8. Rena #3
“His poor mate.” I shuddered. “Imagine being stuck with that guy for eternity.”
“I’m looking better and better, aren’t I?” he joked, turning to face me.
“Seriously.”
“She seemed happy enough,” he said thoughtfully. “Mates are generally matched up very well. I haven’t met many who didn’t adore each other, and those relationships had usually gone bad later.”
“You need what you need, I guess,” I said with a shrug. “And sometimes what you need is a smarmy Vampire that carries around a cigar but never lights it.”
“He does that because my mother doesn’t allow smoking in the house. He’s been doing it for years,” Chance said with a laugh. “It’s his own little small-dick protest.”
“Ew. I like him even less now.”
“You going to shower?”
“Yeah, I’m grimy.”
“You’re far from grimy,” he argued as he passed me. “You’re fresh as a daisy.”
“Yeah, okay,” I scoffed, turning to watch him sit down on the bed and open his laptop. “You going to keep searching?”
“Just until you’re done.”
Chance’s shower was awesome, and I stayed under the spray longer than I needed to.
It felt so good to let the water beat against my neck and shoulders.
All of my muscles were sore from the accident.
It was too bad my super healing hadn’t seemed to fix that particular problem.
I took my time, and when I opened the bathroom door, my dirty clothes in my arms, Chance was on the phone.
“I’d appreciate it,” he said, his head turning to look at me. “By noon tomorrow. See you soon.”
“You found one,” I said, crossing the room.
“I did,” he confirmed.
“And he’s coming?”
Chance nodded and put the laptop on his dresser. “I don’t feel good about pulling all these Vampires in,” he said quietly.
“What? Why not?”
“Elgin, who I was just on the phone with?” he said. “He’s been living quietly with his mate and their sons for fifty years on a ranch in South Dakota. I had to track him down through one of his sons. He doesn’t even have a phone.”
“Dang.”
“On purpose, Rena,” Chance said, swiping his hands through his hair. “He’d had enough, and he chose to live a small life with the woman he loved, and I just called to ask him to leave it.”
“He could’ve said no,” I reminded him.
“No, he couldn’t,” Chance replied. “Because he gave me his word in 1945 that if I ever needed him, he’d come.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Why did he promise that?” I asked softly, wrapping my arms around his waist.
“Because I’d saved his mate’s life in France.”
“During the war?”
He stiffened. “Yes.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not tonight.”
“Fair enough,” I said, tipping my head back to meet his gaze. “I’m exhausted.”
“Me too.” He leaned down to kiss my forehead and then let me go.
I climbed straight into bed, but he went back out to lock the door between his living space and the rest of the house, pull the curtains in the kitchen closed, and make sure that all the lights were turned out. He stripped down to his snug boxers before crawling in beside me.
“You locked the door?” I asked. I couldn’t remember if he’d done that the night before, but I didn’t think so.
“There are a lot of people staying,” he explained, leaving it at that.
“Don’t you trust them?”
“I trust them to believe that a threat to some Vampires is a threat to all and act on it,” he said, turning to face me. “I don’t trust anyone but family when it comes to you.”
“I can’t decide if that’s sweet or paranoid.”
“Just practical.”
With everything that was going on, we hadn’t had time to discuss anything about the two of us, or the mating bond, but that didn’t mean that we weren’t growing closer by the minute. Working together on a common goal had the unsurprising effect of learning about each other without even trying.
I rolled to my side and scooted into the crook of his body. His knees immediately filled the space behind mine, and one arm wrapped around my waist. I fell asleep with his lips pressed against the back of my head.
When I woke up, it was still dark outside the window above his dresser, and Chance’s hand was cupping my breast. His breathing was deep and even in sleep, but we’d rolled a little, and his groin was pressed firmly against my ass, one of his knees between my legs.
Groggily, I arched into the erection with a sigh.
“You planning on following through with that?” he rasped against my neck, his hand flexing as he rolled his hips.
“I thought you were asleep.”
“I’d have to be dead to sleep through that,” he joked, sliding his hand into the top of my tank top so he could run a finger over my nipple.
“Fuck,” I breathed, arching further into his touch.
“You want me to stop?”
“No,” I replied quickly, letting my eyes fall closed.
He yanked the tank top neckline down, exposing my breasts.
It was as if we were in our own little bubble, away from the world. A comfortable, safe space where normal rules didn’t matter and everything was hidden by the dark.
Shifting, he pushed the arm he’d had curled under his head over my shoulder and down to tweak my nipple as the other hand slid over my belly. When he reached the waistband of my shorts, he paused long enough for me to tell him to stop, then kept going when I didn’t.
His long fingers slid over me, petting and pinching, circling and tapping, until my hips were grinding against the erection behind me. The room was so quiet that we could hear every sound my wet flesh made as he played with me.
I whimpered as he slid two fingers inside, stretching me as the heel of his hand pressed against my clit.
“Gods,” Chance groaned, kissing my neck where it met my shoulder.
I came with a hiss, my entire body still before shuddering as wave after wave rolled through me. It wasn’t until I caught my breath again that I realized I’d been gripping his wrist so tightly that I’d dug my nails into the skin there.
Rolling toward him, he met me with a long, deep, wet kiss, his tongue tangling with mine.
He groaned into my mouth as I slid my hand into his boxers, wrapping it around the firm length of him.
With a curse, he shoved his boxers down below his testicles, curving his hand around them and squeezing roughly as I massaged his erection, tightening my hand with each pull, running my thumb over the tip with each pass.
Pulling away from his kiss, I licked down his neck, starving for the taste of him.
When I reached his chest, I found his nipple and sucked it between my lips, worrying it with my teeth.
He came with what could only be described as a growl, the muscles in his chest and belly tightening, and his hips rising from the bed as he arched into it.
Letting go of his nipple, I gently licked it, then kissed the side of his chest as I relaxed into the bed, feeling boneless.
Chance cleared his throat. “Yeah, I don’t think sex will be an issue,” he said, his voice rough. “Though you might kill me.”
I laughed quietly, pressing my head against his shoulder.
Moments later, he climbed from the bed and came back with a warm washcloth. He gently pulled off my shorts and tank top, then carefully cleaned me up before pulling the blankets up. I was asleep before he got back into bed.