A Dark Kiss of Rapture (5 page)

But Kim could accept that some people just
clicked. She had friends whom she’d known would become valuable
pieces of her life from the moment she met them. That didn’t
explain why she wasn’t at least partially scandalized by the things
she and Raze had done to each other since she arrived. There wasn’t
a centimeter of her skin that didn’t know the stroke of his fingers
or the lash of his tongue. He knew parts of her body better than
anyone, better than even she did. And his erotic abandon goaded
hers.

She’d lost all inhibition. She had done
things to him that she’d never imagined doing and she had loved
every minute. There was nothing in her head about playing fair or
returning favors. She pleasured him because she couldn’t help
herself. She pleasured him because it made her feel as good as when
he pleasured her. He’d shown her that any sexual act could be
intimate and mutually pleasurable if you had the right partner. She
didn’t think there was anything she wouldn’t let him do to her or
anything he could ask of her that she wouldn’t do to him—a man she
hadn’t known existed just a few short hours ago.

He glanced at her, caught her staring, and
smiled. The curve of his gorgeous mouth was wicked, but the heat in
his eyes was tender and warm.

Her chest tightened in a way that warned her
she was wading into treacherous waters. Taking a deep breath, Kim
set her fork down and wiped her mouth again. “Thank you for
dinner.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

“Wasn’t it obvious?”

“I’ve heard stale chips can taste delicious
after sex,” he said wryly.

She laughed and stood, collecting her tray
off the bed. “I absolutely enjoyed it. I’ve enjoyed everything
since I arrived.”

Taking the dishes back out to the living
area, she took a moment to herself, debating whether she should get
going now while the getting was good. She considered it long and
hard, but the thought of returning to her apartment alone at this
time of night made her stomach knot. And the thought of leaving
Raze bummed her out so much she knew she couldn’t go until it was
absolutely necessary. It wasn’t like they worked together or had
the same friends or even lived in the same city. So what if she
moped a little after it was over? He wouldn’t be around to see it.
He wouldn’t be around as a constant reminder of what she couldn’t
have.

“Hey,” Raze called out. “Your phone’s
vibrating.”

She went back to the bedroom, which was
softly lit and intimately welcoming. It smelled like him and sex
and delicious food. She really didn’t want to be anywhere else.
Looking around for her bag, she found it on a chair near the
closet, several feet away from the bed. “How can you hear the
buzzing over the television?”

He shrugged.

Digging her phone out, she looked at the
screen and sighed at the sight of her brother’s name. She answered
without preamble, “It’s a little late, isn’t it, Kenny?”

“Why the hell aren’t you answering your
phone?”

“Because I was busy. And it’s late.”

“Kimberly Laine McAdams. You can’t go off
with some biker you spoke to for five minutes in a bar and not
expect us to be worried sick.”

“Oh my god. This isn’t Kenny. It’s Mom
sounding like Kenny.”

“That’s not fucking funny.”

“No, it isn’t.” She hit the mute button.
“Raze. Do you ride a bike?”

He glanced at her with brows raised.

“You know,” she elaborated. “Like a
Harley.”

His grin flashed fierce and sexy as hell.
“Heritage Softail.”

“Shit.” So he was a biker after all. The
thought made her hot and needy. Kim took the phone off mute. “I’m a
big girl, Kenny.”

“Who is still dealing with walking into the
murder scene of her best friend!” Ken growled and in her mind’s eye
she could see him fisting his dark hair with his free hand and
clenching his jaw. “You’re not the only one who’s freaked by what
happened to Janelle. I worry about you all the damn time. You need
to give me a break, Kim. Stop giving me gray hair. Now what’s this
guy’s name?”

“Why so you can run him? Do you do a run on
all your one-night-stands?”

“You’re not the one-night-stand type.”

“I am tonight. I’ll call you when I get home
tomorrow. And tell Delia I’m gonna to kick her ass.” She hung up,
then powered her phone off.

“Everything all right?” Raze adjusted his
position so that he was propped against pillows piled against the
headboard. Sprawled like that he was a sensual feast.

God. He was just what she’d needed. What she
still needed.

