Taboo Kisses (3 page)

She
went invisible.

Gabriel chuckled. “I can still smell you.
S
o you know, my
sweet
little r
eaper, once you’re in my database, I can track you.”

Sameya laughed. “
Best of fortune
with that, shifter.”

Regardless
of the fact
he
couldn’t see her, she sashayed away, feeling his stare in her direction. Coming to
a halt beside the unassuming elf, she touched his cheek and coated him in a magical
serenade.
With a crook of her finger, he
followed her out of the tavern without a verbal request.

She led him down the street and into a dark alley. Only when she had him alone did
she drop her magic and go corporeal.
H
e
presented
no expression to her sudden appearance, just
gaped
b
lankly
, as if she didn’t exist
.
That lack of recognition proved
her serenade
placed
h
im in
a
semi-catatonic
state.

A tingling down her spine alerted her to Gabriel’s presence. The nerve of the
man
following her from the bar!
For his audacity, she’d give him a show.

Sidling closer to the fey she’d trapped in her mojo, she pushed him against the damp
brick wall and pressed her body against his.
With a
finger to his jugular
,
she commanded, “I want to know everything, elf.”

She dug into the creature’s mind, the catch of his thoughts and memories an aphrodisiac
to her senses. Heat corkscrewed through her, but it was the shifter’s presence that
disturbed her most. Her leader’s life was at stake
,
and the vibrant male at her back
distracted her focus
.
H
er reaction to him
w
as
the worst irony
, and his
interference
bad timing.

Gabriel shifted to lean a shoulder against the brick wall beside the elf’s mind she
pillaged.
H
e was tall. A good foot taller than her
, with broad shoulders that
made her feel
tiny
. She lifted her
eyes
to
h
is golden
orbs
.
Glowing, t
hey
seemed
feral in the shadows, but she sensed no threat from him. Not that she feared him when
she could serenade him in a split second.

With a twist of power, she eliminated the elf and took a step backward. Her victim
slumped to the
cracked
street,
his
eyes open
and glassy
. Dead. He’d deserved to suffer, but she hadn’t the time
to spare
.

Gabriel
surveyed
the fallen. When his
concentration
shifted
to her, his gaze slithered up her body starting with her boots. By the time he met
her
eyes
, she trembled
as if he’d caressed her and stimulated her like in those romance books she imbibed
from time-to-time
.

“I thought you’d climax before you released him.”

Having n
o idea what one of those felt like, she shrugged. “He deserved
his outcome
.”

Dark blond eyebrows elevated.
“
Did you get what you were looking for from him
?”

Not as much as she’d like
. “Yes.”

He elevated his hand
,
and the pads of his fingertips slid from her temple to her jaw, his gawk fixated
on her mouth. “You weren’t what I was expecting when Gryphon….”

When Gryphon what? But he didn’t elaborate
,
and she didn’t ask.

His
eyes
flashed to hers as his touch scraped across her bottom lip. She shuddered at the tingling
his fondling elicited
at the base of her scalp. Suddenly, she wanted to know what it felt like to
have his hands
all
over
her body. What would it feel like to have him fucking her? He couldn’t be her mate…not
a possibility with his race. But he tempted her for the first time in a long time.

“I have someone I want you to meet.”

That request snapped her out of her daze. Shifters weren’t the raping and pillaging
type, but she had a job to do.
Interruptions
weren’t tolerable
.
And she’d dallied
overmuch
.

“No.” A moment later, she intentionally lost her visibility and side stepped
h
is attempt to snag her. “
Better
luck next time, shifter.”

She swiped a fingertip along his chin
,
and static tingled on her flesh. Snatching her h
an
d back, she peered at him. What the fuck had just happened? Nothing good. In the next
second,
self-preservation kicked in and
she fled.

Chapter
Three

Gabriel
sipped whiskey
straight
from the mini
ature
bottle he’d snagged from the
hotel
mini-bar
.
He
pushed the balcony doors open and stepped out into the humid
,
New Orleans,
Louisiana
heat
.
Past midnight, t
he revelry on Bourbon Street kick
ed
into overdrive
.
T
ourists swilled
liquor like a cheap whore sucked cock
.
Fast and hard.

