Chapter 24
Hawke’s chest tightened until he could barely breathe. “I would like that,” he told Everly. “I would like that very much.”
“I can see a ‘but’ coming.” She stepped into his body, rising up on her toes until he felt her soft breasts against his chest, and he moaned.
He couldn’t help it. Her clear gray eyes searched his as her hands roamed up his arms, careful not to touch the back of his shoulders.
“If this is my last night here, I want to spend it with you.”
“No ‘but’”, he told her. And he was surprised that he meant it.
Consumed by his hunger for her, her words didn’t at first penetrate.
And when they did, it was like a shot of ice to his rising libido.
“Are you going somewhere?” He answered for her before she could say anything.
“You can’t leave.” Me, he wanted to say. You can’t leave me.
“I have a job I need to get back to, and an apartment, and a cat. If Kohl doesn’t send me away, I’ll still have to leave eventually.”
“The cat is yours?”
She rolled her eyes. “Well, he may as well be. We’ve bonded.”
“What about your other half?”
Everly sighed and took a step back. She didn’t go far, but the chasm between them may as well have been the size of an ocean. “I don’t know what to do about that. And honestly, I’m a little scared.” She wrinkled her nose. “No, that’s a lie. I’m fucking terrified.”
“Kohl can help you learn to deal with that side of your nature.”
She laughed, the sound short and without humor. “I don’t know about that. I get the feeling he doesn’t like me very much.”
Hawke shook his head and reached for hand, needing some kind of connection between them. “It’s not that.”
“Then what is it?”
“It’s hard growing up with a foot in two different worlds. He just…never felt like he belonged anywhere. And he doesn’t want to take the chance of another going through that.”
“It doesn’t have to be two different worlds,” she said quietly.
Looking at her standing before him, with a smudge of dirt on her face and her red hair curling wildly around her face, Hawke believed that was true. It felt good to be around her. It felt right.
It felt like home.
He rubbed the dirt off her face with his thumb. “I’m beginning to believe you.”
She started to say something, and then she stilled. “Hawke, what are you—”
Heart pounding in his ears, he cut off her words with a kiss. Just a brush of his mouth on hers, really. Everly moaned, her lips parting beneath his, and he sucked her full bottom lip into his mouth, biting gently until he tasted the sweet warmth of her blood.
When he released it, they were both breathing heavily. “Let’s go get that shower.”
Without another word, she led him to the bathroom.
Hawke watched as she turned on the water, appreciating the view of her strong calves and rounded thighs, then he helped her take off the wet lab coat and shed his shoes and pants and boxer briefs, shucking it all into the corner.
The hot water stung his back like a bitch when they got in. Hawke hissed with the pain, and quickly adjusted the temperature.
Turning so Everly was under the spray of water, he washed the remnants of the night’s horrors from her body, memorizing every slope and curve. Every spot that made her flinch with laughter and sigh with longing. Then they switched positions so she could do the same.
When they were clean, he pressed her against the tiles and kissed her hard.
His hands roamed over silky skin and soft curves, lingering on the sensitive spots as he ran his tongue and teeth down her throat to taste her hardened nipples.
Pulling one into his mouth, he flicked the tip with tongue and then bit down as he found the wet heat between her soft thighs.
Everly cried out, her fingers twisting in his hair to hold him at her breast, her hips bucking against his palm.
He drank in her cries, her blood, her passion like a man starved, feeling all of it heal him physically and spiritually.
And when she came, he lifted her leg around his hip and slid into her so he could feel her pulse around him.
He came fast and hard, his cries mingling with hers.
And then he pressed his forehead to hers, still inside of her, and waited until his heartbeat slowed and he caught his breath.
Then he turned her around and fell to his knees behind her.
Gripping her hips, he pulled her toward him and found her sweet core with his tongue.
When the water began to cool, and her legs shook with the effort to hold herself up, he dried her off and took her to bed.
More than once, he looked into her eyes to find the dragon inside of her looking out at him. But Hawke just smiled, and the dragon would smile back as she arched her body into his caress.
Hawke had no idea what would happen when this day was over and they had to come back to reality, but he planned to make it a day neither of them would easily forget.
