The Purest of the Breed (The Community) (22 page)

He squeezed his eyes shut. There were so many things wrong with that scenario, he couldn’t even begin to count them. Turning himself into the community snitch, forcing a bond on an unsuspecting human, possibly taking Marissa too roughly in his crazed need…okay, he
was
counting. Which was probably a good thing. He needed to get his shit in a sock before he really did do something he’d regret.

“Wh—” He cleared his throat. “What are you doing here?”
You should go
had been what he’d planned to say, find a way to warn her that weak of will, ravenous, and desperate made a volatile cocktail in him. He sent his tongue in a slow slide across his lips. And heading toward a stupid one.

“I heard you were shot.” Marissa rubbed her hand along his forearm, her touch sending a shiver from the tips of his fangs all the way up into the bones of his temples. “What was I supposed to do after that? Go have drinks with the girls at Garwald’s?”

He blinked a couple of times. He wasn’t…sure…what was going on here. Was she worried about him? They’d known each other for two days.

Marissa lowered her eyes, her long lashes grazing the soft curve of her cheek. “Remember the night you saved me, Dev, how you said you’d always come back?” Her fingertip made a circular pattern on his arm, then—she pinched him.

He jumped. “Jesus!”

Her eyes shot back up to his face. “Getting shot comes awfully close to breaking that promise, buster.”

He swallowed hard and, ridiculously, heat stung the backs of his eyes. This night had just been so screwed up; losing Kendra Mawbry and getting shot, Gábor almost stumbling into the crossfire, too, then Dev landing in a regular human hospital and being threatened with dissection. But lying here now, feeling utterly wiped out and still reeling with aftershocks, he felt like he’d never been very far away from okay. He had a whole community of people watching out for him. Kimberly had come to the hospital, and his team had gotten him home. Tonĩ and Doc Jess had clucked over him like a couple of mother hens, making sure he wasn’t going to die. And now here was Marissa, looking at him with those dainty creases between her brows. Because she
was
worried about him. Dev swallowed again, his Adam’s apple rasping against the inside of his parched throat. For the first time ever in his life, a woman who wasn’t a platonic friend or family member cared about him. A woman he’d met all of two days ago, but who could make a screwed-up night feel a whole lot less screwed by just being here with him and touching his arm.

“No need to get violent, sweetheart. I just got winged,” he lied. “And I did come back, didn’t I?” He tossed a crooked smile at her, careful not to show fangs that were still being annoying.

The creases melted from her brow. “Nevertheless…” He could tell she was still trying to sound huffy, but was losing momentum with that. “I’m not letting you out of my sight for a while.”

He stirred. That was both an “uh, oh” and a “cool.”

“I went to the library and checked out a couple of DVDs for us to watch together.” She held them up. “I have
Notting Hill
and
Love Actually
.”

He squinted at the titles. “I think it’s probably very bad that I’ve never heard of those.”

“They’re Hugh Grant movies.”

“Chick flicks?”

“Totally.”

He groaned.

“Oh, I think you’ll like these.” She slanted a sassy smile at him. “We get to make out during the boring parts. And, for you, that’s probably going to be often.”

The hair on his nape prickled. From anticipation or alarm? Who the fuck could tell. It was probably a little of both. Because kissing her definitely sat at the top of his list of Things I Want To Do But Shouldn’t. The shouldn’t part? Based on a blood-need that would no doubt give his control the middle finger the moment his lips met hers, and the potential for groin-pain…yeah, that was the alarm side of things.

“Although,” she added, “in this case, I might have to retract that offer.” Her mouth turned down at the corners a little. “You don’t exactly look like you were just winged.”