He hated this city
with its
overpowering stench of
rotting
garbage
.
The c
orpses
buried in mausoleums
irritated his oversensitive
sense of
smell
, and the
human
congest
ion
increased
their
risk of
exposure
and
they
couldn’t chance being discovered
.

No self-respecting
shifter
would reside
in this cesspool of
iniquity.
Following
their
quarry
wherever she went,
left them with no
other choice
but to venture within the territory lines
. B
eing a
tracker
had landed him in
many
unsavory
locales
over the years
.
Who was he to complain over a little inconvenience when the profits were enormous?
Not that Sameya would gross them a single dime after the way they ended things with
Tyron Gryphon.
W
hen he’d mentioned Gryphon’s name, there hadn’t been an ounce of recognition on her
features.

She did not know the man
. Curious
that
Tyron Gryphon claimed they were more than acquaintances. Were nefarious schemes afoot?
No other prospect came to mind. G
riffin
s
were known charlatans, willing to do
anything
to gain what they desired. If Gryphon knew how to collar a siren, then he and Maximus
needed to proceed cautiously.

Sirens
were
known
among the
mystic
community
as ‘reaper
s
’
because by the time
mankind or fey
realized
they
peered at
a siren
,
it was too late
, they
were a goner.
They
could
enthral
l
almost all species
, leading to a willing
demise
.
Sirens had been known to eradicate an
entire
fey
breed
.
Or
so the myth went. He’d never actually met one until tonight. And watching her do her
thing to the
elf
…fuck it’d been hot. Only for a moment had he pondered what the fey had done to deserve
his demise. In the end, he simply hadn’t cared enough to intercede.

O
nly a
vampyr
was immune to
a siren’s song.
That
afforded
Maximus
a
safe
ty net
, but not
himself
. As a tiger shifter, she could lull him as easily as another. He could track her
now that he had her scent in his nostrils…and goddamn what a scent it was.
But what
would hunting her down gain
him if she could
serenade
him?

If he wasn’t mistaken, she was the third part to his and
Maximus
’
s
triune
. The way his body reacted to her
tonight
, the tiger pressing against his skin, roaring in his head to get free
and claim her
. He’d damn near lost control in the pub. His
feline
responded to her the same way it had
w
hen he’d met
Maximus…with the irrational need to claim, dominate and mate
.

Gabriel slammed his fingers through his hair.
What a fucking nightmare. Her red streaked black hair and
flawless
skin were exquisite. Eyes like violets, a deep purple no one would mistake for human.
And her body in those skin-fucking-tight pants—what had they been crafted from anyway?—was
made to give men pleasure.
Petite, but curvaceous, her hips were rounded enough he could envision holding them
tight as he bent her over and fucked her.

This
unexpected outcome complicated their lives further
.
A shifter and vampyr
mating was as unheard of as a s
iren mating outside her species. Gabriel loved
Maximus
, would die for him
, but Maximus had lost everything to be with him
. After almost a millennium together, he
still carried guilt for his lover’s loss. With the siren as a potential mate, he
worried
she’d
mess things up rather than
improve their relationship
.

They’d spent
six month
s
hunting the
elusive
s
iren
, wanting to catch her before Gryphon accomplished the feat
. They caught small leads and followed them until the trail grew cold.
A
few weeks
later
new
information
would emerge
,
and they’d chase another lead for a couple of weeks.
After
it’d become obvious she didn’t know Gryphon, Gabriel wondered who’d been planting
the leads. Had they really been following Sameya
’s
cl
ues or following one of Gryphon
’s goose chases? That the griffin might be yanking their chain pissed him off and
made his tiger edgy.

To bump into her tonight by accident—
or had it been
a chance coincidence
?
His gut said
Gryphon knew where she was at any given time,
so
why involve the
m
?
None of the turn of events made sense.

