Lover Awakened (Black Dagger Brotherhood 3)

"Some... some think you kill females for sport. But I don't believe - "

"Do you know how I got that rep?"

Bella covered her br**sts and stepped back, shaking her head. He bent down and handed her the towel, then pointed to the skull in the corner.

"I murdered that female. Now tell me, do you want to be taken by a male who could do something like that? Who could hurt a female like that? You want that kind of bastard on top of you, pumping into your body?"

"It was her," Bella whispered. "You went back and killed your mistress, didn't you?"

Z shuddered. "For a while I thought it could make me whole."

"It didn't."

"No shit." He brushed by her and walked around, pressure building in him until he opened his mouth and the words just shot out. "A couple of years after I got out, I heard she... shit, I heard she had another male in that cell. I... I traveled for two days straight and snuck in close to dawn." Z shook his head. He didn't want to talk, he really didn't, but his mouth just kept moving. "Christ... he was so young, so young, just like I was when she got me. And I didn't have any intention of killing her, but she came down right as I was leaving with the slave. When I looked at her... I knew if I didn't strike, she was going to call for her guards. I also knew that eventually she would take another male and chain him down there and make him... Ah, f**k. Why the hell am I telling you this?"

"I love you."

Z squeezed his eyes shut. "Don't be a tragedy, Bella."

He left the room in a rush, but couldn't go more than fifteen feet down the hall.

She loved him. She loved him?

Bullshit. She thought she loved him. And as soon as she got back to the real world, she was going to realize that. Christ, she'd come out of a horrific situation and was living in a bubble here at the compound. None of this was her life, and she was spending too much time with him.

And yet... God, he wanted to be with her. Wanted to lie side by side and kiss her. Wanted to do even more than that. Wanted... to do it all to her, the kissing and the touching and the sucking and the licking. But where exactly did he think all that was going to lead to? Even if he could get past the idea of penetrating her for the sex, he didn't want to risk coming inside of her.

Not that he'd ever done that with any female. Hell, he'd never ejaculated under any circumstances. When he'd been a blood slave, it wasn't as if he'd ever been sexually excited. And afterward, when he was with those few whores he'd bought and f**ked, he hadn't been after an orgasm. Those anonymous interludes were just experiments to see whether sex was as bad as it always had been for him.

As for masturbating, he couldn't stand touching the damn thing to take a piss, much less when it stood up for attention. And he'd never wanted to relieve himself, never been all that aroused, even when the it was hard.

Man, he was so whacked with the sex shit. Like there was a short in his brain.

Actually, he had a lot of them, didn't he?

He thought about all the holes in him, the blank places, the voids where others felt things. When it came down to it, he was really just a screen, more empty than solid, his emotions blowing through him, only the anger catching and holding.

Except that wasn't entirely true, was it? Bella made him feel things. When she had kissed him on the bed before, she had made him feel... hot and hungry. Very male. Sexual, for the first time in his life.

From out of a sharp desperation, some echo of what he'd been before the Mistress had had him started looking for air-time. He found himself wanting again that feeling he'd gotten from kissing Bella. And he wanted to crank her up, too. He wanted her gasping and breathless and starved.

It wasn't fair to her... but he was a son of a bitch, and he was greedy for what she'd given him before. And she would be leaving soon. He had this one day now.

Zsadist opened the door and went back inside.

Bella was lying in the bed and obviously surprised he was back. As she sat up, the sight of her brought back a lick of decency. How the hell could he be with her? God, she was so... beautiful, and he was nasty, a nasty bastard.

His momentum lost, he stalled in the middle of the room. Prove you're not a bastard by bailing, he thought. But explain yourself first.

"I want to be with you, Bella, and not to f**k you, either." As she started to say something, he silenced her by holding up his hand. "Please, just listen to me. I want to be with you, but I don't think I've got it in me to give you what you need. I'm not the right male for you, and this is definitely the wrong time."

He released his breath, thinking he was such an ass**le. Here he was telling her no, playing the gentleman... while in his mind he was yanking back those sheets and replacing them with a blanket of his own skin.

The thing hanging from the front of his hips pounded like a jackhammer.

What would she taste like, he wondered, in that soft, sweet place between her legs?

"Come over here, Zsadist." She opened the covers, baring herself to him. "Stop thinking. Come to bed."

"I..." Words he'd never spoken to anyone hovered on his lips, a confession of sorts, a treacherous unveiling. He looked away and let them go for no good reason he could think of. "Bella, when I was a slave things were... ah, things were done to me. Sexual shit." He should stop. Right now. "There were males, Bella. Against my will, there were males."

He heard a little gasping sound.

This was good, he thought, even as he cringed. Maybe he could get her to save herself by revolting her. Because what female could stand being with a male who'd had that kind of thing done to him? Not the heroic ideal. Not by a long shot.

He cleared his throat and stared a hole right through the floor. "Look, I'm not... I don't want your pity. The reason I'm telling you this is not to sap you out. It's just... I'm scrambled. It's like my wires are all crossed when it comes to the whole... you know, the f**king thing. I want you, but it's not right. You shouldn't be with me. You're cleaner than that."

There was a long silence. Ah, shit... He had to look at her. The moment he did, she rose from the bed as if she'd been waiting for him to lift his eyes. She walked to him naked, nothing on her skin except the candlelight from the single wick that burned.

"Kiss me," she whispered in the dimness. "Just kiss me."

"God... what is wrong with you?" As she winced, he said, "I mean, why? Of all the males you could have, why me?"

"I want you." She put her hand on his chest. "It's a natural, normal response to the opposite sex, isn't it?"

"I'm not normal."

"I know. But you're not dirty or contaminated or unworthy." She took his shaking hands and placed them on her shoulders.

Her skin was so fine, the idea of marring it in any way froze him. So did the image of him pushing the it into her. Except he didn't have to involve the lower half of his body, did he? This could be all about her.

Oh, yeah, he thought. This could be for her.

He turned her around and drew her back against his body. With slow sweeps he ran his hands up and down the curves of her waist and hips. When she arched her spine and sighed, he could see the tips of her br**sts over her shoulder. He wanted to touch her there... and realized he could. He moved his hands over her rib cage, feeling up the pattern of delicate bones until his palms enveloped her br**sts. Her head kicked back farther and her mouth parted.

As she opened for him like that, he had a screaming instinct to get inside of her any way he could. On reflex, he licked his upper lip while he rolled one of her ni**les between his thumb and forefinger. He imagined himself thrusting his tongue into her mouth, going in between her teeth and fangs, taking her in that way.

Like she knew what he was thinking, she tried to turn and face him, but it seemed too close somehow... too real that she was giving herself to him, that she was going to let someone like him do intimate, erotic things to her body. He stopped her by grabbing her hips and pulling her hard into his thighs. He ground his teeth at the feel of her ass against that stiff thing straining his shorts.

"Zsadist... let me kiss you." She tried to turn around again and he stopped her.

As she struggled in his hold, he kept her in place easily. "It'll be better for you this way. If you can't see me, it'll be better."

"No, it won't."

He put his head down on her shoulder. "If I could just get Phury for you... I used to look like him once. You could pretend it's me."