CONCEPTION (The Others) (11 page)

Tears she hated burned her eyes. “I’ll do whatever you want.
I’ll beg.”

His gaze hardened. His thumb brushed a tear from her cheek.
For one second, his expression reflected the agony she felt, and then that hard
mask of resolve settled over his features. “I cannot give you what you want.”

He was punishing her. Had to be. Had to be extracting his
revenge for her part in his downfall. “I swear I didn’t know, Deuce. I didn’t
know what my grandfather was going to do. I was so in love.”

Oh God, had she really said that? Revealed her weakness?
What was happening to her? She raised her gaze to his. “I was so naïve,” she
moaned, feeling again the burning humiliation of what she’d cost them.

“I would not punish you this way, Edie, but I cannot give
you what you think you need.”

“Because you think I betrayed you?” She understood that, even
as that understanding defeated her.

He shook his head and brushed his lips over hers, the
sadness in the touch echoing the sadness in his eyes. “Because the shock would
kill you.”

“Shock?”

“We need to go slowly,” he whispered against her cheek. His
tone was incredibly gentle in direct contrast to the violent hunger within her.
His hands on the sides of her face were the only thing that kept her from
biting him again.

How could he stand to see her like this? If it continued
much longer, she knew she was going to lose her mind. “I hurt.”

The rough pads of his thumbs grazed her cheekbones, paused
and then pressed.” I will help.”

“When?”
Oh God, when?

As if he heard her mental cry, he whispered, “Now.”

From one heartbeat to the next, his pants disappeared. His
cock pressed against her hip, hard and hot. It wasn’t what she wanted. She
twisted away. He released her face and caught her shoulders. She fought the
pressure forcing her back. She needed to stay connected to him. His big body
followed her down, his hands controlling her decent. “Slowly, Edie.”

She didn’t want slowly. She wanted to feel good, the way she
had for that brief moment when she’d been drinking from him.

Oh God, she had been drinking from him. Horror built on
hunger. She rubbed the back of her hand across her mouth. Her shoulders hit the
mattress as the accusation burst from her lips. “You said I couldn’t be turned
into a vampire.”

He pulled her hand free and held it in his. “You cannot.”

“Then why do I want to suck your blood?”

His right eyebrow went up. “You really did watch a lot of
late-night TV.”

“You’re avoiding the question.”

“Yes.”

His honesty surprised her. “Why?”

“Because I do not know if I can make you understand.”

“I might have been stupid before, but I am not stupid now.”

He fingers on her chin turned her face to his. “You were a
woman discovering your mate. You were sweet, sexy and beautifully open, but you
were never stupid.”

“If I hadn’t been so trusting—”

“You were as you should have been.”

Being trusting had cost her everything. “I will never be
that trusting again.”

He didn’t argue with her, merely sighed as he pulled her
arms over her head, placing the back of one hand into the palm of the other.
“You will stay like this.”

She shivered under the smooth command. “Why?”

“Because your mate tells you to.”

“I have a mind of my own.”

Deuce held her hands pinned to the bed with a deceptively
gentle grip. “I’m aware of that, but if you wish me to ease your pain, you will
not challenge me.”

The hunger put an edge on her temper. “You must have
confused me with a Barbie doll.”

Laughter flared over the concern in his eyes before he
pressed her hands into the mattress. “I am not the one confused.”

His lips brushed her cheek, his breath wafting over her skin
in the softest of caresses. Every nerve ending flared to life, all attention
rushing to that one spot. God, she was pathetically tuned to this man.

“Open your mouth.”

She did, accepting the thrust of his tongue, arching into
him as he penetrated deeper. She wrapped her lips around his tongue and sucked
that unique flavor deeper, letting it sink to her core. It wasn’t enough. His
hand caught her jaw just as she would have clamped down.

“No biting.”

She touched the pad of his thumb with her tongue. The hot,
salty taste of his flesh spiked the need for more with a roar that sobered her
instantly “Why do I want your blood, Deuce, if I’m not turning into a vampire?”

