Sentinel's Hunger (7 page)

“You are not pleased.”

He slashed her with a look, slate eyes cold and infuriated. “Gee, ya think?”

“If you are going to punish me for enjoying your body, enjoying you, then that is a punishment I will have to take.”

“You might not enjoy the punishment I exact.” He stalked back to her side, glaring down at her as if he were measuring her for a sarcophagus.

Xevera stared back and tried not to shiver as the trickle of blood on his chest caught her attention. Impetuously, she licked her lips, thirsty for more of him and wondered if he would punish her for drinking from him.

He caught her look, glanced down at his chest, scooped up the drop with a finger and put the digit in his mouth to suck the blood off.

“Did you enjoy drinking from my chest?”

“Very much.”

He grinned and climbed on the bed again, this time straddling her face. His shaft protruded from his groin, hard, thick and long.

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Gracie C. McKeever

Inviting.

Xevera moaned at the sight of pre-come glistening on his slit, his arousal a piquant musk that wrapped around her head and whispered to all her senses until she could have come from just the smell of him.

Michael leaned forward and teased the seam of her mouth with his cock. “Think you’ll enjoy drinking from this as much?”

Wordlessly, she nodded, all boldness gone in the wake of his hunt for revenge. She wanted to taste him, hungered for his discipline, hungered for his essence in a way she had hungered for nothing and no one in two centuries.

She darted out her tongue and lapped the liquid from the tip of his penis, savoring the earthy sweet flavor of him, her stomach clamoring at the rare taste of ambrosia.

After this, she knew she would rather die than go back to her previous, colorless existence. She could never go back to the impersonal systematic feedings she and her Sister sentinels endured beneath
Quna’s
caring tutelage for survival. After tasting Michael in this most basic way, those feedings would never be able to sustain her, much less appease her cravings.

Xevera licked the underside of his erection, enjoying the pleasing contrasts—the velvet softness of his skin and the hot pulsing steel beneath—before she moved her head to take him into her mouth. She spent several long moments licking his smooth head and taunting his slit with rapid flicks of her tongue before Michael finally lost his patience and pitched his hips forward with a long low moan.

Xevera instinctively relaxed her throat muscles as he pushed into her mouth inch by torturous inch. She greedily ate at him, pussy spasming and growing slick with desire as he seated himself to the hilt in her mouth and stopped.

She glanced up to see his jaw muscles working as he closed his eyes and clenched his teeth. Then he was moving again, grasping the top of the headboard in a death-grip and pumping into her mouth with quiet intensity.

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“Damn you, Xevera! You feel good…so good…”

She sucked him as hard as she could, center flooding with heat when he gushed into her mouth with a sudden shudder and hoarse shout.

Xevera eagerly swallowed every drop of his spirit, knees raised up as she squeezed her legs together to ease the violent tremors of her own climax.

Michael slowly pulled out of her mouth, cock semi-erect as he sat down beside her and gently caressed her hair.

She wanted to ask him so many things, say so much, and thanking him for what he had given her was paramount. Instead, she just lay quiet and tried to adjust to his new mood.

He no longer seemed angry as much as he seemed uncertain but the minute Xevera pushed his mind for more, she felt his shields go up.

“Who’s being impolite now?”

“I just wanted to see—”

“If I’ve changed my opinion of you.” He stood abruptly and glowered down at her. “I haven’t.”

When he turned his back and marched out of the room, it felt as if he had snatched Xevera’s heart out of her chest and took it with him.

She had thought her expulsion from The Guard was the worst thing that could happen to her, but she knew now there were much worse things than the loss of her exalted position as protector of the royal family.

She had never felt so hopeless and vulnerable in her life! And she did not like the feelings one bit.

Xevera imagined this was why Michael was fighting so hard against what he felt for her. He did not want her to have the same power over him that he had over her.

He came back into the room clad in fresh black boxer briefs and carrying a basin of water that he placed on the nightstand beside the bed.

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Gracie C. McKeever

She had not heard water running but realized he must have taken a shower during his brief absence. When he sat on the bed beside her, she noticed water glistening in his hair and scented the delicious woodsy aroma of the soap he used in his ablutions.

Xevera would have loved to have shared that cleansing ritual with him, to see water clinging to his smooth bronzed skin, follow the trail of it with her hands and tongue.

“That’s a tempting image, but I’ve got other plans right now.” He smiled and positioned his face between her legs, glancing up at her with an impish twinkle in his eyes.

Xevera did not think that she had anymore to give, did not think she could want him again so soon. But the warm moisture that quickly rushed to her center said otherwise.

Before she could blink, his mouth and hands were on her, working their destructive magic as he licked and nibbled and sucked her clitoris to aching attention and teased her slick folds with gentle caresses before thrusting two fingers inside her.

She whimpered as he reached deep and curled his fingers against her G-spot.

He pressed the palm of his free hand against her stomach to hold her still as he alternately twisted and scissored his fingers, brushing her tender nerves and making her writhe and cry out with her looming orgasm.

“It is too much, Michael! Please…I cannot…”

“It’s never too much. It’ll never be too much for me and you.” He thrust and turned his fingers in her one final time before Xevera tumbled into a deep ravine of ecstasy.

When she opened her eyes, Michael was kneeling on the foot of the bed, holding one of her feet aloft as he ran a warm damp wash cloth from her ankle to the inside of her thigh.

He grinned at her as he gently washed the leftover juices from her vagina.

She trembled when the rough material of the cloth brushed over
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her tender clit and folds.

“Am I hurting you?”

“No, not at all.”

“Good.” He moved to the basin to wring out the cloth before adding more water and gel and returning to her other leg. “You taste delicious and I licked up as much of your juices as I could, but there was still a little left over.”

