Enemy Lover (26 page)

Breathing heavily among the damp, wrinkled linens, it took only seconds for him to realize he wanted more—needed more. More sex. More blood. All of her. But if he took more, he would lose it all. He needed to leave. Now, and not look over his shoulder. She would get them both killed.

As winded as he was, it only took him a few minutes to recover. It took his partner much, much longer. As he pulled away from her, she lay with her eyes closed, gasping for breath. He closed his eyes and tried to probe her thoughts. He felt her fear, her excitement, and he was glad to know any thoughts of that pig who had violated her were far away. He wished he could erase them for her, but he didn’t possess that power. At best, he could read her emotions and soothe her with his thoughts. He wondered if having taken his blood, though only a slight bit, she could read his emotions, as well. The idea bothered him.

He turned to his side and studied her, slick and breathless beside him. Her full breasts rose and fell with each harsh breath she took. Her pink nipples were hard, her breasts full, round. And soft. He resisted the urge to rub his cheek against them. His gaze traveled down her belly to the jagged scar there. He scowled.

Lightly he traced a finger along the raised skin.

“Don’ t,” she commanded and grabbed his hand, halting his touch. She turned to face him, her eyes blazing angrily.

He didn’t push it, but he didn’t withdraw his touch, either. “What happened?”

She sat up, shook him off, and grabbed her knees to her chest. “Nothing that concerns you.” Standing, she strolled to the open bathroom door, wrapping herself in feigned composure, as if it had been body armor. She paused and, without looking over her shoulder, said, “I want you to leave.”

Marcus snorted and stood. He walked slowly up behind her. “Why?”

“Because I’m tired.”

He lowered his lips to her right shoulder. “Me too.” He kissed her, not wanting to leave and not buying her sudden show of bravado. “But I need to shower before I go.”

Her body stiffened. “Go shower in your own room.”

He slid his arm around her waist and brought her against him. He closed his eyes and inhaled her wild scent. God, he wanted to go back there with her again. “Jax, I’m afraid we have a problem.”

She tried to face him, but he clamped his arm tighter around her. He felt her heartbeat accelerate and her blood whoosh in her veins. “What problem is that?”

He turned her slowly around, entwined his fingers through hers and raised her hands above her head, pressing her up against the wall. “I want you all over again.” And God help him, he never wanted to stop. He lowered his lips to hers and kissed her. Her body sparked against his. The mad rush of her desire hit him broadside. His body swelled in response.

“Be gentle this time,” she whispered as she gave herself over to him.

Hours later, just moments away from the first rays of the sun breaking through the night, Marcus stood
over the sleeping body in the big rumpled bed. Her hair was still damp from their shower. The impression from his body was still embedded in the sheets beside her. Once had not been enough for him. He’d taken her in the shower, then once more in this bed. He was insatiable. As he buttoned his shirt, his cock thickened. There was so much more he wanted to do to her before he had to stop. He cracked a small smile. She had begged him to stop in the shower. Begged him for more in the bed until, finally sated, he had relented and laid down beside her as she’d tumbled into a deep sleep.

Her creamy skin had paled. Dark crescents framed her eyes. Marcus sat down on the edge of the bed and brushed her dark hair from her neck. Her skin was cool to the touch. He traced his fingertips along the slight bruise marks his fangs had made. In a few hours, they would be barely visible, by tonight gone. He brushed his thumb against the marks. Jax stirred slightly and softly moaned.

Had he taken too much from her? He felt a hint of something he’d not felt in a long time. Guilt. Guilt, even though she’d given so freely of herself.

“Jax,” he called as he gently shook her.

She moaned slightly and reached out for him in her sleep.

“Are you all right?”

She smiled and nodded.

Marcus smiled in return. He gazed toward the sliding glass door. The dark was beginning to gray. He had less than an hour to go to ground.

As he shrugged on his jacket, Marcus contemplated his next move with Jax Cassidy.

