Lover Unveiled, page 27
Back in the trailer proper, Balz stared down at where the sitting area had had its gray-matter, blood-splatter renovation. Fucking wonderful. Now he had to find another fence.
It was like Starbucks discontinuing the Verismo. He’d been hoarding pods for months, and when that goddamn machine broke or he finally ran out of them, he was going to have to reinvent his perfect coffee.
Fucking inconvenience over nothing.
Just as he was turning away, he caught sight of something on the floor, half-concealed under the filthy fringe of the death sofa. It was a Hannaford plastic bag, and the thing was partially open . . .
. . . and flashing a whole lot of B. Franklin faces.
Going over, he pulled the bag free of the dust bunnies and the grab of something nasty on the carpet. As he fought the resistance, he heard Flula’s voice from “Beer Pong, You Are Terrible.”
Cranberry juices. Sticksy, sticksy. Lick, lick, lick, lick—
The bag came free, and as he opened the thing wide, he whistled at all the bundles of hundies.
“Well, this is just about right, isn’t it, Dave.” Determined to be a team player, he smiled over at the pasty face with its sightless eyes and the little red hole off center on the forehead. “Gotta be about twenty grand in here. Fair trade.”
Retail, the watches from Mr. Commodore’s collection would be over a hundred grand. But you were lucky to get twenty percent when you were on Balz’s side of commerce.
“I’ll just leave these right here.” He winked at his cold, immobile business associate as he put the watch case on the coffee table. “I’d hate to steal from you. It’d just ruin my reputation on LinkedIn.”
He would have rolled the bag around the cash and just shoved it inside his jacket, but licky, licky, don’t you know. So he took the bills and let the nasty bag drift down to the matted carpet.
“Take care, big guy.”
Just as Balz was about to step out of the trailer, a pair of headlights washed the front side with all kinds of hi-how’re-ya. The blinds were down, so he went over and parted the dusty slats. It was a shitty sedan with a lot of rust lace behind its tires. An older man in a set of overalls got out, his scruffy beard and chopped hair gray, his face lined and loose. He lit a cigarette and looked at the trailer with an expression of exhaustion.
Dave’s dad. Had to be. They had the same bone structure, but more than that, the way the guy stared forward? It was like he had been waiting for what he was going to find inside.
An unexpected sadness wrapped around Balz’s heart.
Thieves should still be mourned, he thought as he dematerialized. Even if their lives aren’t worth shit.
• • •
Over at Luchas House, Nate walked into a bedroom on the southwestern corner of the farmhouse. There were large cardboard boxes tilted against the wall, a rolled-up carpet, and two mattresses stacked in the middle—so not exactly cozy and inviting. But as he went over to the window, he got a good view of the big maple in the front lawn.
“If you put your bed against this wall”—he pointed to the longest stretch in the room—“you’ll be able to look at it lying down.”
When there was no response, he glanced over his shoulder. Elyn was in the en suite bath, leaning into the mirror, staring at herself like she didn’t recognize the reflection—or maybe like she wasn’t sure where she was and was trying to ground herself in her own features.
Nate went across to her. Downstairs, there were sounds of people moving around, voices, laughter. And the scent of freshly baking Toll House cookies. He wished he could bring that life up here, up to Elyn.
Her silver eyes met his in the glass. She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to. He knew exactly what she was thinking.
He cleared his throat. “You know, the hardest thing for me when I got out was trusting I was going to stay out. That I actually was where I was standing. It was like at any moment I was going to get pulled back. I didn’t trust reality.”
Elyn turned to him, her eyes wide. “Wherever were you held?”
“Somewhere I didn’t want be.” He had to look away. “It’s not important where. I just know how hard it is for you right now. And it gets better, I promise.”
When he could manage to meet her eyes, he hoped she would open up and talk about her story, even though he feared the details.
“Are you safe now?” she whispered.
He nodded. “Yes. And so are you.”
She turned back to the mirror. “I am lost. I thought . . . I would be free, but I am lost.”
“I know and I’m so sorry. I’ve been where you are and it sucks.”
“Tell me.”
“I, ah, I . . . can’t.” He was not going to lose it in front of her. And somehow, talking about the lab was going to make him feel more naked than if he actually were naked. “I wish I could, but I can’t.”
Elyn drew in a deep breath. Then she reached across the space between them and took his hand. As she closed her eyes, he couldn’t believe she was touching him—
The bolt of electricity flashed through his body, and in the aftermath, he was immobile and totally numb, yet still standing. Then came the fluttering. At first, he thought it was something physical, but then he realized what was happening was in his brain. It was as if his thoughts were being shuffled, a deck of cards.
And then Elyn gasped.
In the midst of his strange fugue state, Nate focused on her eyes as they widened and the color drained out of her face. Tears formed and fell onto her cheeks, flowing down and dropping off the sides of her jaw. The shaking came after that, her mouth parting with the lower lip starting to tremble. With her free hand, she covered her—
Elyn dropped her hold on him and took a stumbling step back, her hip banging into the sink.
