Dark Promises 5: Tarnished Read online

  Yeah, like this. With a few modifications. He used his free hand to spread her legs a little further apart before he dipped his fingers into her hot cunt. Her inner muscles tightened around him at the invasion.

  She let out a small whimper. “Not your fingers. Your cock. Fuck me.”

  The blunt words heated his system, made his cock throb. He wanted it as much as she did. Maybe more. He would fuck her. Hard and fast this time. Maybe the second time too. He guided his cock to the entrance of her cunt and rammed inside, all the way to the hilt with the first deep thrust.

  “Yes,” she hissed, slamming her ass back against him to meet him thrust for thrust. He released her hair and she dropped her elbows to the ground, resting her head on her outstretched forearms.

  “You want it hard, like this?” he asked, punctuating the question with another deep thrust.

  “Any way. I just want it now.”

  “Do you like pain, Becca?” He raised his palm and gave her asscheek a sharp slap.

  “Oh God. Yes. Harder.”

  He had no problem obliging. He gave her ass another whack, then another, in time with his thrusts inside her cunt. After a few swats her skin had taken on a rosy glow and she was panting and writhing under him. Her cunt muscles tightened, her hips thrusting back in an artless rhythm that told him she was seconds away from losing control. He reached around her and found her clit, pressing his finger hard against the little nub. That was all it took for her to explode around him.

  She let out a long, keening moan that shook her whole body. Her inner muscles gripped him tight, milking him, drawing him deeper inside her body. She convulsed, her body dropping closer to the floor.

  Now was the time. He leaned over her, supporting his weight on his arms, and sank his fangs into the tender skin on the back of her shoulder. She screamed, but the scream soon turned into another long moan as her warm, salty blood flowed over his tongue. He came like that, leaning over her, his mouth latched to her skin as he lapped up the blood that would give him the strength to fuck her again, later that night.

  When he released her and knelt back up, his head spun. He pulled his softening cock out of her cunt and ran a hand over her ass, where the red marks were starting to fade. Becca rolled onto her back and gave him a sleepy smile. “Wow.”

  He would have agreed with her sentiments had he been able to find his voice. Instead he rubbed a hand down his face and shook his head. She’d really worn him out if he couldn’t manage to form words.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” he ground out. “Fine.”

  “Good. Why don’t we get into bed, then, and rest a little. Then when I’m up for more fun later, you will be too.” She gave his cock a pointed glance.

  He nodded. Moving to the bed was the last thing he remembered before the dizziness claimed him and he slept.

  * * * * *

  Something wasn’t right. Wil knew it almost the second he woke, before he’d even had a chance to open his eyes. He was alone in the bed. If Becca had been there, he would have sensed her warmth. A strange tingling sensation ran from his shoulders all the way up to his fingertips. Fingertips of hands which seemed to be stretched toward the headboard at an unnatural angle.

  Shit.

  He gave his arms a tug, confirming his suspicions. The minx had cuffed him to the bed. At first it turned him on a little to think she’d be into such kinky games. He didn’t usually let a woman be the one to take control, but what the hell. A little change might give his sex life the spice it had been missing for a while. But when he tugged a second time, harder than the first, and the uncomfortable metal cuffs didn’t budge, a knot formed in his gut. Only specially engineered cuffs would hold a vampire. Ordinary ones weren’t nearly strong enough. In order to obtain such special cuffs, one had to know where to look. And what sort of being one planned to restrain.

  A soft smacking sound came to him from across the room. He snapped his eyes open and found Becca leaning against the doorframe, wearing a pair of worn blue jeans, a navy blue sweatshirt, and a knowing smile. The noise came from the wooden stake she was slapping against her palm.

  His heart first threatened to stop, and then threatened to pound out of his chest. What the hell was going on? “Please tell me this is a game you like to play.”

  She raised a single dark brow, no hint of lust or humor on her pixie face. “It’s about time you woke up. You slept through a whole day. The sun set a half hour ago. If you’d made me wait another second, I might have gotten angry.”

  Considering his position, angry was the last thing he wanted to make her. He shook his head, hoping to shake off the last remnants of sleep so he had a clear mind to deal with her. It would have been nice if someone had informed him that Becca was crazy. The situation Ellie had warned him about must have pushed Becca off the deep end and now she held his life in her hands. How had he been stupid enough to get into this? He’d been too much in lust with her to see her for what she really was. He’d let his dick lead what had happened and now it might cost him his life. Would she really use that sharp-looking stake? He had an awful feeling she would.