It was obvious she was not going to willingly give him the information he wanted. But what if she were telling him the truth? That she was an independent and not associated with the organization Rowland called in? Part of him wanted to believe her; part of him knew he shouldn’ t.

During his twenty-eight years as a human and the last seven as a soulless immortal, he had never felt more alive. She made him realize how much he wanted to live again. In an unexplainable way, she gave meaning to his lifeless existence. And until he had no choice, he would not give up the sensations she elicited from him. Not until he absolutely had to. He strode to the door and looked at her one last time. She looked sated, content. At least one of them was. He exhaled loudly. He still had a job to do. He’d just take a different approach. As he thought of her two cohorts down the hall, he smiled. Looked like he’d have to get his hands dirty after all.

Marcus softly closed the hotel room door behind him. Immediately, his head snapped back and his nostrils flared. He looked down the short hall to an alcove. A tall, muscular body appeared, followed by the words, “The colonel is looking for you.”

Marcus scowled at Gideon Dimarco, the colonel’s guard dog. “How did you find me?” The why didn’t matter nearly as much as the how. Marcus took great care concealing his scent from those who were as cursed as he.

Dimarco strode out into the harsh light. “I could smell you fucking all the way out on Filmore.” His sharp gaze went past Marcus to the door he had just exited. “Any left?”

Marcus strode toward him. Dimarco was bloodthirsty and lacked self-control. Although he was older than Marcus by a few decades, his maker, Gustav, was not nearly as powerful as Marcus’s maker—Thorkeel Rus, aka Colonel Joseph Lazarus. That in and of itself made Dimarco of no consequence to Marcus, except for the fact that he didn’t trust him.

Or like him.

Just as he passed Dimarco, Marcus reached out and grabbed him by the throat, shoving him so hard against the wall that the impact dented the drywall. A light
fixture shattered, dimming the area. Gideon’s eyes burned red in his fury. “Don’t fucking go there.” Marcus let go of him, then proceeded past him to the elevator.

A short time later, Marcus strolled nonchalantly into the colonel’s Oakland lair. He didn’t feel nonchalant, however; quite the opposite. He was pissed. Pissed because an underling like Dimarco had tracked him down and, in the process, inadvertently tracked down Jax. But Gideon he could handle, if he had to. He’d pay for it in the end, but he’d protect what he had to and deal with the consequences.

Marcus faltered for a split second. The thought of protecting the woman who had gotten under his skin unnerved him. It unnerved him almost as much as the unexpected warmth that had surfaced when he’d realized he had a sister. He had protected her too, by calling off Jax. And he knew Lazarus wasn’t going to like that.

Through the wide eastern-exposed window in front of him, he glanced at the pinkening horizon. The tall, dark figure of his maker was illuminated against the pastel sunrise. Unlike most vampires, Lazarus was, with considerable precautions, able to venture into the sunlight, but only for a short time. Marcus had long envied that ability, but not anymore. Recently, Marcus had discovered that he, too, could withstand the sun’s more tender rays, but only on the fringes of dusk and dawn, never at the height of the day. He was sure that by the time Lazarus was done with him, enough time would have passed that he’d be stuck here, forced to spend the day as the colonel’s guest—something he never enjoyed.

“Sir?” Marcus asked as he stepped farther into the room.

Lazarus slowly turned. As he did, Marcus saw the slight flare of his nostrils. He knew Jax’s blood scent was all over him. Hell, a damn rock could smell it.

“I see you had some good blood sport last night,” the colonel murmured.

Marcus nodded. “Very good.” And it was true. Being with Jax had infused him with a shot of mortality he had missed for so long.

As he approached the colonel, he too detected a new blood scent. It was pungent, floral, with a hint of perfume. Marcus halted in midstep. The scent. It was oddly familiar but distinctly different. Last night. In the Green Room. Eerily similar to his mother’s scent. He shook off the absurdity of his thoughts. He was mistaken. Many blood scents were similar. Besides, Lazarus would never betray him like that. Marcus smiled. “It seems, sir, I’m not the only one.”

