Enduring Retribution e-book (7 page)

“Of course, your dickship. While I’m bowing and scraping, would you like for me to lick your boots as well? You can just…” She leaned in and sniffed his throat. Tristan felt his cock go from semi-hard, a perpetual state around her, to rock hard in a nanosecond. “You? Oh my God, you healed me? You gave me your blood, didn’t you? Well shit, shit, and double shit! Do you know what you’ve done?”

She started advancing on him; he backed up. Her eyes had darkened again, that deep, deep green that he found he was beginning to love. Then stopped that thought before it could get him into trouble. More so than he was currently in.

“I was called to help and to save your life. And I did, so yes, I healed you. You would have been dead had I not. But that does not negate the fact that things have changed. You must learn to—”

“You had no right! No right at all! Do you think that I want to live like this? Do you think that I do this job because it fulfills me? You insufferable prick. I…I should…”

Her growl startled him. It was deep and sexy, low, and purred along his skin like a caress.

Tristan thought he was going to need a therapist when this was over. He’d gone off the deep…deeper end since meeting her.

She turned quickly, and he moved forward again to catch her, but it only made him a closer target. She came back around in a roundhouse punch that caught him square on his right jaw.

Pain unlike he’d ever felt before reverberated through is entire body. His head exploded first from her fist connecting to his jaw, then when his head connected with the wall behind him. He dropped to the floor and slipped away.

When he came around a few minutes later—thank God for the regenerative powers of a vampire—he was still on the floor of her hospital room. She, of course, was nowhere in sight. He stood up slowly and ran his hand along his jaw, wincing at how tender it was. Then he felt for the knot on the back of his head and his fingers came away with a few drops of blood. Christ, that woman could deliver a punch! And shit! He was no closer to figuring out her name than he had been before.

He reached for her and found that she was still in the hospital, downstairs in the main area.

Ah, billing. He grabbed his briefcase and went to find his lovely mate. He stepped into the elevator and pushed the button to go down. When the doors closed, he could only stare at the reflection that looked back at him in the stainless steel doors.

His clothing was disheveled, his tie askew. He saw a stain on his shirt and lifted the spot to his nose to inhale the small drop of her blood he’d spilled. But it was his face that startled him.