  He swallowed, his mouth dry, his tongue thick. The odd sensations he’d felt the night before still lingered, though not quite as strong as they’d been. A dull ache tapped against his temples and his head felt like it had been stuffed with cotton. He tried again to shake it off, knowing this wasn’t the time to lose it. Not if he wanted to get out of this with all his body parts intact. If he expected to get out of her house alive, he had to be fully awake and alert. He should have avoided finishing that glass of whiskey the night before. Would have avoided it, had he expected this kind of trouble. Vampires, with their heightened senses and sensitivities, couldn’t hold their liquor worth a damn. But he’d been stupid and let down his guard. It was Ellie’s sister, for hell’s sake. This shouldn’t have even happened. She should have been safe.

  He took a deep breath and tried to force a smile onto his face. His bunched facial muscles wouldn’t allow it. “Believe me, sweetheart. The last thing I want to do is make you angry. I can’t help it if I have an unusual sleep schedule. Why don’t you put that thing down and come back to bed?”

  “Can the sweetheart crap, Wil. I’m not going to let you go, no matter how nice you act right now.” She shook her head, throwing her hair off her shoulders so it fell down her back. A dull bruise ran along one side of her neck, disappearing into the neckline of the sweatshirt.

  His stomach clenched at the sight, and he had to forcibly remind himself that the woman was dangerous—possibly even planning to kill him. He glanced away, training his gaze on her hands. He’d bitten her too hard. But he’d been out of control in a way that was new to him, and she’d done nothing but encourage his behavior. “You’re bruised. Did I hurt you last night?”

  “You don’t remember the second time you bit me.”

  It was a statement, not a question, as if she’d been expecting that reaction. “No.”

  “In the middle of the night. You woke me and we fucked again. No big deal.”

  Nausea rolled in his gut. He hadn’t wanted to hurt her, but apparently he had. Was that what this was all about? “Did I hurt you?” he repeated.

  Something he couldn’t quite read flashed in her eyes. “No. You didn’t hurt me. My skin is fair. I bruise easily. Like I told you before, I have means of protecting myself, especially against creatures like you.”

  She said the word “creatures” with as much distaste as if she were talking about cockroaches. Anger spiked inside him, but he pushed it back. He’d have to keep his temper in check. No sense making things worse now, when she had a huge advantage.

  But her actions still demanded an explanation. “You wanna tell me what’s going on here? You were all over me last night, and now you want me dead? I’m sorry if that doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

  She snorted. “Vampires. You’re all a bunch of idiots. I swear I haven’t met one yet that I didn
’t want to stake. And believe me, I’ve met quite a few. Though I have to admit not many have been as fun as you. But that isn’t going to stop me from using this.” She brandished the stake in front of her.

  His mouth went dry. If she really planned to use that thing, he had no way of defending himself save kicking out at her, but there were no guarantees that it would even work. “Is that what this is about? Some vendetta against vampires?”

  She shook her head, walked over to the bed and flopped down on the end of the mattress next to his feet. The sheet covering him from the waist down slipped a little and he had no way of pulling it back up. One of her hands still held the stake, the other raised up in front of her as she studied her nails. “Don’t be so melodramatic. It isn’t a vendetta. Well, maybe just a little bit. But I have my reasons. If you knew my story, knew what I’ve been through, maybe you wouldn’t be so damned judgmental.”

  She’d rendered him helpless and threatened to kill him, and he was in the wrong for being judgmental? There was something seriously wrong with this picture. “This is nuts, Becca. Absolutely nuts. Let me out of these cuffs so we can talk about it.”

  “Talk about it. Yeah right. Do you think I’m stupid or something? The second I let you go, you’ll tear me apart. That just isn’t going to…”

  Her voice trailed off and she shook her head again, this time with more force. Her curls bounced around her face before they settled along her shoulders and down her chest. For just a second a glimpse of sweetness, almost innocence, flickered across her features. But it was gone so quickly he thought he had to have been imagining it.

  His cell phone rang, drawing her attention to the floor where he’d dropped his pants. She stood and tossed the stake onto his chest. “Hold that for a second, will you?”

  Shit. His body instinctively tried to recoil from the chunk of wood, but cuffed to the bed he couldn’t move away. If he’d known she was this crazy, he would have dragged her out of Rex’s bar kicking and screaming and tied her up in his hotel room rather than follow instincts that had apparently gone faulty. How was it that he always managed to get involved with the wrong women? It appeared his choices were going to be the death of him, sooner than he thought. Sooner than his close friends had started to warn.

  She smirked at him before she grabbed his pants off the floor and fished his small black phone out of the pocket. She glanced at the caller ID screen and her expression darkened. “Why would my sister be calling your cell phone?”

  If he lied, she’d most likely kill him. If he told her the truth, he might very well be dead anyway, but at least if she knew someone would come looking for him she might be a little less inclined to ram that piece of wood through his heart. “She’s a friend. I’m working on something for her. Something important.”

