The Twisted Kiss: Doomsyear, Book 1 (11 page)

Turning, she slid the chilled bottle of Yorkshire into Mac’s waiting hand and took another order.

She was pretty sure that Michael hadn’t meant to sit in the same place where Louis had sat once upon a time, before he’d turned
verdorben.
That had been back when they’d just been friends, on the verge of something more. Back when Louis had nursed a crush on her and she’d been too oblivious to notice it. Before she’d bought the Twisted Kiss, she’d worked there. Every night she’d had a shift, Louis had sat at the bar, sipping orange juice and trying to pretend he wasn’t ill at ease in a vampire establishment.

Back then, Louis had been training to be a physician under old Doc Williams. He’d been one of the few other humans in Sweet Rock, set to take over Williams’s practice. Louis had been committed to the care of all, even the supes who made him a little uneasy. All those dreams had ended, of course, with the press of her lips and the slip of her tongue.

“Kylie, I think that glass is dry now,” came Cody’s voice. “You can go home anytime, you know. No worries. I got it covered.”

She blinked and looked down at her hands, not even remembering picking the glass and towel up in the first place. For all she knew, she’d been standing there drying it for the last half hour.

She met Michael’s gaze and he jerked his head toward the back.

Nodding, she turned control of the bar over to Cody, then slipped down the hallway and found the refuge of her office. A few moments later, Michael entered.

She leaned with both hands flat on the desk, her back to him. “Any word from Christian?”

He came up behind her, his warmth radiating into her spine. She stood and leaned back against him, letting him envelop her in his arms. She sighed, feeling a slight release of stress. “No,” he whispered near her ear. “Nothing yet. It’s late evening. The weres should be finishing up their hunt. The vamp posse plans to take over for deep night.”

She closed her eyes and her breath shuddered out of her. “I’m half relieved they haven’t found him.”

“I understand. This is hell for you.”

Opening her eyes, she focused on the old painting behind her desk and swallowed hard. “He’s on my mind tonight. He’s got no one to miss him but me, you know. Me and maybe Doc Williams. His family’s all dead.” Maybe that was a blessing.

“I remember.”

“He wanted kids.” Her voice broke. “He wanted a whole bunch of them to make up for feeling so alone in the world.”

“Louis was a good guy.”

“Yes, he really was.” She paused. “Now he’s twisted and warped.”

Michael turned her to face him, tipped her chin up, and forced her to look into his eyes. “Everything is twisted and warped these days, Kylie. That’s why it’s important to grab on tight to whatever beauty you can find and never let it go.”

Her eyes filled with tears, even as her heart grew huge and warm—filled with the thought of Christian and Michael. “The council was so right about you and Christian. You have become everything to me and it hardly took any time at all.”

“It was there locked away in you already. You just needed the key. That’s what the council gave you.”

A tear rolled down her cheek and he kissed it away. She found his mouth and slanted hers across it, sliding her tongue aggressively within. His body went still for a moment, almost like he was shocked. Then he kissed her back, hard, his tongue spearing into her mouth hungrily.

She wanted him, wanted his body mastering hers, wanted the sweet distraction he could give her. More than that, she wanted to join with him, wanted him to become a part of her. She wanted the physical closeness that only sex could bring.

Finding his hand, she drew it up and covered her breast with it. Her nipple went hard against his palm, stabbing through the fabric of her shirt. He dragged his thumb back and forth over it, igniting all the sensitive nerves and making her moan into his mouth.

She found his hard cock and stroked it through his jeans. He wanted her too.

“Is the door locked?” he murmured against her lips.

“I don’t think so. Don’t care.” Her fingers found the button and zipper of his jeans, even as he fumbled for hers.

She toed off her shoes and he yanked her jeans and underwear down and off, leaving her bare from the waist down. His jeans half undone, just enough to free his cock, he lifted her and carried her over to brace her back against the nearby wall. His hands cupped her buttocks and her legs curled around his midsection as he held her there, suspended like she weighed nothing.

They were face-to-face, gazes locked. It seemed incredibly intimate and she never wanted it to end. He guided the head of his cock into her aroused sex and pushed in with a long, hard and steady thrust. Her mouth and eyes opened wide as he pushed within, as he stretched her muscles and filled her completely.

