Witch Blood (25 page)

“Look at me.”

“But the thing of it is…in the end, none of it matters. It's all just bullshit. I think I'm avoiding being cornered by emotion, by commitment, and by potential loss, but really it's just another trap. I know that because of my sister. She was the only person who ever really mattered in my life.”
Before you
. A tear drop rolled down her cheek and she wiped it away. “When she died, I grieved so hard my soul twisted. It was the worst pain I've ever felt, but I would never, ever have given up loving my sister to have saved myself that pain.”

“Isabelle…”

“So you see? It's a catch twenty-two. You either have nothing and feel nothing, or you have something and eventually lose it, thus feeling everything…in a bad way. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't.” She laughed. It sounded harsh to her own ears. “And I'm really damned, Thomas. You don't know the half of it.”

“Isabelle,
look at me
.”

Slowly, Isabelle turned to face him.

Emotion moved over his face, breaking the anger into something like sorrow…or maybe love…for a moment. Her own emotions ran too high for her to get a read on his now. “I'm not leaving here and I'm not letting you leave me.”

“Thomas—”

He pulled her into his arms. When she pushed at him, he only held on tighter. “I love you.” He whispered it into her hair.

Isabelle made fists, trying not to grab on to him with both hands and never let go. Her fingernails dug into her palms. “Thomas, please don't do this.”

“I love you, Isabelle,” he whispered again. “I'm not letting you go. I'm never letting you go.”

Her eyes filled with tears. The words just spilled out, easy as a river flows into the ocean. Nothing in the world—not even a demon—could've stopped them. “I love you, too.”

He stroked her hair. “I know.”

Isabelle clung to him for a moment, trying to gather enough strength to push him away and say something cutting, something so horrible it would make him leave. Possibilities polluted her mind. Each one she disregarded. Thomas saw straight through to the heart of her; anything she told him he would know was a lie.

Thomas tipped her chin up, forcing her gaze to his face, and kissed her. His lips slid over hers like silk at first, then the pressure grew harder and more demanding.

Isabelle's body reacted instantly. Her fingers closed around his upper arms, feeling the bunch and flex of his muscles as he dragged her up against his chest and slipped his tongue between her lips. She sparred with him, a low moan rising from her center.

“Please, I want you to go,” she breathed against his mouth between kisses.

His teeth captured her lower lip and dragged. Isabelle felt herself grow warm and wet between her thighs. “Not until after I make every inch of you
mine
, Isabelle.” His voice came out a low, needful growl.

Alarm shot through her, dampening her arousal. “No—we can't—” Her sentence ended in a yelp of surprise as Thomas swept her off her feet, literally.

“No?” he asked as he carried her to the bedroom. “Let me try and change your mind about that.”

He threw her down on the mattress. Isabelle tried to get up and he came down on top of her, pinning her wrists. “Give it up,” he breathed in her ear.

His mouth captured her words of protest. Once he'd kissed her so thoroughly her mind could barely form a coherent thought, he worked his way down her body, removing articles of clothing as he went. He found the syringe she kept in her bra and the knife sheathed at her wrist and placed them on the nightstand.

Lazily, he dragged her nipple between his lips until it popped out of his mouth. At the same time, he slid his hand down her thigh and found her clit. He circled it through the cotton of her panties, around and around. “Does that feel good?” His voice brushed like satin against her skin.

“Um.”
Oh, yeah
. It felt so good she couldn't think. “We can't do this, Thomas. Not right now.” The problem was that her voice came out all breathy and passion-soaked.

“Why not?”

She bit her lip, searching for a plausible reason why they couldn't make love. It wasn't like she could tell him the truth. And, Lady, she wanted this final good-bye with every fiber of her being. Couldn't she be allowed this one last connection with Thomas? Didn't she at least deserve that much?

When she didn't answer, he growled, “I thought so.” Then he bit the waistband of her panties and drew them down with his teeth. Soon there wasn't one bit of fabric separating her flesh from his hands and mouth.

“Thomas—”

“I'm not leaving here until I fuck you senseless, Isabelle. I don't care what you say. I don't care if I have to tie you up to do it. Understand?” His finger stroked her clit as he spoke, sending ripples of pleasure through her body.

“You've made that clear.” She sighed.

“So tell me right now. Last chance. Do you want me to fuck you, Isabelle?”

There was only one answer. “Yes.”

“Do you want me to make love to you?”

“
Yes
.”

Holding her gaze, he hooked his hands under her knees and drew them up and apart, baring her most vulnerable body part to his gaze. Thomas looked his fill. “So sweet,” he murmured before he lowered his mouth and closed it over her swollen, aroused clit. His tongue flicked it and then found the sensitive side and rubbed.

Isabelle bucked under his mouth and Thomas pinned her hips to the mattress, sealing his mouth over her sex. Her climax hit fast and hard. She gasped as it washed over her and then moaned out his name.

Thomas rode her through the explosive arc of pleasure, groaning in the back of his throat like he enjoyed her climax every bit as much as she did. When the orgasm still clung to her body, still made her toss her head in pleasure and moan, he yanked his pants down just enough to get his cock out and mounted her.

“Isabelle.” Her name sounded ragged on his tongue, like a prayer or the word
water
from a desperately thirsty man. “I can't wait another moment. I need to feel you. I need to be a part of you.”

In answer, she wound her legs around his hips and pulled him down on top of her, feeling the scratch of his pants against her ankles and calves.

