Blood Kiss (14 page)

“They look really bad,” he said softly.

He didn't mean to reach out and touch her skin. He really didn't. But somehow his hand went forward and he brushed the top of the left one—on what was the only stretch of non-red skin.

Above him, he heard her inhale sharply, and for some reason, he didn't trust himself to look up at her. “Did I hurt you?”

It was a while before she answered in a breathless voice, “No.”

He ran his fore – and middle fingers so lightly across the top of her foot that he could only sense the warmth in her skin.

Craeg's own body shuddered. And his voice wasn't steady as he said, “I hate to see these marks.”

She probably had them elsewhere, too. Contusions, bruises, scrapes, places that were rubbed raw. He wanted to touch all of them.

Touch other parts of her, too.

This was bad, he thought. Dear God, this was very bad. . . .

His sex drive had been asleep for a long time and the last thing he needed right now was for it to wake up, especially under these conditions. Especially with a female like her.

You didn't have to be an aristocrat to be a lady. Even commoners who were working girls could have standards and appropriately save themselves for a proper mating.

Which would not be to an orphaned floor layer's son.

Oh, and she was very, very clearly a virgin.

The way she held herself told him that. The way Peyton, who was clearly a player, respected her space told him that.

But mostly he knew it because of that inhale, that whispered
no
.

This was realllllly bad.

P
aradise's heart was like something out of a drum section, and the surges of heat crashing through her body were as bold and bright as a set of cymbals.

Craeg was down on the floor in front of her, his huge body folded into some kind of awkward sitting position, the muscles of his shoulders straining the thin white T-shirt he was wearing, his dark head bent as he carefully ran his fingertips over the top of her foot.

Even though she was exhausted, she felt every nuance of his touch—and also became achingly aware that she was naked under the robe and the johnny.

Man . . . forget about the aches and pains. What agony?

The only thing that registered from her body was some great, undefined potential she didn't fully understand, but wasn't completely ignorant of, either.

This was . . . sexual attraction. Lust. Desire.

Right here, right now.

Unrepentant, unforgiving, uncompromising chemical attraction.

“I shouldn't be touching you like this,” he said softly.

No, she thought. He shouldn't. “Don't stop.”

His head angled up, and his eyes met hers. “This is not a good idea.”

Definitely was not. Really, totally, definitely was not. “I feel drunk.”

Craeg closed his eyes and winced. “I gotta stop.”

But he didn't. He just ran that finger up onto her ankle and then higher to her shin.

“I don't have any clothes on,” she blurted.

Now he bowed his head and rubbed his face with the
hand that wasn't touching her. “Please don't tell me things like that.”

“I'm sorry. I don't know what I'm saying.”

“I realize that.”

As his body seemed to tremble, she whispered, “Is this why you don't like me? This connection?”

“Yes.”

“So you feel it, too.”

“I'd have to be dead not to,” he muttered.

“This is what they talk about, isn't it. This need.”

He groaned and swayed even though he was already on the ground. “Don't . . .”

“Don't what?”

Craeg just shook his head, and pushed himself away from her. Putting his knees up, he rested his forearms on them and seemed to try to gather himself. After a moment, he awkwardly shifted his pelvis a couple of times, as if something were stuck or cramping there.

“I'm not going to do this with you,” he said in a low voice. “The training program is all I've got. It's the only future I have—so staying in it and doing well is not some vanity thing to me. I'm not trying to prove anything to my parents, either, and I don't just have some jones to get out and fight the world. I literally have nothing waiting for me. So I won't let anything or anyone get in my way.”

“You can't do both?” she said, even though she wasn't sure what she was suggesting.

Oh, bullshit on that. She knew
exactly
what she was suggesting: Having had his hands on her ankle, she wanted to know what they felt like all over her body.

“No,” he repeated. “I can't do both.”

With a curse, he struggled his way to his feet, his palms going in front of his hips and covering something up as he walked back over to where he'd been sitting before. He didn't lower himself into the chair, though. He stayed standing, staring down at the cushions, big body tense.

“You don't have to protect me,” she said.

After a moment, he looked over his shoulder at her—and his face was grim. “Fuck that. I'm protecting myself.”