Eventually, they slept, and he woke to the sound of her stomach growling under his ear. Lifting his head from her torso, he blinked awake as he reached for his phone, then remembered it was melted.
Leaving Everly asleep, he found a pair of Kohl’s jeans and slipped them on. They were a little long, but otherwise fit pretty well. In the bathroom, he checked out his injury in the mirror and was happy to see the burns were healing well, thanks to Everly.
It must be that dragon blood.
In any case, he was grateful.
A little while later, he came back to find Everly coming out of the bathroom, fully dressed in khaki pants and a white T-shirt with a shiny gold elephant on the front. Her hair, as usual, was down to cover her ears. She smiled wide when she saw him. “Hi.”
“Hey.” Hawke set down the paper bag he carried on the dresser and started taking out container after container of barbeque he’d picked up from the restaurant she’d taken him to.
“Oh my God, that smells wonderful. Thank you! I’m starving.” Grabbing as much as she could carry, she settled cross-legged on the bed and dug in.
Hawke watched her with amusement, wondering where she put it all. After a few minutes, he went over to the chair and sat down. Touching her knee to drag her attention away from the food, he said, “We need to talk, Ev.”
She studied him as she chewed, probably noticing a lot more about him than others who could hear normally did. Her eyes flicked down his body and back to his face. Picking up a napkin, she wiped her mouth as she swallowed. “I think this is the first time I’ve seen you in jeans and a T-shirt.”
Hawke frowned, looking down at his borrowed clothes. “They’re Kohl’s.”
“Ah.” Another forkful of coleslaw went in her mouth, but little worry lines creased her brow. “Is this it?”
Confused, Hawke looked at the boxes of food. “Would you like more? I can run back to the restaurant.”
She shook her head, her hair a riot of red curls around her face. “No, this is plenty. Thank you,” she said again. Then she set her food on the nightstand. “I meant, is it time? Have you guys decided what you’re going to do to me?”
He didn’t miss the sarcastic tone. And he deserved it. She wasn’t a problem to be handled. She was a smart, funny, courageous—and, at times, dangerous—female who deserved more respect than what she’d been shown. “We need to go talk to Kohl.”
“And what are we going to say to him?”
Hawke took a curl between his thumb and forefinger and rubbed the soft strands between his fingers before pulling it straight and watching it bounce back again.
He was nervous, more nervous than he’d been in…
well, a very long time. “I was thinking that you and I need more time.” He smiled. “To get to know each other.”
“I thought vampires and dragons weren’t allowed to mix and mingle?” Despite the teasing tone of her voice, her entire body was fraught with tension as she waited for his answer.
“I’m thinking, perhaps, that you were right. That rule is one that needs to be bent, or broken in two and thrown into the fire to burn.”
He waited for her reaction, any reaction, but she just sat there, still as before. “Why?” she finally asked.
“Why?”
“Yeah. What changed your mind?”
Hawke scratched at his beard. It was a fair question.
“Well, I find the thought of you walking out of here…” He searched for the words, something eloquent, and finally he just shrugged.
Terrified she would leave, and terrified she wouldn’t, he said, “I don’t want you to go, Ev.
I want you to stay here. With me. I can’t guarantee it will work out, or that it will be easy.
All I know is the thought of not hearing you laugh or kissing your lips or seeing what kind of crazy outfit you’re going to wear next makes me fucking miserable.
I crave you, Everly. All of you. Even when I’m sitting right in front of you. ”
“You’re one to talk about the crazy outfits,” she told him. Then she smiled. “I’m very happy that you finally pulled your head out of your ass.”
Hawke laughed, taking both her hands in his. “I need to talk to Kohl.”
“What are you going to say to him?”
“I’m going to tell him the truth.”
“And what if he doesn’t want to listen?”
Kissing her knuckles, he thought about that. “I don’t know. I’ll change his mind. Or, we’ll both leave.” As soon as the words left his mouth, he knew they were right. Everly belonged with him, and if his friend couldn’t see that, Hawke was prepared to go with her. They could protect each other.
“Really?”
“Really.”
She jumped from the bed with a little squeal and landed in his lap. Wrapping her arms around him, she hugged him tight.
Hawke hugged her back and breathed her in. He’d never felt anything so good as this female wrapped around him.