He held her gaze as he pressed the head of his cock to her entrance, then gathered her wrists in one huge hand and pressed them to the mattress above her head. Then he held her hip with his other hand and thrust deeply into her, until she was completely filled and stretched by his cock.

Isabelle gasped and sank her teeth into her lower lip. Her clit pulsed and her sex rippled from the sensation of having him within her.

He rode her, taking her in long, steady, deep strokes that cleared every fleck of rational thought from her mind and made her body feel like melting butter.

When her climax came it enveloped her entire body in ripples that started small and then expanded outward. She arched back when it took her, her mind swamped with pleasure.

Thomas released her hands and sucked one of her offered nipples into his hot mouth, dragging it gently between his teeth. He answered her orgasm by groaning deep in his throat and coming.

“Thomas,” she sighed, covering her face with her hands. What had she allowed them to do? How fucking stupid was she?

Thomas rolled off her and pulled her onto the bed. He dragged her against his body and stroked his fingers down her face. “You're mine, Isabelle. I'm not letting you go or letting you run. I'm not letting you push me away. And I'm
not
leaving here tonight. For better or for worse.”

Defeated, tears stung her eyes as she turned and buried her face in the crook of his neck and inhaled. He smelled so good, smelled so much like Thomas. She slid her hand into his shirt to find warm flesh and hard muscle. “Get undressed then because I need to feel your skin on mine.” Her voice sounded gritty from lack of sleep and emotion.

Together, they stripped his clothes off until his body brushed against hers, skin-to-skin. He kissed his way over her shoulder and down her arm, urging her to her stomach. Isabelle lay facedown on the bed while Thomas ran his fingertips down her spine to the small of her back over and over, lulling her to sleep.

“Isabelle,” Thomas purred in a sleep-roughed and sex-satisfied voice, “why would Boyle kill Stefan as a favor to you?”

Her eyes shot open and she stiffened, but at least she could answer this honestly. “I don't know.”

“Really?”

Isabelle turned onto her back and snuggled against him. She stared up into his face and brushed her fingers across his pects. “Really. I don't understand the demon mind. I find it incredible he could long for home, too, that a creature like him would have emotion that way.” She shook her head. “I have no idea why Boyle would decide he needed to kill Stefan for me.”

“What he said right before he knocked me out at Gribben…it made it sound almost as if the two of you have a relationship.”

She raised her head and grinned, even though she hardly felt the levity. “Jealous, Thomas?”

“Hardly. Afraid for you, yes.”

She took a moment to answer, carefully phrasing her response. “It's like I said before. I think he's seized on me because of my sister. He imagines that because he”—she had to pause and find the right words before she could continue—“he murdered her that he and I have a connection.”

Thomas stroked his hand down her arm over and over until she sighed and her muscles let go of their tension. “That does make an odd sort of sense.”

“I don't think demons make sense.” Her eyelids drooped.

“Go to sleep, Isabelle. I can tell you need it.”

She sighed and relaxed into him. Before she knew it exhaustion had towed her under.

 

I
SABELLE WOKE UP FROM A DEEP SLEEP.
F
ITTING HERSELF
against Thomas's warm body, she smiled and closed her eyes again. By his side, she would always sleep well. For a moment she knew perfect bliss, and then she remembered. It leaked like toxic waste into her mind, poisoning her.

The demon was coming. Maybe not today, but soon.

Disturbed, she rubbed her eyes and glanced at the window, where the first strains of pale gray morning light stole through. She'd only slept an hour or two at most. What had woken her?

No scent of demon magick fouled the air. Not a sound could be heard. She wasn't too hot or too cold…then she knew it with utter certainty.

Dread curled itself like cold lead in the pit of her stomach. She pulled out from under Thomas's protective arm and slipped from the bed. Solemnly, she pulled on underclothes, a pair of jersey running shorts, and a long-sleeved T-shirt, then resecured her syringe and knife sheath. That done, Isabelle walked to the living room window as if drawn there by powers beyond her control.

Indeed, she probably was.

She pushed aside the curtains covering the living room window, and there, on the tree-lined street running past the apartment building, sat Boyle on his Harley—looking up at her. Metal and chrome, buffed to a high shine by loving demon hands, gleamed in the streetlight. Black leather covered Boyle from head to toe, and the morning breeze buffeted his blond hair.

She gasped, “Thomas,” and turned to run and quickly try to get him out of the apartment. Instead, she ran smack into a very broad chest. The smell of leather and demon slammed into her nose.

Boyle stared down at her, his normally blue eyes already glowing red. “It's time.”

Mute, she could only shake her head. It was time? How could it be time? It couldn't be time! Thomas was still in her apartment.

Boyle reached for her and she took a step back. He withdrew his hand. “Do you choose to place your mother in your stead? If so, let me know now. I don't have a long time in which to make this sacrifice.”

“
I'm
the one making the sacrifice.” Her voice shook. “And I won't allow anyone else to be put in my place.”

“Very well.” He held out his hand again. “Then we shall leave now.”

Isabelle was amenable to leaving the apartment quietly, leaving Thomas to sleep in the other room…and not interfere. “All right.” She went to the foyer, where her white Keds sat neatly side-by-side under the breakfast bar. She slid them on and turned to the demon. “I'm ready.”

Boyle didn't
poof
her. He led her out of the apartment and downstairs to his Harley. Every step that took her farther away from Thomas made her throat constrict a little more. When they finally reached the street, Isabelle counted it a miracle she could still breathe.

The demon mounted the motorcycle. “It is a beautiful bike, don't you think?”