“Nah, I’m okay. I just need some meds.”
As in, blood
. He grabbed his cell phone off his nightstand and texted Ruxandra. He’d pretend his blood donor was a nurse, then hole up with her in the bathroom long enough to choke down blood that would no doubt taste like rotting ass with Marissa so close by. But choke it down he would. His chances of getting Marissa to leave were slim—not with her stubborn side banging heads against his weak resolve—and he was under no illusions about what watching a movie with her would entail: cuddling together in his oversized armchair, her against his side, his arm around her, her head resting on his shoulder. The smell of her hair in his face. The only way he could come close to handling that was to get his fangs to quit acting like a couple of oil pumpjacks wanting to drill deep.

“Once a nurse gets here,” he told her, “I’ll be down for a movie.”

“Great.” She hopped off his bead. “I’ll just pop in one of these DVDs.” He watched her head toward his entertainment center, his eyes pinned on her shapely ass. Her pajama pants were clingy, and…he didn’t see a panty line in sight. Commando?

He bit back a moan, his breath stalling in his chest. His hunger stretched, an insistent fucking beast, lust knotting along the muscles in his legs and lower back.

“
Love Actually
first.” Marissa crouched down in front of his DVD player.

“I’ll, um…I’m sorry, but I’ll have to take a rain check on the making out part.” Probably best not to overestimate the level of ‘handle it’ satisfaction he was going to get out of Ruxandra.

Marissa turned on her heels and looked at him, her expression soft. “That’s okay,” she said with an understanding smile.

He felt himself blush. He probably sounded like a complete virgin with that. Which…yeah… “But I
am
claiming that kiss, and I know just the place we can go for me to redeem my rain check.” He smiled, as big as he could manage with his lips pressed together.

There, that added some testosterone back into his game.
Damn straight
.

Chapter Twenty-two

“I don’t think you’re ready for this, Dev. You were shot just two days ago.” Marissa turned from the twenty-foot-tall rock wall and looked at him. “I doubt rock climbing is among your prescribed recovery exercises.” Butterflies chased moths ’round and ’round in her stomach.
Honesty is the best policy
time:
she
was the one who wasn’t ready for this. Not today, not tomorrow. Not when pigs competed for an Olympic ice dancing Gold in Hell.

“I’m fine, Riss,” Dev assured her. “No worries.”

He did look fine. Amazingly. The mischievous sparkle was back in his eyes, the color in his cheeks was good, and his broad shoulders stretched the limits of his T-shirt with robust health. Guess he actually had only been winged.

Dev crouched down to retie his boot. “What I want to show you at the top is worth the climb, and look—” As he straightened, he pointed up the face of the cave wall. “There are hand holds and steps the whole way. It’ll be a cinch.” He urged her forward.

“Wait!” She stumbled back to her original position. “Aren’t we going to use that rope and pulley system?” The contraption was hanging to the side of the so-called hand holds and steps.

He
tsked
and looked at her from beneath his brows. “That’s for amateurs.”

“
I’m
an amateur!” she shot back, her voice rising. Actually, um…that’d been a full-on shout.

His chin came up slowly, and then his eyebrows arched onto his forehead.

She hid a grimace.
Well, great
. Screaming meant she owed him an explanation. “All right, look. I usually don’t tell men this a week into dating them—because the news sends them running away like I’m some genetic abnormality, which I’m
not
—but I had scoliosis when I was a kid.”

He stepped back, his eyes leveled on her. Listening.

“That’s curvature of the spine, just to clarify. I was diagnosed when I was six. My mom limited my activity, but it still grew worse. By eight I was in a back brace. As you can probably imagine, I was the town circus act, which was such a lovely way to grow up. And at school—ha! No need to expound on that. I wore the brace till I was ten, at which point I had surgery to fuse a couple of my vertebrae. I didn’t do much of anything in the years I wore the brace, and even after I no longer needed it, I was still always careful. Then…when I was fourteen, something happened and…I was determined not to be afraid anymore. I tried different activities, then harder ones, more and more, even though my mom somewhat freaked out. I joined a biking club, went on a white water rafting trip, even played soccer for a season. I never did gymnastics or tennis or things that required too much twisting of my back, though. Because I knew my limitations, Dev, and I worked within them. That’s how I was able to be brave about my new adventures. I pushed myself, but never too far.” Well, this had been more of a speech than she’d initially planned. She pointed a finger upward. “Climbing a twenty-foot-tall wall of rock is too much.” She paused. “I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “Don’t be sorry. And, anyway,” he hiked on a large backpack, “this is one of those things you can do.”

