Downbeat (Biting Love) (18 page)

Until Dragan pulled into the gravel lot of a strip motel, when I sat abruptly straight. “What are we doing here?”

He turned off the engine and faced me, a worldly smile tipping his lips. “What do you think?”

I cut a glance at the dash-dot-dash of closed doors and draped windows. “But…but I’m not on the pill and I don’t have a condom and—”

“Raquel, what a surprise.” His smile expanded. “You do know about sex.”

“Sure,” I said, confused. “I read.”

“You read.” His lips quirked. “That’s your only education? There is much pleasure in store for you.” He reached for his door.

“Wait.” Panic wrapped my fingers around his arm. “Here? Now?”

“Now, certainly. At least, once you release me.” He nodded at my clutching fingers. “Here, unless you have someplace better.”

I didn’t let go. “Don’t get me wrong, I know what intercourse is and I’ve had it, sort of, but…but you…this…now…?”

“Raquel, be at ease. Not intercourse, not here. We’re simply going to explore each other. When we come together completely, it will be someplace more romantic than this.”

Even not-intercourse with bucket crush Dragan would incinerate me. Delay, delay… “I thought you said you walked to my apartment.”

He gave me a quick grin. “I said Otto’s is walking distance. I can’t help what everyone thought.”

“You’re a bad boy, Maestro.”

His grin widened to a full wicked smile. At that sexy punch to the gut, my fingers burst open and he popped out of the car. He blew me a kiss and disappeared into the corner unit, a neon OFFICE alight in the window.

Oh my,
oh my
. I shivered. I was so totally in-over-my-head drowning. My stomach was a bubbling cauldron and my veins filled with tumbling fireflies. Like waiting offstage before a performance, but I knew what to do once I was on a stage. I wasn’t so sure when the stage was a bed.

Bed.
I was going to bed with Dragan Zajicek.

My shivers increased to trembles. At least it wasn’t a royal bed at a ten-star hotel with eyelet lace and a zillion pillows and a cloud for a quilt. I’d never have the guts to get all that opulence dirty with my mere humanity.

Infinitesimally, I relaxed. Had he chosen a working-class establishment on purpose, to put me more at ease? That was either the most caring thing anyone had done for me, or it was slightly insulting.

He emerged with an old-fashioned plastic diamond key charm in his hand and a smile on his face. Who the hell cared why he’d done it? This was
it
.

He jumped into the car and started the engine. “The boy at the desk told me where I can park the car so it won’t be seen from the highway. Emerson didn’t follow, but he could be looking for us.”

“Except he’s part of the group that includes Logan Steel, right? They probably have a spy satellite that could see your car from space. Not to mention that Elias guy, who seems to have a direct line into the Outer Limits.”

Dragan gave me an intrigued glance as he pulled under some half-bare trees behind the motel. “I will ask you how you know that. But later.” He got out of the car, came around to open my door and held out his hand.

Tentatively, I put my fingers in his. He tugged me from my seat and then, somehow, I was lifted in his arms and we were moving and there was a click and we were inside in the cool dark. His arms around me blazed with contrasting heat. He shut the motel door with his foot, his mouth already claiming mine.

He was experienced and it showed, in how fast he moved, how completely he dominated me. I’d barely gotten used to his devouring mouth when he slid me down his body to stand and his hands shifted and my top was being peeled over my head. Even I wasn’t so smooth with my own clothes; it hit me hard that he’d undressed a lot of women to be so good.

Then cool air hit my cleavage and I realized I, dowdy old Rocky Hrbek, was topless but for my silver necklace and serviceable white cotton sports bra, a dollar each in packs of ten. I crossed terrified arms over me.

He didn’t seem to care whether the bra was cotton or silk. His eyes dropped to my plumped cleavage and heated to black irises capturing huge pools of fire.

It made me feel more than beautiful. It made me feel desirable.

Because of that, when he gently peeled away my arms, I let him. Yes, I was scared, not just leaving but zooming out of my comfort zone. But a part of me was softly pleading for him to show me what he knew.

