Chosen by Sin (17 page)

When he sucked the first toe into his mouth, her leg jerked. He wrapped
his fingers around her ankle to hold her in place. Suddenly, moving slow and
touching softly didn’t seem to be as difficult as it once had.

He’d never savored a female during sex, he realized. Not like this.
He’d loved receiving and giving pleasure, of course, but he’d always dived
right in, wanting it intense and hard, going for broke with everything he was
worth. Even with Lucy, when he’d held back it had never been to relish the
touch, sound and taste of her, but simply not to hurt or scare her.

Now, even as he took care not to hurt or scare Jes, it became less
about giving her what she needed and more about experiencing what he’d never
had before. This wasn’t just about sex and physical pleasure or about using his
knowledge to press where he needed for as long as he needed to get his partner
to climax. Instead, it was about exploring every inch of something warm and
beautiful and precious until he knew it even better than his own body. Just for
the sheer joy it brought him.

Joy. Contentment. Belonging. They weren’t words he’d ever thought of in
conjunction with himself, but every time he was with Jes, they somehow managed
to sneak into his subconscious. Unease poked at him, but he shoved it away,
unwilling to stop what he was doing.

He kissed and nibbled and licked his way up her smoothly toned calves
until he reached her thighs. He tugged them further apart and stared at the
feminine pink flesh glistening with the proof of her desire. As he watched,
even more moisture pooled out of her, the cream dripping down her thighs and
calling to him like a siren’s song.

Soft, he thought again. Who knew soft could be so damn intoxicating?

He curled his fingers into the cushions on either side of her thighs,
grounding himself while he leaned in close, his face hovering just an inch over
her soft curls; they were her natural color, a beautiful shade of silver that
made him think of spun silk rather than a metal capable of killing his kind. He
breathed in deep and heard her moan of mortification. She writhed and tangled
her fingers in his hair, trying to push his face closer to her core. He
resisted, shaking his head and growling until she released him. Her arms fell
away and her hands clenched into fists.

“Remember,” he said. “You asked for slow and soft. And that’s exactly
how I’m going to give it to you.” He extended his tongue and lapped up the
dribbles of juice that covered her thighs. Then slowly, softly, he laved his
tongue through her wet cleft. Her hips jerked and arched upward, burying his
face in her musky heat.

He groaned and rubbed his face against her, covering himself with her
arousal.

“I can’t!” she said, her head thrashing against the cushion that even
now he was struggling not to rip to shreds. “
Mon dieu
, I can’t stand it. Please.”

“No,” he said. “I’m only halfway there. I want to suck your nipples.
Don’t you want that, too?”           

She sobbed as he pushed a thick finger into her honeyed depths then
circled her clit with his thumb. Again, he kept his touch gentle, not enough to
give her the release she craved. “Don’t you?” he crooned.

“Yes, please. Now!”

He moved to obey, then caught sight of the scarred flesh on her arm. He
remembered how she’d flinched away from his touch the last time they were
together. “In a minute,” he said. “First…”

He lifted her arm and started at her fingertips, lavishing them with
the same attention that he’d given her toes. Then he smoothed his tongue over
the scars trailing up her arm. Once again, she tried to pull away, but he
wouldn’t let her.

“You’re beautiful,” he said, half-aware that his voice sounded slurred.
As if he was getting drunk on the taste of her. Instead of bothering him, the
thought made him crave her more. If he was drunk, he didn’t have to think about
the past or his revenge or even his duty to talk to the shape-shifters, despite
their resistance. He could lose himself in this moment. Lose himself in her.

“Dex, please,” she wailed. “
S’il te plait.
I’m going to come and I want you inside me when I
do.”

His gaze jerked to her face. Her breath was hitching, and sure enough
she looked like she was about to come. Like she’d been pushed to the edge by
him licking her fingers and arm. He swallowed loudly and suddenly couldn’t
resist any longer. He shifted, pressed the head of his cock against her, then
froze.

Fuck! He wasn’t wearing a condom. He hung his head and groaned.

“
Quel est mauvais?
What’s
wrong?” She arched up, rubbing him with her folds, as if determined to get him
inside her.