The smile on his own face was so unfamiliar to him. He nearly looked behind him to see who could be standing that close. She had just knocked him for a loop, disobeyed him, and he was smiling. He had been too long without his solitude. She was affecting his mind, slowly driving him insane.

~~~

She was standing there crying when he came up behind her. When she saw him, she turned her back to him and wiped furiously at her face. When she turned back, she glared at him when he handed her his handkerchief. She laughed as she took it.

“What?” He didn’t look amused. But then she thought he was always scowling at one thing or another when she was around.

“Only you would carry a real cloth handkerchief when there are, oh I don’t know, perhaps fifty different brands of tissues on the market.” Bailey blew her nose and tried to hand it back to him. Of course he didn’t take it.

“They tend to be unsanitary and human diseases abound. We may not be able to catch anything from them, but we still don’t have to be subject to their germs.”

He hadn’t referred to her as human, she noticed. He was correct in that, but for some reason, it bothered her. She was about to tell him to get lost again when she remember that he’d given her blood. She smiled when he flexed his jaw and rubbed it.

“Did you take mine? My blood, did you take mine too?”

“Yes. I…what’s your name? Please tell me your name.” He moved closer to her and she tried to back away. The woman behind the counter came from behind the stacks of filing cabinets just then or Bailey wasn’t sure she would have moved back more.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. St. James, but I don’t got no billing for you down here already. Do you thinking maybe it’s been under a differ name?” Her English, while butchered, didn’t hurt Bailey’s ears as much as some people’s version of what they thought was English might should like when they were faced with something they didn’t know. But she understood her well enough.

“No, I’m sure it’s just delayed. I’ll be in tomorrow to pay for the billing.” Bailey glanced at her name tag. “Shanna, right? Shall I ask for you then?”

“Yes, missus. That’ll be fine. I be in at eight o’clock. Billing usually have the new ones down to us at that time. If you ask for me, I will help.” Bailey smiled her thanks.

After the woman walked away, back to her cubbyhole, Bailey turned to Tristan. She had never really looked at him, and found herself mesmerized. He was a superb species of a man if maybe a little uptight; well, okay, he was a lot uptight. His hair was long, just curving up at his collar, and the color was a rich, shiny black. It was so thick, it begged to be tousled. She wanted to, too, to tousle him completely. He also had a deep widow’s peak. His eyes were dark blue and she knew that they could be darker, because they deepened, getting redder when he was angry.

She had yet to see him happy, thinking he hadn’t been so in a long, long time. She didn’t know if they lightened when he smiled, but wasn’t willing to get too attached to find out. His jaw was hard and strong, the bruise she had given him already fading. He was taller than her by nearly a foot, and outweighed her by a good seventy-five pounds of pure male muscle.

But it was his voice; it was deep and soft at the same time. His accent, though slight, made her skin prickle with goose bumps, and when he whispered through her mind, well, she just wasn’t going to go there. Suffice it to say, she needed a quick trip to the ladies room to cool her cheeks. Other parts of her body wanted relief too, but that so wasn’t happening. He drove her so crazy one minute she wanted to hit him, then he’d get close to her and it was all she could do not to strip him down and taste him.

“I’m hungry. For food. And I have to tell you what will happen now that you’ve taken my blood. I…I’m not…it will make changes in you. You need to know what to expect. Then I want you to go away and leave me alone. We have nothing in common, other than you drive me as bat-shit as I do you. So do we have a deal?”

He looked at her for a few long tense seconds, then stepped up to her and pinned her to the counter that was just behind her with a hand on each side of her body. His pressed tightly up against hers.

“No.” He leaned in slowly and brushed his lips across hers in a featherlike touch. Then again, slightly harder, more firmly, breathing her in. She flicked out her tongue to taste him on her mouth. When he groaned and ran his tongue across the seam of her lips she had just dampened, her entire body felt it. When she opened for him, he took her voraciously, devoured her, and consumed her. Bailey’s hands tentatively touched his shoulders, moved lightly across them when he put his hands to her elbows and pushed them up to encircle him. He then pulled her to him, one arm around the small of her waist, the other tucked deeply under her neck.

The world ceased to move. Nothing else mattered but his mouth on hers, his body pressing against hers. And when he slid his leg between hers and pulled her harder against him, she moaned, deep from her toes. Her body was on fire for his.

“Excuse me!
Excuse me!
This is a hospital, not a brothel. I will have you know that we frown upon that sort of behavior here. You will need to take this elsewhere, preferable somewhere in private.” The woman’s voice cut through the haze of sexual fog like a knife.

Bailey jerked away from Tristan so fast she banged the counter and knocked a vase off. Had it not been for his fast move, it would have shattered on the floor. She moved to her left, getting as far from him as she could. What the fuck was wrong with her?

“I’m sorry, I…we didn’t…I…he kissed…”

Bailey ran her fingers across her lips that were still warm, no, hot from his mouth being against them. He watched her so intently that she couldn’t have made a coherent thought or decision if her life depended on it. He had literally rocked her world and was continuing to do so.

He glanced at the woman behind them and answered for them both

“Thank you, I do apologize, but she was in a terrible accident today and I was just so happy to find her all right that I…well, you know how newlyweds are. We just can’t get enough of each other at the best of times. Do forgive us, we’ll be going now. Come, love, we should let this nice lady get back to work.” He held out his hand. She knew that once she took it, things were never going to be the same again. Bailey closed her eyes and put her hand into his.

He took her hand and half-led, half-dragged her out of the building. He had her seated in a nice pub and a glass of water in front of her before she was able to respond.

“You…you kissed me.”

“Yes, so glad that you noticed. You kissed me back as well. And I must say, you did a very nice job of it too. I’d very much like to do it again in the very near future.” He had a tone. She didn’t like it either.

“Don’t be insufferable. Why? I don’t understand why you’d even do something like that, especially to me. I mean, don’t I…you know, the tissue thingy? Don’t I have, I don’t know, millions of germs on me too?”

“It was a chance I was willing to take. A lot.” He moved closer to her on the bench. “I’d very much like to take another chance right now. You taste like ambrosia to me. Fresh oranges much like the blossoms on the tree in our front yard where I grew up.”

When he moved over on the bench to kiss her again, she stopped him with a hand to his chest. This had to stop. They couldn’t do this. At least she didn’t think they could, but the closer he got to her, the less and less she was beginning to remember why.

“Now you stop right there. This is just as much a public place as the hospital, and I don’t want you…you can’t…you can’t just go around kissing people willy-nilly like that. I don’t think…you can’t want to kiss me. I’m…I’m not right.” She realized he had turned her into a ninny. Bailey hated ninnies.

“How are you not right, love? You certainly tasted all right to me, delicious as a matter of fact. But maybe I should have another taste, just to be sure.”

This was the third time he had asked for a kiss. This time, she wasn’t fast enough. He cupped her head with his hand, jerked her to him, and sealed his mouth over hers before she could protest.

His tongue dueled and danced with hers, sliding along it, and he sucked it into his mouth. He pulled a shadow around them. She was glad for that. She didn’t want to be interrupted this time, not until she had her fill of him, of his mouth and taste. Bailey was afraid that this was only the beginning and it terrified her beyond reason.

“Your name, love, tell me your name.” H
e whispered though her mind, low and urgent, soft and sexy. She couldn’t have refused him even if she wanted to. And she most certainly didn’t want to.

“Bailey, I’m…my name is Bailey Morrison. Please, you must stop, you can’t…Oh God,
yes!” H
e cupped her breast in his palm, brushed his thumb across her hard peak.

His moan moved through her, touched her in places she thought to be long dead, her heart for one. He pulled her closer, over him and onto his lap. Her legs instinctively straddled his thighs and she pressed her body, her heat, closer to his cock. His hands cupped her ass, cradling her to him as he showed her what he wanted, showed her how to ride him. He reached down between her thighs, and pressed his thumb against her clit through her jeans. Over and over she rode his fingers as he pressed his cock hard against her.

She was going to come and come hard. When he licked the pounding pulse at her throat, just as she was doing to him, he nearly sent her over the edge as he nipped at her. She needed him, wanted him. He sank his teeth into her the moment she did hers. Her fangs sank deep and into him and he came with her, exploded with an unexpected roar that tore out of her.

She forgot they were in yet another public place.

