Lost Angeles (40 page)

“You still got that coin I gave you?”

My forehead crinkles. “Yeah. It’s at home, on my dresser. Why?”

“Keep it close to you,” he says. “Like, real close. In-your-pocket close. Just in case.”

I nod tentatively, ducking out of sight and leaving the menfolk to follow, but all the way down the hall toward Jess’s room, one question circles around and around, like water going down a drain.

Just in case of
what
?

Naturally, we didn’t make it out of the warehouse before the police showed up. We might have, if the horse we rode in on wasn’t a PFC vehicle. Turns out, Asher doesn’t lend his armored cars out to civilians, and the police aren’t so keen on letting suspect vampires head home while they clean up the bloody mess in the alleyway. They didn’t book me this time—the one time I actually
did
kill someone—but between the questioning and giving my statement, it took a couple of extra hours to get the hell out of there.

It was probably for the best, because after Lore pumped more blood than she could really spare into Jess, the EMTs on the scene pulled half a sidewalk’s worth of asphalt out of her elbows and kneecaps. By the time I got her loaded into a car and on the way back to the Palisades, she was looking more like a mummy than a girl, and I spent the whole police cruiser ride beating back little pangs of I-don’t-know-what.

Guilt, maybe. Anger, probably.

Lust, definitely.

Not that I have a thing for mummies, but I’m a sucker for a damsel in distress.

Lore doesn’t look all that distressed, though. Contemplative, she sits quietly through the entire ride, her pretty face tilted toward the window, watching the lights go by on the other side of the tints. I don’t know what she’s mulling over, but it must be some pretty deep stuff. She’s chewing the inside of her lip again, digging that wrinkle in her chin a bit deeper, so it’s not much of a surprise when she turns toward me, frowning.

“What is Jax Trace?”

“A douchebag,” I say, because this is the last thing I want to discuss right now.

“Seriously, Xaine.” Lore gives me a look of censure.

“Seriously, sweetheart.”

With a small sigh, she lets her head loll on the headrest, eyelids fluttering shut. Here I am again, tensing, waiting,
bracing
for an argument, a fight, whatever it takes for her to dig the information out of me, but then she lets it go. No battle royale, no fight to the death, no gloves, no helmets, no American Gladiator batons, just a shrug and an “I’m starving.”

“Same here. It’s been a long fucking night.” I say. “I’ll dump you in the tub and call for a pizza.”
Or six.
“Sound good?”

“Mm… pizza.” I can practically hear her salivating, but after some consideration she shakes her head at me. “It’s okay, there’s stuff in the fridge. I can forage.”

The cruiser pulls to a stop in my driveway a second later, and Lore’s already popping the door open. I jump out on the other side, chucking a quick wave and a “thanks” to the officer who drove us home before I swing around the car and catch my girl by the elbow.

“You’re not eating leftovers,” I mutter. “You need to keep your strength up.”

“Leftovers have just as many nutrients as new food, Xaine,” she tells me. “And I hate to let things go bad.”

“You can eat old food tomorrow.” Planting a kiss at her temple, I pull her tight against me, steadying her new-colt wobble. “Really, sweetheart, what do you want? I’ll order the whole menu.”

“Please don’t do that.” Lore wrinkles her nose, dropping her forehead against my shoulder as I lead her up the stairs toward the house. “It’s such a waste of food.”

“Not when I do it.”

Her laugh is light and clear, and it settles some of the twisting in my gut. “How is it less of a waste when you do it? You don’t even eat
.
If I wasn’t here to clear out your refrigerator, there’d be nothing left but mold and O-neg.”

“Rosa takes it all home at the end of the week before the restock,” I say, towing her up the stairs and making sure she doesn’t faceplant on the travertine. “What did you think happened to it before you got here?”

“Hungry herds of Playboy bunnies?” Lore grins into my face, showing me two perfect rows of blunt, white teeth.