Goddess, he wanted to be inside her!

“I don’t have protection.”

“Oh.” She went rigid for a second, then relaxed. “You can’t make me
pregnant by coming in me now, Dex. I swear it.”

She’d said the same thing to him in L.A. Then, he hadn’t taken any
chances. Now, for some crazy reason, he was tempted to.

To hell with it. Since he knew she couldn’t lie, he gave in to
temptation. Flexing his hips, he pushed into her, and although his thrust might
not have been soft, at least it was slow and steady.

Her tight flesh resisted him, but for the first time, he felt the slick
heat of a woman’s core on his bare flesh. Her muscles contracted and pulsed
around his dick as if they didn’t know whether to keep him out or invite him
in. He didn’t give her a choice. He pushed in, tunneling into her, penetrating
her until he was locked deep, unable to go any further. Then he bent down and
sucked one of her ruby nipples into this mouth.

She screamed and started coming. He released her nipple with a loud pop
and stared at her as her face contorted with her release. The tight clasp of
her body embraced his dick like she’d never let it go, and he began thrusting,
prolonging her pleasure while racing toward his.

Forget soft. Even slow wasn’t an option anymore.

He didn’t know how long he thrust or how many climaxes he gave her.
Eventually, her release passed and she lay limply beneath him, her sated gaze
locked with his. Her breasts jiggled and the wet sounds of their slapping flesh
echoed around them. Their combined scent invaded his pores and settled into his
skin and hair until he knew he’d never be able to escape her. His arms trembled
until he feared he wouldn’t be able to hold himself up. But he didn’t stop or
slow down. Instead, he lowered himself fully on top of her, pressed their
bodies so tightly together that nothing could come between them, wrapped his
arms around her, and thrust inside her until the chaise shook and wobbled.

He buried his face in her neck and realized that, once again, she
hadn’t bitten him. But when she’d been lying passively beneath him, dazed with
her release, he thought he’d seen—

He shoved himself up to look at her, his dick swelling even more at the
sight of her unsheathed fangs. “Oh yeah,” he muttered, even as he lowered his
face and curled his tongue around first one fang, then the other.

Her body jerked and her arms flew around him, suddenly no longer
passive but demanding more. But she held back, turning her face away. “Dex,”
she gasped. “Stop.”

“You can drink my blood now without getting sick, can’t you?”

She tucked her bottom lip behind those gorgeous fangs, saying nothing.

He stopped thrusting his hips and instead swiveled them so his pubic
bone ground against her clit. “Can’t you?”

“
Mon dieu
,” she mewled. Her eyes
fixated on his neck.

“Do it, Jes. Take my blood.”

“No. No, I can’t.”

“Jes, look at me.”

Her gaze flickered to his.

“Make me come, Jes. Please. I need it. Bite me.”

Her control shattered. He realized it one second before her fangs
pierced his skin, flinging him into a pleasure that annihilated him,
incinerating him as if he was a fireball and she was the sun. His balls
tightened and he shouted as he exploded.

He shot streams of come into her body, his body jerking with each burst
as a long, drawn-out moan was pulled from him. She milked his cock, hugging him
there just as tightly as she did with the arms she’d wrapped around his body,
as if no part of her ever wanted to let him go.

Lying in Dex’s arms, Jess could no longer deny the truth.

Having sex
with him in L.A. had created a very real, biological connection between them.

Having sex with him just now had only cemented it and confirmed what
she’d suspected.

Her wellbeing, her very future, now depended on him. Somehow, Dex being
here—Dex being inside her again—had not only made her stronger, but
his presence was doing the same for her baby.

Drinking Raul’s blood hadn’t helped the way she’d expected.

The purest human blood no longer nourished her.

But Dex’s proximity and his possession of her did.

She didn’t know why, but she knew without a doubt that the key to
keeping their child healthy was to keep its father close.

Reaching out, she caressed his cheek, sucking in a breath when his eyes
immediately opened. He stared at her, his expression blank, the hazel of his
irises nearly matching his hair. Even lying down, he vibrated with power and
energy, and she immediately leaned toward him, wanting to absorb all that
vitality inside her.