She tossed her phone back in her bag and
pulled his shirt over her head. “Everything’s great. And about to
get better.”

CHAPTER 5

Raze looked at the video feed of a blackish
rose arrangement perched on Vash’s desk and pronounced,
“Creepy.”

“They’re for you.” She pushed them aside.
“Salem found them on your porch about a half hour ago. No card, but
we know who it’s from, don’t we?”

“Yeah, we do.”

“She’s his wife, by the way. Of a couple
hundred years. Torque traced Baron—previously known as John
Schmidt, Baron Seagrave in his mortal life—back to the Regency
period, when he married Lady Francesca Harlow.”

“Torque’s the man.”

“Yes, he is. And you’re dealing with a woman
who just lost the love of her life.” Vash’s fingers drummed on the
table. “Take it from a woman who knows what that feels like: She
wants your head on a pike and your nuts roasting on an open fire.
She won’t let this go until one of you is dead.”

“I’m ready and waiting.” He glanced out the
window at the gradually lightening dawn sky, then over at the
closed bedroom door. “But I might be waiting in the wrong place if
she’s gone to Raceport.”

“Torque traced the roses back to a florist
in Chicago. If she did her homework at all, she’ll know you’re
hanging around there. But she doesn’t know where. She’s hoping
this’ll rattle your cage a little.”

“I’ll get out more today. Be seen. I don’t
suppose we’d be lucky enough to have confirmation that the baroness
is the woman in the video. A photo match, maybe?”

“Working on it.” Vash rocked back in her
desk chair. “Listen, I know you like to do your loner thing, but
I’d feel better if you had some backup.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ve got this.”

“When I find the bastards who killed
Charron, an army isn’t going to save them. Hell hath no fury like a
woman whose mate has been stolen from her. You can’t understand.
You haven’t been there. You don’t know what you’re up against.”

Raze’s hands fisted. “I’ve. Got. This.”

“Fine.” She tossed up her hands. “Watch your
stubborn ass. I can’t afford to lose you.”

She ended transmission, leaving him feeling
pissed off and resentful. He was sick of everyone acting like there
was an exclusive club that he was denied membership in.

He moved back into the bedroom and slid
between the sheets, careful not to wake Kim, who slept soundly.
Lying face down with her hair fanned across her back and her face
turned toward him, she soothed his agitation without even trying.
He wasn’t used to having someone sleep over like this. Because he
didn’t need sleep himself, having a lover stay the night just
invited questions he couldn’t answer.

Regardless, he wouldn’t have let Kim go home
even if she’d wanted to. He could tell himself it was because it
wasn’t safe for her to go out by herself at night. After all, the
last woman to leave his bed had found a dead body on the doorstep.
He could also tell himself it was because he hadn’t fed from her
yet, but then he’d have to examine why he’d held back. To create
just this excuse, maybe?

Reaching out, he pushed her hair gently
aside and ran his fingertips up and down the graceful curve of her
spine. She was so slender and delicate, yet strong and lithe. Her
body had worked tirelessly through the night, taking what he gave
her and giving it right back to him. When she’d risen over him and
rocked her body onto his, he’d fisted the sheets against the
pleasure, his neck arching as she took him to the edge and beyond.
It had been a very long time since anything had felt that good.

Raze exhaled harshly, fighting the onslaught
of renewed desire. He’d had her enough already. She wasn’t a
vampire who could heal quick enough to avoid being sore.

“Umm...” she purred. “You have the best
hands.”

That soft humming noise of pleasure was the
death of all his good intentions. He pressed a kiss to her
shoulder. “I want you.”

“Yes, please.”

He laughed, which made her smile and roll to
her back, revealing the small breasts he’d played with most of the
night. She was revising everything he’d thought he knew about his
preferences and desires. He ran the tip of his finger around a pale
pink areola. “I love your tits.”

“Oh, these things? I’ve had them
forever.”

Grinning, he bent over her and took her
mouth, slanting his head to get the perfect fit. Kissing was
another surprise. He hadn’t realized he liked it so much.

He was going to like drinking of her even
more.