To show me
more
.

He cupped my cotton-covered breasts, one in each hand. I sucked in air. He kneaded softly and excitement popped in my blood like sparklers. He thumbed my nipples and I moaned, my head falling back. It was an invitation I didn’t know I was giving. So when he bent, his well-shaped lips pursing, I tried to bring my head up for the kiss I thought he wanted. But he wasn’t headed for my mouth.

His lips landed on the top of one plumped breast, open, wet and hot. I squealed. The strength I couldn’t find before shot through my neck like an iron rod, jerking me straight. He thumbed my nipples through the thin bra, stroking them erect while massaging and plumping my breasts with his clever fingers.

It stole my breath. In his hands, under his lips, my plain-bra-covered tits looked as he’d said, exquisite.

While I was enthralled with undulating flesh, he thumbed back one bra cup, fastened his mouth onto my nipple and suckled.

I shrieked. A fuse flamed from my breast, arrowed toward my groin. It hissed and snapped and sizzled—and hit ground zero and my hips jerked into his.

He lifted his head and smiled into my eyes.

Oh God. He was doing this to me deliberately. He knew exactly what buttons to push to make me wanton pudding in his hands.

He maneuvered me back until my legs hit the bed. I fell with my legs slightly spread. While I was still processing the fact that I was
on my back on a bed with my legs spread around Dragan Zajicek
, he opened my slacks, pulled off my shoes and yanked off my pants, zip-strip-strip.

And then I was on my back on a bed with my legs spread around Dragan Zajicek and naked, but for my white briefs, silver chain and askew sports bra, one breast mounded above the stretched neckline, nipple peeking out.

He was still fully dressed.

Something must have been wrong with me, because my groin tightened at the sight, as if I thought me-naked-him-clothed was incredibly hot.

He mounted the bed with one knee, his hand cupping my face. His lips parted and he grabbed my mouth in a kiss that inflamed me. I didn’t know what to do with my hands and they flailed before landing on his arms. I dug in and encountered those big rock-hard biceps again. I remembered how good his hands felt kneading my breasts and tried to move my fingers the same way. It must have worked because he straightened long enough to strip off his coat, flip buttons on his shirt and shrug out of it, revealing bronzed skin over shockingly defined muscles. Burnt-red nipples snagged my gaze, and a line of black hair running from mid-abdomen to the buckle on his belt. His coloration wasn’t typical for a Czech and I almost wondered why.

Then he fell on me and thrust his thigh between mine, put his hands on my breasts and buried his mouth in my neck, and I stopped thinking about anything but how thrilling he was.

I writhed under him. My hands grasped his back and roved, traveling a narrow waist, up long wings of muscle rising to shoulders that I could barely wrap arms around. I wished I’d gotten a better look at him; the brief flash of power sliding under sleek skin wasn’t enough.

His thigh pumped between my legs, generating shock waves. My muscles were starting to melt again, languid and yielding. His kisses included a lot of tongue and ran along parts of my body I didn’t even know I had. His hands swept down my torso to my hips, flushing waves of shivers along my skin. He shifted to kneel between my legs on the floor, kissing my belly and delicately licking my navel where it peeked above my briefs. My ribcage was rising and falling, but I wasn’t sure if it was my panting breaths or my hammering heart moving it.

He touched my mound. “I would love to taste you. But that will have to wait until you are more…shall we say acclimatized?” He pressed kisses to my abdomen while he stroked the wet inset of my panties—and then his fingers slipped inside and stroked skin.

I yelped. My sex clenched, excitement exploding through my entire body. My clit sang a happy song and rose to meet his fingers.

“Ah, my sweet innocent.” He purred. “You’re already swollen open for me.” His canines flashed as he spoke.

“I thought…” I panted. “I thought no intercourse.”

“
Drahý
. There are other things we can do.” He slid a finger into me. A strangled cry rose from my throat. I’d had my own fingers there but his was so much longer, thicker, hotter. Hell, even the cocks of the couple boys I’d had weren’t as exciting as Dragan’s finger.

