Skye's Trail (13 page)

“Would it have been better if I talked to the kid somewhere else, privately?”

Caldwell looked like her head might explode any minute. “You don’t have any respect for authority at all, do you?”

“I play it the way I see it.”

“And you don’t care what happens or who gets hurt?”

Skye shrugged, growing tired of the conversation and the company.

“One step over the line and I’ll see that you spend time locked up.”

“I’m sure you will.”

Rico walked back over to the bar. By now Caldwell’s face was flushed and angry. “I read the transcripts. You had no right to tell that child to forget what she saw. You destroyed any chance we had of getting her to ID someone or provide a description for an artist’s drawing. You should have had one of us in the room with you.”

Skye shrugged. She’d held Callie’s mind in hers and knew with certainty that the child had given them what she could. She was tired of cops with their rules and regulations. The session with Callie had worn her down, lowered her resistance. She didn’t use her skills in that manner very often. It was difficult to go so deeply, to maintain control and hold another’s mind for such a long period of time.

Right now she felt some of her usual control slipping. She wanted to rip the sanctimonious Caldwell off the barstool and kick her ass. Only the knowledge that it would complicate things with Rico kept her from doing it.

“Nothing’s free, Caldwell. The price for the information you got is what you had to let go to get it. Callie would never have been able to ID anybody.”

“You don’t know that,” the detective argued.

“Cia, just drop it,” Rico said.

“It’s not right, Rico, you got your ass chewed because of this.”

“Just drop it,” he repeated and Skye could read the struggle in his face, the conflict, the need that echoed in her own body.

“Are you working all night?” she asked and saw Caldwell’s lips tighten in the too-familiar disapproving line.

Rico’s body tensed. “Yeah, Cia and I have a few more places to hit.”

Need made Skye edgy. Unpredictable. She felt like a bitch in heat.

Her nipples were rock-hard, her panties wet. Fuzzy images from the past washed over her and she knew that this was why her mother had two mates. Fuck. Of all the men to want, of all the men to bind to her, why did it have to be him? “I’m out of here,” she said and walked away from the bar without looking back.

When Rico didn’t follow her out to the parking lot, Skye considered going to Fangs, to Gian. But instinct warned that he was just as dangerous to her as Rico was.

With a grimace she thought maybe it was time to buy a vibrator. She’d never needed one before. But the edginess that rippled over her skin, the hunger that had her nipples so tight that it was painful, was distracting, dangerous in its own way.

She went home instead. Only to find Gian waiting in the hallway outside of her apartment.

The flame in the midnight centers of his eyes promised something she didn’t want to resist. His voice was pure seduction. “Invite me in.”

Chapter Seven

She’d wanted him and here he was. Without a word Skye unlocked the apartment and opened the door. But when she went to step inside, Gian caught her arm. “Say the words, Skye. Invite me in.”

She gave him a small half-smile. “Come inside, Gian.”

The door closed behind him decisively, triumphantly. His expression was fierce predator and aroused man. She wouldn’t deny him.

Skye took the Harley jacket off and dropped it over the back of a chair. His eyes traveled along her body, taking satisfaction in the beaded nipples, in the need he could see rippling over her skin. It wouldn’t be an easy hunt, but in the end she would accept his binding. She wouldn’t be able to fight the demands of her body, of her Angelini bloodline.

Gian’s eyes settled on the mark he’d given her in the parking lot and for an instant he could only stare in disbelief. She’d allowed some other man to touch her, to cover his mark with their own.

His mind instantly flashed to the man he’d seen her dancing with at the club. “Who is he?” Gian growled as he closed the short distance, crowding into Skye’s space, wanting her to fear his retribution.

She didn’t back up, didn’t back down. “Who?”

“You’ve been with someone else.”

“And you’re a virgin?” Her lips tipped up in a half-smile that sent heat roaring through his veins along with possessive rage.

His nostrils flared. There was no remorse in her. No fear.

She was strong, but he was stronger. She had some of The Bloodline in her, but he was full-vampire and had been for centuries. A flick of his wrist and he could snap her neck. A quick strike and he could bleed her to death, or to the point where she was so weak that he could overcome her defenses and make her a puppet, a servant whose only desire was to please her master.

His gums tingled. His fangs threatened to slip from their sheaths, itched to sink into her neck, into the hot, thick, rich blood that flowed there.

Skye stilled and he could see wariness replace her earlier amusement. “Should I tell you to leave?” she asked.

Gian stepped back and forced a calmness into his body. Few laws applied to him, but he could not be here if she denied him access. There would be time to deal with this other man later—unless she’d taken him as a mate.

Kyle’s words came back to haunt him.
And you will share her with another? A shifter? A human? The Angelini have always taken two mates in order to make their hunting easier, in order to better protect themselves. You know that as well as I do.

