Opal (Rare Gems Series Book 4) (10 page)

When he was ready to come again, he pulled from her and reached for his knife.
Sliding along his dick, he used the blood to fist himself as he shot his load all over her. As her tongue slid over her bruised and bloodied lips, catching his cum as she cried out, Fletcher moved down her body to settle over her knees.

Fletcher
loved the taste of pussy and blood, especially when it was spiked with terror. He cut into her breast and fed from her there while he slid down her blood-slicked body. It was time to fuck this bitch. His cock hardened more at just the thought of doing what he did best.

He moved
her legs from under him to get her hips up off the bed. Her pussy was wet now and he opened his mouth to take in the sweet smell of blood and cum. He slid deep into her while holding her legs up to his shoulders. Her tits were moving in time with his fucking, and he smiled. Biting into her thigh, he drank deeply as he came again. He listened to the sound of her heart and thought of two things almost at once. Christ, he was still hard, and she was bleeding out.

He sealed the wounds that he
’d made on her thigh and lay over her. The need to change her to keep her as his playmate seemed like a really good idea. Before he could think things all the way through, he filled her with his blood from his wrist while he drank again from her throat. Fletcher knew the exact moment she realized what he was doing.

The begging didn
’t bother him. He was more than used to that, but what she was saying gave him pause. If what she was saying was true, then he might be able to shift as well. And the thought of being a wolf…well, frankly, it scared the shit out of him. But by the time he thought he should find another female to fuck and let this one die, she was well on her way to being a vampire too. Fletcher lifted his wrist from her mouth to watch the change take her.

Fletcher was so fucked.
And when she told him, sobbed to him that she’d rather meet the sun than to be what he was, he picked up his knife and plunged it into her beating heart. She burst into flames before he could move out of the way.

“
Solved that for you, didn’t I? And now what the hell do I do for fun? Huh? You fucking made it so that not only did I lose three playthings, but you made me have to kill a child of mine.” No answer was forthcoming, and by the time he’d jumped off the bed and turned to his other bodies, he realized something too late. They were all dead, and dead meant he had no food until he could get out of his home.

“
Mother fuck.”

Chapter
6

Opal watched her sister as she talked on the phone. The woman practically glowed she was so lovely during her pregnancy. She knew that if she got as large as her sister, she’d look like a bloated whale, and feel like it too. A man would run in the opposite direction if she—

“
I have nine appointments tomorrow. How the hell do I make nine appointments tomorrow?” She leaned back at her desk and smiled sadly at her. “I had nothing to do with him buying you the building. He asked me what you needed and I just mentioned that you needed a bigger place. I had already set you up to see the house before I spoke to him. I didn’t know that he owned the building until you told me. I never thought to look when I set this up.”

“
But you told him about my appointment.” Sapphire nodded. “Did he tell you why he gave it to me? Why he’d give me a building that he already owns when he could just as easily have sold it to me? When I had the money, that is. I mean, he must want something. I have no idea what it might be.”

“
I’m sure you’ve given that to him already, Opal.” Opal flushed, and Sapphire, of course, laughed at her. “Why are you fighting this? It’s what you wanted and you need it more than ever now. Didn’t Jade say you had like fifty thousand dollars’ worth of orders? You have to have room to make that stuff, right? And as much as I love having you close when you work, that place out there is not going to hold you and all the stuff you need to get started. Where would you store the extra inventory? And you have to admit, having heat and air conditioning will be amazing in the warmer and colder months.”

“
I was going to make it in my little building, then move it into storage as I completed parts of the whole. It’s why I went ahead and took the orders there. I knew that I could make it work from my shop on the property.” It would have cost her a fortune too. Paying for storage and having to drive back and forth between her storage unit and her shop was something that she’d counted on but didn’t necessarily like. If she decided to use Sloan’s building, she’d be able to work and store it all together, as well as have a shop for the extras. It was ideal, yes, but still she didn’t want to be beholden to him for anything.

“
Opal, this isn’t like you to be so impractical. What’s really going on here? Is it because he didn’t talk to you? Or is it something else?” There was that, but it was not what had her upset. She looked around Sapphire’s office, then back at the woman who seemed to not just have it all but knew just what to do with it too.

“
He said he’ll never love me.” Sapphire didn’t say anything, and Opal wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. “I don’t love him either. I’m not even sure most of the time I care for him at all. But he’s really good at sex. And I suppose that all things considered, that’s not a bad way to live. But what of what you and Blair have? I wanted that too someday. But now…well, now I have nothing but a good fuck.”

Her face heated when she thought of what he
’d done to her in the tiny shed. He’d bitten her pussy and drank deeply from her. She could still feel him suckling at her and her coming a dozen times while he did it. Then he’d stood up and slid his thick cock into her so slowly that she’d wanted to scream at him to take her. But she’d held her tongue until he told her to bite him while he had sex with her.

Her fangs seemed to have a mind of their own most of the time
, too. Every time she thought she had a handle on them, the strangest things would make them drop. But the thought of sinking them into Sloan that day had made her gums ache and her canines feel as if they needed to be inside of his skin as much as he was inside of her. She leaned forward and sank her teeth into his pounding pulse, and tasted the difference in him immediately.

He was hers, her wolf and body screamed at her. She wanted to pull him closer to her, have him take her harder
, but she was nervous about looking foolish. But he must have known because before she could touch him, he curled his fingers into her hair and pulled her to his body completely as he continued his long, slow strokes.