He raised himself to plant a knee between my thighs and leaned one forearm on the bed next to my shoulders. His eyes glittered under heavy lids.

With his finger filling me, he levered his hips to thrust directly into my pubic bone. The impact shuddered the bed under me and vibrated his finger inside me. My whole pelvis hollowed out, then flushed with liquid fire. He thrust again, scrubbing against me with something harder than muscle but giving slightly, not bone…he set up a regular rhythm, his purring more pronounced and vibrating us both where his chest rose and fell above me.

He claimed my mouth in an open kiss. His insistent pounding drove any self-consciousness from my head. I loved him back, thrusting my tongue into his mouth, tasting and giving in return. It wasn’t enough. I grabbed his head and tried to crawl down his throat.

He chuckled and opened fully for me. I found myself happily spelunking in a hot, damp masculine cave. His driving against my pubic bone tugged my briefs around both my crotch and his impaling finger, and it was
all
pulling at my clit, which was quaking and sparking like an anime bomb just before it blows.

My legs came up and wrapped tightly around him. He groaned and purred like mad, his tongue thrust deep in my mouth. His finger inside me started moving, jerking as if he couldn’t help it. His hips doubled in speed, in a frenzy, and the hard length of him fattened even more against me.

Sweet power rose in me like a tidal swell. I was about to orgasm
and I wasn’t alone
. He was with me, panting and grinding with a primal rhythm gone beyond his masterful technique into sheer abandoned need.

I lowered my legs and grabbed his thighs with them and used my hands to grab his head and torqued myself up to drive my sex into his. I punched with everything I had, abandoning myself to the final stretch, running with him, alongside him, lost in joint pleasure. A beat, and once more, and the pinnacle came. I launched myself to fly—just as he ground into me with a roar.

He was coming too
.

My climax didn’t soar, it exploded. The orgasm smacked me inside my skin, slapping waves of pleasure that would have carried me off the bed had I not been wrapped in heavy muscular male. I shuddered long and hard, clutching his head and thighs. His answering convulsions shook me into an extended series of shock waves. My ears blanked with a white hum.

The hum wore off to rapid heartbeats in stereo, harsh masculine panting and hot breath billowing against my ear. I opened my eyes.

Dragan’s head was buried in the mattress next to mine, his body even heavier than before. Perspiration slicked where our skin pressed together. I switched my gaze to his neck, a thick rope of muscle joining his vast shoulders. I’d had sex before with boys and I’d seen men this well-built in pictures, but reality was breath-suckingly eye-poppingly lip-lickingly impressive.

And for the first time, I wasn’t worried if my partner thought I’d been okay. I was too busy pouring my brains back into my skull.

Until Dragan rolled off me and said in a serious tone, “Now. Tell me what you know about Elias—and vampires.”

Chapter Eleven

“Say wha-a-a-t?” I tried to sound as innocent as possible. My friends’ behavior told me the v-topic was strictly off-limits, as in behind doors so closed they’d been bricked over, cave-voiced Elias standing guard.

Dragan distracted me by snaring bathroom towels, tossing me one and wiping himself inside his pants with the other. The hard strokes made his chest and biceps bulge intriguingly.

He dropped the towel, sat and took my chin in his hand and snared my eyes with his. They glittered with something beyond his usual intelligence and charisma. “
Tell me
,” he repeated in a voice that echoed in my head.

“I can’t,” I burst out. “It’s a big secret. My friends would have a fit.”

His eyes widened. “Say that again.”

“My friends wouldn’t like it.”

“Not that.
Tell me the secret
.” Again he used his compelling voice and this time he leaned in and bored into me with eyes that were black rings around pure ruby fire.

“I can’t,” I repeated, miserable. I knew what happened when boys didn’t get what they wanted, and it wasn’t a happy ending for me.

“That.” He released my chin to stroke my hair. “That was what I wanted you to say.”

Now it was my turn to rear back. “You wanted me to say no?”