“You do not want my blood so much as to balance your own.”

“With what?”

He turned her head gently until her cheek rested on the
inside of her arm.

He stood, his thick hard cock stretched before him, the
broad head, looking huge and impossibly demanding. A shimmer of moisture graced
the tip. His scent reached out to her, primal and musky, like the forest after
a rain. Again, that strange sense of recognition surged through her body. She
licked her dry lips. Above her, he groaned. She glanced up. His voice was
deeper, rougher as he explained. “When one of the Chosen mates with a human,
the conversion is done carefully, according to ritual.”

“So?”

He released her jaw and her hands, turning slightly as he
did. She got a better view of his cock. The way the shaft widened as it
extended back toward his body had her insides clenching. He’d stretch her
unmercifully if he ever took her all the way. A hot, anticipatory whimper
escaped her control, the lust overwhelming her even in her weakened state
drained the last of her strength.

“Your grandfather tried to convert you but without the
guidance of the ritual, he poisoned you instead.”

“So I
am
going to die?” Die with her body aching with
an unnatural craving for a man she’d once loved.

Deuce pushed the hair off her face. “I will not let you die,
Edie. You need to believe this and trust me.”

“Why?”

“Mates are matched in thought and body.”

She glanced at that intimidating cock. “Nothing about us
matches.”

His smile was gentle as he leaned forward, the heavy sac of
his balls brushing the mattress in a soft hiss of sound. She shuddered under
the implication of his approach. As if on cue, the clamor in her body began
again.

“Everything about us fits, my mate.” His thumb pressed into
her cheek, the touch reinforcing his desire. “You just have to open your eyes.”

And her mind, and her heart and her body. He wanted her to
lay herself bare before him. But it wasn’t going to happen.

She risked a glance down. His cock bobbed between
them—hungry, the tip wet with anticipation. As she watched he cupped his cock
in his palm, drawing it up and out, milking it slowly, stopping just beneath
the flared head, his fingers framing the bulbous tip in a slightly lighter
circle. “My blood is not the only fluid in my body that contains elements
necessary for conversion.”

She blinked. He was talking about his semen. She shook her
head. “You aren’t seriously going to try and convince me that giving you a
blowjob will save my life.”

“Conversion is a process, Edie.” He said that with a
completely straight face.

“I’ll give you one thing, that’s the most original line a man
has ever laid on me for trying to get me to do that.”

Above her, he froze, every muscle in that powerful body
going taut. “You will not speak to me of other men.”

“Why?”

He opened his eyes and looked down. They glowed red with
primitive rage. His fangs flashed in the light, adding to the menace sweeping
off him. “I do not handle the thought of you with others well.”

She cringed back into the bed. She didn’t know this man. He
blinked, and that fast the vision passed. Once again it was just Deuce staring down
at her, his expression calm. He inched her higher. “It does not matter who came
before. There will never be another for you.”

“That’s not your call.”

He shook his head. “I will kill any who try to take you from
me.”

“What if I choose to walk away? What will you do? Will you
kill me, too?”

“It is impossible for me to harm you.”

Which didn’t really answer her question as to what he would
do.

She closed her eyes as he leaned over. The mattress creaked
and dipped to the right as his hand came down, tilting her slightly away. And
then she was tilting back as the mattress on her other side dipped under the
weight of his body. “Open your mouth, Edie mine.”

God help her, everything inside was ordering her to obey.
She started counting back from a hundred in an effort to regain control. She
made it to ninety before she realized that when it came to this man, her body
simply was not her own. Something hard brushed her lips. His cock? She jumped,
repulsed and attracted at the same time. The glancing caress came again along
with a softly worded order.

“Open your eyes.” She did, seeing it was his thumb that
brushed her lips. “Look at me.”

