Dark Lover (32 page)

Then she noticed his pupils. They were all wrong. Tiny, unfocused pinpricks of black.

She caressed his face. "Your eyes are beautiful."

"Useless."

"Beautiful."

She watched as he scanned her face. He was straining, as if trying to get his vision to work.

"Have they always been like this?" she whispered.

"I was born visually impaired. My sight got worse after my transition and will probably degenerate even more as I age."

"So you can see something?"

"Yeah." His hand lifted to her hair. When waves of it landed on her shoulder, she realized he was picking the pins out of her chignon. "I know I like your hair down, for instance. And I know you are very beautiful."

His fingers traced the contours of her face, then brushed lightly down her neck to her collarbone. They kept going, marking a path between her breasts.

Her heart pounded. Her thoughts slowed down. The world receded until there was only Wrath.

"Sight is seriously overrated, though," he murmured, flattening his palm over her sternum. The weight was heavy. Warm. A foretaste of what his body would feel like pressing hers down into the mattress. "Touch, taste, smell, hearing. The other four senses are just as important."

He leaned forward, nuzzled her neck, and she felt a soft scratching.
His fangs
, she thought. Running up her throat.

She wanted him to bite her.

Wrath breathed in deeply. "You have a perfume to your skin that makes me hard. Instantly. All I have to do is smell you."

She arched in his arms, rubbing herself against his thighs, thrusting her breasts up. Her head fell back, and she let out a little moan.

"God, I love that sound," he said, moving his hand up to the base of her throat. "Make it for me again, Beth."

He sucked her neck. She obliged.

"That's it," he groaned. "Sweet heaven, that is
so
it."

His fingers started traveling again, this time over to the tie on her dress. He loosened the bow.

"I wouldn't let Fritz change the sheets."

"What?" she mumbled.

"On the bed. After you left. I wanted to smell you when I lay down in them."

The front of her dress slid open, and cool air hit her skin as his hand drifted up her rib cage. When he got to her bra, he drew a circle around the edges of one lace cup, gradually working his way inward until he brushed against her nipple.

Her body jerked, and she grabbed onto his shoulder. His muscles were rock solid from holding her off balance. She looked up into his fearsome, magnificent face.

His eyes literally glowed, the irises throwing off light that cast her breasts in shadows. The promise of raw, pounding sex and his ferocious hunger for her were obvious in the grinding of his jaw. The heat coming off his tremendous body. The tension in his legs and chest.

But he was utterly in control of himself. And her.

"You know, I've been too greedy with you," he said, bringing his head down to her collarbone. He bit her lightly, not breaking her skin. Then his tongue licked over the spot, stroking, satin smooth. He moved lower, to her breastbone. "I really haven't taken you properly yet."

"I'm not so sure about that," she said roughly.

He laughed with a deep rumble, his breath warm and moist over her skin. He kissed up the top of her breast, and then he took her nipple into his mouth, through the lace. She arched again, feeling like a dam had broken between her legs.

His head lifted, a smile of anticipation pulling at his mouth.

He gently slid the bra strap down and peeled the lace away. Her nipple puckered even more for him, and she watched as his dark head went down to her pale skin. His tongue, glossy and pink, came out of his mouth and licked her.

As her thighs parted without any demand from him, he laughed again, a thick, male sound of satisfaction.

His hand slipped in between the folds of her dress, brushing against her hip, moving slowly over to her lower belly. He found the edge of her panties and slid his forefinger underneath the lace. Just a little.

He moved that fingertip back and forth, a sensuous tickle inches from where she wanted it to be. Needed it to be.

"More," she demanded. "I want more."

"And you'll get it." His whole hand disappeared under the black lace. She cried out as he came into contact with her hot, wet core. "But Beth?"

She was barely conscious. Completely consumed by his touch. "Umm?"

"Do you want to know what you taste like?" he said against her breast.

One long finger dipped into her body. As if he wanted her to know he wasn't talking about her mouth.

She gripped his back through his silk shirt, scoring him with her nails.

"Peaches," he said, shifting her body, moving downward with his mouth, kissing the skin of her stomach. "Like eating peaches. Silky flesh on my lips and tongue as I suck. Smooth and sweet down the back of my throat when I swallow."

She moaned, close to orgasm and far, far away from sanity.

With a quick motion, he scooped her up and carried her over to the bed. As he laid her down, he parted her legs with his head and put his mouth over the black lace between her thighs.

She gasped and pushed her hands into his hair, only to get tangled up. He yanked away the leather tie. Black waves fell down across her belly, like the flutter of a hawk's wings.

"Just like peaches," he said, stripping off her panties. "And I love peaches."

That eerie, beautiful illumination from his eyes washed over her body. And then he lowered his head again.