•   •   •

As Butch drove them over the river in the Lexus, Marissa stared out the window next to her. The supports of the bridge made a pattern that cut through the view of the water down below, making her think of windshield wipers on a slow repeat. They were up so high, she couldn't tell if there were waves on the surface. Probably not. It was a quiet night weather-wise.

For some reason, she kept going back to when the two of them had fallen in love—probably because her brain couldn't handle where they were headed and so it was escaping to a part of her past that had been filled with wonder and joy and excitement.

Nothing like that first touch. That first kiss. That moment when you had sex for the first time, and you looked at the face above yours and thought,
I can't believe we're really doing this!

“What are you thinking about?” Butch asked, squeezing her hand.

“Do you remember where we first kissed?”

Her mate laughed softly. “God, yeah. It was out on the second-story porch at Darius's. I broke the arm off that wicker chair.”

She smiled and looked across at him. “You did, didn't you.”

“I hadn't expected you to be so . . . strong.”

In the dim light of the dashboard, his features were just as sexy as they had always been to her, and she thought about what he looked like when he was aroused, his hazel eyes going all hooded, his face becoming so serious, his body stilling before he pounced.

“I want to have sex with you when we get back home,” she said.

His head whipped around so fast, the sedan swerved
in its lane. “Well, what do you know. That can
so
be arranged.”

“I feel guilty about it.”

“Don't.” His eyes met hers. “It's very natural. You want to feel alive in the face of death—it doesn't mean that you aren't sad for the girl, or won't do right by her. The two are not mutually exclusive.”

“You're very smart.”

“Just had a lot of experience in nights like tonight.”

Easing back in the luxurious seat, she let the familiar, erotic sensations pump through her body . . . and imagined herself ducking underneath his arms, and getting into his fly, and sucking on him as he drove along.

But he would never let her do that.

And besides, as they hit the far side of the Hudson, her brain switched gears. “Please don't hurt him.”

“Who? Your brother?”

“Yes.”

“I'll be a gentleman through and through.”

She glanced over at him. “I mean it.”

“So do I.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “You got nothing to worry about. I wouldn't do that to you—and that makes him a very lucky guy.”

Butch followed the directions that had been texted to her when she'd asked for the way in by car, and about fifteen minutes later, they were bumping down a dirt lane that meandered through the forest. This time, the entry building was a modest two-story farmhouse, and there were a couple of sedans parked on its cobblestone driveway. When they got out, they proceeded around back to what appeared to be an outbuilding for tractor equipment, but which was actually the same kind of kiosk she had been to earlier in the evening.

The procedure was the same: checking in, stepping in, getting scanned by a laser. And then a wall of tools was displaced and they were in an elevator, heading down into the earth.

“This must have cost a lot of money to build,” she murmured as they both stared up at the dinging lineup of numbers over the doors. “Four stories underground? Wow.”

“It needed to be done.”

She looked across at him. “Wait, so you know about this new clinic? Why didn't you tell me?”

Butch shrugged. “I didn't want to upset you by bringing up your brother.” He glanced over at her pointedly. “Tell me Havers behaved himself when you were here earlier.”

“He did.”

Her mate nodded and jacked up his fine black slacks. As always, when he was off duty, her Southie cop
hellren
was dressed like something out of the Neiman Marcus catalog, his crisp white shirt and his paper-thin suede jacket every bit as expensive as they looked. He smelled good, too, although that was courtesy of his bonding scent and not any kind of cologne—and his Piaget watch and that large gold cross he always wore were sexy without being overdone.

And yet he was right. If he'd wanted to, he could have killed her brother with his bare hands—and he probably did want to. She believed him, however, when he said he would never do that in front of her.

“He's amazing to his patients,” she heard herself murmur.

“That has never been his problem.”

No, it hadn't.

The elevator bumped to a halt and they emerged into another waiting area that was smaller and more self-contained than the other one she'd been in.

The receptionist at the desk looked at Butch first—and then took her time in giving him the once-over. Not that he noticed. “Welcome,” she said. “The doctor knows that you're here. May I get you coffee while you wait?”