“
Come for me, love.” She tried to fight him, but found in the end she wanted this as badly as he did. And when he told her he was coming, her entire body felt as if she were touching a live wire. She would have sworn she felt his cum as it splashed deeply inside of her. Opal looked at Sapphire when she cleared her throat, bringing her back to the present.

“
I take it that the sex is better than his manners.” Opal nodded and tried not to blush again. “Have you tried talking to him? Telling him what you think about all this? He’s usually a reasonable man, and Blair likes him. He can’t be all bad if he does. And for the record, Blair said that he’s just as confused as you are when it comes to your and his relationship.”

“
There is no talking to him. He likes things his way, and damn the person who gets in his way. I can’t even ask him what he’s doing every day because he lies to me. I wonder if he knows I can smell him lying to me.” Sapphire said she’d start with that. “Then what? Do I tell him that other than my things, I haven’t a clue what to put into the showroom he’s suggested that I open in the building? Tell him that other than slap together a few pretty things, I don’t have a clue as to what I’m doing? Or do you think he’d want to hear that I still have nightmares about being a failure; that I wait daily for one of those people who bought my jewelry to call me up and tell me that I’m a fraud and that I should be ashamed of myself for trying to pawn something like I make off onto them. I’m sure he’d want to hear about how his mate is as insecure as they come, and is mostly a failure at everything she touches. “

“
That’s quite enough, young lady.” They both turned to see the man in the doorway. Allen was a wonderful man and always seemed to be really happy, but right now he didn’t look to be either. He’d been living with them for some time now—since Blair had taken Sapphire as his mate—but Opal had never seen this look on his face before. He was visibly upset.

“
I’m sorry you had to hear that.” Allen nodded and looked to his right. Their grandmother walked into the office then, and both of them stood up. She kissed Opal first, then Sapphire.

“
You’ve been complaining, I guess.” Opal looked at Allen when he nodded. “I see. Are things just going too nicely for you then? Or do you like being a whiney little brat? This is not like you at all, young lady. And frankly, I’m having a very difficult time trying to figure out why you’d think that you’re a failure.”

“
I’m neither whiney nor a brat, thank you. I have a mate that I don’t like who is trying to buy his way into my heart. I won’t have it.” As soon as she said it, Opal knew it for the lie it was. “I don’t want him to be my mate. I just want to be left alone to do what I want, when I want.”

“
You’re lying to yourself then, even if you think half of that is true. I’m thinking you’ve just not thought about loving him, so you believe it not to be right. But if you ask me, I think you’re as much in love with him as he is with you.” Opal shook her head, but her grandmother wasn’t having it. “Think about it. And while you do, stop complaining about the building he already owned before he met you and move out of that tiny little place you work in. My granddaughters are making something of themselves, and you’re holding things up. Don’t you want to succeed?”

“
He turned it over to me and I feel like he bought me off.” She looked at Sapphire, who appeared shocked. “It’s just the way I feel. I can’t help but think that he wants me in his bed, and figured I’d fall over him when he gave me what I wanted.”

“
You don’t believe that any more than I do. The man is besotted with you, and more than that, he did something nice for you, and you’re being too much of a stubborn baby to let him help you. What is wrong with you that you can’t take something someone wants you to have? It still belongs to you.” Her grandmother sat down and eyed her with such a look that Opal squirmed. “You do love him, don’t you, child? And you’re just too much like him to admit it. Not even to yourself.”

Opal didn
’t love him. She liked him well enough, she supposed, most of the time, but he was overbearing and too full of himself for her to even think of loving him. It was simply the satisfaction of all the sex she was having that her grandmother could see. That was it, and not love. Sloan was a man who fell in love with women that would hang on his every word, and not someone who was too shy to tell him that she loved the building but was afraid. Instead of digging too deeply into her feelings, she changed the subject to something else that was bothering her.

“
What am I supposed to do with the rest of the building? He said I should have a shop. A shop. What do I do with a shop?” She looked at her grandmother, who smiled at her. “You think I can do this? I don’t have any idea what kind of things people would buy or how much they’d pay.”

“
You should talk to your sister, Jade. She can help you put some stuff in that front window. Did you see what she’s done to the outside of the greenhouse? I nearly told her to pack it up so I could put it out here. But she was too busy.” Opal told her grandmother that she’d designed that before she could think that Jade should have the credit. It had been her idea to decorate. She’d only given her what she thought would go well together. “And here you are worried about filling your own windows. My goodness, child, get started. Any and all of us would help you. I might even be talked into ringing up a few customers just to have some fun. And I know that I’d be a good customer too.”

Started
? And how the hell was she supposed to afford that too? Opal left them a little while later, no closer to figuring out what to do than before. When she drove by the building, her building, she stopped, and before she could change her mind, got out of her car and went inside. Again she was struck by the vastness of the first floor, and wandered around trying to imagine it all filled with small, special things that people would buy.

Are you close to Blair
’s building?
She was startled out of thoughts of building a large display of candles in her mind when Sloan touched her mind.
I need you to come to me if you can. I need…I’ve been hurt. Not badly, but enough that I would like to drink from you. And maybe a little loving too.

Hush. I
’m on my way.
She locked up the building and was crossing the street when she saw Blair. He had blood on his shirt and he was watching the street. When he saw her, she thought he looked relieved, and that made her move a little faster. By the time they were riding up the elevator, Opal was frantic with worry. There was a great deal of blood, not just on his shirt but his pants as well. He told her it wasn’t his but Sloan’s and Rufus’s. Both of them had been hurt while protecting him.