They’d stopped outside a voodoo shop. The place was closed for the night. The windows and doors were covered with thick bars. The street was empty—everyone was busy partying a few blocks away. Nicole sagged, her breath heaving. Safe. For now.
“You killed.” The anger was back in Keenan’s voice. More reckoning time.
She brushed her hands against her thighs, sucked in more air, and managed a jerky nod.
“After what that vamp did to you in the alley …” He shook his head and stared at her with confusion clear in his gaze. “You killed someone else?”
More than one “someone else.” She cleared her throat. “You know about the Borns.” She’d fought, for as long and as hard as she could. But he’d broken her. “They take away your will.” She’d been linked to Grim from the moment she took her first breath. She’d heard his whisper in her mind, taunting her, and as the days passed and she became weaker, that whisper had turned into a scream.
She paced away from Keenan. The heat of the night wrapped around her. The scent of the river teased her nose. “I didn’t want to kill.” She flung out the words. “Do you really think I could ever want that?”
She’d killed the vamp who attacked her, but that had been self-defense. No choice. And the others—
How long are you going to keep justifying?
She swallowed. “He put the compulsion to attack in my head. The men he sent me after—they’d been killing vamps.” Right, like that was such a bad thing. Most of the vamps she’d met had lived to torture and slaughter.
Grim had made sure that his Taken were just like him.
“You’d never killed … not until that night.” Now Keenan sounded sad and his voice made her heart ache. “I knew—the first time I saw you in Mexico, I knew you looked different.”
Fangs. Claws. Seduction. Blood. Yes, she’d gotten some new features. Not exactly upgrades. “I had to change in order to survive.” She wouldn’t apologize for all that she’d done. The killings—yes, she regretted them and had vowed not to take another life, but the other things … Seduction, blood drinking—I had to survive.
His gaze raked her.
What did he see?
A monster? Or a woman?
“Wishing you’d touched me and let me die that night?” The question slipped from her lips, and, oh, damn, she hadn’t meant to say that. She’d been thinking it—for days now—but she hadn’t meant to say it.
His eyes narrowed into chips of blue ice.
She spun around and began marching, um, running, down the street. She didn’t want to hear his answer. Didn’t want to know that the man who’d had her back these last few days actually wished that she was dead.
Enough people were already wishing that.
Hard hands caught her and hauled her back against a muscled chest. “Never say that.”
He whirled her around. His eyes didn’t look like ice anymore. Black now, not blue, and burning.
“Keenan, I—”
His mouth took hers. Not soft. Not gentle. No hesitant lover. Hard. Rough. The kiss was wild with need.
The fear in her heart pushed her to be wild, too. She grabbed his arms and pulled him closer. They stumbled back and her shoulders rapped into the wood of the nearby building.
She opened her mouth wider, sucking on his tongue, and taking everything she could get from him. His taste filled her mouth, had her arching against him.
He still wanted her. He knew what she’d become, and he wasn’t turning away. He was touching her, his hands greedy and possessive, stroking and caressing, and her angel wasn’t running.
Neither was she. Not now.
Even through their clothes, the hard length of his c**k pushed against her sex. Aroused. Thick and strong.
She wanted him in her. Nicole didn’t care where they were. Didn’t care about anything right then—but him.
Need him. Want him.
His body. His blood. Oh, a taste of his blood would be heaven right then.
His hand shoved under her shirt. His fingers pushed under her bra. His thumb scraped across her nipple.
Yes.
“The building’s deserted.”
He was right; she didn’t hear any sounds from inside and—
Keenan stepped back, but kept a hold on her arm. “I need you.”
She was on fire for him.
He kicked open the door. One kick, and the wood flew inward. Then he pulled her inside. An empty space. No furniture, but walls, privacy and …
He pushed her against the nearest wall. Keenan drove his tongue in her mouth and took.
His hands went to her ass and he jerked her up, pressing her hard to the thick bulge of his arousal.
She held him tight. Nicole pushed the worries and fears from her mind and just held him.
His fingers were at the waist of her jeans, yanking at the snap, and then shoving down the zipper.
Her inexperienced Fallen had her jeans down around her ankles in about two seconds, then her panties were gone and his fingers were pushing between her legs. Pushing up, rubbing, stroking her.
Nicole rose onto her toes as her body tightened. Yes. She loved the way he touched her. He already knew her body. Knew just what she liked. How she needed to be touched.
He dropped to his knees before her.
“Keenan …”
He spread her thighs and she kicked the jeans away. His breath blew over her sex and she shivered.
Then his hands were pushing between her legs, and his long, broad fingers slid into her sex.
She jolted at the first touch, her body so sensitive that she almost climaxed.
“Not yet.” His growled order.
His fingers stroked her, plunging harder and deeper now. His thumb brushed over her clit and sent a pulse of electricity right through her body.
“Beautiful.”
Her hands clamped down on his shoulders. “Keenan …” They shouldn’t be there—where was there? She’d never had sex in public, before vamp life or after, and this still counted as public to her and—
His mouth was on her sex. His tongue drove inside and her knees would have buckled if he hadn’t held her up with his tight grip.
She came quickly, a hard wave of release that whipped through her.
The aftershocks still trembled through her sex when he rose up and lifted her. His pants were open now. Oh, he moved fast. He caught her hips, lifted her against the wall, and drove his c**k into her.
The pleasure pulsed.
His eyes were on hers as he thrust. Deep, driving thrusts. She licked her lips, fought back the hunger and clamped her inner muscles around him—the better to feel that slow, slick glide.