23. Jack
Chapter twenty-three
Jack
At Julian’s question, I took a moment to sniff the air around Kyren. There was the distinct coppery scent on him that I didn’t recognize. So he hadn’t been feeding on Tate recently.
Letting my gaze slide over him, taking in his black slacks and sage green cashmere sweater, he didn’t look as if he’d been fighting. Kyren had been on a simple recon mission, so unless he picked the fight there is no reason he should smell like blood.
“What did you do?” Julian questioned, his voice low and hard, the accusation clear in his words.
Kyren’s lips twitched.
I dipped my head out of the training room, checking for my parents before grabbing Kyren by the front of his sweater and dragging him into the room. The door clicked shut behind him as I shoved him against the nearby mirrored wall.
“Seriously, Kyren.” My brows furrowed, boring into his dark ones. “What did you do?”
His lips spread further into a grin. His eyes flicked to my hand and then back to the scowl on my face. “I got answers like you wanted.”
Julian came up beside us, grabbing Kyren’s shoulder. “You were supposed to just follow her, not kill her.”
Kyren’s smile dropped, his gaze dipping to Julian’s hand on his shoulder. “Don’t.”
Seeing the tension between the two, I knew I had about five seconds before it became a fight that I might not be able to break up. “Hey, Julian,” I began, twisting slightly to face him, my hand still on Kyren’s chest. “Why don’t you let me handle this?”
Julian didn’t turn his glare away from Kyren, his jaw tight, his teeth grinding so hard I could hear them.
“Julian,” I grabbed his bicep gently. “Please. Go check on Professor Campbell.”
At the mention of the professor, Julian blinked and pulled back into himself. Still locked in a staring match with Kyren, he dropped his hand and backed up a step.
“Fine. But if you killed her, you’re going to have to pay for it,” he pointed at Kyren. He bent down to kiss me, lingering a lot longer than necessary before he focused back on Kyren. “You can’t just go around killing whoever you want anymore.”
Kyren didn’t answer, just watching him like a predator watching his prey slowly back away and then slip through the door.
When we were alone, I shoved my hand into Kyren’s chest once more. “What the fuck, Kyren? I know she’s a bit annoying and flirts with everything that walks but you didn’t need to kill her.”
Amusement filled Kyren’s eyes instead of contrition, making me even more annoyed.
“Look, I know you want to help but…” I shook my head and stepped back putting distance between us, “…all this bloodshed has to stop. I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself. I don’t need you to go killing everyone who insults me or gets too handsy.”
Before I could get any further from him, a shadow wrapped around my waist and before I knew it I was the one pinned against the mirror with Kyren’s face barely an inch from mine.
Hands braced on either side of my head, he pressed the length of his body against mine, needlessly keeping me in place, since his shadows still held me captive.
“Let’s get one thing straight, la mia.” His words were a low growl against my face that sent a shiver of pleasure down my spine. “I will never stop protecting you. Even if it’s only from drunken idiots.”
To calm my racing pulse, I took a deep breath which only caused me to inhale the smokey scent of him and I had to close my eyes to give myself a second to focus.
On one hand it was sweet, so very fucking disturbing, but sweet that Kyren wanted to take out anyone who would harm me physically or emotionally. On the other hand it was kind of getting out of hand.
I opened my eyes to focus on his face, and reminded him, “Professor Campbell wasn’t a threat to me.”
His palm cupped the side of my face, fingers sliding into my hair until he found the hair tie holding it up. I lifted my head from the mirror so he could pull it out, my curls falling around my face. “I love your hair. The way it bounces. The way it smells.”
I wrinkled my nose. “I’m all sweaty and gross. I doubt it smells very nice right now.”
Without warning, Kyren dipped his head and licked a long line of sweat off the side of my neck, moaning and sending jolts of heat between my thighs. “Every part of you is delicious.”
“Yeah, well,” I stumbled over my words, my mind becoming a jumbled mess of hormones. I shook my head, forcing myself to snap out of it. “Hey, don’t think you can just change the subject. We have to talk about this.”
Kyren played with my hair, shifting it around my face, not meeting my gaze. “I didn’t kill her.”
I blinked. “You didn’t.”
“No,” Kyren’s gaze dropped to mine. “That doesn’t mean I didn’t give her plenty of incentive to talk though.”