“You’re the only fuzzy bunny that I want in the house.” The admission flies out before I’ve even realized what I’ve said. Lore goes wide-eyed; it’s not
real
surprise, though, and I know I’m in for a doozy of a smart-assed remark.

Right as she takes a breath, I reach beneath her knees and sweep her off her feet. The sudden shift from vertical to horizontal forestalls any reply save a squeak of surprise. Just to be sure, I dip my head down and seal my mouth over hers. Her arms slip around my neck, holding on tight, and I pretty much kick the front door in because I can’t be arsed to go for my keys right now.

Lore arches against me, wanting more, wanting
me
, still a little looped up on sin-eater juice when she murmurs, “You don’t have to stay on your side of the bed tonight.”

Her hands pluck at my shirt, her smile is shy, but her pupils are still dilated, her breath the tiniest bit ragged.

Food and shower are going to have to wait.

The minute I plant Lore’s feet on the checkered marble in the front hall, I’m on her, dragging the T-shirt up and off because I’ve waited all night to be this close to her and a sin-eater has gotten more play from her than I have. I don’t want her thinking about Benicio. Not now. Not here. One of my hands digs into her waist and the other has a death-grip on her breast, thumb flicking over her nipple until Lore moans into my mouth. Her sweet lips part, her nails raking against the back of my neck, fingers carding through the tangle of my hair.

Suddenly, the master bedroom seems too far away.

Walking her backwards, I hook my fingers into the waistband of her jeans. My fingers work at the fly, unhooking the rivet at the top and snagging the zipper, separating the little teeth until the backs of my knuckles brush against bare skin. Lore’s hands slip from my hair then, traveling down the length of my body until she slides them beneath the hem of my shirt. She tugs at the worn cotton until I relinquish my hold on her, pull it over my head, and hurl it aside. She’s plastered against me, working at my pants, trying to get me as naked as she is by the time the backs of her heels hit that bottom stair. I cradle her as we both go down, shielding her from the worst of the awkward tumble, and next thing I know we’re a heap of tangled limbs and denim. There’s a mad scramble to kick off what’s left of the shoes, the jeans, her underwear. God knows I’m not wearing any, and thank fuck for that. The next second, she’s got those mile-long legs wrapped around my waist like she doesn’t give a single shit if her back is one giant bruise in the morning.

“I don’t,” she huffs out between kisses, and I realize I must have said that bit out loud. “I don’t care.”

I don’t either, really, because the bruises and the bite-marks and
everything else
will heal with time, but nothing will ever take away the sensation of poising my dick over her entrance, feeling her liquid heat lick over me. I hook my arm under her right knee and hitch it up, teasing her until she’s writhing against me, pinned between the stairs and my body and not going anywhere.

Mine.

The thought slams into me as I push into Lore, absorbing her moan with my mouth, her shudder with my chest and arms, giving her all of half-a-heartbeat and a single breath before I pull back and ram into her again. She tears her lips away from mine with a keening noise that would give me pause if she wasn’t already whimpering and urging me to do it again. It’s been building.
This
has been building. All night, hell, all week, since the second we met; it’s all culminating right here. Right now.

“Xaine.” Lore clings to my body, pulling me closer, sealing us tighter, whispering the next words against the shell of my ear. “Bite me, Xaine.”

I let my head drop forward, dark hair falling over her face, my nose buried in the crook of her neck. Beneath me, Lore’s hips rise in little canting jerks that bring her closer to me, draw me deeper within her. For a long moment, I don’t move; I just hold there, so still inside her. I stay like that until she’s undulating against my cock and panting against my shoulder. Her fingers rake up the skin of my back, and her nipples are hard points digging into my chest. I want to taste them and her and it’s
too much
and
not enough
all at the same time.

“Fuck, Lore.” I’m trying to draw it out, savor it, because Lord only knows when it’ll happen again.

