Captiva Captive (12 page)

    “That fact doesn’t stop the jealousy, Blythe.” His eyes were truly haunted. “It never goes away.”

    But his love had.  “Maybe you should catch me in bed with another man and then you’ll quickly get over it.” Take
that
lover boy.

    “Since, you speak from experience.”

    Blythe white-knuckled her purse and watched everything blur.  Much too late, she realized she must have been crying all along. She could blame it on Tony’s illness, her most-recent attack from Sven the shark, her exhaustion from her own sickness, or she could accept the truth.  No matter how hard she tried, Blythe never stopped loving the faithless, beautiful man who stood towering over her. 

She dabbed her eyes with the back of her hand.  Makeup was at a minimum today, but she had on mascara and it wasn’t waterproof.  “Why the chocolate?”

“’Cause he wouldn’t buy you any.”

That’s right
, she realized.  Ryan refused to buy the candy bar hidden beneath the cucumbers in their shopping cart, even though she’d fiercely threatened him. “Yours were from Italy.”

“Your favorites, I remember them all,” he said wistfully.  “Especially the chocolate dipped hazelnuts you sneaked into the movie theater on occasion.  You know, the ones wrapped in silver.”

“I had them for breakfast, thank you.” She worked a mental wrench around her pipes, and successfully closed off her tears.   She stood wondering when her erratic emotions would ever go away and leave behind simple peace instead.

“If you won’t have dinner with me tonight, then I want you to have breakfast with me tomorrow.”

She knew he wasn’t referring to a date, and his wicked gleam snapped her back to reality.  “I’m not sleeping with you again.  Ever. I think I made that point quite clear when I returned your engagement ring.  I didn’t look back then, and I’m not
going
back now.” Oh, she’d looked back every day, but he didn’t need to know that.

“Then let’s move forward.”

“That only works in bad movies.”

Something flashed behind his eyes.  A look that said he was upping the game, but she didn’t know what that particular game was. “I’m still not giving up, Blythe.”

“Work on it.” A chill went down her spine. “If you stay away, it’ll get easier.”
For both of us.

He shook his head no.  “Every year I fought to stay away from you.  But, as you know, on your birthday, it was impossible.”

“Yes, I was there on all those birthdays.” 
Thanks for nothing.

“Since… I proposed on that particular day…” He trailed off recalling the past, before he boldly declared, “You’re the most important thing I’ve ever had, and this time, I refuse to let you go.”

 “I’m sorry.” She squared her shoulders.  “That’s not gonna work for me.  If, at any time, I was that important to you, you would’ve opened your zipper for me
only
.”  Crude, though by the twisted look on his face, she had made her point. 

  Then, that look transformed into something alarming. His pale eyes flared as they moved over her face, across her throat, and wandered down her curves with possessiveness emanating from every pore of his body.   Oddly enough, Blythe could
feel
the strength of his need, and it was frightening.

She took a step back.

    He took one forward. 

Another step back and he caged her against the wall within the steel of his arms.  “Don’t,” she said. The single word came out throaty, and she hated him for that.

    Her lips burned with the brush of his, and she hated him even more for turning her body into a hot mess that didn’t care how tortured her heart was.  Her knees buckled and he caught her with one arm around the small of her back, bringing her tightly against his chest. “Don’t,” she repeated when he slid his whiskered chin across her jawline and suckled her earlobe.  

    “I want to,” he whispered against her throat.

    He stole her very breath, making her want things that she shouldn’t want.  Things she’d convinced herself had never happened to begin with.  She was going to drown.  Drown in the irrevocable hell he would place her in again when he took another stomp across her heart.  “I hate you,” she tried to say it convincingly, though they both knew it was a lie.  He’d taken everything else, but she needed her pride back.

 “Liar.”

 “When I look at you, I’m disgusted,” Blythe gritted, pushing fists against his chest and fighting for her personal space. 

  His lips touched her ear. “Don’t hold back.” He moved his hand lower, a single ripple that ended with him cupping her bottom.

She wiggled to free herself, but he tightened on her and groaned loudly while using his hand to grind her against his hardened length.  His movements were so sure and knowledgeable, as if he’d never spent a day away from her body. “I loathe your touch.”  It had been so long since she sated her needs, she was afraid she’d climax on the spot.

