Ruby (9 page)

Josh watched her climax. Her face,
beautiful at rest, was gorgeous as she came over him. When she was
slowing down her body, no longer riding him with such vigor, he
rolled her to her back and pounded into her again. Her ankles at
his hips brought her as close to him as any other person had ever
been.

His climax was quick. But then it was
followed by a harder, more complete climax when she offered up her
throat to him. Josh never thought about what he was doing and
simply bit her, deeply and harshly right over her vein. The blood
there was hot, spicy, and he drank greedily of her. When she lifted
his head from her throat, he looked down at her and wanted
more.

“
I’m going to mark you. Do
you know what that means? He nodded, not really sure, but he wanted
it. “I’m going to tear into your skin and leave a mark. My mark for
all to see.”

Josh offered her his
throat in the same way she had hers. Her lick had his cock surging
forward again, and when she nipped at his skin, he felt his cock,
already hard even after coming three times, fill and then explode
within her when she tore at his neck. Josh felt his vision blacken
out and his heart skip as she growled. Josh looked down at her just
as he was sure she’d shifted into her wolf. But it was just her,
his mate.
Christ,
Josh thought as he came again.
I’m
going to die right here.

Chapter 6

Ruby wanted to scream at the man but
knew that he was right. She was so fucked right now, and there was
little she could do about it. And crying was going to get her
nowhere fast. This hospital was no better than the one she’d left.
They were only out for a profit and to fuck the people who might
need more than that.

“
I’m not sure what is
going on in that pretty little head of yours, Doctor Erickson, but
when we asked you to come here for orientation, we expected you to
be ready to work. What part of starting right away did you not
understand?” She wanted to punch him in the face and ask him if he
had been ready for that. And she might have, too, if she didn’t
really need this job.

Her cell phone vibrated again in her
pocket, and she tried her best to ignore it. She knew who it was.
It was Josh again. He’d been calling her for two days, since she’d
left him passed out on her living room floor. But it was wrong,
what they’d done, and she didn’t understand why he hadn’t realized
that by now.

“
I expected orientation to
be just that…you to orientate me to the hospital. Show me around,
meet the staff. Had I known you were going to expect me to work
today, I would have applied for my license before you gave me that
job. You obviously think I’m a mind reader…which, by the way, I am
not.” She stood up. “Because, you moronic asshole, that is the only
way I could have been ready to perform surgery on my first day. And
I’m pretty sure you might have known that had you gotten your head
out of your fucking wallet.”

He was still talking when she walked
out of his office. It occurred to her in that moment that she had
no idea what his name was and didn’t really care. But she had to
get out of there before her wolf took her.

She was riding down to the lower
levels when she realized that she’d lost the job. And as she exited
the elevator, she knew she should have expected Josh to be standing
there.

“
You’ve been ignoring my
calls.” She could only stare at him. Ruby wanted to strip him down
and take him against the hood of the first car she saw. “You keep
looking at me like that and I won’t be able to stay mad at
you.”

“
Why not?” He moved toward
her and she moved her body against his as he cupped her ass.
“Christ, I need you to fuck me. I’ve had a really shitty day, and I
need the feel of your cock inside of me now.”

He picked her up then and took her to
the wall. He nearly had her shirt off her when she felt the wall
touch her back. His mouth was everywhere, nipping and laving her
skin as he claimed her. Her skirt, the only one she had, was up
around her hips and he was inside of her before she could think
they might get caught. They were in such a public place.

“
Christ, I needed you
too.” He fucked her hard, and her body seemed to beg for more.
“Come for me. I want to taste your throat when you do.”

Giving him her throat, she screamed
around his shoulder. Her body was peaking again, and he roared out
his own release as he bit into her. It was a quick, hard fuck and
left her wanting more. When he looked down at her, all she could
think about was finding a place where they could do it again as he
moved in and out of her, still pressed against the wall.

“
You left me.” She nodded
and kissed him. Her tongue circled around his tongue. Then she
nipped at him before lifting her head to look at him. “I was really
pissed at you. So much so that I hired a guy to find you so I could
tell you off. Then you come out of the elevator looking like sex on
a stick, and all I could think about was fucking you.”

“
Shut up and fuck me. Come
for me.” He rolled his hips into her, her pussy so ready for him
that when he came again, she joined him. Josh pulled her to his
body, covering her with his jacket. She was still wrapped around
him as he made his way to a long waiting car. “Where are we going?
I have a hotel room where I’m staying.”

“
You were staying there. I
got your things for you after I made reservations somewhere else.”
He opened the door and climbed into the back of a limo and never
let her go. He was fucking her again as the car started forward. “I
want to make love to you in a bed. This is nice and all, but I’d
very much like to see if you’re better with sheets.”

“
Do you think sheets
matter?” Her mind was filled with him taking her on this big bed
with silk sheets when he sat them up. Her body straddled his, and
he was deep inside of her when he told her to behave.

“
Sheets might not matter,
but I want to make love to you all night on some.” He swatted her
ass and then moaned. “Well, that didn’t work. I want to punish you,
but all I can think about is how tight your pussy is around my cock
and how your juices are soaking my balls. Which are tight against
me, ready to fill you again. So I ask again, why did you leave
me?”

Ruby had no choice but to look at him.
She would rather not have to tell him at all, but face to face was
ten kinds of hard.

“
You don’t really want me
in your life.” He swatted her again, and she felt the tears she
never shed fill her eyes. Not from the pain of his hand, but
because she had no idea what to do now. “Josh, I’m terrified. Do
you have any idea what we’ve done? We didn’t want each other, and
the first moment we’re alone, we’re naked and fucking each other
like we want this to be forever.”