This time, he wouldn’t hold back. The
morning was here; their night together was almost over. In a few
hours, he’d be out hunting and she’d return to life as she knew
it.

Raze slid over her and pushed his arms
beneath her. It amazed him that a body so much smaller than his
could fit so perfectly. He should have felt like a great, hulking
beast on top of her, but he didn’t. He should have worried about
how he handled her and made an effort to restrain himself, but
there were none of those types of concerns or awkwardness between
them. It was all so easy. So natural.

Her leg lifted and her foot stroked up and
down his calf. Her arms hooked upward beneath his, her hands
stroking over the back of his shaved head. He’d never considered
his scalp an erogenous zone before, but she made it so. Every inch
of his skin was sensitive to her touch, heating and tingling as her
fingertips caressed him. She handled him with the care he might
have shown her—as if he was delicate and precious.

Her tongue licked across his and he groaned,
remembering the feel of it across other places on his body. She
gave pleasure with as much abandon as she took it, and he let her.
He couldn’t help it. Everything she did to him was perfect,
circumventing his brain and taking him to that place where he was
more animal than man—a creature of sensation and need.

Sliding down, he nuzzled briefly against her
throat, then moved lower. He teased her nipples with sweeping
brushes of his parted lips and soft, gentle licks. Kim whimpered
and tugged his head closer, silently urging him to suckle her,
which he would not do. The tender tips were already swollen and he
wouldn’t hurt her, even if she considered the pleasure worth the
pain. Instead he worried the tiny hardened point with the tip of
his tongue, fluttering over it like the kiss of a butterfly, before
lavishing the same attention to her other breast.

“God that feels good,” she gasped, writhing
beneath him, her skin heating to the touch. “You could make me come
if you quit playing around.”

He laughed, something he so rarely did.
Squeezing her hip in his hand, he continued his downward
progression, his tongue rimming her navel before dipping inside.
Her flat belly concaved and a tickled laugh escaped her. The sound
delighted him.

With his hand beneath her knee, Raze slid
one of her sleek legs over his shoulder, then the other. He cupped
her ass and lifted her. His mouth watered; his chest tightened with
the anticipation of hearing all the luscious sounds she made while
he pleasured her.

At the first long, slow lick, she sighed,
her body going lax. “You’re so gifted. I’m going to have wet dreams
about your mouth for the rest of my life.”

His lips curved. He took her with a deep,
intimate kiss. Pushing inside her with gentle greed. Listening to
her moan as he tongued her slick, tender flesh. Her hips arched,
seeking more, and he gave it to her. Lapping through the silken
folds like a cat with cream. He circled the tiny knot of her
clitoris and stroked over it, relishing the way she writhed and
gasped, then begged him to suck. She came with a full-body shiver,
gasping his name.

Wiping his mouth on her inner thigh, he
shrugged out from under her boneless legs and sat up. He sheathed
himself in an unnecessary condom, then nudged her legs wider and
sank his hips between them. Fisting his erection, he guided it to
her. He paused there, absorbing the heated expectation of the
moment. In the hours past, he’d learned how perfect the tight clasp
of her body was, how deliciously she held him.

An unexpected but not unwelcome tenderness
welled inside him.

His eyes closed as she took the first inch,
the pleasure so hot and fierce it misted his skin with sweat. He
refrained from thrusting, careful to give her swollen sex the time
to accept him. He let her body set the pace, sinking deeper only
when she opened for him like an unfurling flower.

“Raze.”

Lifting his pleasure-weighted eyelids, he
looked down at her, finding her flushed and bright-eyed. Feverish
with desire. He cupped her head in his hands, holding her still as
he slipped into her to the hilt. He savored the way she trembled
around and beneath him, watching her eyes darken as the desire took
over. The glance they shared was open and naked, and as intimate as
his cock inside her.

“God.” Her nails dug deliciously into the
muscles of his back. “You’re so hard. And big. Jesus, you’re so
thick and long.”

“Umm...” He rolled his hips. “And you’re
tight as a fist. I pack you full. You couldn’t take another
centimeter if I had it to give you.”

Pushing her heels into the mattress, Kim
thrust up at him. “Ride me. I want to come again.”