Ambrosia (Nectar Trilogy, Book 2) (8 page)

He nodded, I keep money flowing in and I work to stop threats, keep our secrets safe. I’m on a few councils.”

“Is the money made honestly?”

“We do use our influence in some areas,” he admitted.

“You’re not giving much away…”

“This stuff is irrelevant.” He shrugged.

“What happens when you get the next promotion?” she asked.

He shook his head, “More autonomy. I report to Claudio now and wouldn’t. I’d have more direct contact with other leaders. Some larger scale decisions.” He shrugged again and then turned up the radio. His jaw was tight. Kyla’s Spidey senses were tweaked.

“You don’t wanna talk about this?” She turned the radio back down.

She saw a muscle flexing in his jaw. He didn’t answer.

“You keep trying to keep me in the dark, Tristan. That shit won’t fly with me.”

His mouth tightened.

“Seriously,” she muttered.

“The last thing I need is to worry about how you’ll deal with shit.  It’s shit that’s irrelevant. I’m president of a company. I’m in a high-ranking position on a council that runs the company and that works with others to protect vampires from being discovered. My council works with other councils as a collective, to protect our secrets. End of.”

“It’s
that
bad? The stuff you keep from me?”

He shook his head, “We know how well it went when you knew I had to deal with that vamp with a taste for kids. You really want more of that?”

“Is there a lot that’s
that
bad?”

“There’s a lot of a variety of things and some of it you don’t want to know, believe me. And it’s stuff that just doesn’t factor right now. There’s no need to add more stress on top of everything else.”

“You’ve been treating me like a mushroom, Tristan.”

He didn’t reply and she guessed by his expression that under his sunglasses he’d likely rolled his eyes.

“Keeping me in the dark, feeding me shit…” she added.

He shook his head, “Baby, listen…” he started but then he didn’t finish.

“I’m on a need-to-know basis with you. I have been since we met. I understand that there’s stuff that’s irrelevant but you need to get that I’m not okay with being the ‘little lady’ that you keep in the dark.”

He roughly ripped his sunglasses off and glared at her, “And with everything we’re dealing with, Kyla, I
need
you
to
know
that you can trust me. There’s shit you
don’t
need to know, stuff that doesn’t factor for you and me. Trust that I am doing everything I can for us. It’s all for us.”

He made a sudden lane change and laid on the horn for a sec, frustrated at something on the road that Kyla hadn’t even noticed. She suspected it was more about him being frustrated with her than with other motorists.

“Who you are, what you do, who we’re dealing with in terms of your colleagues slash compadres, or whatever… it factors.”

“Yeah? You find out shit you don’t like, you don’t get to leave. Then you have to deal with shit you won’t want to deal with and it puts distance between us. Why would I do that to you, to us?”

“I don’t get to leave,” she said with a sneer, “
nice
.”

He got louder, his driving got more erratic, “No matter what you find out about me, you don’t get to leave me, you know this. You’re mine and I am not ever letting go of that. So, princess, I get to make the fuckin’ choice about whether or not I want you burying bitterness about the things I’ve done, the things I did before I knew you, the things I have to do to protect you, the people I have no choice but to deal with. I choose
no
.”

“I’d rather deal than---”

“No! Believe me, you wouldn’t rather deal. And I’m not the same as I was before I met you, so giving you a bunch of ugly details doesn’t give you an inkling of who I am now. I need you to trust that I’ll keep you safe, that I’ll share knowledge about Kovac and about my past if it helps us but I will
not
burden you with shit that will do nothing but hurt you. There’s nothing productive about you learning about any of that. Nothing but pain for you if you do.”

Kyla folded her arms across her chest, which was burning with emotion, “Don’t call me princess when you’re yelling at me,” she said, meaning to come across pissed off but instead coming across hoarsely, her voice cracking.

The anger drained from his face. He reached across the centre console and took her hand. She yanked it away and re-folded her arms across her chest.

The next three hours were filled with loaded silence and if it was possible to shoot daggers at him with her brain, that’s what she was doing the entire time, although she was doing it while also trying to stop herself from agreeing with him because he had a point.

Her stress would filter through to become his stress and they both had enough of that already. She hated it when her brain reasoned with her that he was right because she almost always came to that conclusion after a temper tantrum.

Arrival in their next motel room was punctuated by her slamming the bathroom door so she could take a long shower and get a minute to herself. The room was a lot like the last place. It was a typical single storey motor inn with drive up rooms that contained two beds, small sitting area, TV, and a bathroom.

This one had its décor done in dusty rose and forest green, it was very 1980’s, but it had been the only motel for a long stretch of road and she was glad they’d finally stopped. She wished they could just get a plane to get there. But then again, that would bring reality to her sooner and that reality could be worse than anything they’d endured so far.

Approximately 45 seconds into her shower he stepped in with her. She huffed. He stepped close and put his hands on her soapy hips. She spun around so her back was to him and got her face under the shower stream. He gripped her hips more aggressively and spun her back around to face him. She looked down, meaning to aim her gaze on her feet but down in front of her was his chest, abs, and his impressively erect penis so she instead aimed her gaze on the ceiling. He took her by the chin. She shrugged him off and tried to spin around again but he pinned her against the wall, hips against her, hands on her shoulders.

“Princess,” he said softly, pleadingly.

Kyla’s heart sank.

“I need you, baby,” he whispered against her temple and then his hands gripped her rear end.  His lips found hers. She wanted to pull away. She almost pulled away. She was so fuming mad at him. But he gave her a smile and showed dimples and so she glared at him.

