down with her hair fanned across her back and her face turned toward him, she soothed his agitation without even trying. He wasn’t used to having someone sleep over like this. Because he didn’t need sleep himself, having a lover stay the night just invited questions he couldn’t answer.

Regardless, he wouldn’t have let Kim go home even if she’d wanted to. He could tell himself it was because it wasn’t safe for her to go out by herself at night. After all, the last woman to leave his bed had found a dead body on the doorstep. He could also tell himself it was because he hadn’t fed from her yet, but then he’d have to examine why he’d held back. To create just this excuse, maybe?

Reaching out, he pushed her hair gently aside and ran his fingertips up and down the graceful curve of her spine. She was so slender and delicate, yet strong and lithe. Her body had worked tirelessly through the night, taking what he gave her and giving it right back to him. When she’d risen over him and rocked her body onto his, he’d fisted the sheets against the pleasure, his neck arching as she took him to the edge and beyond. It had been a very long time since anything had felt that good.

Raze exhaled harshly, fighting the onslaught of renewed desire. He’d had her enough already. She wasn’t a vampire who could heal quick enough to avoid being sore.

“Umm…” she purred. “You have the best hands.”

That soft humming noise of pleasure was the death of all his good intentions. He pressed a kiss to her shoulder. “I want you.”

“Yes, please.”

He laughed, which made her smile and roll to her back, revealing the small breasts he’d played with most of the night. She was revising everything he’d thought he knew about his preferences and desires. He ran the tip of his finger around a pale pink areola. “I love your tits.”

“Oh, these things? I’ve had them forever.”

Grinning, he bent over her and took her mouth, slanting his head to get the perfect fit. Kissing was another surprise. He hadn’t realized he liked it so much.

He was going to like drinking of her even more.

This time, he wouldn’t hold back. The morning was here; their night together was almost over. In a few hours, he’d be out hunting and she’d return to life as she knew it.

Raze slid over her and pushed his arms beneath her. It amazed him that a body so much smaller than his could fit so perfectly. He should have felt like a great, hulking beast on top of her, but he didn’t. He should have worried about how he handled her and made an effort to restrain himself, but there were none of those types of concerns or awkwardness between them. It was all so easy. So natural.

Her leg lifted and her foot stroked up and down his calf. Her arms hooked upward beneath his, her hands stroking over the back of his shaved head. He’d never considered his scalp an erogenous zone before, but she made it so. Every inch of his skin was sensitive to her touch, heating and tingling as her fingertips caressed him. She handled him with the care he might have shown her-as if he was delicate and precious.

Her tongue licked across his and he groaned, remembering the feel of it across other places on his body. She gave pleasure with as much abandon as she took it, and he let her. He couldn’t help it. Everything she did to him was perfect, circumventing his brain and taking him to that place where he was more animal than man-a creature of sensation and need.

Sliding down, he nuzzled briefly against her throat, then moved lower. He teased her nipples with sweeping brushes of his parted lips and soft, gentle licks. Kim whimpered and tugged his head closer, silently urging him to suckle her, which he would not do. The tender tips were already swollen and he wouldn’t hurt her, even if she considered the pleasure worth the pain. Instead he worried the tiny hardened point with the tip of his tongue, fluttering over it like the kiss of a butterfly, before lavishing the same attention to her other breast.

“God that feels good,” she gasped, writhing beneath him, her skin heating to the touch. “You could make me come if you quit playing around.”

He laughed, something he so rarely did. Squeezing her hip in his hand, he continued his downward progression, his tongue rimming her navel before dipping inside. Her flat belly concaved and a tickled laugh escaped her. The sound delighted him.

With his hand beneath her knee, Raze slid one of her sleek legs over his shoulder, then the other. He cupped her ass and lifted her. His mouth watered; his chest tightened with the anticipation of hearing all the luscious sounds she made while he pleasured her.

At the first long, slow lick, she sighed, her body going lax. “You’re so gifted. I’m going to have wet dreams about your mouth for the rest of my life.”

His lips curved. He took her with a deep, intimate kiss. Pushing inside her with gentle greed. Listening to her moan as he tongued her slick, tender flesh. Her hips arched, seeking more, and he gave it to her. Lapping through the silken folds like a cat with cream. He circled the tiny knot of her clitoris and stroked over it, relishing the way she writhed and gasped, then begged him to suck. She came with a full-body shiver, gasping his name.

Wiping his mouth on her inner thigh, he shrugged out from under her boneless legs and sat up. He sheathed himself in an unnecessary condom, then nudged her legs wider and sank his hips between them. Fisting his erection, he guided it to her. He paused there, absorbing the heated expectation of the moment. In the hours past, he’d learned how perfect the tight clasp of her body was, how deliciously she held him.

An unexpected but not unwelcome tenderness welled inside him.

His eyes closed as she took the first inch, the pleasure so hot and fierce it misted his skin with sweat. He refrained from thrusting, careful to give her swollen sex the time to accept him. He let her body set the pace, sinking deeper only when she opened for him like an unfurling flower.

“Raze.”

