CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Ihave too much on my plate to deal with you,” I hissed, trying to ignore the way his face had changed, the way he loomed over me, the way he was holding my hip.
My heart rate was skyrocketing for a vampire.
I couldn’t stop the instinctual way my breathing was shallow and fast and nervous. “What are you doing?”
He turned me gently and started walking, his arm around my waist.
“Taking us home. Is there anything else you need here?”
“No,” I said, trying to keep a straight face, trying to hide my confusion and heat, both sensual and furious. I had no idea what he wanted me to feel.
“Then we’re ready to leave,” he said, hot air on my ear actually causing me to shiver.
“Yeah,” I agreed, nodding as we reached a door and someone opened it for us before we even got there. By the time we reached the valet, the SUV was there.
Once we were secured in the dark, I still couldn’t speak.
I was spitting mad at him for coming to interrupt my evening.
I was enjoying the company. Someone who didn’t see Alexius first and run in fear or know me because of him first. That vampire, lower on the totem pole, just saw someone he’d thought was beautiful and wanted to talk to me. And I was enjoying that.
But there was a moment with Alexius in the club that I couldn’t stop thinking about on the drive back to the safehouse.
A shift in him. The way his hand rested on my hip and slowly squeezed, not painful, but there.
Present. Knowingly placed. Intentional. The way he whispered, knowing anyone listening would miss it because of the music, and it was… not how he usually talked to me.
When we got home, he jumped out before me, and I was too slow to beat him opening my own door. But I couldn’t get out.
“Alexius… I’d like to get out of this dress,” I said, facing the wall that was his chest.
“And you’ll get to do that soon, one way or another,” he murmured, leaning down. “But first, you and I have something to discuss.”
“Oh, yeah?” God damn him and his mixed signals. He is intentionally playing with my feelings for him now.
“I’ve come to a decision,” he said. “We came on this vacation to keep from going mad, and it’s not working. We don’t need the full month to figure that out. It’s been four days? Five? And we’re still going mad.”
“You might be, but I was doing pretty well being focused on other things,” I retorted, angrily, looking up to glare at him. “Until you made it your priority to come over and scare everyone who saw you storming through the club.”
“You couldn’t go home with him,” Alexius said softly. “For safety reasons.”
“Whatever I decided to do with him or anyone else wasn’t and isn’t your problem. I would have been safe!” I growled.
“Not for your safety. His,” Alexius said, leaning down until his lips were too close to mine. The intensity of his eyes froze me.
But only long enough for me to really consider what he was saying and let it piss me off.
Enough of this.
“Don’t.” I pushed him. Hard. He didn’t have to budge, but he relented for me on the second shove.
I got out of the SUV and walked toward the door inside.
“Don’t you dare say things like that.” I turned towards him, pointing.
My fingernail was unnatural, longer and black.
Even the tip of my finger was. I felt the power coursing with my temper.
“Everly—”
“Don’t send me anymore mixed signals, Alexius!
You give me protection in Savannah, but not your son Jacob or Isaiah, a member of the Tribunal.
You spared me while berserk and dangerous, and no one else would come near you.
You fell in my lap, and I…” I dropped the finger and ran my hand roughly through my hair, grabbing some and pulling in frustration.
Too much feeling all at once. I could remember that moment, promising to protect him from all of them. And I still would.
“We both know I’m into you,” I said, laughing.
“We both know I’m the one having the problems. All I want is for you to bend me over your desk whenever we’re alone in your office.
I want you to tear through my yoga pants and fuck me on the floor of the gym.
Do you know that you gave me the only orgasm I’ve had with another person in close to five years?
I’ve been burning through the budget with batteries in the last year. ” I grabbed the door and threw it open.
“And you keep fucking saying things! And doing things! I’ll get my dress off one way or another? I can’t sleep with that random guy. It’s not safe for him! What were you going to do? Kill him for touching me? That would be hot if you touched me, but you don’t! So, you don’t have the right—”
I made it three steps into the house before he was there, grabbing my waist, and I was spun around, pulled into him.
