Predator's Salvation (5 page)

Her core trembled with excitement and respect, despite this state of affairs making him a dangerous opponent, an unlikely submissive

Fah,
she would break him! She had not come across a man yet that she hadn’t been able to break.

Except Julian.

This should have made her nervous, not only because she had never been able to break Mateo’s brother, but because Julian had come as close to getting inside her as any man ever had.

20

Predator’s Salvation

She would put a stop to Mateo’s imagined control before he did the same.

“You need to learn sooner rather than later, that you no longer fall under the jurisdiction of the human world, Mateo. And while they may otherwise be admirable traits in the human world, your strength of mind and will cannot and will not be tolerated here.”

“And if I don’t submit? What’ll you do to me?”

She heard his instant accompanying thought—
Don’t answer that!
—as if he suddenly realized that he had not seen or heard half of what she could or would do to him. She knew he realized that he might very well have just stepped over the line.

LaMia smiled at his intelligence and sense of humor.

Never had she been so enchanted by a human before. Not even his brother, Julian, as beautiful and self-possessed a human male as he had been, could rival the fire and determination that she saw in Mateo.

Lilith
, this was intolerable! She had not even tasted him yet. How much more smitten would she be once this occurred?

LaMia did not intend to find out, needed to stop this battle of wills between herself and Mateo in its tracks.

She raised a fist, twisted it back and forth before he could object, and watched him gape as the cuffs fell from his wrists and ankles.

She watched him for several moments as he sat up on the bed and silently rubbed his wrists, then she raised a hand and pointed him towards the bathroom. “Everything you need will be in there. Take your shower, return to me and we will have breakfast. Then we will begin your training and I will teach you how to please me.”

21

Gracie C. McKeever

The first thing Mateo did when he got to the bathroom was look for a window, only to find it barred with imposing wrought-iron rods embedded in the window sill and the high ceiling.

He couldn’t have squeezed through the small spaces between the bars had he been Elastic Man.

He cursed under his breath as he glanced around the opulent white marble and gold surroundings, wondering where LaMia got the money to outfit her loft and how much the rent was for a place this size.

Like she actually has to worry about paying for anything with power like hers? She could
get anything she wants just by raising and waving around that infamous fist.

He had to admit he’d thought she’d been about to zap him earlier, either taping his mouth shut or putting him to sleep again. After experiencing each more times than he cared to count in the last twelve hours, he had been in no hurry for her to chastise him either way again.

Damn, what had he gotten himself into, and why had she picked him?

She had mentioned something about converted allies last night, had insinuated that these allies had some interest in obtaining him before she had. He still didn’t fully understand what she’d meant by that and whether or not Alex and Genesis had been ‘converted.’ His first question would have been converted into what and by whom?

“I do not hear any water running, Mateo. What type of shower are you taking?”

He closed his eyes and bit back a snappy retort. God, the woman sounded like his mother! “I’m, uh, just admiring your taste in trappings and design.”

“Is it not lovely? I have a subscription to
Architectural Digest
. I had one of the interior designers spotlighted in the special Interior Design Legends issue come in to do my loft.”

Fleetingly, he wondered if the interior designer in question had done the job willingly or under the influence of one of her notorious spells.

But a more important issue was the woman’s vanity, a trait Mateo determined to try and use against her and to his advantage as soon as he could.

22

Predator’s Salvation

She was a female after all and obviously arrogant about her abilities to bewitch and dominate those in her orbit. If he could just play to her pride, get into her good graces—

Mateo pivoted to face the door where LaMia lackadaisically leaned against the jamb with her arms folded across those magnificent breasts.

His cock instantly hardened and stood at attention at the sight of her.

Mateo cursed under his breath at the traitorous reaction of his body. He couldn’t hide his erection if he tried, the boxer briefs he was wearing only enhanced the stark silhouette of his aroused penis rather than containing it.

He watched as she unfolded her arms and straightened. His heart thudded as she sniffed the air in that already familiar way, like a predator in the woods tracking game.

What did he smell like to her that would put that lascivious smile on her face as she crossed the length of the marble floor to him? Surf-and-turf? Chicken fricassee? Enchiladas and fajitas?

She paused a foot in front of him, and Mateo stood still when she bent her head to his neck.

He kept his hands clenched at his sides as he fought every instinct in him that told him to move, resist, fight her, and run. When she leaned further to put her mouth on him his breath hitched in his chest at the barely-there contact. Her full lips and agile tongue fluttered against him like butterfly wings.

Mateo closed his eyes, feeling exposed and susceptible, wondered which would kill him first, her arousing cinnamon scent or the rampant power of his knee-jerk desire.

She didn’t touch him with anything but her mouth, hands clasped behind her back as if she were trying to resist some kind of uncontrollable temptation herself.

LaMia trailed her teeth along the veins in his neck until she reached the pulse point and suddenly punctured skin, quickly sinking her sharp fangs deep.

Mateo stiffened then shuddered in her grip. He fought not to pull away, unsure if she’d release and he’d leave a chunk of his throat in her mouth. He couldn’t even scream and by the time he flung his arms up between them to fend her off, she had already caught his wrists and dragged them down to hold firmly behind his back.

“Be still,” she rasped against his throat, and then backed him against the nearest wall before sinking her teeth back into his neck.

He felt her sucking, drinking his blood, felt the warm liquid dripping down his neck and chest as she pulled hard. He arched his throat as if to give her better access.

Mateo jerked against the pleasure-pain and she widened her stance to stand astride his legs. His cock throbbed behind the blue cotton material of his boxer briefs, wanting out, wanting to get at her.

What was she doing to him that he couldn’t fight her? What was she doing to him to make him enjoy being bitten?

He pulled against her iron grip, surprised at her ability to hold him in place despite her alien anatomy and strength and furious at his powerlessness to break her hold.

