The Shopgirl's Prophecy (Beasts of Vegas Book 1) (27 page)

“If we’re lucky,” Roz grumbled.

An image of her shoulder to shoulder with Oleksander the Destroyer as they looked out upon the charred and bloody remains of civilization appeared in Ali’s mind. “Connor,” she said sharply, leaning across the cluttered table to grasp his hand. “Promise me you won’t let him take me.” There could be aspects of her power the vampire lord understood better than she did. He could turn her into a weapon. “If you think he will, you have to swear to me, you’ll kill me first.”

Connor’s eyes widened, and she knew he’d hesitate. Ali looked to Roz. The witch wouldn’t waver.

Ali released Connor and focused on Roz. “You’ll do it, won’t you? You’ll take me out if I’m made a pawn to the horde?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s calm down for a sec,” Connor interrupted, worry clear in his expression. “I don’t think we’re to the murder pact of our relationship yet. Olek’s not knocking down our door.”

“But he’s coming.” Ali drooped against her seat, confident Roz would do what was necessary, even if Connor couldn’t. “Volk was in Vegas.”

Roz’s phone chirped, drawing all their attention to the cell on the table.

“Anton?” Connor asked.

Ali gestured toward the phone. “So, you called your New Zealand friends about me?”

Roz’s eyebrows shot skyward. “You say that like there’s something wrong with them.”

Well, now that she mentioned it. “Is there?”

Roz put away her phone. “No.”

“So, you don’t think it’s weird that they send you money and supplies, and ask nothing in return?”

Roz grunted in dismissal. “You see a couple of spoiled trust-fund babies, but you’re missing the big picture.”

“Which is?”

“Vampires eat us for dinner. They have to be kept in check, otherwise they’ll overrun the entire world. Anton and Natasha may not even know it themselves, but their money helps keep the balance in our favor.” She faced Connor, essentially dismissing Ali. “Speaking of killing Olek, we need to come up with a plan. A real one. The only time we’ve seen him outside his lair is to come after her.” She looked pointedly at Ali.

“You’re going to use me as bait?” she asked, surprised her voice didn’t wobble on the last word. No big deal. They were discussing holding her out for the Destroyer to pluck. Right. Casual.

“No,” Connor barked.

“So, are we not in the kill Olek business anymore?” Roz asked.

“Don’t be snippy,” he said. “I’ll give up and go home before I use her as bait.”

“It would be stupid not to use our best advantage,” Roz said.

“Then I’m a complete moron.” He cut a glance at Ali.

“Fine.” Roz climbed to her feet. “Good night.”

#

Ali wasn’t bait, and Connor refused to consider it or the idea of Roz killing Ali to keep her out of Olek’s hands. Things had gotten a little too real for him at dinner. To lighten things up a bit, he knelt among his packs, pulling out clothes and toiletries. At the bottom of the gray backpack, his fingers curled around a slick, plastic case. Perfect. It still had some juice in it.

In the bedroom, Ali had dimmed the lights and stretched out on the far edge of the mattress wearing the pajamas he’d bought her. He watched her, unseen, trying to memorize the length of her hair, the exact color of the skin along her throat, and how her waist curved inward above her hips.

He cleared his throat and sat on the bed, scooting around until his back hit the wall. “I know how much you like video games. If you’re awake, we could play my PlayStation Vita.” He slid the game on, letting the opening sound effects tempt her.

“Yeah.” Ali crawled to him, sitting against the wall, her hip brushing his thigh.

“You start.” Connor pressed the game into her hands.

She loaded a file in
Gravity Rush
, and her expression tightened as she lost herself in the mechanics and button pushing.

“You’re good at these games,” he observed quietly, not wanting to spook her. The college girls he knew excelled at drinking games, not role-playing ones.

“It’s an escape from reality,” she answered immediately, not looking up from the screen.

She guided the main character through disorienting terrain, and Connor leaned closer on the pretense of watching. But all he really wanted was to immerse himself in her scent, her touch, her gentle voice. His gaze traveled the length of her throat, all golden skin, and down even further.

She wore no bra under her top, and he stared, mesmerized by the soft, round flesh of her breasts under the thin cotton fabric. So close. His hands itched to wrap around them, to feel those two, perfect nipples peak against his palms. Instead, he tilted his head down to the side until his cheek touched her shoulder.

