Sins of the Undead Patriot (33 page)

A finger glided into her. “Leera,” he pleaded, his need and hers in his tone.

“I want to but...”

“Don’t overthink this.” He brushed her earlobe with his warm lips. “My touch feels good, feels right. Doesn’t it?”

She closed her eyes and nodded. Better than good. Safe, and protective. And yet that was the issue. Maybe Vaihan could find a way to forgive her betrayal, understand her being with Rowley and Devin. But being with just Devin served no purpose. Yet she wanted him. How could Vaihan forgive her for sleeping with him?

Devin made her feel as Vaihan had once, like a person and not an object of interest.

She met his gaze, covered his mouth and twisted to face him. He entered her mouth with his tongue, reached behind her and lifted her to his waist, carried her to the table and set her down. She tugged her shirt off.

Using his teeth, he grazed her nipple. “I’ll pull out. All right?”

One more worry. Did she trust him to do as he said?

“Leera, you have my word.”

“I know.” She pulled the tie to his shorts loose. “I want you inside me.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He pushed the fabric aside, wrapped one hand around her inner thigh, and lowered himself into her opening. “Mmm.” With his forehead pressed to hers, he pumped out and into her. “So tight and wet.”

The table thumped against the wall.

She wrapped her arms around his neck.

“
Mo cron sceimhiuil
.” He held her gaze with his pear green stare. “
My dark beauty
.” He rubbed her lips with his mouth, coaxing them apart, and licked them. “Delicious,
milis sweet
.” Angled to her, he rocked in and out of her, bringing the head to her labia and bearing deep inside her. “
Neamh, Heaven
.”

She rotated her hips to meet his cock. “Faster.”

“I want to savor you.” He held steady, building more demand inside her for him to bring her to release.

His deep plunges filled her with him, her clit pulsing as his pelvis brushed the bead of flesh. “Like that.”

Up into her, down, and her insides longed for his cock to fill her once more.

“Exactly, like this.” The corner of his mouth flipped up. He suckled her breast.

Her inner muscles contracted around his shaft. She jerked against his thrust, fighting the urge to close her legs, letting the pleasure move through her. “Devin.” A tidal wave shuddered through every part of her.

He withdrew, hand wrapped around the length of his cock and stroked the gleaming head. “Leera.” Cum shot out and drizzled over his fingers.

“
Ta sin luí le cheile
.” He bent, pressed his face to her abdomen, and planted kisses on her stomach. “
That is making love.
”

He spoke to her in his native tongue. She suspected he wasn’t telling her what his words really meant.

As he climbed off the table and cleaned off with a paper towel, the afterglow faded.

What had she done? “I can’t believe I just...” She sat up.

“Not you, we.” He skimmed her jawline with the back of his hand. “And it was amazing.” He leaned in.

Things were messed up enough because she let her attraction to him win out. She pushed him away, hopped off the table and ran into the bathroom.

“Leera.” His footsteps hustled behind her. “Open up.”

“No.” What the hell was she thinking? It was one thing for her to sleep with him for Rowley to build trust, but nothing good could come of what they shared. “We shouldn’t have. That shouldn’t have happened.”

“We need to talk. Please, come out.”

“I can’t.” Tears burned her eyes. “God.” She was doing all this for Peter, and she risked all of that. “I’m so stupid.”

“Leera, open up.” The tone of his voice wavered in pitch.

She had screwed up. “Not unless you promise me you won’t tell Rowley.”

“Not telling him will anger him.”

“Then what we shared doesn’t mean anything to you.” If he told Rowley, she didn’t know what would happen.

“You know that isn’t true.”

Did she? For all she knew this was another part of the sex games. “Then promise me you won’t tell him.”

“I promise, but can you do the same for me?”

She would gain nothing from telling Rowley. “I won’t breathe a word of what we shared to him.” Leera unlocked and opened the door and jetted for the bedroom.

Devin stopped, midpace. “You regret what happened.”

There was no point in lying any more than she had to. “Yes.” She tugged another white t-shirt over her head.

“It’s not because of Rowley. You know he’d forgive you anything.”

She sighed. Rowley felt for her more than he could for anyone.

“It’s because of the undead, Vaihan.” He leaned on the dresser. “You have feelings for him?”

What did it matter? Vaihan hated her. “What do you want me to tell you?”

“The truth.”

“Yes, I have feelings for him.”

“Yet sleeping with Rowley is okay. But me, I threw the balance off since the first night. Why?”

“I don’t know. Vaihan knows about Rowley. The history–the emotions. You represent something else. Something I can’t make sense of. From the first night I enjoyed being with you. Now, even more concretely, and that doesn’t make sense. How long will Rowley welcome you into our bed? And then what? You’ll go when he says
No more
.”

“Do you want me to go?”

“No.”

“Why not, Leera?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know, or you don’t want to say?”

“Leave this...”

“I need to know it isn’t just me and my feelings for you, that you feel something for me too.” He tilted her chin, so her eyes met his.

“I do, but I shouldn’t.” She pulled away.

“You’re safe with me. I promise I won’t let anything happen to you.” Devin’s hand reached around the back of her neck and his mouth crushed hers.

Yet, she knew her actions would compromise him too.

Chapter 41

Vaihan sat. Somehow, the last time he’d been in this room with Leera, the laboratory had melted away. Only she had existed. Today the room shrunk, crowding him. He’d killed her husband, and if he told, then there could never be anything between them. If he kept the lie, the information would eat him from the inside out. One day the truth might surface, and he’d lose her. The scent of the two males lingered in her pores, Rowley’s more faint than the other. And the younger male’s fragrance held endorphins human males produced when they formed emotional connections with females. Who was this male to her?