The entire world seems to be conspiring against it, against us, but right now, I drag it to a standstill. It’s not hesitation, because I don’t ever hesitate. I don’t give myself space to breathe and time to think. I don’t reconsider. I don’t change my mind. Gut instinct has served me well for over four centuries, and it’s that ability to leap and land on my feet no matter how improbable the jump that’s brought me to this moment.

She will be mine.

I can feel the venom burning bright and hot behind my eyes. It’s always there, ever-ready, and yet I only ever seem to feel it in these moments. Four hundred years of existence, thousands of willing bodies and just as many feeds, but I’ve only marked a handful of them. I can remember them by name, by face, by voice, by the color of their hair and eyes, the wetness of their lips, the gentle perfume that shifts from something wholly their own to something that smells very faintly… of me.

Mine.

I bear down, break through, punch two holes in Lore’s neck and revel in the hissing breath that escapes her. My dick and my fangs are as far into her as they will go. She’s pinned in every possible way, and that’s when I let it slip, a small taste of the venom every vampire carries within them. The pretty poison surges through the hollow space in my teeth to flow free in her veins; in my mind’s eye, all that I am, all that is black and dark and tainted uncoils inside her, grasping her from the inside with vicious claws that sink deep and won’t want let go. Lore feels it, the burn of something foreign, like a shot of 100 proof liquor hitting the back of her throat and searing through her extremities. Song lyrics, scrawled across her soul.

X marks the spot, right on her heart.

She jerks, her cry filling my ears and the room and the house. Hell, the entire hillside might hear her, but there’s as much pleasure as there is pain. Triumph surges through me, but when I inhale, there’s no hint of me. All I get is the sweet-sick of the venom itself on her skin.

Lore’s processing it out, rejecting it, rejecting
me
in ways she doesn’t even realize.

What the fuck?

So I pump a little more into her, slowing down the rhythm of my dick despite the fact that she’s clawing up my back with her crazy-long acrylics. When the venom hits her a second time, she starts whining my name, carving gouges into my ass, pleading for me to go harder, go deeper, to give
more
.

I’m giving her more, but seconds later, she dumps that, too.

Frustration doesn’t even begin to cover the tidal wave of emotion that hits me. My balls tighten up; I can feel my climax building the same as I can feel the walls of her sex clamping down on me. Lore opens her thighs wider, encouraging me to go deeper.

“Please… Xaine…
please.
”

“Only because you said the magic word, sweetheart,” I mutter against the slow-bleeding holes, tracing my tongue across the raised bumps.

I can taste the flavor of the venom as it trickles out, clear-tinged-pink, stained with her blood. With a snarl, I give her everything she wants then, everything this body can deliver, until she’s mewling against my shoulder with every punishing thrust. Muscles strain, pumping and releasing, my body working over hers, reaching toward fulfillment. Her hips buck against mine, our skin slapping loudly in the austere space around us. Lore makes perfect noises. Not porn star screams or fake moans, no, but gasps. Little cries. Throaty pleas and filthy,
filthy
whispers.

I close my lips over the holes in her neck again, drawing upon them, sucking hard until I can feel the blood pulling to the surface beneath my lips. I need to taste her again, because I’m hoping against hope that she’ll taste different. But under the fire-and-ice, under the
burn
, there’s not a single trace of
me
, not one little tongue-tingling hint of the mark I tried to make.

Poison.

That’s all I am, no better than Benicio, in some ways, so she’s rejecting me, even as the flavor of her makes me stronger, so much stronger—

I could keep going… deeper, and deeper, and deeper…

And never hit the bottom.

A perfect sanguine drop slips out, streaking down her neck before I have the chance to close my lips over the wound. I lose it then, feeding myself to her inch-by-inch, thrusting and withdrawing, giving and taking, fucking and
sucking
all at once. My hands curl beneath her, palms pressed flat against her back. I can feel the outline of her ribs beneath the fragile skin, and under that is the steady thrum of her heart.