“Were you lying to me when you said you couldn’t get pregnant?”

She couldn’t say she was surprised by the question or the sudden
rigidity in his body as reason returned to him. “No,” she said, almost wincing
at the relief that flooded his expression before he wiped his expression clean
again. If he only knew she couldn’t get pregnant because she was
already
pregnant.

“We need to talk.” He swung his feet to the ground, stood, and gathered
their clothes. He tossed her clothes to her then started getting dressed,
watching her as she used her panties to wipe away the sticky come he’d left on
her. Averting her gaze, she shoved her panties into her pants pocket and
slipped on the pants.

“What brought you to France?” she asked him. He was completely dressed
now and still watching her as she struggled to get back into her shirt.

He cocked a brow. “How do you know I didn’t come to see you?”

Finally, she managed to get the damn shirt on and sat back down on the
chaise. “Other than the fact that I had to send Cy to fetch you? I don’t think
you were sightseeing. You’re here on a mission, aren’t you?”

“I am. I was very much engrossed in my mission when Cy interrupted me.
How familiar are you with shape-shifters?”

She frowned. His question eerily echoed the question Mahone had asked
her when she’d first talked to him on the phone. She told Dex the same thing
she’d told Mahone. “Not very. They’re a hard race to track down, the most
obvious reason being their ability to hide in plain sight. Why?”

“I’m investigating what seems to be a high number of shape-shifter
murders. These murders have been committed by other shape-shifters.”

Jes blinked in surprise. “That’s unusual. They’re usually closely
knit.”

“Exactly. So what would cause a close-knit race to turn against its
own?”

Why was he was asking her? Because he really valued her opinion?
Pleasure, this time wholly unrelated to her physical response to him, shimmered
through her again. She scrambled for a response that would make sense. “What if
individual shape-shifters were doing something immoral? Or dangerous to their
own kind? People can justify almost anything if it’s under the guise of
protecting themselves or others from a physical or even spiritual threat.”

“That makes a lot of sense. But what is it that shape-shifters could be
doing to warrant retaliation by their own kind, and why would they reject
outside help so much they’d kill anyone who offered?”

At what had to
be a confused look on her face, he explained, “Before Cy found me, I ran into a
triad of shape-shifters. My contact called them
diregeants
. They stonewalled me. Implied I should get back to
the States, and fast. Right after that, my own contact tried to kill me.
Coincidence? I don’t think so.”

He spoke so matter-of-factly, as if unconcerned by the fact someone had
tried to kill him, but Jes’s heart nearly stopped at the news.

“I need to go. Tell Mahone what happened and figure out—”

Now her heart did stop. She shot to her feet. “No! You can’t leave!” Her
voice rang out, loud and desperate.

Dex stared at her and she blushed.

What was she doing, shouting at him like that?

“I mean—I know a lot about shape-shifters. Nothing about the
murders, per se, but I have a friend who is an Otherborn Ambassador. He tries
to promote peace between Otherborn races. If you’re looking to meet with the
shape-shifter leaders, he might be able to help.”

Dex looked suspicious and well he should considering she was thinking
of Bodin. Of course, she had no intention of telling Dex that, but that didn’t
mean she couldn’t ask Bodin for the information or for help.

“Is this person someone you trust?” Dex asked.

“Yes. I’ve known him a long time. He’s trustworthy. But he’s sick right
now. I’m not sure he’s in a state of mind to help.”

“He’s sick.” Dex’s eyes rounded. “Shit. Are you talking about the
shape-shifter you were treating when I arrived?”

“No. But besides, what are the chances he knows anything? I mean, I
don’t even know who he is.”

“Did he say who shot him?”

“I told you, I didn’t ask.”

“Then his assailant could very well have been another shape-shifter,
right?”

“Maybe,” she said slowly. “But that’s a pretty big conclusion you’re
drawing.”

“I want to talk to him.”

Whoa. He’d switched gears so fast her mind was spinning. She hadn’t
even had a chance to tell him she was pregnant and he was already moving on to
his mission. It was great he was no longer talking about leaving, but she knew
he’d get back to the topic soon.