Lover Unveiled (Black Dagger Brotherhood 19)

“Goddamn it,” she muttered as she dropped her purse by his head and got onto her knees.

The huge male was sprawled on his back, one arm thrown out to the side, the other flopped across his heavy pecs. The pool of blood under him was three times the size it had been when she’d left only moments before, and she could swear that there was a pulsing to the flow leaving the open vein at the side of his throat—although that was the good news. It meant he still had a heartbeat. Not for long, though. His coloring was bad and getting worse, his face as gray as the concrete he was lying on, and that bony hand tattooed on his torso wasn’t moving much—which meant he wasn’t breathing much.

“Sorry,” she said as she shoved her arm under his head and lifted him up. “Holy—good God, you’re heavy.”

With a grunt, she pulled him into her lap—or tried to. It was like moving a house, so she had to scoot under him. And oh, jeez, the blood. It was warm, it was slippery, it—

He smelled really good.

“You’re thinking that about a dying man,” she muttered. “Classy.”

When Mae had him at least slightly elevated, she pushed her hair over her shoulder, even though it was still pulled back in a ponytail, and focused on that wound. It was like someone had taken a garden hoe to the side of his throat, and for a moment, she got woozy staring at the ruined anatomy. But like her passing out was going to help either of them?

“Sorry, I know this is a little . . .” Forward? What, like they were at a dinner party and she was reaching across his plate for the saltshaker? “It’s just, um . . .”

Shut up, Mae.

Swallowing hard, she took a deep breath. And then she lowered her lips to the wound. There was only one way she could help him, and it was a long shot. But vampires had to feed from veins, and when they were done, they had to seal up the puncture marks.

With a gentleness that seemed like a waste of discretion, given the situation and the power in his body, she put her mouth to the slice—

The taste of him ricocheted through her on a tantalizing shock wave: That dark wine merely touching her tongue was the kind of thing she felt down to her marrow, and as a trembling hunger overtook her—

No, no, no, this is not a feeding, she told herself. Totally and completely not the point.

He was half drained already, for godsakes. And if he was the Reverend and she killed him because she couldn’t control herself? That wasn’t good for anybody.

Still, some sucking was inevitable, and therefore, so was some swallowing. But even though it caused her to break out in a sweat, she did not take a draw against that clean-cut vein. Instead she sealed it up. It took her some time, her lips and her tongue running up and over the deep wound and all its damage again and again—and she had a feeling things weren’t going to heal right, at least not for a while. Like that mattered?

If he was the Reverend, she needed him to live. He was necessary.

When she decided to call it done, because she was just getting echoes of his taste in her mouth, she lifted her head—and studiously ignored the way her tongue swiped over her lips and not just to clean up. She savored his taste—and as she did, she stared down into his face properly. His hair had been cut with a buzzer down close to his skull, but she could tell it was dark, maybe black. His lashes were thick and rather beautiful, and that seemed like a frivolous thing to notice—so she moved right on to his mouth.

Bad idea if she were looking to keep things on the level.

Because it was . . . really pretty amazing—

She didn’t meant to. It wasn’t a conscious thing . . . but she stroked his face.

“Don’t die on me,” she begged in a voice that cracked. “I need you.”

For some stupid reason, she expected him to stir at that. Maybe have those lashes open so he could peg her with his obsidian gaze.

At which point, her prince/Reverend would come around and be captivated by her makeup-less face, her messy ponytail, and her utterly unsexy clothes—and vow to give her what she had come here for.

Yeah, right, because real life was always scripted by Disney.

But come on, she’d saved him.

“Hello?” she said. “Um . . . hello?”

No, really. She’d saved him. Right?

His coloring was still bad, his breathing hadn’t improved, and just because the blood puddle—or rather, pond—beneath them both wasn’t getting any bigger, didn’t mean he was out of the woods.