Evading (Regent Vampire Lords Book 4) (6 page)

“What do you think you’re doing?” she yelled as they left the shabby building.

Pulling her around the corner, where it was dark and private, he pushed her up against the paint-chipped wood, trapping her in place with his body. Taking her face in his hands, he pushed his throbbing erection against her perfectly aligned core.

“I’m doing what I should have done a long time ago.” Feathering kisses along her jaw, he took her mouth in a bruising kiss. “I’m going to take you home and fuck you stupid until you scream for me, Giselle. I’m going to fuck every other man out of your head and replace every single bad memory with nothing but pleasure. With nothing but love. With nothing but
me
.”

Reaching his hands under her short hem, he pushed aside her panties and found her soaking pussy. Without waiting for invitation, he pushed two fingers in, circling his thumb on her swollen clit. He swallowed her moan with his mouth, whispering against her lips, “And don’t tell me you don’t want this or you’re not ready. Your pussy is weeping for me.” Not stopping the movement of his fingers, he continued, “You’re mine, and tonight I’m going to prove to you that I’m yours. You can trust me with both your body and your heart, Giselle.”

His assault was brutal and the clenching of her walls indicated she was close to tipping. Nipping her earlobe hard, she exploded around his fingers, digging her nails into his shoulders so hard, he was sure she’d leave bloody crescent-shaped marks. But he didn’t care.
Bring it, babe
. He wasn’t taking no for an answer. She was scared and scarred, but she trusted him or she wouldn’t be here. She wouldn’t have sought him out. She wouldn’t keep coming back.

Feathering kisses along her neck, he pulled back and looked into her heavy, sated eyes, once again laying his heart at her feet for the crushing. “God knows I tried to fight this, but I’m done. I’m a complete and total goner and you own me, Giselle. All of me. You’ve wrecked me for anyone else. I fucking love you. It will
ruin
me if you walk away from me again.” Pausing, he murmured, “You are mine. Come home with me.” He wanted to say forever but stopped short. He’d already said enough to drink himself into a coma for a month should she turn and abandon him again.

After several tense moments, just when he thought she’d reject him yet again, she grabbed and clung to him instead, and finally whispered the one little word he’d longed to hear for months.

“Okay.”

S
he’d agreed
to come home with him, but fear bubbled hotter than Hades in her veins with every step they took toward Mike’s house. It was dense and cloying and suffocating, and she hated every fucking second of that useless emotion.

“You’re shaking, baby,” Mike said gently against her cheek before his soft lips landed on her chilly skin. His concern calmed her slightly.

“I am not.”

He chuckled, pulled her closer, but let it go. He quietly ushered her the rest of the three blocks. With each push of her foot off the concrete, the mental sludge she was sinking in became thicker and trickier to shove through.

And by the time they made it up the two steps and he opened the door to lead her inside, she froze. Couldn’t move a muscle.

She wanted this. Wanted him more than anything she’d ever wanted in her long life. She was tired of feeling lost and adrift. Tired of being lonely. Tired of being scared. Plain tired.

But walking through that entrance meant more than just letting a male inside her body again. It meant letting him inside her mind, her heart. It meant revealing things about herself she didn’t want anyone to know, let alone her Fated.

One more footfall meant no going back. Then he would discover how filthy dirty she was. Horribly used and discarded. Scarred. He’d reject her.

She couldn’t handle his disgust and disdain.

She couldn’t do this.

Next thing she knew, she was spinning through the air and her back landed with a thud against the steel grey siding. Mike’s determined face was just inches from hers, her cheeks squeezed between his manly hands. She loved his domination. He was controlling and caring in the same breath. He pulled her back to him each and every time these fucking insecurities made her drift away.

“Whatever excuses you have for running again, fucking leave them at the door, Giselle. I want you. I’m in
love
with you. Every tough-as-nails and every brittle piece of you. No matter what happened in your past that doesn’t change. You got it?”

“Get off me.” She fought, but it was halfhearted at best. Still, he held steadfast, knowing she was bluffing. Knowing she just needed a little more coaxing. More time. More convincing. Just more.

Stepping into her, he pinned her body between his and the house. “No. Not this time.”

She let her eyes and voice harden, but stopped her fruitless struggle. “You’re a fucking asshole. Anyone ever tell you that?”

The corner of his mouth kicked up which made hers tug. “Maybe once or twice. But I’m
your
fucking asshole.”

“You’re not mine.”

When his nose dipped and ran erotically down her cheek and up her jawline, her pussy wept in anticipation. The orgasm back at the bar wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough. It was a taste. An appetizer of pleasure she’d lived without her entire life. Now she wanted the whole damn smorgasbord, including a big ol’ slice of dessert.

In that moment, an epiphany hit her hard and fast.