“Climb that tower thingy.”

“Climbed it,” she said, laughing softly.

He inhaled and held it, relishing the scent of her. He recalled her taste, too, and the memory electrified his skin. “Thanks for staying,” Connor said.

“Did I have a choice?” She chuckled.

“No. Not really.” He laughed too, and it felt good. “I’m kidding. You’re not my prisoner. I only ever wanted to keep you safe.” Having Ali within his sight only assured he could prevent a disaster. Of course, since he’d met her he’d been shot, stabbed, infected, and rolled in a tow truck, but none of those were directly her fault.

“I can leave anytime, if I wanted to. You’re not a hostage taker.”

“No, I’m not.”

She bit her bottom lip, wetting it with her tongue. “I have to return home at some point to finish dealing with my dad’s death. He has a house, bank accounts, furniture, the whole deal.”

“Okay.” The thought of her leaving gave him an ache in the pit of his stomach. He began to wonder if she had to leave at all.

She blew hair off her brow with a gust of breath. “This seems like it used to be a nice place. Have you stayed here before?”

“Yeah, a couple times.”

“What was your house like growing up?” Ali asked.

Connor shrugged. “Before my dad left we lived in an apartment. Afterwards, my mom and I lived with her dad, my grandpa, in a nice house. He passed away when I was twelve.”

“I’m sorry.” She pressed her cheek to the top of his head. He froze, afraid to move or she’d pull away.

“Your mom’s still in Cleveland?” she asked.

“Yep.” His mother’s face swam behind his eyes, from years ago. Her happy face. He thought about her occasionally, but in a vague way. He’d stopped obsessing about her a long time ago.

“What does she think about your crusade?”

“She probably thinks I’m dead.” That may even be a relief for her, to stop worrying about him. “She begged me not to go.”

“She didn’t understand,” Ali guessed.

“No,” he said. “She read Ilvane’s prophecies like everyone else. Then I told her the Connor from Cleveland one was about me.”

“She didn’t believe you?”

The echoes of his mother’s frantic shouting sounded in his ears.
It’s not about you! You’re staying here where it’s safe!

“No.”

“But you were sure.”

“I left her just like my dad left,” Connor said sadly. “And I broke her heart.” It was the cruelest thing he’d ever done in his life. He may never forgive himself for abandoning her all over again.

Ali looked into his eyes. “I don’t have any family left.” She swallowed. “None.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and meant it. It hurt him to think of her grieving for the son of a bitch who beat her as a kid. “But maybe you’re better off.”

When she opened her mouth as if to argue her father’s merits, he spoke right over her objection. “I had a prick for a father, too.” He hadn’t told anyone his stories in a long, long time. Not even Roz. She didn’t care what his childhood issues were, just that he was committed to the mission.

But he wanted Ali to know. He wanted her to know everything. “He left us for another woman when I was eight. He moved away, and we didn’t see him again. At least, I didn’t. I was never very important to him.” And that was putting it nicely. He’d spent a long time feeling worthless.

The prophecy merely emphasized how screwed up Connor was, what a monumental disappointment, not only to his father, but to the whole world. He wasn’t sure when he’d decided to prove he was better than all that, but he wouldn’t go back for anything. He loved his mom and wished her happiness, but he belonged in Vegas, fighting the good fight.

“How did you know the prophecy was about you?” Ali asked.

He chuckled sadly. His mom had asked him the same thing. His answer had been, “I just do.” But Ali could take the whole truth. “It sounded like me. A giant fuck-up.”

“That is not you.” She jostled his arm, and her scent enveloped him like a cloud of steam after a hot shower. He straightened, putting space between them again.

“You are nothing like that,” Ali said.

“Maybe I was a different person when Ilvane wrote the prophecy.”

“Impossible,” she said with an arrogant tilt to her chin. “You can’t go from being a giant fuck up to such a decent, caring person in three months.”

She smiled before curling into his body heat, one hand splayed against his chest. He froze, unable to even breathe. He was so scared she would stop. And scared, too, that she wouldn’t.

“This hand right here.” She drummed her fingers on his chest, sending vibrations rolling down his abdomen. “Kept your heart beating when you dropped the ball.”

At the time, dying hadn’t felt like a fumble. He’d fought so damned hard to keep breathing. She had no idea.