~~~

“We will never be able to step foot in that restaurant again. I hope you’re happy. And I never got to eat. Food, I didn’t get any food. I told you there was something you needed to know.

I can’t believe we did…shit, us…we?” She wouldn’t look at him.

“Yes, love we did. And I’ll feed you. Just tell me what you want to eat and I’ll have the driver stop and we’ll get it. You’ll need to keep up your strength.” He touched her, ran his fingers down her arm and up again. He loved the way she reacted to that, the slight shudder that raced through her body and into his.

“Don’t you even care…of course you don’t. Why should you? It’s probably like some Tarzan thing, the equivalent to pounding on your chest, us being thrown, literally thrown, from a restaurant because we were…because we. Stop smiling, it is not funny. Sheesh, you’re impossible.” She looked out the window again. “Where are you taking us?”

“To my home. We can stay there and…talk.”

His tone suggested something other than talking, and he did want everything from her. He was suddenly glad she was too fuzzy to realize what he’d done. Tristan wanted her beneath him as soon as they walked in the door. Now would make him just as happy, but he wanted a proper bed this time and he needed to be inside of her, deep and hard.

They had nearly had sex on the bench in a restaurant. He wondered what his brothers would think if they knew. They wouldn’t believe him, he knew it. But every person in that restaurant did and had stared at them after they had come. They had both yelled, quite loudly as a matter of fact, yelled out their release. Tristan thought Bailey had it right. It was a Tarzan thing. He lifted his fist to his chest and pounded it twice just for the thrill of it.

“You have a home here too? Sure, why not? I guess if you live a million years you can own just about anything you want. And don’t look at me like that, you arrogant ass.” Tristan glared at her when she continued to call him names. “You have no idea what you’ve done.”