He knew it, too.  Sixten’s breathing picked up, nearly as ragged as hers.  He dipped his head, murmuring through her blouse against her hardened nipple, “You need my touch.”  And he bit it ever-so-lightly while her heart pounded in anticipation of what was about to come.

     Her fingers opened from their fists and, embarrassingly enough, she clawed him closer. “Whatever you’re doing, whatever this is…undo it.”

    “It’s a done deal.” Faster and harder, he stroked her through their clothes. “I have to make you come….
have to
.”

    “Uh,” she couldn’t finish her comeback for lack of coherent thought.

His other hand left the wall, sliding around her breast and twirling the opposite nipple between his thumb and fingers while he continued tormenting the other with his mouth.  All the while, his right arm worked her against his stiff cock until sparks flared behind her eyelids. 

The friction licked fire along her skin until her breath stilled.  Close, closer, closing in on her, and she shuddered against him with a shocking intensity she’d only known with one man. She roared with her body.

Sixten cut her off, crushing his mouth to hers until she thought they suddenly shared the same body.  Her head spun from aftershocks, and her mind fought for the control it had lost.  And when she spoke with a hoarseness that told of a screaming orgasm, her face flamed with mortifying shame.  She bit his lip, gently but successfully stopping him.

He leaned back, eyes heating with dark sensuality, as though he’d mistaken her bite for naughty foreplay.  After blinking them a few times, he realized the push-off, and then they took on a pleading intensity.  She shook her head and watched as they quickly turned into an empty sadness.  “Don’t look at me that way,” she said restlessly.

   “You belong to me and me alone.”  

   “You can’t really believe that.”

   “Only your pride is keeping us apart.”

She dropped her hands from his chest and realized he just didn’t understand.  “It was pride for the first few hours after our break-up.  You know, while I was still in shock.” She leaned back against the rough brick, sacrificing a decent blouse on its sharp edges, but she didn’t care.  “After that, it was survival, getting over the pain of losing you.  Or, maybe,” she said, lifting her hands helplessly, “grasping the fact that I never had you to begin with.”

    “That’s not true.”

“It is,” she said softly.  “So long ago, I thought you were flawless, did everything right.  For a while, I thought I was crazy, but now, I recognize the whole thing as youthful ignorance.  At least I pretend it’s that.” She nodded and closed her eyes. “Without a doubt, I loved you with a strange desperation.  I wanted you more than anyone should want
anything
.  The lies, the hurt you put on me nearly brought me to my knees.” She flicked them open. “No, I take that back.” She stared him down. “Clearly, you brought me to my knees.  But I’m not there anymore.  I’m no longer
down
while looking up at you.” Blythe’s body was still struggling with aftershocks. She couldn’t explain how their recent intimacy just happened and she refused to try.  Of course, it had been so long since she’d been with anyone, and her body was needy.  “I don’t understand what just happened here, I really don’t.” She said determinedly, “But I do know it won’t happen again.”

He gave her a look that said she was gravely mistaken, but instead asked, “Then what am I supposed to do?”

“The same thing I did, Six,” Blythe said with genuine conviction.  “Grow up.”

Chapter 10

S
ixten’s frown deepened while going through the many scenarios he’d pictured for his outing with Blythe.  None of them ended with him leaving her at a questionable tattoo parlor.  She’d proceeded as if it were old hat to sit with testosterone-laden males who were getting everything pierced and inked while licking the very floors she walked upon.  He wasn’t happy about that one bit, and her days working there were numbered.  Sixten had barely left INKS without breaking a few legs, and he couldn’t imagine what she dealt with at the Goth club, Six Feet Under. 

The permanent hard-on she’d left him with had wilted on first sight of
more
competition for her favor.  Most of his rivals were immortal, though Blythe didn’t have a clue, and his mouth had tasted something bitter.  Of course, that could just be his conscious talking.  Sixten used a lot of miasma on Blythe to shield them in the alley and take advantage of their much needed alone time.  After using both his sides, the Habaline and the Species, he’d brought her to a rocking climax that gifted him with the sweetest scent of her arousal.  And the best part?  From her smell, he knew she hadn’t been with Ryan at all.  In fact, he doubted she’d been with a male in months…maybe longer.