As the numb feeling drained out of Nate’s feet, sure as if it were a tangible level of some kind of liquid, he was aware of a great shame flooding into his void.
It turned out that however painful the lab had been, having Elyn horrified by him was a worse agony.
Clearing his throat, he focused on the boxes out in her room. “Well, I’ll just get started on these.”
Turning away from her, he—
Elyn jumped in front and embraced him so hard, he had no breath in his lungs.
“Oh . . . Nate,” she said in a voice that cracked. “Oh, dearest Virgin Scribe. What they did to you. To your mahmen. They hurt you.”
Nate was so shocked by the contact, by her scent, by her . . . everything . . . that the content of her words didn’t register. But then he caught up with everything.
Her hands were smoothing over his back. “I am so sorry.”
Nate wanted to hold her back. So he did—but things went further than he intended. He dropped his head onto her shoulder, opened up the internal lockbox he kept his horrible memories in . . . and went into his pain.
It had been a while since he had done that, the rhythm of his nights and days, the normalcy of life with Sarah and Murhder, obscuring his past—and thank fuck for it. Yet Elyn called that which he staunchly ignored to the forefront.
And somehow, though it was agony, her sympathy eased him in ways no amount of therapy with Mrs. Mary had.
Down on the first floor, people kept talking, and laughing, and making cookies.
Up in Elyn’s bathroom, the world stopped as two broken people became whole again. Through the magic of not being alone.
Sahvage put his shirt on the sink counter and focused on Mae. She was standing on the far side of the kitchen table, one hand gripping the gun he’d gotten for her, the other floating in the breeze like it was looking for something to do.
And what do you know, he had some suggestions for that—and she was clearly open to them: Her delicious scent gave her away. Her eyes, as they traveled down his bare chest, gave her away. The way she breathed . . . gave her away.
“Tell me, what do you want to see, Mae?”
Please God, let Tallah sleep for another hour, he thought. Two. Eight. Because the way Mae was staring at him? They had things to do together that did not need an audience or any kind of interruption.
“What do you want, Mae.” No question this time. “Do you want me to close this door?”
She answered that one without touching anything or moving. The wooden panel that separated them, the one that offered only a seam of sight for her, moved so that it opened more. So that she could see him properly.
All of him.
Sahvage certainly hadn’t willed the change of its position, and there sure as shit weren’t any drafts that could have done that.
So she had. Because what he wanted to show her was what she wanted to lay her eyes on.
And far be it for him to disappoint a female of worth.
His hands went to his belt, and he pulled the leather strap free of its buckle and tongue. Then he popped the button and waited with the zipper.
Mae’s chest was rising faster and faster, and her eyes were locked on what he was doing. And the scent of her arousal was getting thicker.
Which made him want to go slow as molasses—so this on-theverge, which was both torture and pleasure, would last forever.
“Is this what you want?” he asked in a growl.
“Yes,” she breathed.
Well, wasn’t that the right answer.
Sahvage lowered the zipper—and his erection took it from there, bursting free of the lock-and-key it had been straining against, the thick arousal jutting straight out from his hips. As he let his pants go, they dropped to his feet.
She bit her lower lip and moaned. But she didn’t come over.
And that was hot.
“Do you want me to touch it?” he said in a low voice.
When she nodded, he took his hand and wrapped his palm around his shaft. He groaned—he couldn’t help it. He wanted it to be her doing the grip, and he wanted to be kissing her while she stroked him—and that was why this got to him so much. As he rode himself up and down, while watching her watch him, his mind spun with what it was going to be like when it was her. When Mae’s hand was on him. When she was making him come—
Fucking hot as fuck.
And she must have felt the same way because she tucked the gun away and came forward. With every step she took, he stroked. Stroked. Stroked. As she arrived at the door, he prayed she entered.
She did.
Over the threshold. Door closing behind her.
Except she leaned back against it, wrapping her arms around herself and staring at him. “Now is not the time.”
Her voice was incredibly disappointed, and what do you know. That shit speared through him like a sword.
Sahvage halted his hand, but did not release his hold. “I find myself wanting to argue the point. But as you can see, I’m a little self-interested at the moment.”
Mae’s pink tongue, her delicious, erotic, pink tongue, traveled across her lower lip. Then she nipped that soft flesh with her fangs, biting down like she was swallowing a moan.
“What if Tallah wakes up?” she whispered.
“I stop.”
There was a pause. And then, thank the frickin’ Scribe Virgin, Mae nodded. “I just want to see . . . what you look like.”
Bracing his free hand on the wall, he had a feeling he was going to need the help with his balance. “When I come?”
“Yes,” she sighed.
“Tell me what you want. You know, just so I’m sure I get it right.”
“I want you . . . to make yourself . . .”
“What,” he demanded.
“Come.”
That word leaving her lips made the world tilt and spin. And he wasn’t losing his chance. Even though he wanted his hands on her body, and he wanted to pleasure her, if this was as far as they were going? Fine. He was totally fucking into it.
Kicking his pants free, he went base to head with his palm, finding a slow rhythm that juiced his erection up more than some of the best sex he’d actually had—and that was not because of his handling technique. It was all because of Mae. Her mere presence, even without any physical contact between them, was hotter than the other females he’d physically been with.