I didn’t like the sound of that but hurt was definitely better than dead.
“But she’s still alive?”
Kyren leaned forward, putting his weight on his forearm, his forehead pressed against mine, a knee sliding between my thighs. “Yes.”
I’d have blown out a sigh of relief but nothing about this vampire was relaxing. Every moment, every word, every touch was overwhelming to where I didn’t know anything else but him. To have that all taken away one moment and now forced back onto me suddenly, it took some getting used to.
“Kyren,” I murmured, my eyes dropping to his lips and then back to his eyes. “What are you doing?”
His lips curled, his shadows caressing the bare skin showing between my leggings and crop top. “Seducing you, of course.”
Hypnotized by his lips, I found myself leaning toward him on my own even as I spoke against it. “But you hate me.”
He nipped at my top lip. “You know I don’t.”
“You have issues with my family,” I murmured, my hands curling the front of his sweater into my grip. He had far too many clothes on in comparison to me and it took everything in me not to remedy that right then and there.
Kyren rocked his knee against my center, making me gasp. “Do you really want to talk about this right now?”
No. Not really. But I didn’t want him to regret it later and then end up heart broken.
Instead of saying what I really felt, I told him, “We should probably clear the air before your dick is inside of me.”
Kyren chuckled darkly then scooped me up by the back of my thighs, pressing himself between them. My arms came up to wrap around his neck, fingers diving into his hair.
Instead of giving us both what we wanted, he kept some distance between our faces. “Kleon made me. He was everything to me for over a century.”
I frowned. My libido slowly cooled at the mention of my kidnapper’s name.
“It is like losing a parent,” he continued, peering into my eyes not with anger but with sadness. “I know he was not a good man. And yet, it still devastated me to lose him.”
Nodding, I held onto him tightly. “I can understand that.”
“Until Tate,” his gaze shifted to the side, “I had no one. All I had was my loneliness and my rage.”'
My lips pursed together. I understood where he was coming from.
Though, I had so many friends and family, sometimes I never felt more alone.
Not until I met Julian. We grew closer than I had ever been with anyone and the moment that all was yanked away from me, I became distraught.
Hurt. Angry. Confused. I couldn’t imagine what that might have been like if it had been someone that was like a parent to me instead.
“This time apart, la mia,” his voice grew low, eyes focusing on me once more.
“I was angry, yes. Hurt, that you lied. But I realized that being away from you, not being able to hear your voice, smell your scent,” he leaned in and breathed me in, “or taste your lips,” his mouth pressed to mine, dragging his tongue between the crease of my lips teasingly before pulling away.
“It was far worse than losing my maker ten times over.”
My thighs clenched around him. I wanted nothing more than to kiss him and tell him all was forgiven but I needed to know one more thing.
“What about my family?” I asked, stroking his face with my hand. “Wanting to be with me is great and all but we’re a package deal. Can you handle that?”
Kyren lips twitched. “For you, la mia. I can handle anything.”
My heart turned to mush in my chest and I opened my mouth to answer him when my mom’s voice called out through the door, “Take him back already!”
I sighed, leaning my head back against the mirror. “See what I mean? No privacy.”
Kyren chuckled and wrapped his arms around my waist. “I think I can fix that.”
His shadows engulfed us and then we were by his car. “Get in.”
Climbing into his car, my body vibrated with arousal. All that erotic energy built up to have to put a pause on it. Kyren’s hand sat on top of mine, giving it a squeeze before he had to release it to switch gears.
The drive to his place felt like an eternity. I chewed on my lower lip, pulling it into my mouth, my eyes darting to him and then out the window. It wasn’t like I hadn’t had sex before. Or even with him. But for some reason, I was nervous.
I jolted in my seat. “Woah.” Something had just touched my thigh.
Kyren smirked, his eyes on the road. Both of his hands were visible on the steering wheel.
That something had been his shadows. They crawled across the car, rubbing along every inch of my exposed skin they could access.
Kyren had used his shadows on me before but not like this.
“Kyren,” I panted, my fingers gripping the door as a shadow slid over my center through my leggings. My thighs parted on their own, my hips seeking out the friction the shadows were giving me.
I whimpered and moaned, squirming in my seat all the while completely aware of Kyren’s heated gaze on me.