23

Gracie C. McKeever

She was a female, the weaker sex after all. He should be able to take her, at least put up a decent fight.

That he enjoyed her touch, that she turned him on, was a mute point. He shouldn’t like what she was doing to him against his will. He shouldn’t like
her.

“Stop resisting, Mateo. I do not wish to hurt you.”

“Yeah, well, you’re going to have t—” He gasped and froze when she sank her teeth into him hard. A warning.

She released his wrists, pressed flush against him, slid her hands up to his head and fisted his hair as she rubbed her slit against his jutting erection and moaned.

He closed his eyes and echoed her sentiment, grinding his painfully hard cock against her, dry-humping like a desperate, horny teen at a forbidden, unchaperoned party.

She lapped at the wound she had made, carefully trailing her tongue from one nipple and back up to his neck to get every drop of his blood that had spilled.

Suddenly, she released him and stepped away. When he opened his eyes to stare at her, she looked back at him with a dazed expression in her usually sharp hazel eyes, as if she didn’t know why she had done what she had just done any more than he did.

“Hurry and take your shower. We have much to discuss.”

With this, she made an about face, left the bathroom, and slammed the door behind her.

Mateo sagged back against the wall as soon as he was alone, legs weak and head even lighter. He didn’t know if it was the loss of blood, or just the diversion of most of it from his head to his dick that caused his dizziness and unsteady limbs.

He had been kidnapped by some kind of vampire!
What the fuck?

If being snatched out of a public parking lot by some alien superhuman dominatrix hadn’t been bad enough, this was just a thousand times more unbelievable.

Keep it, together, Diaz. Don’t freak out. She’s just a woman. Alien and vampire, maybe,
but a woman. You’ve handled plenty before. You can handle her, and you’re going to get out of
this. Just take your shower, and go out there and have your little talk as if she didn’t just drink
from you like a breathless parched kid hogging the water fountain at a playground in the brutal
August heat.

Mateo stood in the middle of the bathroom, looking around as if his circumstances had suddenly changed and the window wasn’t barred, and a vampire succubus wasn’t on the other side of the bathroom door waiting for him.

He had to get out of here!

“Mateo! Please do not make me come in there to get you.”

“I’ll be out in a minute.”

“Good. You need to eat breakfast while it is hot.”

She’s cooking? Not just a vampire succubus, but a domestic diva vampire succubus. How freaking neat was that?

24

Predator’s Salvation

There was no more stalling left to do. If he didn’t hurry up and get out there, he’d run the chance of earning her ire, then she’d come back in here to collect him and he’d miss getting a shower altogether.

Mateo took a deep breath, pulled down and stepped out of his boxer briefs, slid open the frosted glass door of the shower and turned on the cold water.

He loved hot showers, loved steaming up his bathroom, loved the water just short of what one of his girlfriends used to call molten lava. Considering his current circumstances, he thought a drop in temperature might be a good idea.

When the water hit him, it was like someone had dumped cold water over hot coals.

Steam immediately rose up from his body with a sizzling burst. He was literally on fire with need!

Mateo leaned his palms against the marble wall beneath the shower attachment and ducked his head beneath the water. He got his body good and soaked, some of the tension slowly drifting from his back and shoulders before he grabbed the bottle of shower gel from the caddy and squeezed a generous amount into his hand.

He was sure it would have a frilly, fruity girly scent to it, but when he got a whiff, it shocked him that it smelled exactly like the sandalwood-scented soap he used at home.

Everything you need will be in there.
Had she duplicated everything he had in his bathroom at home? How did she know? More pilfered thoughts and images from his brain?

He opened his eyes to glance at the bottle, but there was no type of labeling to indicate what it was, or where LaMia had gotten it. Actually, anything could have been in the bottle. How was he to know? Probably some date-rape drug or other aphrodisiac, something to make him more compliant and randy than he already was.

Like she needed to do anything to make him want her? Shit, all she had to do was sashay across the floor and he was like goo in her hands.

Mateo quickly lathered up with the gel and rinsed off before turning the shower off and stepping back out into the marble room.

He took a moment to glance at his throat in the mirror and did a double-take. There was no wound, not even a little nip or bruise. It was as if she hadn’t bitten him at all.

Had she repaired the broken skin when she’d been lapping at him like a cat? Why heal him if her intent was to hurt and torture him in the first place? Did she mean to hurt and torture him or just make him submit?

Hell, the last was enough torture in itself.

Why should he have to submit to anyone, especially some arrogant dominatrix who’d taken his family away from him?

That’s it, Diaz. Get yourself good and riled so you won’t want her when you go out there.

Work up enough righteous indignation to eradicate your lust.

His cock had other ideas though, semi-erect and slowly rising as if out of defiance at the idea of being reunited with Ms. Nubian Queen.

You go ahead and be angry if you want to, homeboy, but I’m going to get me some
.

25

Gracie C. McKeever

Mateo cursed his blasted cock, took one of the big fluffy white and gold-trimmed terry towels from the towel warmer, and wrapped it around his waist.

When he came out of the bathroom with the towel riding low on his hips, it was to the tantalizing smell of breakfast cooking.

He followed his nose to the enticing aroma of breakfast sausage, scrambled cheese and eggs, and pancakes in varying stages of cooking or warming.

Mateo paused to watch LaMia bustling at the stainless steel, state-of-the-art range.

Even though she had mentioned breakfast, he never would have imagined her at such an ordinary task as cooking. He just figured she could snap her fingers and whip something up.

She had an apron on over what he was beginning to think of as her dominatrix kidnapper outfit, this one in electric-blue leather.

LaMia turned at his approach, a large cast-iron skillet—containing several perfectly-formed pancakes—in her hand. This was only the second time he’d caught her looking unguarded.