Scarlet Heat (Born to Darkness) (10 page)

“Hey, don’t talk that way about yourself.” He
reached up and caught my hand, his touch sending a warm, electrical current
through my entire body. It intensified my other problem, making my nipples hard
and my pussy wet.

“Victor…” I said, looking at him uncertainly.
Could he see what was happening to me? Could he sense it somehow? I kept my
other arm self consciously across my breasts, hoping he couldn’t see the pink
points of my nipples pressing against the thin white cotton.

Victor shifted on the couch and his nostrils
flared, as though he was scenting something.

“Goddamn, you smell good,” he murmured, pulling
me closer until I was standing right between his knees. “Didn’t know a vamp
could smell like that.”

Suddenly all I could think about was leaning down
to kiss him—for real this time. I wouldn’t have to lean very far—he was so big
that even with him sitting down and me standing up, we were nearly eye to eye.
Standing between his knees I could smell his warm scent and feel his heat. I
wanted to step into that heat, to melt into his arms and let him warm me up
completely.

God, was I going crazy here?
I can’t do that,
I reminded myself.
I don’t want to do that—not ever again. Besides, I’m a vampire and he’s
a were—we’re natural enemies.

I pulled my hand out of his and took a step back.

“Uh, thanks. I need to—I should go get my
clothes.”

“You do that. Just leave them outside the door
and I’ll take care of them.” He gave me a slow smile that made my insides feel
like they were melting. “Be sure you go around the other way, away from the kitchen.”

“Of course.” I nodded at him with as much dignity
as I could muster and then walked quickly away.

It wasn’t until I was locked safely in the master
bathroom that I breathed a sigh of relief. Finally alone, and I knew what I had
to do. My hand crept under the hem of the t-shirt. Cupping my swollen pussy, I
rubbed gently but firmly against my aching clit.

I came almost at once, biting my lip to keep back
the moan that wanted to escape me. It felt good—incredible—but it wasn’t
enough. Sliding down so that I was sitting with my back to the bathroom door, I
did it again. And then again and again until I was coming almost continuously.
It was like my clit was on a hair-trigger—every time I touched myself I had
another orgasm.

But it didn’t help. No matter how many times I
made myself come—and believe me, I lost count after seventeen—
it didn’t help.
I just kept wanting more
and more but more of what? Why wasn’t my desire fading away? Why was it growing
every time I touched myself? And why couldn’t I stop thinking about Victor,
about letting him touch me, take me in ways I swore I would never want again? I
kept thinking I could smell him, that his warm leather and fur scent was just
on the other side of the door, making me even more sensitive, more needy. But
that was crazy, wasn’t it?

I wasn’t so sure any more.

God, what was happening to me and how could I
make it stop?

Chapter Seven—Victor

What the hell do women do in the bathroom for
hours and hours on end? I paced silently in front of the bathroom door,
wondering if I should knock or say something. After the glam-kiss we’d shared
and feeling her pressed against me in that thin t-shirt with nothing else on,
my cock was rock hard. I
really
needed to get in for a minute and take care of business.

But it didn’t look like I was going to get to do
that any time soon. Taylor had disappeared into the one finished and
functioning bathroom in the house and now she had been in there for over an
hour. I mean, she was a
vampire
for
God’s sake. They don’t even have to use the facilities the way the rest of us
mere mortals do. So what the hell was she
doing
in there?

A soft moan on the other side of the door gave me
what might have been an answer. But no, surely she wasn’t doing
that?
I leaned closer and inhaled,
trying to get a whiff of scent from under the door.

Taylor must have shifted at the same time because
I heard the door creak slightly and then the warm, feminine fragrance of sex
gusted out at me. The scent hit me in the face like a knock-out punch—I
literally staggered backward a step before I caught my balance.

They say most males are visually motivated—that
is, we’d rather watch porn than read a smutty romance novel like women do to
get turned on. But with weres, it’s a whole other sense that rules us—the sense
of smell. Catching a whiff of Taylor’s hot little pussy and hearing that soft
moan from the other side of the door was like walking into a nudie bar where
all the lap dances were free for any other guy.

That was it—I couldn’t stand it a second longer.
I had wanted to wait for privacy but I literally couldn’t anymore. My cock was
aching with need and the brand on my lower back was burning. I had to ease some
of the tension I was feeling or the curse I bore would come down on me like a
ton of bricks. Dealing with that on top of everything else was the last thing I
needed.

I ripped down my sweats, fisted myself, and came
on the third stroke. I usually last a lot longer than that but I felt like I’d
been hard off and on for a solid twenty-four hours by now. Taylor was really
getting under my skin.

I sighed in relief when it was over but then I
heard her again, a soft little moaning sound from the other side of the door,
almost as though she was so turned on she was in pain. I frowned—I had heard
that sound before. The sound of a female who can’t help herself, who needs her
mate.

She’s a vamp, not a wolf,
I reminded
myself, even as I rose to attention a second time.
It’s not that way with her, it can’t be.

But the soft sounds and the unmistakable aroma
coming from under the door made me doubt my own certainty. I had a moment of
sympathy. Poor kid—she probably didn’t know what the hell was going on. I
thought about knocking on the door, maybe trying to explain. But how in the
hell was I supposed to do that without sounding like an opportunistic bastard?

It’ll pass,
I told myself uneasily as I
tucked my still hard cock back in my pants.
It
has to pass because there’s nothing I can do about it.

I decided to go check on her clothes and give her
a little more time to herself so I went out to the garage. She’d thrown her
skirt and blouse and underwear outside the bathroom door as I had requested and
I had put the whole lot in the washing machine earlier. I used the delicate
cycle because I didn’t know what else to do—my entire wardrobe mostly consisted
of jeans and t-shirts that didn’t need any special attention.