The thoughts stilled Gian. He had shared women in the past, though he’d never thought to share his companion. But if she had truly bound another man to her then there would be no choice. To destroy her mate would mean that he’d have to destroy her as well. She would never be completely safe otherwise.

Gian’s eyes narrowed. Perhaps she would never be completely safe anyway.

He cursed himself. He should have taken her last night, should have bound her to him first. The call of her blood was a siren song, a melody that had resonated in his soul from the first moment he’d seen her.

She moved away, toward the kitchen. “Do you want something to drink?”

Now it was his turn to half-smile. Oh yes, he wanted something to drink. But until her defenses were lowered, until her senses were clouded with passion, he would have to wait to take what he wanted.

“Red wine if you have it.”

“What about white zinfandel?”

“A little sweet for my taste, but I’ll share a glass with you.”

She took him literally, pouring wine into a single glass before taking a seat on the couch. Gian joined her, once again pushing into her space, but this time as a lover would. “You didn’t join your friends at the club tonight,” he said, taking the wineglass from her fingers and pressing his lips over the spot hers had been.

“I stopped by a place called Bangers instead. Have you heard of it?”

A small laugh escaped him. So she had been out hunting tonight, as he was out hunting now, only the prey was different. “I know it.”

She took the glass from him, brushing his fingers with hers and sending a pulse of fire to his cock. Her eyes never left his as she said, “Haley’s sister was seen there.”

He threaded his hands through her hair, tilting her head so that her neck was slightly arched. The bite mark pulsed with the beat of her heart. “Let’s not talk about Jen.”

She set the wineglass down on the coffee table. “Or anything else?”

“Or anything else,” he agreed, leaning forward so that his lips hovered above hers.

Skye pressed her hands to his chest, feeling the smoothness of his shirt and the hardness of the body it covered. The need to be with him was a compulsion that was impossible to fight, just as it had been impossible to fight the need to be with Rico. Her body was like a separate entity. It wanted both men, needed them both, would settle for nothing less than having them.

Gian’s fingers undid her braid, freeing the hair to cover her shoulders and arms. His hands traveled to her sides and guided Skye so that she straddled him on the couch. She slipped the band out of his long black hair and plunged her fingers into thick silkiness.

Desire whipped through Skye with an intensity that had her cunt tightening painfully. She rubbed her lower body against him. Felt him pump into her involuntarily. He was rock-hard.

Their mouths met, tongues mated in heated, wet, darkness. Bodies strained for as much contact as possible, trying to melt into each other.

Gian ended the kiss, pulling away just far enough so that he could slip the tank top out of her jeans and over her head. It dropped soundlessly to the floor.

The bra she wore was pale blue, almost transparent. When he would have reached for it she denied him in a low, husky voice. “Not yet.”

Skye’s hands moved to the buttons on his shirt. One by one she freed them. When she was done, she leaned forward and ran her tongue along his breastbone, in a line over to his heart then up across the small nipple. Gian panted. His lower body pumped into hers again and he grabbed her head, forcing her mouth to linger over the dark brown nipple. “Bite me,” he whispered, fighting the urge to open a wound on his chest and make her take his blood.

Skye teased him instead.

Her tongue scraped over the nipple and sent a bolt of fire to his cock.

He arched into her, pressing his nipple against the seam of her lips. “Bite me.”

She grasped it between her lips, sucking it and striking it with her tongue, sending him spiraling higher and higher.

The desire to mark him, to claim him, whipped through Skye with the same urgency she’d experienced with Rico. She clamped down on his nipple and bit, reveling in the way he cried out, in the way his cloth-covered cock rose to press itself against her cunt.

The beat of his heart drew her attention. She rubbed her lips and tongue along fevered skin until she was above it, until it felt as though it pulsed in her mouth. Once again she bit, clamping down on him hard, marking his skin with her teeth.

Fire roared through her blood, through his. They were both panting when she released her grip on him and leaned away, pushing his shirt aside so that bare skin could touch bare skin.

Gian’s hands removed the bra without protest then returned to cover her breasts, squeezing her nipples in a rhythm that alternated between exquisite pain and unbearable pleasure. This time it was Skye who panted and moved her lower body against his.

Her hands released the snap on his jeans and pulled the zipper down. She could feel him hard and thick against her. His lips left hers and moved along her neck, made the fire in her veins burn even hotter. He trailed kisses along her collarbone then back over the throbbing pulse in her neck. She arched into him, freeing his cock so that it burned against the palms of her hands. He was huge, ready.

Gian’s hand slid along her side, rested briefly on her hip before slipping inside her panties and cupping her in his hand, rubbing her clit and teasing along the edges of her wet, swollen slit.

Skye arched above him, tempting him with her pebbled nipples, the beat of her heart, the smell of her arousal. Gian’s tongue lashed out across her areola and she moved in, offered herself to him, pleading as she’d made him plead. “Bite me.”