“But—”

“There’s no back twisting involved here, Riss. Just straight up, straight back down. I’ll be with you the whole time.”

She gulped, a slow, bumpy swallow. “You’ll…you’ll help me?”

He shook his head, left to right. “Nope.”

“But—” She didn’t know why she bothered with the “buts.” He wasn’t listening to her.

Dev gently turned her around to face the wall and took her hands in his, placing each of hers in an indentation in the rock face: the first rungs of their ladder up. “Look down,” he told her. “See those holes? Use those as steps. Feet in, then push up with your legs, then grab onto the next hand holds, then feet in the next steps, etcetera. As I said: a cinch.”

Maybe for someone who was part monkey. She stared up the huge expanse of rock wall. It was miles—no, eons—to the top. Her hands shook in the indentations and her breathing scattered.

Dev leaned into her, his wide chest pushing against her back, his mouth near her ear. “No thought of how far, just one step at a time. And by the way, my genetics are strong enough for both of us.”

She craned her head around, gaping at him over her shoulder. Was he saying…he didn’t care about her scoliosis?

He winked. “If it ever comes to that.” His fingers skimmed over her waist. “Let’s go, sweetheart. You’re going to slam dunk this.”

Dev’s confidence in her gave her nerves a boost of calm.
That’s how I was able to be brave about my new adventures. I pushed myself
. She nodded firmly.
Okay, time to walk that talk, Marissa
. She rotated her hips, checking her spine. She was stretched out a bit, but not too badly. Besides, even though Dev said he wouldn’t help her, she knew for certain he wasn’t going to let her fall. She sucked in a huge breath, expelled it, then started climbing.

She was alone in space for the first few feet, her temples pounding in time to her erratic heartbeat, her movements slow and excessively careful. Then she felt Dev climb up right behind her. She could feel his body heat hovering around her legs and her—

“Cute shorts,” he told her. “And an even cuter ass, by the way.”

She chuckled breathlessly. “God, don’t make me laugh. I’ll fall.”

“Don’t think so. You’re almost to the top.”

She stopped. Really?

Dev’s nose nudged her right butt cheek. “Keep going or I’ll bite into the meaty part.”

Laughing again, she continued on. “You’re a dirtbag.” She made it to the top, boosted herself over the edge onto her belly, then scooted forward until she could get her knees under her. She stood…on top of the world!

Dev lithely swung himself onto the ledge, much more athletically graceful than she’d been, but still…

“I did it!” She pumped both fists in the air. “Wahoo! I made it, and you didn’t help me.”

He beamed at her. “Not a bit.”

She threw herself at Dev’s chest. “Thank you.”

One arm came around her waist, and he laughed.

She kissed his check, then stepped back, sunny joy swirling through her. “Thanks for believing in me.”

“You make it easy.” He smiled so broadly, she caught a glimpse of his sharp, hickie-giving teeth. “Now for another cool part.” He took her by the hand, twining his fingers with hers, and led her through a short tunnel. On the other side there was another ledge, wider than the one they’d just climbed onto, providing a perfect view of the back side of the Water Cliffs park. Dev unslung his backpack with a quick, sideways lean of his shoulders and unzipped it, pulling out a blanket. He spread it on the ground. “Lie down,” he instructed her.

She crossed her arms and tossed her ponytail. “I’m not
that
grateful, Mr. Hanky-Panky.”

He chuckled, even as his pupils dilated, deepening the silver of his eyes to grey smoke. “Betcha you are,” he growled. Grabbing her hand, he tugged her down onto the blanket next to him. She tumbled against his side, her arm flopping over his chest, and a giggle slipped out of her.

“On your back, you goofball.” Dev pointed to the cave roof. “And check that out.”