Ali snuggled deeper into him, and Connor wanted to possess her. It was an ache inside, a super-charged yearning for contact. She blinked up at him, caught his gaze, and blushed, perhaps thinking the same thing he was. The game system thumped against her thigh, forgotten.

“That kiss, earlier,” he said as his gaze fell to her mouth, “was pathetic.”

#

Their kiss, pathetic? Ali didn’t think so. More like explosive.

But she played along. “Was it?”

The hunger pouring out of Connor overwhelmed her, and every cell in her body received the message loud and clear.

 “We can do better, don’t you think?” he purred.

Ali leaned a fraction of an inch nearer, and that was all the encouragement he required. Connor cupped her face in both hands and kissed her, his mouth soft and searching. Her fingers slid up the rippling muscles of his back and settled on his shoulders. He was warm, solid, and a little dangerous.

His left arm encircled her waist, pulling her into his lap and he groaned, the noise rumbling through his chest and echoing in hers. She melted into him, straining to deepen the kiss, to seize every part of him at once. Her lips parted, and his tongue teased inside.
Oh, Lord
.

Ali panted, her fingers furrowing through his hair. “Are you smelling me?”

“Mmm.” His muffled response vibrated through her neck, and her eyes fluttered.

“You like the way I smell?”

Connor sat back in order to see into her eyes. “Alina, you’re delicious.”

Good answer.

She rotated her hips ever so gently, and his hands grasped her thighs, his fingers biting into her flesh.

“How do I smell?”

He closed his eyes, as if differentiating every particle. “Peaches. Honey. A hint of pumpkin.” He breathed in again. “And a saltiness on your skin.”

“And you like it?”

She ground her hips against him, and a wildness flared behind his eyes.

“I more than like it,” he swore. “I want to taste you. Everywhere.”

Her insides liquefied, like a chunk of ice left in the sun. Everything south of her navel thrummed. Before she could say the words,
I want you, I need you, I will beg if I have to
, he captured her mouth in a bruising kiss.

Connor’s fingers gripped Ali by the hips, as if she were in danger of floating away. Even through layers of clothes, she felt his heat and the outline of his erection. She moaned as his hands collided with her breasts. Fabric rustled. With a frustrated groan, he tore the shirt over her head, breaking their kiss.

Her shirt sailed across the room, and his warm mouth brushed her left breast. His tongue, slick and smooth, lapped at her nipple, and she couldn’t focus on anything else. Her head fell back, and her eyes rolled up in her head.

Lord in heaven, he electrified her.

He pinched her gently with his teeth, and she feared she might levitate right out of her skin. Beneath her rear, he was hard. A kind of frenzy overtook her, and her hands fisted his shirt. She wanted him inside her.

With a tiny squeal of surprise, Ali landed on her back. Connor hovered, staring hard at her mouth.

“I can’t get enough,” he groaned. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get enough.”

She recognized the same desperate hunger in his voice that gnawed at her.

Drowning any last doubts, she wiggled out of her pajama bottoms while he watched. She wanted him, all of him.

His fingers drew parallel lines down her abdomen toward the patch of blonde hair between her legs. He urged her knees apart, widening the V of her thighs.

Her control slipped a notch, and her extremities tingled with power. She didn’t open her eyes to check if she glowed. She didn’t care. Instead, she arched her back and begged him, in very precise language, not to stop. His tongue raked her slit, and her hands tangled in his hair. She pulled hard. He didn’t seem to mind.

His shirt hit the floor, and his pants disappeared from sight. He crawled over her, blocking out everything else. A wild, mewling sound tore from her throat, her hands reaching for him as the light sprinkling of hair on his chest feathered her nipples.

He slid into her, and she lifted her knees higher to better fit all of him. He pressed inside, stretching her.

“Kiss me,” she hissed.

He dipped his head, but not to her lips. No, he suckled at the pulse point below her jaw. With each thrust of his hips, his sucking intensified. If he weren’t so annoyingly noble, his fangs could be inside her now too. She closed her eyes and dreamed he drank from her as he dragged the sharp points of his fangs over her throat.

He rolled against her and their lips met in a slow, warm kiss. He nibbled at her lower lip, and she opened to him. She couldn’t get enough. He could kiss her the rest of her life, and it wouldn’t be enough.