The clothes looked okay so I moved them into the
dryer. I’m ashamed to say I lingered a little while over her underwear. It was
a delicate set of lacy white panties and a bra to match—demure and sexy at the
same time, which pretty much seemed to describe Taylor herself as far as I was
concerned.

I couldn’t help imagining her in the underwear as
I put them in the dryer. She looked good in white—like the creamy white dress
I’d had her wear in the little glam-fantasy we’d done. God, why had I asked her
to do that? Why had I offered to drop my mental shields for her? It seemed to
be in the same category as offering her my throat to feed from. I was letting
her in, giving her access to parts of me that ought to stay private, hidden.

But I had sensed hidden things in her mind too,
during our session. Doors she wanted to keep closed, dark places she didn’t
want to look into. I wondered if she would ever trust me enough to let me go to
those places, open those doors. But why should she? And even if she did, it
wasn’t like I could return the favor.

My stomach growled, pulling me out of my thoughts
and reminding me that I hadn’t had anything to eat all day. Well, unless you
counted the three freaking packs of bacon she’d fed me when I was the Wolf
early that morning.

I couldn’t help grinning when I remembered our
little exchange over that. Taylor clearly had a sense of humor that matched my
own. I loved being with a woman who could laugh. Not to mention the fact that
she was gorgeous and kind and brave—

Stop it,
I warned myself.
Just stop right now. You don’t need to get
in any deeper than you already are.

I knew it was true and yet I couldn’t help liking
her.
Like her all you want,
whispered
a little voice in my head.
She may even
like you back but that’s because she doesn’t know.

I put my fingers to the small of my back and
traced the raised ridges of the brand that marked me there. Right, she didn’t
know about my secret—about the curse that had driven me from my old pack. And
if she did, she would most likely run fast and hard in the other direction,
just like every other female I’d ever been with.

There was a reason I was a lone wolf and it
wasn’t just because I was an antisocial bastard. Taylor didn’t need to know
about that, though. We were married in name only. When this was all over, she
was going back to the vampire world and I would stay out here on my land, alone
with my curse forever…

My stomach growled again, putting an end to my
pity party. The three packs of bacon I had consumed in my wolf form were long
gone. Time to make a sandwich and stop playing poor pitiful me.

It was going on six o’clock by that time and the
light in the kitchen had dimmed considerably. It would be twilight soon—safe
enough for Taylor to emerge, I hoped. It hadn’t been much later than this when
I'd gone to collect her the night before. God, had it only been twenty-four
hours since I had brought her home with me? It seemed so much longer. It was strange
how much could happen in a day. Well, a day and a night…

I was thinking so hard about my time with Taylor
that I nearly stepped right in the damn silver trap that was lying out in the
middle of the kitchen floor.

I would have put my foot right into it but the
light of the dying sun caught it, casting a gleam of silver that hit my eye
right before I stepped. I glanced down at the last minute and saw it lying
there, its silver teeth still stained with my blood from the night before.
Shit!
I would have stopped but I was
already in motion, my foot raised for the next step. I wound up making an
awkward little hop to get over it and damned if the fucking thing didn’t jump
up in the air and snap shut, right on the crotch of my sweatpants.

If there are any guys reading, I’ll save you the
agony and tell you right now that it didn’t get me. I thought for a minute it
had, though. I could feel the weight of it dragging against my sweatpants,
could see the bloodstained silver teeth digging into the baggy gray material
and in my mind’s eye I swear I saw my balls clamped in the thing’s awful grip.

“Fuck!”
I shouted, scrabbling
desperately to get it off me, away from me. I shucked the sweatpants down in
record time and grabbed myself with both hands, making sure I was still intact.

Of course, that was how Taylor found me a moment
later when she came rushing to the kitchen door. Pants around my ankles, both
hands groping my junk and the fucking trap still clamped in my sweatpants and
grinning up at me like a set of evil silver teeth.

“Are you all right?” she gasped, giving me a
worried look. She was still wearing my t-shirt but she had a towel in one hand,
as though she’d been about to get in the bath.

“Fine…I think.” I tore my eyes from the crazy
trap and realized what kind of a picture I must make. Damn it, so much for
being Mr. Cool. “Uh—the trap,” I said, nodding down at the thing between my
feet. “It was laying in the middle of the floor. I went to step over it and I
swear it jumped three feet in the air and tried to bite me.”

To my surprise, she didn’t look incredulous at
all. “It twisted in my hands when I got it off you last night and almost got me
too,” she said, frowning. “But I pushed it over in the corner with the broom.
And it was closed when I did that—how did it open up again?”

“Fuck if I know,” I growled, glaring down at the
thing. “I only know the damn thing nearly made a soprano out of me just now.” I
stepped out of the sweatpants it was still attached to and kicked them
carefully to one side. “Throw me that towel, will you?” I asked, nodding at the
towel she was holding in one hand.

Taylor threw it to me and I wrapped it around my
waist, relieved to be covered.

“Do you think someone else could have come into
the house and set it while we were in the other room?” she asked.

I shook my head. “All the doors and windows are
locked. And I’d be able to smell it if someone else was in my house. You and I
are the only ones here.”

“You know I didn’t do it because of the sun.”
Taylor looked thoughtful. “And of course
you
didn’t do it. Do you think…” She looked up at me uncertainly. “Could the
trap have reset itself? I know it sounds crazy but when I was handling it last
night it just seemed so…so
evil.
It
was like I could sense some kind of malicious intent coming off of it—like it
wanted
to hurt someone.”