He didn’t know why. And he wasn’t inclined to waste time on that one.
He had a feeling the answer would scare the shit out of him—
As Mae lifted her fingers to her mouth, she brushed her lower lip back and forth like she was imagining him kissing her—
Sahvage hissed and squeezed his eyes shut. He was so on the verge already and he didn’t want it to end so soon. This sacred space, just for the two of them, was like a vault locking out the world, and fuck, he wanted that right now. Had wanted this kind of amnesia for a long time.
Except then he had to pop his lids again. And get back to work.
As the heat rose, and his cock became hypersensitive, he tightened his grip and moved faster.
“Say my name,” he commanded. “I want to hear it.”
“Sahvage . . .”
“Do you want this?”
“God . . . yes.” She closed her eyes. But only for a split second. “I want you.”
“How much.” Faster. Faster. “Tell me how much.”
“So bad. Sahvage . . .”
As she moaned his name, he let go of the wall and grabbed a towel, but he didn’t cover the head of his arousal. He put the soft folds out in front as the ejaculations started so she could watch, so she could imagine him filling her up, his rhythm unchanging as he milked himself into her. And fuck, he wanted to keep looking at her, but the pleasure was so intense, his lids squeezed shut on their own.
Fine. He would just picture him on top of her, her breasts against his pecs, her legs spread wide, her body arching to receive what he was pumping off into her—
He started to come again. Before he’d even finished.
God, the only thing that could have made this hotter? Was if she were orgasming along with him.
• • •
Mae had to hold herself in place against the bathroom door. Sahvage’s body was magnificent, so powerful, so virile, the contracting muscles of his massive pecs and arms in stark contrast to her own body, that tattoo of his bringing an edge of danger, the scent of him too delicious to describe. And his broad hand on that thick erection? She was going to be seeing that on the backs of her lids for pretty much the rest of her sleeping days. Maybe during the waking nights, too.
God, she hoped Tallah didn’t wake up. For like a year.
Meanwhile, Sahvage just kept orgasming, and it was . . . beautiful. It was raw, and a little scary because he was so big. But he seemed to understand that opening the door—literally and proverbially—to her doing that to him was going to have to be on her time.
She couldn’t imagine pleasuring him like that. But she was willing to bet he’d show her what she needed to do—
Why not, she thought. What was she waiting for?
Mae stepped forward toward him, and as she did, she was nervous. Especially as his eyes flared like she’d surprised him. She was not turning back, though. When was she going to get another chance like this?
Especially because she knew he was temporary in her life.
“What do I do?” she said softly.
There was a pause, as if he wasn’t sure what she was asking.
“Anything you like.” He let go of himself and leaned back against the wall by the shower. “You can touch me anywhere you goddamn like, and any way you want.”
“But what . . .” As he looked at her in confusion, she flushed. “I, ah—tell me what pleases you.”
“Your hands on me. Wherever. Your mouth. All over me. That’s what I want.” Abruptly, Sahvage stiffened. “Mae . . . have you ever touched a male before?”
Well, crap. She wanted to lie. She wanted to front like she was sophisticated, like she was that brunette, all sexually confident. Like she was anything other than what she really was. But this was not something to hide, even if it made her cringe.
And besides, what did she have to be ashamed about?
Mae shook her head. “No.”
He blinked. Twice. And then he covered his sex with the towel.
Swallowing a curse, Mae stepped back. Until the closed door caught her shoulder blades with a bump.
“Changes things, huh.” She brushed her hair out of her face. “Sorry.”
“You have nothing to apologize for.”
“I know.” Clearing her throat, she shrugged and rubbed her upper arms for warmth. “My parents were super conservative so both my brother and I . . . well, that’s not important now. Such a mood killer, though. Looks like I’ll be leaving now.”
As she fumbled her way out of the bathroom, her heart was pounding and a chill followed her, although she had a feeling that was because the cold spot was inside her body and unrelated to any drafts.
The thing was, waiting until she was mated to have sex was how she’d been raised, and it hadn’t been something she’d thought a lot about. All her feedings had been supervised, and the couple of times she’d had her needing, she’d gone to the race’s healer for sedation. Finding a male and settling down had always been a sometime-in-the-future kind of fantasy. And after her parents’ deaths in the raids, romance had been the last thing on her mind. She’d needed to make sure she had enough money, and that the house was taken care of, and that everything didn’t fall apart, especially when it came to Rhoger.
Yeah, and look how well that had turned out.
But what the hell did all that matter now.
What she had to do was re-ice her dead brother. Because as gruesome as her nightly job was, it was a better option than being here with all her virgin status out in the open while a smoking-hot male took a lucky, lucky bar of soap for a test drive on his proverbial racetrack. And yeah, sure, she was supposed to be all self-actualized and stuff, all female-hear-her-roar, unapologetic of the choice she’d made about sex—which hadn’t felt like any choice at all, P.S.—but when you were attracted to a male and you were past the age when most females had had a couple of lovers? You felt like something was wrong with you.