“Pulling out the big guns? You play dirty,” she grumbled, poking a dimple.

He laughed, then advanced and got her earlobe in his mouth and his fingers tightened on her ass, “I’ll take every advantage I can get. And I’ll show you a big gun. Let’s play dirty. Together.”

His hand slid down her ass and his fingers slipped between her cheeks and found her centre.

She whimpered. He looked supremely pleased.

Yeah, she wasn’t happy about his secrecy but she knew he needed her, needed to feed, and she also knew that she’d get a release, too, and she needed it right now, big time. With connecting with him and the subsequent orgasm, she’d get his emotions and she’d get to purge the tension for at least a little while.

“I need to be inside you,” he said against her throat, kissing her on the collar bone, “need you so bad.”

A wave of arousal crashed over her. She hooked a leg around his hip and said, “I need to be inside you, too.” He took his cock into his hand and ran the tip over her clit and then slid it along her slit.

Then, suddenly, she lost sensation as he started to back away. She whimpered and thrust her hips forward, seeking maximum contact. She got it. He gave her a knowing smile as he got the tip inside her and backed her up against the shower wall, moaning as he rolled his hips upward until he’d slid in, right to the final inch. He grabbed her hand and planted a kiss on her palm and then planted kisses in a line up from her wrist to her shoulder, then sank his teeth into her shoulder while rotating his hips, hard.

She grabbed handfuls of his hair with both hands and shuddered a stuttered breath, feeling him inside her physically as well as emotionally. Tristan drank for a beat and then kissed her shoulder, shut the water off, and hoisted her up so her legs were around his waist and he carried her out of the bathroom to the closest bed.

As her back touched down on the mattress he unfastened her legs from his waist and threw them up over his shoulders and stared into her eyes. She was on fire with desire, inside her head she was screaming MORE.

More fucking, more drinking. More closeness. More.

He ran his hand down her leg, ran his tongue across his full bottom lip, and she gave him a pleading look. He smiled and caressed her cheek.

“Tristan, please,” she whined, knowing that begging and that saying his name would have an effect. A split second later he thrust his pelvis forward and slammed in, to the root. His eyes were blue but he looked so intense, so determined, so pissed off. Kyla let out a shuddering moan and panic spiked.

“More begging,” he demanded.

“Please, Tristan. Please fuck me. Please bite me. Now.”

“Mmm…”

He sank his teeth sank into her calf and he moaned as the blood started to flow. She started to feel what he felt. He felt hunger, voracious hunger; hunger so intense it was like no emotion she’d ever felt from him before.

“More,” she moaned.

Take it.

Take it all…

He ploughed into her harder and harder while drinking and rubbing her just where she needed it and after he shuddered out a “Baby….” he then kissed the bites.

When he finally came, he grunted so loud that it gave her goosebumps all over.

Using all the strength she could muster, she crawled under the blankets, closed her eyes, and then slipped into a deep sleep with her body against his. It’d only been just getting dark when they checked in and although Tristan had fed from Kyla, Kyla hadn’t had anything for dinner but they slept straight through until morning.

She woke up to blissful sensations. Tristan was feasting on her throat, rubbing her clit with his fingertips. Around and around his fingers went and she could hear him swallowing.

“Take it, baby. It’s all yours,” she whispered and caressed his cheek.

They hadn’t talked further, hadn’t worked anything out, but she knew she had to give a little on the issue of him guarding truths from her.

For now.

Regardless of the fact that it went against her grain to simply let someone else call the shots, she had to think smart here.

He could feel what she felt, meaning her stress would multiply whatever stress he was already feeling. Plus he was right, she hadn’t reacted very well when he ordered that
Frankie the vampire
be ‘ended’.

Tristan was the man she loved, a man who’d travelled 3000 miles to get to her and he was the one trying to keep her safe. She would just have to take things a day at a time and hope that he’d feel safe enough with her to open up to her in time. Maybe she didn’t need to know all the bad stuff he’d done in the past but she felt like she
did
need more info than what she had gotten so far.

Maybe she didn’t need more confirmation that vampires were more dangerous, deadly, calculating, and callous, especially after seeing Sam steal Julia from her life, after seeing Sam shoot Tristan with a tranquilizer gun without a second thought, after knowing Rebecca had snapped Julia’s neck out of sheer jealousy, and after coming to terms with being Tristan’s prisoner, after his employees had stolen her from her life in order to be food and a warm body for him that night.

She was on the verge of another climax. He was hungry. So hungry.

“Love me?” she heard him ask but he sounded far away.

She felt spinny, “Yeah.”

“You gonna come for me, baby?”

Sensation took over and her orgasm was explosive, so explosive it hurt. As she was coming back down to earth she looked into his beautiful love-filled eyes and then Tristan started to go fuzzy.

~~~

She was being shaken gently but his voice was filled with urgency, “Kyla!”

Tristan was holding her up and tipping orange juice into her mouth, “Drink baby, drink.”

She drank a little.

“What’s wrong with me?” she mumbled. She felt so weak. She felt lightheaded and her body was numb. Her insides felt hollow.

“I took too much. Drink more juice. Fuck, I’m so sorry. I’m gonna run and get you something to eat from across the street. I’ll be as fast as I can.”

Kyla took a few mouthfuls and then Tristan put the orange juice bottle beside her and dashed out the door. She closed her eyes and then what seemed like an instant later, she felt the sensation of being lifted.

“Baby,” Tristan was holding her in his arms and he sounded panicked, “please wake up.”