“
I do.” She shook her head
at his answer. “I’m serious. I didn’t think I did. I probably
wanted this less than you did, but I talked to Bart. You remember
him?”

“
The man who came looking
for your sister.” He nodded. “What does he have to do with you and
I being together? He’s only a human, you know. There is no way he
could have understood what this means to us.”

“
Your brothers-in-law told
me how much sex we’d have. Blair didn’t, of course, but he did tell
me that there would be a lot of it. And we’d eventually fall in
love. I didn’t want that so badly that I nearly sold my house and
left town. But then Bart came to see me. At your house, believe it
or not. How he afforded that is beyond me, but there he was,
standing on the doorstep and asking to have a word with
me.”

“
He has a stash. He told
me that the day I met him. I offered him money and he told me he
had one somewhere, and that someday people would know it. But I did
give him money for a pop.” Ruby laughed. “What if he has a million
dollars hidden in that cart of his?”

“
He more than likely
does.” Josh shifted them again, and she sat on the seat. He
continued while he did up his pants. “I don’t love you. To be
honest, I’m not even sure I will ever love you. I’m sorry for
that.”

“
I don’t love you either.”
He nodded as he pulled his clothing together. Ruby did the same.
“It’s what worries me so much. That we’re going into this thing…I
don’t know, expecting to have this wonderful life, and there will
never be any love between us.”

“
I understand. But back to
what Bart told me. He said he knows a great many shifters. I asked
him what he meant, and he explained to me that there are more than
just wolves and vampires.” Ruby nodded at him, almost afraid for
him to continue. “Did you know that Quentin…well, I guess you know
that he is both a panther and a wolf.”

“
I do. And what does that
have to do with us?” She wanted to tell him to get to the point,
but she was pretty sure he had to work things out for himself
first. It was more than likely too much for him right
now.

“
He said that at one time
he had a mate. That they were as happy as they’d ever been. Anyway.
He told me that to love a shifter, of any kind, was to have the
romance of your life. Not just sex and love, but a romance. Bart
said that I’d never love as hard, or for as long, as I would you,
and that you’d do the same for me. And that no matter what
happened, we’d be together even after death.” She started to tell
him that they didn’t love each other again when he continued.
“There was a woman before I came here. Teri Parsons. She and I
were…well, I assumed we were in love. Then…I suppose I knew that it
was just something I thought I had to do. Marry her, I mean. We’d
been together for about two years before I asked her. It was okay,
our relationship. We went to parties, had friends over, and even
went on these lavish vacations with my business
partner.”

“
The guy she was fucking.”
He nodded and looked away from her. “Josh, you’re not thinking this
was your fault, are you? She fucked around on you, not the other
way around.”

“
Could I have failed her?”
Ruby crawled over the seat and pulled his face to look into hers.
“She had two men in her bed. A boy and a man. Maybe I wasn’t enough
for her.”

“
When I find this cunt,
I’m going to tell her what the fuck she was missing.” He laughed
and Ruby kissed him on the mouth. “I’m glad she’s out of your life.
She is, right?”

“
They invited me to the
wedding.” Ruby couldn’t help it, she started laughing. “And they’re
trying to see my old secretary. I think…things aren’t going as well
as they had hoped when I left.”

“
They’re tanking.” He
nodded and smiled. “And you love it. What did you do anyway? I
guess you have money. And I’m still not happy about you paying off
my loans. That was unnecessary.”

“
It was to me.” He pulled
her over his lap and wrapped his arms around her as he continued.
“I take businesses and lead them in the right direction to make
money. Sometimes it’s to tell them to fold, more often than not
it’s to show them where they need to cut corners. Those that listen
to me make a hell of a profit. And I do as well. When they tank?
Well, I rarely get my money, but I do get something out of
it.”

“
And why there?” She
looked up at him when he didn’t answer. “Why are you in my home
town? Is it your sister? Is she the reason?”

“
Mostly. But I have two
businesses there. And one of them is a warehouse on Main. I have
plans to renovate it. With your help.”

“
My help?” He nodded. “I
know next to nothing about business and less than that on how to
make one successful. You’d be better off hiring Carter, my baby
nephew.”

“
I want to change it into
a soup kitchen for the homeless, along with a medical unit.” She
leaned away from him and stared. “Say something.”

“
I don’t want you to do
that.” He nodded. “You don’t need to buy me to stay with you. I’m
sure you can tell that we can’t function apart. I was ready to
shift and tear that guy’s throat out because I was missing you so
much. But you have no reason to do this.”

“
I have every reason. And
as much as I’d like to say it was for you, I was going to do this
before I met you. I was doing it to keep my sister off the
streets.” Ruby didn’t want the pain in her heart, but she nodded as
he continued. “She and I were going to run this place. Keep people
safe, keep her safe. But now…now that the hospital has offered me a
job, along with you coming to stay with me, I can—”

“
The hospital offered you
a job?” He nodded. “Doing what? You’re not going to be
operating…Christ, you’re the new head of the administration
department, aren’t you?”

“
Yes. As of the moment you
come back to work. I told them without you there, it was a no go.
If you work there, then I’ll do it for them.” Ruby nodded. He
wanted the job and came to get her so she’d work there too. Moving
off his lap, she leaned back against the door and thought about all
that he’d said about romance and love. It was all a sham. Instead
of telling him that she wasn’t going to do it—because really, it
was all she wanted—Ruby told him she’d sign off on the job they’d
offered her when they got back.

“
Good. In the meantime, I
have dinner reservations and a lovely hotel in mind.” He knocked on
the window between them. The driver appeared, and Josh told him
where to go. Then he pulled her into his arms. Ruby felt as if she
were being shackled to a large stone, and it was tearing her heart
out.