“Shall I undress?” Leera stood.

“Pardon the pun, but I’m not sure I’m going to be able to
come
through today.” While she’d slept peacefully in the car on the drive there, he’d wanted to claim her body. So primal. She didn’t belong to him, but he belonged to her. She’d claimed him, and for him, there was no way to relinquish the bond.

“What?” She slumped. “I need this, please, Vaihan. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

Not because she cared for him, but for the chance to carry another male’s child. “Do you have feelings for the younger man?” He knew the answer to the question, but wanted her to explain to him how and why the same endorphins he’d smelled when she’d come for him in this very room were now present with this other man.

She crossed her arms and her legs. “His name is Devin, and I do enjoy being with him.”

What kind of messy situation was she in? “And Rowley in all this?”

“He is assured of my safety and satisfaction. Devin is Rowley’s insurance policy.” She stared off to the side.

A policy the man wouldn’t hesitate to collect on. “How grand of him.” The other male went along with the game, but for what reason, since he felt something for Leera?

“Will making me feel any more guilty, upset or humiliated than I already am turn you on?” She sighed.

If she felt those things, why the hell was she taking part? “Of course not.”

“Why bring this up, then?” She tapped the floor with her foot.

“If you feel guilty, upset or humiliated, why are you with Rowley?” Her actions didn’t make any sense. The man was abusing her, and she stayed. He didn’t want to hurt her, but his own pain urged him to press her for answers.

“I will tell you, on one condition.” Tears welled in her eyes.

“Which is?” He wouldn’t agree to a condition she’d yet to voice.

“That you will make no attempt afterward to make me feel better or explain. Any such efforts would only cause me to feel worse.”

If it was the only way she would give him answer, what choice did he have? “Agreed.”

“I’m with Rowley, because despite everything I have done, including sleeping with you–which to him is the mother of all betrayals–he didn’t leave me at the hospital.” With her dark gaze, she challenged him.

As Vaihan had. She’d failed to add in those words, but they were implicitly clear. “I appreciate your honesty.” It was not love, then, but loyalty to a man who’d preyed on her when her vulnerability kept her with him.

She didn’t understand him. He’d nearly killed her. No matter the political fallout, he’d left her to protect her from herself because he could refuse her nothing.

This could be the last time he saw her. His transformation to human may not prove to her how he felt about her. If this was the last time he was with her, he wanted to touch her. “Sit on my knees, facing away from me.”

She rose, spun and sat at the edge of his lap. The coolness from her body temperature seeped into him.

“Spill your breasts from your top and bra,” he said and leaned into her back, tucking his lips to her neck.

As the fabric lowered from her shoulders, he reached around front, felt one of her hard nipples and squeezed it.

She gasped.

“Spread your legs.” She parted her thighs with one foot dangling on each side of his lap.

He withdrew his hard length from his pants. One hand wrapped around his shaft, he pushed aside the thin material of her panties and touched her slick heat with the other. Her inner folds dripped with her excitement. Did being with him turn her on, or did she picture someone else? Perhaps Devin? She was slipping away.

He pumped up and down, inhaling the saccharine fragrance from inside her. Using two fingers, he parted her labia, stretching her opening. She ground herself into his plunging fingers.

“Do you like that?” With his wet fingers, he coated her nipple and pinched the bud.

“Yes.” She swallowed between moans.

Faster, he stroked. “I’d love to fill your ass with my cock, while I finger your pussy.” He rolled his thumb back and forth over her clit. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” She had said as much during their phone sex conversations.

Her deep breaths grew erratic. “Yes.”

He caressed her clit with his fingers, and downward they glided to her inner labia. When he pressed three digits to the tight canal, she jerked into his descending hand. Strumming her nub with his thumb, he massaged the bead.

He sped the rhythm of his strokes. Precum coated the head of his cock in his excitement.

“Vaihan.” She arched her back, jutting her breasts out as she grunted.

“Yes, Leera.” He plunged deeper.

Her internal muscles squeezed his fingers. Juices dripped a trail down his hand to his lap.

“I’m coming!” she cried out.

He milked his release to the surface, grabbed the labeled container and emptied his seed into the clear jar. He wanted to kiss her, tell her how he felt about her. As he rested his head against her back, no words manifested themselves.

* * * *

Vaihan set the box on his desk with his personal belongings. Not the type of items humans would have. A few handwritten thank you notes and photos of him with foreign dignitaries. Despite pleas to ride this out, he wouldn’t be back.

The chief of staff entered his office. “The president has approved your speech with only minor changes.” He held out the papers. “You’ve less than five minutes.”

No love was lost between him and the older human male. He took the speech in hand. “Thank you, George.” The Texas native didn’t much care for Vaihan’s kind.

“She’ll stand behind you in the briefing room for support.” His lips thinned into a line. “However, she won’t take questions from the press.”

Through and through, the president was a dear friend. “I understand.”

“You proved me right, just when I was hoping you wouldn’t.” George paused in the door frame. “I wish you the best.”

The car was packed with everything Vaihan was taking with him to his cabin. He’d provided his roomies Flint, Quinn and Sam money and contacts if they were in need of help. He’d looked after the details. Only one last thing needed to be done.

Vaihan stopped at the door and turned out the light. The hall was deserted as he headed for the stairs. It was someone else’s turn to take up the role of leadership among his people. For twenty-nine years, he’d been the face of the undead.