When he was seated base-deep, she melted against him, moaning and closing her eyes. That same strange psychic link connected them, intensifying her sensations and adding to his. It became one long hum of intense pleasure. “That’s what I wanted,” she breathed. “Oh, that’s it. I needed you inside me.” She’d craved this, feeling utterly joined mind and body with him.

Bracing her against the wall, her legs loose around his waist so he could move, he withdrew and pushed back in. Her body bumped against the wall. Someone on the other side might hear, but she didn’t care.

Michael set up a hard, fast rhythm, his cock tunneling in and out of her. Every thrust rubbed him against her clit, sending waves of sexual bliss through her. Her gaze locked with his and didn’t budge as he took her, the muscles of his gorgeous rear flexing as he stroked in and out of her.

“You’re heaven to me,” Michael whispered. “Every inch of you feels like home.”

She sealed her mouth to his, whimpering as the edge of a climax flirted hard with her body. The head of his cock rubbed deep inside her. Every hard, long thrust brought her up against an explosive climax.

Finally her orgasm burst over her like the sweetest berry. He stifled her cries with his mouth, taking all her sounds of ecstasy onto his tongue. The muscles of her sex pulsed and rippled along his pistoning length, her orgasm triggering his. His cock jumped, deep inside her, and he groaned into her open mouth.

She collapsed into his arms, limp and sated. She realized they hadn’t used a condom—just as they hadn’t the night before. She didn’t care about that, either. For half a second, before her head ruled her heart, she hoped one of them had gotten her pregnant.

Michael lifted her gently, kissing her temple. In his arms, for the time being, she was content. “Come on, Kylie, I’m taking you home.”

Sometime after midnight, Christian slipped into bed as Michael slipped out to join the vamp posse. He drew her into his arms and kissed along her skin. Drowsily, she noticed the scent of the forest clung to him, earth and evergreen.

“Michael’s leaving to hunt Louis,” he whispered into the curve of her neck. “I’m here to watch over you until morning.”

The words
hunt Louis
banished some of the heavy sleep clinging to her limbs. She reached up and cupped his cheek, feeling the prick of hair on his face. He needed to shave. “Did you see him at all?”

Christian shook his head. “Not a trace. Not even a whiff of him on the wind. He’s like a ghost.”

“Maybe he’s gone.” She could hope.

“No, I think he’s still out there. He’s got unfinished business with you, Kylie. I don’t think he’ll leave until it’s been resolved.” His eyes went cold as gunmetal. “Michael and I are going to make sure we
resolve it
before he gets to you.”

She closed her eyes for a moment. “He was human once and he loved me. Please, Christian, show him mercy.”

“I knew him too, and I liked him. He was a great guy. That thing he is now, that’s not Louis. You have to remember that.” His arms tightened around her. “If he wants to hurt you, he’s going down. It’s sad, but that’s the way it is.”

She turned her face away, tucking it into the curve of his neck. He was naked and his skin was warm along hers. “I understand.”

“I love you, Kylie. Michael and I both love you more than anything in this world. We would do anything for you, risk anything.”

She laid a gentle kiss on his skin. “I love you too, and I feel the same way.”

They stayed twined together for a long time, then Christian pulled her beneath his body and parted her thighs. She guided him inside her and he sank deep. Her breath shuddered from her as he stroked in and out of her, slowly and sweetly.

With soft sighs and gentle murmurings, they gave and received pleasure. Minds and body melded, she felt the hot, silky clasp of her sex around his cock, just as he experienced what it was for her to be filled by his thrusting cock.

They came together, each other’s names on their lips, just as dawn started to pink the horizon.

Kylie woke in the late morning between her two heavily sleeping men. She lay back down, snuggling against Michael and Christian. Sighing with contentment, she closed her eyes and tried to fall asleep, but it wouldn’t come.

Climbing over a snoring Christian, she slipped out of bed, found some clothes, and shoved her feet into her slippers. Hugging herself against the chill, she descended the stairs, going to the kitchen for a glass of water.