Chapter Twenty-seven

Havers went down into his lab and paced around, loafers slapping against the white linoleum tile. After two trips around the room, he came to rest in front of his workstation. He stroked the graceful enameled neck of his microscope. Looked up at the fleets of glass beakers and the battalions of vials on the shelves overhead. He heard the humming of refrigerators, the droning purr of the ventilation unit in the ceiling. Caught the lingering, medicinal specter of Lysol disinfectant.

The scientific environment reminded him of his intellectual pursuits.

Of the pride he took in the strength of his mind.

He considered himself civilized. Capable of shelving his emotions. Good at responding logically to stimuli. But this hatred, this anger was not something he could sit with. The feeling was too violent, too energizing.

Plans spun in his head, plans involving bloodshed.

Except who was he kidding? If he raised so much as a Swiss army knife at Wrath, he was the one who'd be left bleeding.

He needed someone who knew how to kill. Someone who could get close to the warrior.

When the solution came to him, it was obvious. He knew just whom to go to and where to find him.

Havers turned to the door, satisfaction bringing a smile to his lips.

But when he caught his reflection in the mirror over the deep-bellied lab sink, he froze. His shifty eyes were too bright, too eager. The nasty grin was one he'd never worn before. The fevered flush on his face was in anticipation of a vile result.

He didn't recognize himself in the mask of vengeance.

He hated the way he looked.

"Oh, God."

How could he even think such things? He was a physician. A healer. He'd devoted himself to saving lives, not taking them.

Marissa had said it was over. She'd broken the covenant. She wasn't going to see Wrath again.

Yet didn't she still deserve to be avenged for the way she'd been treated?

And now was the time to strike. The approach to Wrath was uncluttered by the threat that Marissa might get caught in the crossfire.

Havers felt a shudder go through him, and he assumed it was horror at the magnitude of what he was considering. But then his body lurched, and he had to reach out to steady himself. Vertigo threw the world around him into a blender, and he tumbled over to a chair.

Wrenching free the knot of his bow tie, he struggled to breathe.

The blood, he thought. The transfusion.

It wasn't working.

In despair, he fell from the chair to his knees. Brought to the ground by his failure, he closed his eyes and let himself sink into blackness.

Wrath rolled onto his side and took Beth with him, keeping them joined. With his erection still twitching inside of her, he brushed her hair back. It was damp with her delicate sweat.

Mine.

As he kissed her lips, he noted with satisfaction that she was still breathing hard.

He'd made love to her properly, he thought. Slow and deliberate.

"Will you stay?" he asked.

She laughed huskily. "I'm not sure I can walk right now. So, yeah, I think lying here is a good option."

He pressed his lips to her forehead. "I'll return just before dawn."

As he withdrew from the warm cocoon of her body, she looked up. "Where are you going?"

"I'm meeting with my brothers and then we're going out."

He left the bed and went to the closet, dressing in his leathers, pulling his holster onto his shoulders. He slipped in a dagger on each side and grabbed his jacket.

"Fritz will be here," he said. "If you need anything, pick up the phone and dial star forty. It'll ring upstairs."

She wrapped a sheet around herself and rose from the bed.

"Wrath." She touched his arm. "Stay."

He dipped down for a quick kiss. "I'm coming back."

"Are you going to fight?"

"Yes."

"But how can you? You're…" She stopped.

"And I've been blind for three hundred years."

Her breath sucked in. "You're that old?"

He had to laugh. "Yeah."

"Well, I've got to say you're holding up just fine." Her smile faded. "How long will I live?"

A shot of cold dread hit him, stealing a couple of heartbeats from his chest.

What if she didn't make it through the transition?

Wrath felt his stomach lurch. He, who was all chummy with the Grim Reaper, suddenly got cracked in the gut with some base mortal fear.

But she was going to make it, right?
Right
?

He realized he was looking at the ceiling, and wondered who the hell he was talking to. The Scribe Virgin?

"Wrath?"

He yanked Beth against him, holding her tight, as if he could physically bar her from her fate if it was a bad one.

"Wrath," she said into his shoulder. "Wrath, honey, I can't… I can't breathe."

He loosened his hold immediately and looked down into her eyes, trying to force his to focus. The strain pulled the skin of his temples tight.

"Wrath? What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"You didn't answer my question."

"That's because I don't know the answer."

She seemed taken aback, but then arched up onto her tiptoes. She kissed his lips. "Well, however long I've got, I wish you would stay with me tonight."

There was a pounding on the door.

"Yo, Wrath?" Rhage's voice carried through the steel. "We're all here."

Beth stepped back, wrapping her arms around herself. He could sense she was closing up on him again.

He was tempted to lock her in, but he couldn't bear to keep her as a prisoner. And his instincts told him that however much she might wish things were different, she was resigned to her fate, as well as his role in it. She was also safe from the
lessers
at this point, as they would see her only as a human.