All she had to do was lift her lids and she would be able to
see Deuce’s face, the satisfaction he had to be feeling from being the master
puppeteer to her puppet. All she had to do was lift her lids and say goodbye to
the last of her illusions. It shouldn’t have been so hard to face the truth.
With the last of her reserves, she yanked her gaze up, meeting his black eyes
with a sense of defiance. The sadness in him shocked her to her core. She
searched his expression for the source, once again experiencing that sensation
of tumbling into the unknown.

“Know that I did not want things this way between us.”

His regret shouldn’t have mattered—she was still being
forced into a decision she didn’t want to make—but it did.

“How did you want it?”

“I would have courted you in the way of my people. Shown you
your value to me. Eased you into our relationship.”

“Would I still be doing this?”

His fingers at the base of her skull tipped her head back,
and he gave her the only thing she’d ever known from him. Honesty. “Yes.”

“Then I guess it doesn’t matter.” His cock loomed huge in
front of her as it approached, the slit in the center welling with the fluid he
thought she required.

“It matters.” His thumb pulled her lip down. “I would blur
this for you.”

The offer was tempting, but if she let him blur this, where
did she draw the line? “No.”

“I can feel your distaste.”

Chosen or not, he was a good man making the best of a bad
situation and deserved more than pretense from her. “I wouldn’t call it
distaste, exactly.”

“No?”

She shrugged. “More of a panic.” She brought her hand down
to clasp him. His breath hissed through his teeth.

“You were told to keep your hands in place. You are
disobedient.”

“Get used to it.” He was hard as steel in her grip,
throbbing with a pulse a half beat slower than hers. “Disobedience is becoming
a way of life for me.”

“I will allow it this once.”

Damn nice of him. If she didn’t feel so badly, she’d let him
know just what she thought of his “allowing”.

His hand glided over her jaw, down the arch of her throat to
the swell of her breast. “What has you panicked?”

“If you’re to be believed, you’ve lived for centuries.” He
rubbed the back of his fingers over her left nipple. Lightning shot through her
body, nearly jerking her double. She lay back on the bed, gasping as if pain
tore through her, but feeling none.

“I do not lie.”

“Well then, I’m far from the first to do this to you, and as
this is my first time trying, I can think of about a hundred ways I’m going to
crash and burn.” A chill snaked down her spine and then radiated outward.

“You are my mate. There is no comparison.” The room swam in
and out of focus around the edges. His curse seemed to come from far away. His
“We are out of time” let her know he felt what was happening to her. He gently
removed her hand from his cock and replaced it above her head. “This time, you
will just lie there and let me tend to you.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard a blowjob described quite
that way.” The room spun harder. She closed her eyes and let the creeping
darkness seep into her thoughts. The bed dipped as another curse echoed beyond
the veil clouding her mind. The veil that shouldn’t be there. He was blocking
her.

“No, Deuce.”

“You will not remember this as our first coming together.”
The cloud swirled over reality.

She gritted her teeth and resisted, reaching deep for
strength. Pain sliced through her skull. The cloud whipped back to a speck and
then was gone.

Deuce yanked the edge of the comforter and pressed it
against her nose. “You bleed again.”

She glared at him over the puff of white. “I said no.”

She could actually hear his teeth grind. With a grunt, he threw
the comforter to the side, the streak of red on the white surface was not as
bright as it should have been. She stared at that smear a moment, the reality
of what was happening slowly sinking in.

Deuce’s big hand cupped her cheek. “Let me help you through
this, Edie mine.”

She shook her head. “I may be weak, dying even, but I’ll be
damned if I’ll play the victim again.”

“Letting me ease this for you makes you a victim?”

“No. But running from reality does.”

For the longest moment, he stared at her, and then he
motioned to the bed. “I’m going to help you turn to your side.”

“I can do it myself.”

“You will allow your mate to extend this consideration.”

He was turning her gently even as he spoke. This close, she
had a bird’s-eye view of his cock. It was never going to fit.

“Have you done this before?”

She wished she had a list of lovers a mile long to recite,
but the reality was, her grandfather kept her too secluded for there have to
been much opportunity. There was nothing like being faced with centuries of
experience to make a newcomer to the game feel inadequate. “No.”