“Mmm…” Xevera closed her eyes, enjoying his touch and hypnotized by the deliberate relaxed movements of his task—wash, wring out, lather, rinse and repeat.

He got up to change the water twice before he completed the ritual and sat down beside her to dry her off with a big fluffy white towel.

“Why are you being so nice to me?” she asked.

“You belong to me.”

She did not bother to dispute him this time because,
Lilith
help her, he uttered the truth.

56

Gracie C. McKeever

When Xevera next woke, a couple of hours must have passed, for she glanced out the bedroom window to see the dim light of early dawn.

She had slept deeply and much better than she had in an age, even with her hands…

Xevera sat up with a jerk, still exhausted but curious when she realized that her wrists were no longer cuffed to the bedposts.

Michael strolled into the room that moment clad in a dark-blue paramedic uniform and a pair of black shoes buffed to a high shine. “I thought you could use a little freedom to take care of your needs while I’m gone.”

He looked so powerful and masculine in the official, militaristic attire that it took everything in Xevera to drag her gaze from his tall well-built body to his face.

Had she thought she would find relief from the attack on her hormones here, she was much mistaken, for when she saw the voracious look of possession in his eyes, she instantly became wet between her legs.

If this continued, he would have to bathe her again before he left.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“To work.”

“You are leaving me alone?”

“Think you can behave yourself until I get back?”

She was about to ask him why he trusted her not to leave once he was gone when she realized that he did not trust her. One of her ankles was still shackled, though not to the bed.

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Xevera followed the long length of chain attached to her ankle and saw that it led clear into the next room. She pierced him with a look.

“I suppose I will have to.”

“It’s long enough to give you the run of the apartment.”

“But I cannot leave.”

He did not answer her, just returned her glare.

“What if I called for help?”

“You wouldn’t put anyone else in the path of your hunger and risk killing them.”

He was right and she grudgingly admired the way he put the onus of keeping the human race safe on her. He could not trust her not to escape, but he could trust that she did not want to put anyone in harm’s way.

Already her hunger whispered at the edge of her awareness, presently sated by her and Michael’s activities from the previous night.

Would the desire remain at bay until he returned?

“Am I to remain naked while you are gone?”

“As much as the idea of you naked and chained in my apartment excites the hell out of me…” He turned his back and went to the bureau across the room where he retrieved a navy T-shirt from the top drawer, turned and tossed it to her.

Xevera caught the garment and immediately pulled it on over her head. She liked the way the soft cotton fell to the middle of her thighs and especially liked the clean spicy scent of Michael clinging to the material. He would be with her even once he left.

He crossed the room to stand in front of her and reached out a hand to cup her cheek. “There’s plenty of food in the fridge and cupboards. Do you know how to cook?”

“I believe I can manage.”

“Good. You can start dinner while I’m out.”

“Is that an order?”

He smiled. “I’ll be back around eight.” He burrowed his fingers in
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Gracie C. McKeever

her hair and bent his head to kiss her, seizing her mouth with the expertise and strength of an invading military force.

Despite his fire, Xevera felt him holding back, his desire balancing on a fine edge of restraint as he plundered her mouth. When she tangled her tongue with his and tried to deepen and prolong their kiss, Michael pulled back and brushed a thumb over her bottom lip.

“I’ll see you when I get back.”

Without another word, he turned and left.

* * * *

Michael closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the door, heart pounding.

It had taken every ounce of willpower he possessed to walk out of his apartment without taking Xevera once more before he left, just once to tide him over for the rest of the day.

Was that so much to ask when he had been without the giving warmth and tender touch of a woman in more months than he cared to count?

“Rough night?”

He jerked open his eyes to see his landlord Mrs. Knowles standing outside her own apartment door with a bag of garbage in one hand.

Nice ploy, but trash day was yesterday. Michael smiled, used to the woman’s antics.

God love her, she was a sweet old soul with her heart in the right place, but she reminded him of the annoying and nosy neighbor Mrs.

Kravitz from
Bewitched
. He knew every neighborhood, every building had its Mrs. Kravitz, and Mrs. Knowles was his.

“No rougher than usual,” he murmured.

“You look like you didn’t get much sleep, young man. After all, early to bed—”

“You’re absolutely right, ma’am. I’ll make sure and remember that too.” He turned to head down the stairs but Mrs. Knowles stepped
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into his path.

“I couldn’t help noticing that you brought company home last night.”

Yep, for the first time in six years since he had moved in. Kind of difficult
not
to notice when he made it a point not to bring women to his place. “Is there a problem, Mrs. Knowles?”

“Oh, not a problem at all. It’s just that your lady friend didn’t look too well.”

Not that Mrs. Knowles could have seen too much, with Xevera wrapped from head to toe in a blanket when he’d carried her in.

He supposed he should be glad his landlord assumed he had brought home a woman and wasn’t insinuating he was gay. “She’s a close friend visiting from out of the country. She’s not used to our Long Island Iced Teas.”

“Ah, she had one too many then.”

“Something like that.”

“You’re sure she’s okay and you don’t want someone to check on her while you’re out?”

For the first time since their affiliation, he was tempted to read her and wished he had the ability to influence minds.

The woman had a key to his apartment. If he couldn’t convince her to respect his privacy the way that he respected hers… “That won’t be necessary, Mrs. Knowles.”

Something in his firm tone and expression must have decided her as she backed away from the staircase to let him pass. “Well, if you’re sure…”

“Very.” He headed down the stairs, opened the front door and briefly turned back. “You have a good day.” He barely heard her low,

“You too,” before he was out the door, bounding down the flight of stone steps outside, and heading to the curb where his SUV was parked.

Michael sat in the driver’s seat for several beats, staring up at the mullioned doors and watching Mrs. Knowles watching him, before
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