She’d visited hell every time a male violated her. She’d thought pieces of her remained there, scattered forevermore. She couldn’t be more wrong. Over these past few months, Mike Thatcher had picked through the thousand broken shards of lost dreams and unending hopelessness and put her back together, excruciating piece by excruciating piece. The edges didn’t line up perfectly yet, but he subtly shifted around the slivers so they would eventually.

All this time, he’d been fixing her and she hadn’t realized it.

“I’m yours whether you want me or not, baby. I’ll be yours ’til the day I die and no one else’s. Not ever.” His whispers rained over her like healing mist, each one washing away more remnants of shame. “Tell me I’m yours, Giselle. Fuck, I need to hear it so damn bad.”

His eyes desperately searched hers. As she was vampire, she had him beat in sheer physicality, but he was far and above a soldier in all other respects. Mentally, spiritually, emotionally.

He was strength enough for them both. She knew that now. Able to carry her when she couldn’t carry herself. She needed to let him. It didn’t make her pathetic or vulnerable. It didn’t make her powerless. It made her power
ful
. It meant her past didn’t win.

Their souls aligned. Fit perfectly. His darkness matched hers, but his goodness brought warmth and radiant light she’d never experienced before. He was the anchor when she floated. He was the solace when she freaked. He was hope illuminating the bleakest parts of her soul.

“You’re mine,” she whispered so softly she didn’t think he’d hear.

His lids dropped in what she could only say was sheer relief, but when they opened, he was all fire and lust. “Say, I want you, Mike. Say my name when you tell me that. You never fucking say my name and I want to hear it.”

Vibrations of fear and anticipation skittered across her skin when she uttered words she’d never uttered before to a male. “I want you, Mike.”

“Giselle.” He dropped his forehead to hers and closed his eyes. “I want inside you so fucking bad.”

“I’m…”

Her anxiety swung heavy between them, but he knew.

He knew.

“I know, baby. It’s okay. Let me take care of you. I want to drown them, Giselle. Your ghosts, your demons, your memories, your fears, so you know nothing but my touch. My scent. My voice. My safety. My love. Me. No one else. Let me obliterate each and every last beast that’s holding that beautiful mind captive.”

“Mike…” She wanted everything he just promised. The tang of his vow made her taste buds water in hope, but fear—that sadistic fucker—left its bitter and fiery hint behind.

“Trust. Me,” Mike demanded between kisses that were becoming more urgent. “You are safe with me, Giselle. I won’t hurt you. You. Are. Safe.”

When his eyes connected with hers again, she swallowed hard.

Who wins?

Past or future?

Us or them?

Panic momentarily bit at her, the unwanted sensation threatening to slice apart a future she desperately wanted, but then his next softly spoken plea made her decision easy. “Don’t let them win, baby. Don’t let them take you from me. Fight for me, for us.”

He was right. Of course, he was. He may not have known specifics, but he would. She would eventually tell him and she had to believe he would still accept her, love her. Trusting someone completely with every part of you, including the impurities of your past, was a scary proposition, but she had to. Her only other choice was to walk away again. And she was just plain tired of walking away from him as though he didn’t matter when he was all that did.

He saw the second she caved because his mouth was bruising hers. This time, she didn’t push him away. Instead, she dragged him closer, needing him fused to her so nothing could tear them apart.

“We good?” he asked even as he was picking her up, wrapping her legs around his waist, and carrying her inside his house.

She nodded, unable to respond because her mouth was now latched on the side of his neck. Sucking hard, she primed the place where she’d drop her fangs deep and drink of her Fated’s lifeblood. Her stomach twisted to be filled with power. Her cells screamed to bind his essence to hers.

Mike’s palm landed hard on the back of her head and he groaned, “Oh, fuck. Giselle.” It sounded pained, but she knew it was craving instead. She could sense how much he wanted her bite. Could feel it in the vibration of every pump of his heart, every throb of his cock that deliciously pounded against her distended clit, making her mindless.

Scraping her teeth along the plumped skin, she was getting ready to taste him again when the air whooshed out of her lungs.

Lying on his unmade bed, Mike Thatcher towered above her, his chest heaving, his eyes dilated to thin points, looking like an ancient god coming to claim her. He reached back and drew his sweater over his head, throwing it to the floor beside him, leaving him gloriously bare from the waistband of his jeans up. He didn’t stop devouring her with his weighty stare for a single second.

“I’m hungry,” she whispered in near desperation. So fucking empty and hungry. Her belly cramped painfully. Her pussy throbbed in agony.

A slow smile curled his full rosy lips. “Me too. But I’m going to be balls deep before you sink your teeth into me this time, baby. I want to feel your pussy milking me at the same time your mouth does. This time, I’m exploding inside your wet heat, not my stomach or my pants or my hands.”