“What bothers you, Gabriel?”
Maximus
plucked the miniature whiskey bottle from his hand.
He hadn’t even heard the vampyr’s approach.
Sneaky like that, it was one of the many things he found sexy about his lover.

With his hands on Gabriel’s shoulders,
Maximus
turned
him
away from the
crowd below
,
and left his palms on him after
t
he
y
faced
one another
.
Only an inch shorter than
Maximus
, Gabriel peer
ed
into his silver
-blue
eyes
.

Gabriel ran his
hand
over his face.
“
I bumped into Sameya tonight at Dirty Liquor. I…
.
” He expelled a breath. To express his next thoughts would give credence to them.
“I believe she’s the one that’ll complete our tri-union.
”

Maximus
ran the back of his fingers against Gabriel’s cheek. “Nale
a
h
…
.
” A vampyr term of endearment that r
oughly translated into
‘
my love
’. “You’re vulnerable to s
irens. It’s possible she serenaded you.”

“I heard no song.”
His cat had felt her the instant she approached the bar and his cock had
gone instantly hard
.

Maximus
wore only a towel hooked about his waist and beads of water ran down his smoo
th, muscled chest. His wet chin-
length, wavy, dark-brown hair clung to his neck.
He’d come fresh from the shower, but Gabrie
l
could smell his unique scent.
“I doubt you would.
It’s not like she’s singing a lullaby.
”

“My tiger
went crazy wanting out.
You cannot imagine her scent. The way it
incited
my beast.
Maximus
—”

“We’re already an unconventional couple, Gabriel.”
Maximus
cupped the back of his head.
“
What are the chances of our third being another breed totally different from
one of
ours
?”

Gabriel kissed
Maximus
’
s
wrist. The odds must be one in a billion.
Their mating
was
rare
, so t
o add an
other variety would be
inexplicable
. “You’re probably right. Except….” He sighed. “You’re right.” He pushed his fingers
through
Maximus
’
s
damp
strands
and leaned his forehead against the vampyr’s
.

“Except your tiger went irrational near her the way it did me?”

Sometimes it felt like
his lover
could read his mind. “Yeah.”

“We’ll catch her and put this theory of yours to rest. One way or the other. Until
then”
—
Maximus
fisted
a handful of his hair and wrenched his hea
d back
, his dick jerking against his slacks at the vampyr’s aggression
—“I’m going to fuck you.”

Gabriel smiled.
A hard fuck was what he
desired
,
and h
e loved that his mate could sense his needs.
He sidled closer, kissing the other man’s forehead.
“Shall we go in
side
,
Maximus
?”

“No.”
Maximus
ripped his towel off exposing his nudity to Bourbon Street revelers below. “Out here
where all of humanity can watch us.”

A heartbeat lapsed between them. Gabriel’s fondness for voyeurism kicked in
,
and his tiger purred.

“I want you to growl for me when you come.”
Maximus
nipped his bottom lip and deftly worked the buttons through the holes on
Gabriel’s
dress shirt.
The muggy air kissed his flesh and swirled around him
. His shifter senses prickled
him with gooseflesh
, tingling as if to alert him of being tracked.
Crazy notion when they were removing clothing on the terrace and many were below.
Of course people would watch!

The vampyr bit
his lip again, hard enough to draw blood. He swiped away the hemoglobin with a lick.
H
e
employed his fangs when he
was in a playful mood
, which countered
Gabriel’s
animalistic disposition perfectly
.
“I’ll fuck you over the bannister,
Maximus
.”
The urge to
mark, dominate and mate continued to twist through him. He’d sink his cat canines
into the mating mark o
n
the vampyr’s neck when he came.
It was the only way he’d
come close to
pacify
ing
his tiger’s needs.

Maximus
pulled Gabriel’s shirt free of his pants and pushed the garment over his shoulders,
following the material’s descent
with his palms
down
Gabriel’s
arms.
The vampyr liked to touch and
Gabriel
loved
having
his hands on him. His lover
tossed
the shi
r
t
over the railing. Commotion from below and someone squealed, “
L
ook
!
”