When the shadows decided they needed more and dipped beneath my clothing, one stroking my clit and other plunging into me, I lost it. I grabbed at Kyren’s arm, pressing my other palm against the glass of the passenger side window.
“Oh, fuck, Kyren,” my eyes closed tight, head falling back against the seat rest, just letting his shadows work my body until it was a tight little ball of pleasure ready to burst at any moment.
“Ah, la mia, I can smell how close you are,” his actual hand reached out cupping my face in his palm. “I can’t wait to taste you.”
My eyes flipped open and my mouth fell open in a silent cry as my orgasm rushed over me. So wrapped up in my release, I didn’t feel the shadows wrapping around us, transporting us into Kyren’s apartment until my back pressed against the softness of his mattress.
My leggings were pealed down my body, Kyren’s soft lips pressing kisses to every inch of flesh as it was exposed. He pulled my legs over his shoulders, burying his face against me, making me cry out as he lapped up the evidence of my release.
Head jerking from side to side on his pillows, I fought to breathe. “Kyren, please. I can’t.”
Dark eyes bore into mine from between my legs as he sucked my clit into his mouth. Quicker than lightning, I came again, every limb shaking.
Still, he didn’t release me, lazily licking until my quivering subsided. With a predatory grin, he crawled up the bed, pulling my crop top up with him until I was bare beneath him.
“Off,” I panted, my heart beating hard in my chest, pulling at his sweater.
Kyren leaned away for a moment, whipping his sweater over his head and then bracing himself on the bed while he unbuttoned and discarded his pants and shoes. His warm flesh pressed against mine, his arms coming beneath me to hold me close to him.
“Did you feed on her?” I asked, the unusual warmth of his skin making me curious and admitted a bit jealous.
Arching a brow, Kyren stroked a hand down the side of my face then cupped my chin. “Only for answers. Does it bother you?”
I squirmed beneath him, wanting him inside of me but that jealous part of me needed reassurance. “Kind of.”
“I feed on Tate,” he reminded me, not making fun of me for my possessiveness.
“That’s different,” I murmured, my face heating. “He’s… ours.”
Kyren lips broke out into a wide grin. “Yes, yes, he is.” Then he pressed his lips briefly to mine. “Will it make you happy for me to limit my feeding to you and him?”
I avoided his gaze, not wanting to sound too pathetic. “Is that okay?”
Chuckling, Kyren kissed me deeply leaving me breathless before saying, “Nothing makes me happier than to know you want that from me.”
I arched a brow, hooking my feet over his calves and arching my hips so he pressed against my throbbing core. “Nothing, huh?”
Gaze darkening, Kyren voice grew low and gravelly, his hips adjusting until he probed at my entrance. “Maybe not. This,” he shifted his hips forward until he slid inside of me, not stopping until our hips were flush against one another, pulling a moan from me, “makes me very happy.”
Fingers curling into his hair, I dragged his mouth down to mine, our tongues intertwining as our bodies moved together as one. He nipped and suckled at my mouth, the rhythm matching that of his hips until all I could think about was him.
A sudden sharp pain stung my tongue, a coppery taste filling my mouth.
Kyren let out a deep growl, pulling my tongue into his mouth to suckle on the wound. The bloodlust made his thrusts harder, faster, making the bed smack against the wall with each movement.
I held onto him, letting him have me in every way that mattered. He was inside of me the same way my blood was now inside of him. Something about it made my heart swell, and I wanted nothing more than for this moment to last forever.
Unfortunately, my body didn’t get the memo, my walls clenching around him, my nails digging into his back as he hit that one spot that made me see stars over and over again.
The wound on my tongue had long since closed by the time that Kyren released me, letting out a groan, his hips stilling, holding himself inside of me until he had completely emptied.
Slowly, Kyren withdrew from me, forcing a small sound from my throat, before moving up the bed and wrapping his arms around me, pressing my body to him.
“I need to shower,” I murmured after a few moments. “I’m all sticky now.”
“Not yet,” Kyren countered, brushing his lips across my shoulder. “I want you to smell like me for a bit longer.”
Rolling my eyes at his alpha male tendencies, I let myself sink further into his embrace, my eyelids growing heavy.
Then Tate’s voice woke me with a jerk, “Fucking finally. I thought you two would never make up.”