I felt all the evidence I would ever need to know what he wanted.
“What I’m trying to tell you is that I very much do want to touch you,” he whispered, his face at my neck, his lips grazing my skin, taking my useless breath away.
“And I’ve been trying not to. I’ve been trying to be a good man who won’t sleep with the woman he employs.
The woman he forced into immortality and into his home.
I’ve been trying to get over the need to have you.
The need to feel all that fire directed at me.
” His words grew husky, thick with heat.
“I imagine it, too. You spread out in my bed, all this hair fanning around you. You on my desk, the useless paperwork flung to the floor because you would be the only thing that mattered. The gym. The couch. In the dark watching a movie or in the garden under a full moon. Any time. Anywhere.”
I couldn’t stop the images that flashed in my mind… I imagined it all. Everything he whispered. His fantasies. His wants. Us.
He did want the same thing I did. Not just in passing but really wanted it.
“We’re going mad, and Maria just told me the rest of the world thinks we already are,” he murmured in my ear.
“They think we’re together. They saw what happened in May, too.
” He kissed my jawline, dangerously close to my lips.
“So, I need to know, Everly Abbott. Do you really want those things, or do you want me to stop? You should know I can be a dominating lover. Consider that before you say yes.”
I sank a hand in his hair before answering.
“Show me. I want all of it,” I conceded, unable to say no. Unable to deny him. Not because of his power. I knew he would let me go the moment I told him no. He’d proven the depth of his honor in that regard.
I was unable to deny how much I wanted him.
If he regretted it tomorrow, that was a him problem.
I was going to take what he was offering now.
I saw no reason for two adults who wanted the same thing to keep up with the exhausting dance he had forced us to perform up to this moment.
I was taking it all, and I was taking it now.
With my hand in his hair and the words said, I pulled his head around so my lips could meet his.
His grip on my hips grew tighter. He lifted me as we kissed, and my back hit the wall.
I lifted my legs, ignoring the sound of ripping fabric as I wrapped my legs around his waist. One of his hands moved to my thigh and pushed the tight dress up farther until his hand found my ass and squeezed.
The moan that escaped me made him growl and grind against me, the movement sending shockwaves through me.
Another longer moan was pulled from me, and he broke the kiss.
“There’s that sound,” he breathed. “I haven’t stopped thinking about it for so long.
I tried, but the sight of you on the bed and knowing what your skin tastes like already…
” He pulled me away from the wall and started walking.
“Do you know how tormented I am by you? I spend the nights trying to be next to you and away from you at the same time. I spend my days thinking about all the ways I could have you. Or trying desperately not to think about those things. I’ve never lusted after someone like I have you.
I think since you were human, and it only grows by the day. ”
I had no idea what to say to that, and he clearly didn’t care for a response as his mouth found mine again, and this time, he was in charge of the kiss.
I was unaware of my surroundings or anything but his touch until my back hit a bed.
He didn’t have to roll me over or anything.
Swiftly, he reached under me, grabbed the zipper, and was able to unzip me, the dress loosening.
He didn’t pull it off me yet, though. Breathing hard, I lay there, disheveled already as he pulled back and undid the buttons of his shirt, stripping it off neatly and folding it.
He moved slowly, his eyes on me as he undid his belt and put it on the dresser with his shirt.
My skin was flushed and warm as he slowly removed his pants and folded them with the rest and put them aside with the rest.
“Alexius…” I tried to sit up, the straps of my dress falling from my shoulders. I tried to hold the dress up with one hand and prop myself up with the other.
“We have so much of the night left,” he said, those dark eyes looking me over as he approached the bed once again.
It wasn’t an inspection. No. He was reveling in the sight of me, like I was right where he wanted, and he liked what he saw.
He put a knee on the bed between my legs and leaned down.
I couldn’t help but sink back to the mattress as he lowered, massive over me.
He kissed my neck slowly as one of his hands sank into my hair.
When his lips reached my ear, his breath left me squirming under him.
“And I plan on you lasting until the sunrise.”