Lover Unbound (Black Dagger Brotherhood 5)

Not dignified. Not manly. How f**king typical. He was finally in a big body, but he was no more a male than when he'd been in a little one.

The water shut off and he heard Layla covering herself with a towel. Her voice quavered. "Would you like me to go?"

He nodded, too ashamed to even look at her.

When he glanced up much later, he was alone in the bathroom. Alone and cold, the heat of the shower lost, all that glorious steam gone as if it had never been.

His first time with a female... and he'd lost his erection. God, he wanted to throw up.

V broke Jane's skin with his fangs, penetrating her throat, tapping into her vein, latching on with his lips. As she was human, the rush of power at the drinking came not from the composition of her blood, but the fact that it was her. Her taste was what he was after. Her taste... and his consumption of a piece of her.

When she cried out, he knew it wasn't from pain. Her body was lush with her arousal, and that scent got even stronger as he took what he wanted from her, took her sex with his cock, took her blood with his mouth.

"Come with me," he said hoarsely, releasing her throat and letting her prop herself up against the sink again. "Come... with... me."

"Oh, God ..."

V locked into her hips as he started to orgasm, and she went over the edge with him, her body sucking on his erection just as he had worked at her neck. The exchange felt fair and satisfying; she was now in him and he was in her. It was right. It was good.

Mine.

After it was over, they were both breathing hard.

"Are you all right?" he asked on a gasp, very aware that the question had never before come out of his mouth following sex.

When she didn't reply, he eased back from her a little. On her pale skin he could see the marks he'd left on her, red blushes from his rough handling. Nearly everyone he'd ever f**ked had ended up with them because he liked it rough, needed it rough. And he'd never been bothered by what he'd left behind on other people's bodies.

The marks bothered him now. Bothered him even more as he wiped his hand across his mouth and came away with a smudge of her blood.

Oh, Jesus ... He'd used her too hard. It had been way too hard. "Jane, I'm so - "

"Amazing." She shook her head, her cap of blond hair swinging at her cheeks. "That was... amazing."

"Are you sure I didn't - "

"Just amazing. Although I'm afraid to let go of this sink because I'll fall over."

Relief went to his head, a drunken buzz. "I didn't want to hurt you."

"You overwhelmed me... but in the way that if I had a good girlfriend I would call her up and be like, 'Oh, my God I just had the sex of my life.' "

"Good. That's... good." He so didn't want to leave her core, especially if she was talking like that. But he moved his hips back and slipped his erection free so she had a break.

From the back she was exquisite. Temple-pounding beautiful. Totally takeable. His arousal beat like a heart as he pulled his pajama bottoms up and stuffed himself into the flannel.

V straightened Jane slowly and looked at her face as it came up in the mirror. Her eyes were glassy, her mouth open, her cheeks flushed. On her neck his bite mark was just where he wanted it: right where everyone could see.

He turned her around to face him and ran his gloved forefinger up her throat, catching the thin trail of blood from the punctures. He licked the black leather clean, savoring the taste of her, wanting more.

"I'm going to seal this closed, okay?"

She nodded, and he dipped his head. As he delicately ran his tongue over the holes, he closed his eyes and got lost nuzzling her. Next time he wanted to go between her legs and tap into the vein that ran down the juncture of her hips, tap into it so he could alternate between sucking at her blood and licking at her sex.

He leaned to the side and turned the shower on, then stripped off the button-down shirt she wore. Her br**sts were covered in white lace, the pink tips visible through the lovely pattern. Bending down, he suckled one of her ni**les through the fine weave and was rewarded with her hand easing into his hair and a moan bubbling up her throat.

He growled and slipped his palm between her legs.

What he'd left behind was on the inside of her thighs, and though it made him a crass bastard, he wanted it to stay there. He wanted to leave that stuff where it was and put more inside of her.

Ah, yes, the instincts of the bonded male. He wanted her to wear him like she did her own skin: all over.

He took her bra off her and eased her into the shower, holding her by the shoulders, getting her under the spray. He stepped in, his pajama bottoms getting wet, his feet feeling the smooth marble floor. Sweeping his hands over her hair and taking the short blond waves back from her face, he looked into her eyes.

Mine.

"I haven't kissed you yet," he said.

She arched against him and used his chest for balance, just as he wanted her to. "Not on the mouth, no."

"May I?"

"Please."

Shit, he was nervous as he looked at her lips. Which was so strange. He'd had so much sex over the course of his life, all different kinds and combinations, but the prospect of kissing her properly wiped all of that away: He was the virgin he'd never been, clueless and weak-kneed.

"So are you going to?" she asked as he stalled out.

Oh . . . shit.

With a smile like the Mona Lisa's, she put her hands to his face. "Come here."

She pulled him down to her, tilted his head, and brushed her lips against his. Vishous's body shuddered. He had felt power before - his own in his muscles, his godforsaken mother's in his destiny, his king's in his life, his brothers' in his job - but he'd never let any of it overcome him.

Jane overcame him now. Held total sway as she cradled his face in her palms.

He gathered her close and pressed his lips tighter on hers, the communion a sweetness he never would have believed he'd want, much less revere. When they broke apart, he soaped up her sleek curves and rinsed her off. Shampooed her hair. Cleaned between her legs.

Handling her with care was like breathing... an automatic function of his body and brain that he didn't have to think about.

He shut off the water, toweled her dry, then picked her up and carried her back to the bed. She sprawled out on his black duvet, arms over her head, legs slightly parted, nothing but flushed female skin and muscle.

She stared at him from underneath lowered lids. "Your pajamas are wet."

"Yeah."

"You're hard."

"I am."

She arched on the bed, the undulation riding up her torso from her hips to her br**sts. "You going to do anything about it?"

He bared his fangs and hissed. "If you'll let me."

She moved one of her legs to the side, and his corneas nearly started bleeding. She was glistening at her core, and not from the shower.

"Does this look like a no to you?" she said.

He ripped off his bottoms and was on her in a heartbeat, kissing her deep and long, lifting his hips, positioning himself, sinking in. She was so much better like this, in reality, not a dream state. As she came for him once, twice... more... his heart broke.

For the first time he was having sex with someone he loved.

He felt a momentary blind panic at his exposure. How the f**k had this happened?

But, then, this was his last - well, only - shot at the love thing, wasn't it. And she wasn't going to remember a thing, so it was safe: Her heart wasn't going to be broken at the end.

Plus... well, her lack of memory made it safe for him, too, didn't it. Kind of like that night he and Wrath had gotten shit-faced and V had talked about his mother.

The less people knew about him, the better.

Except damn, why the hell did the thought of cleaning out Jane's mind make his chest hurt?

God, she was going so soon.

Chapter Twenty-five

On the Other Side, Cormia stepped out of the Primale's temple and waited as the Directrix shut the enormous gold doors. The temple was on top of a raised knoll, a gilded crown on the head of a small hill, and from here the whole of the Chosen's compound was visible: the white buildings and the temples, the amphitheater, the covered walkways. The stretches between landmarks were carpeted with cropped white grass that never grew, never changed, and as always, the vista offered little in the way of horizon, just a diffused blurring of the distant white forest boundary. The only color to the composition was the pale blue of the sky, and even that faded at the edges.