Or perhaps something more personal? her tone seemed to suggest.

“We're good, thanks.” Butch took Marissa's elbow and led her over to the line-up of chairs against the far wall.

As they settled in together, she was glad when he held her hand.

“So how was the program's first night?” she asked, both to make conversation and because she cared.

His brows locked together in a frown. “It was good—no one got seriously hurt. We have seven who made it through. They're going to spend the day with us—mostly because we don't want their parents to see them that beat-up. Also, it's a good chance for the group to start getting tight. I teach the first class at nightfall, and then they'll be allowed to go home after a workout.”

“I'm really glad it went well.”

“We'll see. Hey, you know Abalone's daughter, Paradise? Who helps out at the audience house?”

“Oh, she's lovely.”

“She lasted the longest. That girl has a core of steel.”

“Abalone must be so proud.”

“He will be.”

They fell silent. Until she spoke up again. “I think I'm going to be sick.”

Butch immediately started to jump up, but she patted his arm. “I mean that more as an expression than an actual intention.”

“Do you want to go back to the car? I can bring the remains out to you.”

Marissa shook her head. “No, she's mine. Until we find her proper family, she's mine.”

Butch put an arm around her shoulders and drew her
in close. “Be ready for that not to change even when you give her back to her bloodline.”

“Is that how you . . . when you were working, is that how you felt?”

“With every one of my victims.” He exhaled long and slow. “For me, they never went away. Even now, when I can't sleep, I see their faces on the ceiling above our bed. I remember what they looked like in life, and can't forget how they lay in death. It's a stain on my brain.”

Staring at his profile, his hard, beautiful, imperfect profile, she plugged into all the love she had for him. “Why don't you wake me up and talk to me when you're like that?”

His tight smile was all about the downplay. “You have a job, too.”

“Yes, but I—”

“It doesn't matter. It's in the past now.”

Not if it's still keeping you up, it isn't, she thought.

“You and I are so alike,” she murmured. “We've both shelved our old lives.”

“You make that sound like it's a bad thing.”

Before she could say anything else, the door across the way opened and a nurse in a white uniform walked in with a black box that absurdly—and inappropriately—made Marissa think of the pair of Stuart Weitzman stilettos that had been delivered to her the other night. Same size.

She'd expected the container to be bigger. Smaller. Different.

God, she didn't know.

“We're so sorry for your loss,” the nurse said as she went to hand it off to Butch.

Marissa stepped in and took the thing. It weighed less than she'd thought it would. Then again, it was only full of ashes, wasn't it. “Thank you.”

The female flushed at the lack of protocol: As Marissa was a female from a Founding Family, it was assumed that she would never touch anything pertaining to the
dead: In the Old Country, such contact was seen as bad luck, particularly if one was pregnant or of young-bearing age.

Screw that, though.

“Was there anything else with her things?” Marissa asked.

The nurse cleared her throat like she was trying to swallow her disapproval and choking on the stuff. “Actually, there was something.” She glanced at Butch as if she were looking for him to step forward and get his mate to be reasonable. “Ah . . .”

To his credit, Butch just cocked a brow like he didn't know what the hell the female was going on about.

The nurse cleared her throat again. “Well, there was one thing. It was the only personal effect we found—it was tucked into her . . .”

“Into her what?” Marissa demanded.

“Into her brassiere.” The nurse put her hand into the pocket of her uniform and took out a length of black something or another with a ribbon of red fabric on it. “Are you sure you want to . . .”

Marissa snatched the thing out of the nurse's hold. “Thank you. We'll be going now.”

Before anything else could be said, she headed over and punched the “up” arrow on the wall. As if the elevator had been waiting to help her GTFO, the doors opened and she stepped inside. Butch was, as always, right behind her.

It was only when they were ascending back to ground level that she looked at what she'd taken from the other female.

“What is this?” she said, turning over the four-inch-long piece of black metal in her hand. There was a red silk tassel hanging off a cut out on one end, and on the other, a pointed, notched portion seemed like something that would fit in a lock. “Is this a key?”

Butch took it from her and examined the thing. “You know, it might be.”