She could feel the change in her face. Her incisors were razor sharp. The lines of her cheekbones severe. The glow of desire in her eyes bathed her soon-to-be lover and he growled. Actually growled low and long and so needy she almost pinned him against the headboard and took from him what she wanted.

But she held back because she could feel how much he
needed
to do this his way. For her. And if that right there didn’t make her fall in love with him, she didn’t know what could.

Mike was always concerned about her and her feelings. Despite his cutting comments, she’d always known that to be true. His actions had proven as much, even if his biting lips said otherwise.

“Do you even comprehend how fucking beautiful you are to me?”

Yes, she did.

With her thigh grasped between his rough palms, she thought for sure he would push upward toward the place aching and pulsing for his touch. But he didn’t. Kneeling on the floor beside the bed, he pressed soft kisses down the inside of her leg. His hands followed until they reached her stiletto. He carefully unbuckled it before ascending back up the same leg. Chills raced after his fingertips, catching up to them fast.

“Do you?” he asked again, this time demanding an answer.

“All vampires are beautiful. It’s how we lure our prey,” she breathed on a moan, barely able to stand the erotic nips he was now raining down her other leg. Her core felt unbearably empty and her hips started to roll in a silent call.

“No. It wasn’t your witchy eyes or your bee-stung lips or your curves of sin, Giselle. I wasn’t immune to those, but that’s not what I see when I look at you.”

After her other shoe hit the carpet with a thud, he crawled up her body, hovering over her. With his hips pinning hers to the softness underneath, his cock perfectly aligned, and his fingers buried in her hair, he husked, “Do you want to know what I see?”

She did want to know, but she couldn’t help the snide comment that ran away. It was all about armor, protection, deflection. Even now. She wasn’t sure if that would ever abate. “You see a species that took the love of your life from you.”

She gasped at the sting on her scalp from the angry tightening of Mike’s hands. He had her head pulled back and up at a slight angle while his gaze bore into her. “That smart mouth gets me hard as fuck every single time, but your words are wrong, Giselle. I
see
the love of my life. I’m looking at her and only her right now. I see the woman who every bad decision and every morsel of revenge steered me to. I see you, Giselle. The mouthy vixen, who, underneath all that huff and puff, is just a fragile, emotional wreck I want to spend the rest of my days fixing. I want to make sure she knows how fucking glad I am that she sauntered into my completely pathetic existence.”

An unhurried smile crept across her face. She couldn’t even get mad at his dig into her emotional state, because what the hell? He was right. “You’re only marginally pathetic,” she joked lightly.

Mike’s head fell back when he laughed and it lit her up like starlight. Starlight then morphed into a sea of flames when he wound a hand between them, burrowing his fingers under her panty line. He stroked through her honeyed wetness with a single finger a single time before he grabbed the sides and ripped them off with an easy snap of his wrists.

“You’re so goddamned wet, baby,” he whispered against her cheek. “So silky for me.”

He pushed off her and dragged the ruined lace down her other leg. Throwing the panties behind him, he pushed her dress up and over her hips until the leather creaked and bunched around her waist.

Mike’s burning gaze dropped to the place where he’d now spread her wide. His thumbs toyed with her nub, coiling the want in her even tighter. When he spoke, the thickened texture of his voice made her gush until she was sure her need was running down to meet the sheets. “I want you,” he murmured absently, drawing her juice from pussy to clit. He circled light and slow as the tempo of her hips increased trying to make him follow. The bastard didn’t; he just kept talking. “And to be clear, that means I want to fuck you now so damn hard tears stream from those ocean blues in sheer fucking joy. Each salty drop of water will hold a bad memory and when they hit this cotton we’re lying on, they will be washed away for good.”

She started to say she’d never be free of her shame, but he shut her up by pushing a saturated thumb into her open mouth, pressing it down on her tongue. On a low moan—his—she closed her lips around it and tasted herself for the first time as he continued to heal her with every reverent syllable, every sensual action. “And because that still won’t be good enough and because I don’t want those motherfuckers trapped where I plan to take you day after day and night after night, we’ll burn these fucking sheets together, destroying them for good. Then we’ll start over again tomorrow until every goddamned one of them that plagues you is eternally condemned.”

“That could take a lot of time. I have a lot of demons,” she said softly when he pulled his thumb out on a pop.

“I can be a patient man when I want something bad enough.”

Mike drew the wet digit down her chin, her throat, between the valley of her breasts, leaving a damp trail behind. When he reached her core once again, he repeated the same slow seduction. With each swipe of his finger, she unraveled faster. Craved him until she was almost manic.

She now understood that was his objective.

Drive everything else away but him.

It was working.

“You’d better get a burning permit. That’s going to be a lot of sheets,” she said breathlessly when he pushed inside her sopping center again.