Lifting his pleasure-weighted eyelids, he looked down at her, finding her flushed and bright-eyed. Feverish with desire. He cupped her head in his hands, holding her still as he slipped into her to the hilt. He savored the way she trembled around and beneath him, watching her eyes darken as the desire took over. The glance they shared was open and naked, and as intimate as his cock inside her.

“God.” Her nails dug deliciously into the muscles of his back. “You’re so hard. And big. Jesus, you’re so thick and long.”

“Umm…” He rolled his hips. “And you’re tight as a fist. I pack you full. You couldn’t take another centimeter if I had it to give you.”

Pushing her heels into the mattress, Kim thrust up at him. “Ride me. I want to come again.”

“You’ll come until you can’t take anymore,” he promised, feeling his fangs lengthen within his gums. Lifting his hips, he withdrew then pushed deep again.

“Harder, Raze. Give it to me hard.”

Delicate muscles rippled along his length, driving him crazy. Grinding his teeth, he fought the need to fuck her without restraint. He wanted to drag out the moment as long as possible, create memories for both of them of a hungry need so powerful they’d reverberate for years.

“Not yet.” He slid in and out, his hips working in a smooth, leisurely tempo. “Slow and easy now. Feel me. Feel what you do to me. How damned hard you make me. As much as I’ve had you tonight, I still ache for more.”

Her head pressed into the pillows, unconsciously arching her neck at the perfect angle for the penetration of his fangs. “Yes. More.”

Anchoring her hip with one hand, he fisted her hair in the other, holding her immobile. The pulse in her throat throbbed wildly, her heart pounding as he dominated her completely. His tongue stroked over her madly pumping vein, plumping it. He sucked gently on the skin, bringing it closer to the surface. Her sex tightened around him.

“You feel so good,” he groaned, nuzzling the spot beneath her ear. “I could stay right here forever.”

“Raze, please… I need-”

The first spasms of her climax fisted his dick and his control snapped. He struck deep into her vein, his eyes rolling back as the intoxicating flavor of her blood flooded his mouth. The ecstasy of his bite burned through her and she screamed, her body quaking with the force of her orgasm.

He was right there with her, coming as hard as if he hadn’t come all night, his body inundated with ecstasy and the power of her blood.

Then the deluge of her memories hit him with the force of a sledgehammer to the face.

Kim lay with her cheek on Raze’s shoulder and her arm draped across his hard chest. Her fingers drifted idly up and down the bulge of his biceps. Draped along his side with one leg tucked between his, she listened to the steady beat of his heart and thought about how none of this night had gone as she’d expected it to.

She had set out with the intention of getting drunk, so she could sleep without having to take a sleeping pill. Then she’d seen Raze and figured they’d screw each other into exhaustion. Which they had, but she had pictured more of a rolling, clawing, pounding rut. On the floor maybe. Or the couch if they got that far. She hadn’t pictured a bed. She hadn’t imagined luxuriating in each other. She certainly hadn’t thought about cuddling afterwards.

There’s something here , she thought. Something that could become important to both of them.

“Kim.” His fingers were sifting through her horribly tangled hair. His other hand was splayed over her back.

“Hmm?” She snuggled closer. Everything about the way he touched her made her feel good. Hell, he’d sucked on her neck and she’d had the orgasm of her life. None of the hickies she’d gotten in high school had ever revved her engine, let alone blown the top of her head off.

“Would you tell me why you cried when you first got here?”

She stiffened, unprepared for the question.

“Shh.” He pressed his lips to her crown. “You don’t have to.”

“No. It’s okay.” After a shaky breath, she told him, stumbling over the words a little because she hadn’t talked about it since the police questioned her. Saying the words brought the painful and horrifying pictures in her mind to life, making her relive the agony of finding her home a bloodbath and her dearest friend lying in the gore like a rag doll. The tears came with the words until she was sobbing violently.

Raze rolled carefully, covering her with his body in a hot, hard blanket of powerful male. He tucked her under him, sheltering her, his cheek pressed to hers and his arms caging her shoulders. The quiet strength of him sank into her, shoring her up. Anchoring her. She didn’t have to be strong for him. She didn’t have to hide her pain to make it easier for him. She didn’t need to shield her grief behind a smile so he’d think everything was all right.

He didn’t say anything, which was such a gift. She wondered if he knew that or if it was just his way. His was an old soul. She’d sensed that from the moment their eyes had met.

Eventually, Kim quieted, her heart feeling so much lighter that she might’ve shed a tear over it, if she’d had any tears left.

“There’s a lot of shit in this world,” he said, kissing her softly. “I’m sorry you had to experience any of it.”

Cupping his cheeks, she lifted his head and looked into his eyes. “You experience a lot of it, don’t you?”

“Yeah.” He rolled to his back and heaved out a sigh. “I have to wade through some of it today. Can I see you tonight?”

Delight fluttered through her tummy. “Would you like to come to my place? I can make dinner.”

He looked at her with those amber eyes and smiled wryly. “I have some unusual dietary restrictions. How about movies instead? I’ll bring over one of my favorites and you pick out another one of yours. I’ll feed you while we watch the shows.”

“Okay.”

“Okay? Really? That’s good?”

She bent over and nudged his nose with her own, hiding a smile over his startled wonder. One could almost think he’d never planned a date before. “It’s great. You’re great.”

He answered that with an exuberant kiss.