Hunted (The Tinder Chronicles) (8 page)

I went through the rest
of the document quickly. The list included thirty-six names, not all of which
had accompanying photos. I had either met, or at least heard of, almost all of
them. The people at the top of the list, except for Bane, were all full-blooded
hunters. Those farther down in the rankings were for the most part partially
sighted, like Lee. Fortunately, his photo was grainy and out of focus, and his
location was listed just as Southern California. “Now how on Earth do the vamps
know who has the sight, and who doesn’t?” I murmured.

“They don’t. The people
on this list are ranked according to how big a threat they’re perceived to be.
That just happens to correlate with the second-sight gift that true hunters
have. A few people on that list aren’t natural-born hunters at all, just
amateurs that have gotten good at killing vampires.”

“So, why are you at the
top of this list?”

He said, “Because there’s
only one thing vampires hate more than hunters.”

“Traitors?”

“Exactly. When I turned
on my people, I signed my own death warrant. I knew that would happen.”

“If you knew it would
happen, why did you turn on them?”

“Do you really not know
the answer to that, Tinder?” Bane asked quietly, pivoting the computer toward
him.

“No, not really. I
mean, you’re clearly some kind of vigilante, but I have no idea why you fight
other vamps.”

He kept his eyes on the
screen as he said, “Once I fell in love with a hunter, I really had no choice.”

“Do you mean me?”

Now he turned his head
to look at me, brows knit. “Who the hell do you think I mean?”

I stared at him,
totally dumbstruck. No one had ever told me they loved me, not once in my
entire life. Not my parents or grandparents, people that really should have.
Not any of my brothers and sisters. Certainly not friends or boyfriends, since
I never really had any of those. “You love me?” I said dumbly, and he nodded.
After a moment of letting that sink in, I asked quietly, “Will you say it to me?”

“Seriously?”

“Please?”

He looked like he
wanted to protest, a sarcastic remark right on the tip of his tongue. But after
a moment, he released the tension in his shoulders and sighed. Then he said, “I
love you, Tyler. I absolutely, totally, unequivocally love you.”

 He seemed defeated
somehow. When he met my gaze, there was both sadness and raw vulnerability in
his beautiful green eyes. It dawned on me that he completely expected me to
reject him, that he was just waiting for me to throw his confession back in his
face.

But no way would I do
that, not when those words meant so much to me. I climbed onto his lap and wrapped
my arms around his shoulders. I really didn’t know what to do, this was all so
new to me, so I just whispered, “Thank you,” because that was what felt right. Bane
pulled back to look at me. Most likely, he was searching for sarcasm or insincerity.
He wouldn’t find either one. After a moment’s hesitation, his arms came up to
embrace me.

We held each other for
a while, and then I kissed him gently. When Bane deepened the kiss, it felt
like an ‘on’ switch had been flipped inside my body, every part of me awakening.
It was far more than just arousal. I spent so much time with my emotions
disengaged, just doing what I had to do – hunting, surviving, and the next day,
repeating the process all over again. I usually didn’t allow myself to feel, not
really, because if I did, loss and sadness and loneliness would just swallow me
whole. But I let myself feel everything now, and it was amazing, like waking up
after a dark winter’s hibernation.

“Please fuck me, Bane,”
I said softly as I tangled my fingers in his dark hair and rested my forehead
on his.

He kissed me tenderly before
pulling back to look at me and saying, “You’ll just regret it if we have sex
again.”

“No I won’t.”

“It’s a bad idea,” he
said, lifting me off his lap and setting me on the kitchen table as he got up.
“You really will regret it, and you’ll end up despising me as a result. I think
it’s best if I go.”

“No!” I hated how
pitiful and desperate that single syllable sounded. But still, I grabbed onto
his sleeve as I jumped off the table, then put my arms around him, holding on
tightly.

“What are you doing, Tinder?”

“Begging you not to
leave.”

He grinned a little.
“You’re going to hate yourself for that later.”

“I don’t care.”

He kissed the top of my
head. “I’ll call you in a few hours and let you know if I’ve made any progress
tracking down the vampires that came after you.” He untangled himself from me
and left the kitchen.

“Please stay,” I said
as I trailed after him.

“No. I’m not going to
add to your regrets.”

“I
wanted
to
regret it last time we slept together, Bane. And it really did throw me off at
first, maybe because it was just so far from anything I’d ever imagined myself
doing,” I said as I followed him down the hall. “But since then…since then it’s
all I can think about. I haven’t been regretting it, I’ve been
craving
it. I’ve been going out every night, giving myself to whoever will have me,
chasing that feeling I had when I was with you. But it’s never right. It’s
never enough. None of those other men could give me what I needed, because none
of them are
you
.”

He’d reached the front
door, and turned to look at me, brows knit. “You said you’d rather kill
yourself than sleep with me again.”

“I’m really sorry I
said that.” Conflict churned in his eyes, I could practically see his rebuttal
building, and I pre-empted it by saying, “Please let me make it up to you.” I
dropped to my knees, still maintaining eye contact, and quickly unfastened his
belt and his jeans, then mouthed his bulge through the thin fabric of his sexy
black briefs. A moan escaped him, and I tugged down the front of his underwear
and took his heavy cock in my mouth.

The moment I started
sucking him, Bane visibly relaxed, exhaling slowly and reaching out to touch my
hair. I kept looking up at him as I worked his cock with my hands and mouth,
feeling him swell between my lips, the connection between us so powerful as I
held his gaze.

When I slid my hands to
his butt and deep-throated him to his balls, that was enough to turn him from
controlled and calm to fiery predator. He actually growled as he grabbed me and
pulled me up to him, crushing my mouth in a demanding kiss as he shoved my leather
jacket off my shoulders and onto the floor.