She got a glass from the cupboard and poured herself a glass of water, then went to the sink and looked out the window while she drank. It was raining again, not pouring, but in a steady drum of dreariness. A dark figure near the edge of the woods that surrounded Michael’s house caught her eye. She looked closer.

The glass dropped into the sink, shattering.

It was Louis.

Chapter Eleven

Uncaring about the broken glass and oblivious to everything but the deformed shape out there in the rain, she stared. Louis knew she was here. She didn’t know how she knew that—she just did. He knew she was here, watching him, and he needed to tell her something.

She also felt, with bone-deep certainty, that he had no wish to harm her.

Feeling as though she were caught in a dream, she walked to the door leading out to the back yard and opened it. She could be wrong about Louis not wanting to hurt her. It was possible—logical even—that she would walk out there and he might rip her to tiny, bloody pieces.

A week ago she might have even welcomed it, due to the weight of her guilt, but now she had something to live for. Two somethings.

Yet she needed to confront Louis, needed to look him in the eye and tell him she was sorry. The opportunity to do that outweighed everything else. So she stepped past the threshold of Michael’s safe, cozy house and walked toward Louis.

Louis didn’t move as she approached him. He stood, hunchbacked and staring at her out of his half-human, half-wolf eyes, near a pine tree. Kylie walked slowly, cautiously. Looking at him in that twisted body, it was hard not to second-guess herself. How much of the old Louis was left?

“
Louis,
” she said as she came to a stop in front of him. Rain pelted her hair and soaked her pajamas. “I’m sorry.” Her voice broke and emotion flooded her chest. She’d needed to say those words to him for so long. They came out of her on a flood of deep feeling. She fell to her knees, pressing her hands to her chest and lowering her head. “I’m not asking for your forgiveness. I just want you to know I think of you every day and…I regret.”

No sound but the pitter-patter of the rain on the grass and the leaves in the trees. Finally, Kylie looked up. Louis had come to stand only a foot away from her. She let out a small, surprised yelp and scrambled backward, but he made no further move in her direction. Instead, he reached out a hairy, paw-like hand toward her.

She went still, looking from the hand to his face. After a moment, she stood and took a step closer to him, slowly raising her own hand.

“Kylie! Don’t touch him!” yelled Michael from behind her.

Before she had a chance to react, he rushed past her with his fangs bared. Close on his heels was Christian in wolf form. A heartbeat later and the three were a tangled mess of snarling and snapping jaws and teeth.

Kylie rushed forward, holding out both her hands. “No! Stop! Please don’t hurt him!”

They didn’t hear her. The snarling and growling continued and she imagined flesh being ripped, blood flowing.

“No!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, putting every ounce of her will into it. “
No! Stop!
”

Still nothing. She picked up a branch, but what could she do with it? How could she get them to stop this horrible fighting? “Christian and Michael, if you love me—
stop!
”

The snarling cut off and the men separated. When Michael and Christian backed away, Louis lay on the ground.

She rushed to him. “He wasn’t going to hurt me,” she yelled furiously over her shoulder. They stepped aside to let her kneel at Louis’s side. He had a few scratches and gashes, but nothing too serious. She looked up at Christian and Michael and saw they were completely wound-free.

“He didn’t fight us,” Michael explained. “So we pulled back.”

She looked down at Louis. The half-yellow eyes in the hairy flesh of his eye sockets opened. “Louis? Are you all right?”

Louis pushed to his feet and stood looking among the three of them, blood dripping from a long scratch on his curled forearm. Michael moved away when Louis glanced at him, lip curling. Christian responded with a long growl, but Kylie shot him a look that made him back down.

The monster that used to be Louis held out his gnarled hand. Kylie stepped forward without hesitation and touched him. All the breath seemed to go out of him and he closed his eyes for a moment. Then he squeezed her hand, a gesture that seemed alarmingly human. After several seconds, he withdrew his hand, nodding first at her, and then at Christian and Michael. Giving a low, inhuman growl, he turned back to Kylie, letting his gaze linger on her face for a long moment.

Then, leaping back into the foliage, Louis was gone.

Kylie stood in the rain, soaked through and chilled to the bone, staring at the now-quiet forest that Louis had disappeared into. Christian and Michael were silent beside her.