He wanted to rub her scent all over himself.  Wash his body with every aromatic essence she released and smell it on his skin night and day. He inhaled deeply.  She still lingered around him with the feminine warmth that would’ve opened beautifully for him…over and over again. She had a body that literally stopped traffic, even today.  And he wanted it back.  He wanted
all
of her back, especially her heart. 

He was trying to settle himself down with some deep breathing exercises, like ones the humans used.  In and out.  In and out.  Fort Myers didn’t need a killer vampire on the loose, and right now; he wanted to take out every male within a hundred-mile  radius of her – immortal or not.   But when it came to Blythe, what else was new? 

Sixten released a half groan and gripped the edge of a wooden picnic table in an attempt to steady the impulses pounding through him.  He knew he couldn’t return tonight and snatch her up, knowing she’d only cede under compulsion.   Whichever way he looked at it, she needed more time, or he’d have to enthrall her.  He only hoped that he still had a chance to move things along naturally, albeit quickly. Tonight, she came apart in his arms, trusting him the way lovers do:  For him to catch her when she fell, holding her until she put herself back together.

Still, there was no denying that his slimy shifter half deigned for the power found in ultimate possession. Since the Habalines arrived on Earth, they’d shamelessly overpowered what they wanted, which included females.  Just took them wherever they stood, wherever they were, selfishly hunting without any regards to others. 

    Shifters slung women over their shoulders, willing or unwilling, like the Neanderthals of long ago.  Since, in Habalines’ minds, they were absolved of any wrongdoing if they provided the women luxurious livability that was far better than anything they had before.  What did shifters expect in return?  Just mating.   Serious, nonstop sex-o-thons where any given female would refuse to return to her old life afterwards, since
mating
was simply that good.

Sadly enough, there were times that Sixten couldn’t blame the Habalines whatsoever. Their blood rushed his veins, and their inherent impulses threaded through his mind with astounding logic.  He’d felt that solid aptitude when Blythe had shut him down in the alley, and he’d fought vehemently not to change her mind the way shifters naturally do. 

A cracking sound snapped him out of his lascivious thoughts just as dull splinters shoved themselves inside his skin.  He should’ve taken care with the table top and not destroyed it, yet he welcomed the pain.  At least, it was distracting him from something he really shouldn’t do.  “Ah, but I want to.”

Kash misted in right on time and dropped an orange and black plastic bag on Sixten’s lap.   Frowning faintly as he sat down at the wobbly picnic table on the edges of Centennial Park.  Sixten rummaged through the bag and grinned like a five year old on Christmas morning.  “A gift for me?”

“I tailed Anthony Giarrusso most of my
day off,
so you owe me…again.” Tight lines stretched across Kash’s otherwise perfect face as he muttered, “Do you know how demeaning it is for a vampire of my station to shop at Spooky’s Halloween Superstore?”

“I’ll admit I’ve never frequented that particular establishment,” Sixten answered in his best haughty tone, “but the drycleaners ruined my favorite cowl, and desperate times call for…”

    Kash cut him off, “Did you know he actually works there?”

“No shit.” Sixten laughed evilly as he snapped off the plastic fangs attached to the neck of a chintzy, black cape.  “Damn, let’s hope I never need dentures.”  He clapped them between his fingers to the intricate beat of an age-old Spanish flamenco. “I would starve.”

“After staying there so long, I had to buy something,” he said irritably.  “Humans are so suspicious.”

“Kash, you’re beautiful and scary.  Humans love beautiful, but they don’t ‘do’ scary well.”  Sixten ducked his head in the bag. “Where’s the black spray for your hair?”

“And waste more money on their stereotypical bullshit?”  Kash stared at him blankly.

“I know, but the spray’s so campy.”

“Like all vampire-inspired puppets on public television.” He looked to the sky.  “Darkness thickens. Anthony should be home unless he stopped somewhere.”

“You have his address?” Sixten curled his brow at Kash’s anxiousness.

“Strangely enough, he’s on Captiva,” he said uneasily.  “I checked out the perimeter of his house before I came here.  Like I said, he should be home by now if he didn’t stop anywhere.”