Lazarus scowled, apparently not liking the fact that Marcus knew anything about his extracurricular activities. Before Marcus could consider the idea further, Lazarus spoke. “Why is the Rowland girl still alive?”

Marcus shrugged and walked toward the rising sunlight. He felt the warmth of the rays as they penetrated the glass. If felt good. Comforting. For the first time since he could remember, he wanted to wake up to the sun with a woman in his arms. One particular woman. While the image warmed him, the reality of his folly chilled his blood.

He shook the ridiculous longing off and turned to face the colonel, continuing to enjoy the warmth on his back. Gideon hissed in the darkened corner, envious of where he dared not step.

“She’s still alive because I chose not to eliminate her last night.” Marcus decided at that moment not to divulge to his maker the fact that he knew Grace Rowland was his sister. If Lazarus knew, then it was simply a test, a test Marcus could pass on his terms. If he didn’t know, then things were certainly going to get more complicated.

Lazarus’s scowl deepened. He glanced at Gideon, then back at Marcus. “And since when do you determine these things?”

“I have always determined them, sir. It took me three weeks to finally get the opening I needed to take out Blalock. The stars were not aligned last night to eliminate Grace Rowland.”

“Maybe if you weren’t so wrapped up in nailing that piece of fluff this morning, you could have taken out the mark,” Gideon sneered from the shadows. Marcus raised his hand and shoved hard at the air. The centrifugal force sent Gideon flying into the corner. Gideon growled and came at him, but the colonel stopped him with one piercing glance. Marcus smirked.

“What I do on my time is no concern of yours, Dimarco.”

The colonel stalked closer to Marcus. “Tell me of this blood sport.”

“I suspect she’s part of the organization Rowland hired.”

The colonel smiled, his fangs glittering in the rising sunlight. “Ah, now I understand.”

He turned back to Gideon, who was literally beginning to simmer. “Go to ground, Gideon, before you turn to a pile of ash.”

Dimarco dashed past them both into the darkness of the hall and, Marcus assumed, to the blacked-out bedroom where he would spend the day untouched by the sun.

The colonel turned his attention back to Marcus and asked, “You’ ve grown less sensitive to the sun, I see.”

Marcus turned back to the window and raised his face to the golden glow. “It feels good.” Then he turned back to his maker. “Before I could only handle the first blush of dawn; then I had to go to ground like Dimarco. Why is my resistance stronger now?”

The colonel stood silent for a long time. When he did not answer immediately, Marcus surmised there was only one reason. Marcus possessed some hidden or latent power the colonel didn’t want him to know about. One the colonel was threatened by. For the second time, Marcus felt disappointed in Lazarus. And now, wary of him.

Lazarus moved to stand beside Marcus. He faced the rising of the sun himself. “My blood, the same blood that flows through your veins, is of the oldest and strongest of our kind. Combined with Aelia’ s, you have inherited great power. Be thankful.”

“I am. But I have not always been able to tolerate the sun as I am now.”

“The glass acts as a buffer. If you were to go out as you are now and stand beneath the sun, you would fry in seconds.”

Marcus tried not to show his disappointment. “What other powers am I to come into with time?”
And why haven’t you told me about them?
he thought.

Lazarus chuckled and shook his head. “There is time
for that, son, but not today. Today I want you to school me. Tell me about the woman,” he softly said.

Marcus knew there was no way of getting around the subject of Jax. He could minimize her and, in so doing, pique Lazarus’s interest, or he could throw her into the snake pit and be her champion. He chose the latter. “She’s holding out, but with some more maneuvering, I’ ll get her right where I need her.”

“Bring her in. I’d be happy to hone my extraction skills.”

Marcus was surprised by the urge to strike out. He was well aware of the colonel’s tactics. He’d witnessed countless inhumane torture sessions. He’d only stomached them because the ones being tortured had themselves acted more inhumanely to innocents. Even so, if Lazarus sensed Marcus’s need to protect Jax, he would only push the point. “Bringing her in will not be a problem; she
wants
in, as a Solution operative.”