He carried me to the
bedroom and threw me on the mattress, then started to reach for my waistband,
but I said, “Wait.” He paused, watching me warily. I fumbled for the buttons on
my 501s with shaking hands, saying, “I don’t have that many pairs of jeans, I
want to keep these.” Last time, he’d torn my clothes right off of me. He
grinned and grabbed one of my feet, then untied my boot and yanked it off, tossing
it over his shoulder before doing the same with the other one.

I stripped myself naked,
then got on my back on the mattress. My body was shaking with anticipation, my
cock throbbing and leaking precum onto my belly, and he watched me closely,
hungrily, as he undressed. God, he looked good. He was all power and strength,
so incredibly beautiful.

Despite my intense
longing, I remained perfectly passive, laid out for him on the bed. As soon as
he was naked, he grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me to the edge of the
mattress, so far that my head hung over the edge. He wrapped a hand around my
throat and I opened my mouth, completely giving myself over to him. I knew this
was going to be violent. I knew it was going to push me to my limit. I welcomed
it.

He slid his cock all
the way into my throat as I concentrated on relaxing and taking every inch of
him. He growled again as he began thrusting into my mouth. It started to feel a
little scary and out of control, but I just let go, putting myself completely
in Bane’s hands. The moment I surrendered to him was pure bliss, all fears and anxiety
falling away. All that was left was Bane, and me, and such intense pleasure.

And then it got even
better. Bane lifted my hips off the bed effortlessly, flinging my legs up over
his shoulders, and took my cock between his lips as he continued to fuck my
mouth. I gasped as he easily swallowed me to the hilt, and wrapped my arms
around his waist and held on tight.

He changed his focus
after a while. I moaned around his big dick as he let my hard cock fall from
his lips, then ran his tongue between my legs. He then began doing something to
me that had never been done before. I gasped when his tongue probed me, opening
me up. He stopped thrusting into my mouth, concentrating instead on fucking me
with his tongue, and I actually laughed nervously at the overwhelming intimacy
of what he was doing to me.

When he’d prepped me to
his satisfaction, he spun me around so I was right-side up again. He pushed me
up against the wall of the bedroom before driving his cock into me, his spit
all the lube we needed. I cried out, but it was a cry of pure pleasure. Bane
thrust into me fast and hard, his big hands around my waist, using the wall for
leverage to really pound me. It was so damn good, so exactly right. I flung my
arms and legs around him and held on, burying my face in his shoulder.

“Look at me.” His voice
was low and forceful, much different than his usual tone. I obeyed instantly,
raising my head up and locking eyes with him. My breath caught. There were two
distinct sides to Bane, the guy with a sparkle in his eye and a smirk always at
the ready – and this one. He was pure vampire right now, his gaze sharp and
predatory, totally focused. A little tremor went through me, but I didn’t try
to pull away – not that I would have been able to anyway. I just held on
tighter.

After pounding me
against the wall for a few minutes, Bane picked me up and swung me around, then
deposited me on the floor on my hands and knees. I locked my elbows as he
mounted me from behind, trying to keep myself upright underneath his big body.
He took me even harder in this position, driving himself into me so deep, one
hand holding the back of my neck as I swayed and rocked beneath him.

His other hand slid down
my torso, and he began stroking my achingly hard cock, in time to his thrusts
into me. “Oh God, Bane,” I moaned.

“Cum for me, Tyler,” he
said, and my body actually obeyed him. I cried out as the orgasm tore from me,
shooting clear across the floor. I thrust into his hand as hard as I could,
impaling myself on his cock each time I rocked back. The orgasm just kept
coming and coming and coming. My yells were hoarse, primal, and my body shook
violently. The only thing holding me up was Bane.

“That’s it, sweetheart.”
His voice was soft, and I realized as I came down from that blinding orgasm
that his thrusts into me were slower, more controlled now. I whimpered a little
as yet another shockwave pulsated through me, my hips bucking automatically. He
still held my cock, but his touch was different now, too, gentle and soothing
as he brought me back down.

When that huge,
devastating orgasm had finally reached its conclusion, he eased his cock from
me, and I scrambled around and desperately tried to grab onto him. “No! Please
don’t stop. I don’t want it to be over.”

He picked me up and
kissed me deeply as he cradled me in his arms, then said, “It’s not over, love.
We’ve barely gotten started.”

I smiled at that as he put
me on my back on the mattress, then climbed on top of me. I parted my legs for
him, and he pushed his cock inside me again. The sound I made was
embarrassingly close to a sigh of relief. He laid down on top of me, propped up
slightly on his elbows, and went back to thrusting into me, slowly, deeply. It
was so good, totally different than the hard, fast pounding he’d been giving me
earlier, but still so pleasurable.

I reached up and
touched his cheek, and he turned his head and kissed my fingertips. “This is
the first time I’ve ever had sex in a bed,” I admitted. He knit his brows and
studied me closely. There was a note of sympathy in his expression. I rolled my
eyes and said, “Come on. I was just mentioning it as a side note. There’s no
need to look at me like I’m pitiful.”

He grinned a little and
said, “That wasn’t a look of pity. It was a look that said, I am absolutely determined
to take care of you, far better than you’ve ever taken care of yourself.”

I had to grin, too.
“I’m never going to make that easy for you.”

“I know.” He leaned down
and kissed me again, pumping into me slowly, steadily.

When he broke the kiss,
I asked, “How old are you, Bane?”

He threw his head back
and laughed. “So, you figure this is a good time to get information out of me,
do you?”

I smiled at him,
reaching up and lacing my fingers with his. “Maybe.”

“Why do you want to
know?”

“I’ve just always been
really curious.”

“I’m five hundred and
sixty-three.”

“Holy Christ.”