  “And what would that be?” She clicked her tongue, her gaze dropping to the stake on his chest before coming back up to his eyes again. The blue of her irises burned almost silver in the dim light coming from the bedside lamp. “Tell me the truth now. It seems you’re not in a position to lie or hide things from me.”

  Wasn’t that the truth? He shuddered to think what she might do. Did she have the courage, or the know-how, to do what she’d planned? He wouldn’t doubt it if she did. “Why don’t you talk to me for a little while first? Are you sure you want to go through with this?”

  “Of course I’m sure. You aren’t the first, and you won’t be the last.”

  Was she talking about sex, or the fact that she planned to murder him? “You’ve staked a vampire before?”

  Her laugh was nothing short of confident. “Do you remember the second job I’d mentioned before? The lucrative one? Well, there’s a shitload of money in vampire hunting.”

  Her words echoed inside his head, making the throb in his temples pound against his skull. Fuck. He was so dead. So fucking dead, and there was nothing he could do about it. A vampire hunter. Ellie and Royce hadn’t known, or they would have warned him to be careful. “What was with the sex, then?”

  “That’s the weird part. I hate vampires, don’t get me wrong. And I make more than a decent living killing them. Funny thing is, I found out early on that sex with a vampire is the most incredible sex there is. Better than any human I’ve ever had. So I like to have a little fun first. Got a problem with that?”

  Hell yes he had a problem with it. She was out there making money killing off his kind, but she liked to toy with her prey first. Play with it. Let it believe she was nothing more than a horny woman out looking for a good time. A chill ran down his spine. Ellie hadn’t mentioned her sister was a sociopath. “Yeah, I do. It’s a little twisted.”

  “And drinking blood isn’t?” She leaned back against the footboard, her gaze raking his body. When she stopped at where the sheet barely covered his cock, his body reacted involuntarily to her scrutiny. His cock twitched, hardening more the longer she stared, and nothing he tried would will it back down. She smiled. “You didn’t have any complaints last night.”

  “That was before I knew you were trying to kill me.”

  “You don’t seem to have any complaints now, either.” Her gaze didn’t move an inch and he started to squirm. “Didn’t your mother ever warn you against picking up strange women in bars?”

  “My mother didn’t warn me about much.” Hadn’t cared enough to even acknowledge him past his early childhood, but he doubted that fact would make Becca change her mind.

  “Too bad. If she had, she might have saved you.” She dropped the phone on the floor and walked into the adjoining bathroom. He heard water running, and when she came back out she had a glass of water in her hand. She took a sip. “How did you get those scars on your back?”

  His whole body stiffened, his jaw squared. No sense giving her any more reason to kill him. “It’s a long story. A long, boring story. One I’m sure you don’t want to hear.”

  “Long and boring, huh? Whatever.” She didn’t press for more, though. She accepted his words with a succinct nod. “Now tell me about my sister. Exactly what are you doing for her?”

  “Not what you’re thinking.” He’d be stupid to try anything with Ellie, even if he was interested. Her mate would tear him to shreds if Ellie didn’t do it herself. He might get himself into trouble on occasion, but he wasn’t stupid.

  “Then you’d better start explaining.”

  “She asked me to find you and bring you back home so she would know you’re safe.”

  Becca snorted. “What does she care? She doesn’t worry about me. My sister isn’t even human anymore.”

  Ellie had warned him that was a sticking point with Becca. When Becca had unknowingly dated a killer vampire several years ago, she’d set in motion a course of actions that had resulted in Ellie’s death and resurrection as a Panthicenos demon. Becca, overwhelmed with the situation, had apparently chosen then to move away and cut all ties with her family. But she still cared about them. Despite her bravado, he could see it in her eyes.

  “You haven’t been home in three years. Don’t you want to see your nephew?”

  “My nephew’s a demon. He’s two years old and he can change himself into a cat. That’s just wrong.” She shivered. “What’s your stake in this, anyway? Is she paying you?”

  “No. I don’t charge friends.”

  “But you’d charge Rex a shitload of money and not think twice about it. What are you, some kind of mercenary?”

  She said the words with such derision he had to hold back a laugh. “Something like that. I prefer to think of it as a jack-of-all-trades. If someone needs something done, I come in and do it. Kinda like what you do, but I get rid of the bad guys rather than just kill indiscriminately.”

  Anger flashed in her eyes and he braced himself for her attack. Probably best not to antagonize the crazy woman with the stake. She stared at him for a long time, her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed, before she stood and paced the length of the room.

  “You don’t know anything about what I do.�
��

  “Sweetheart, I’ve met enough vampire hunters to know that what you do is wrong. It’s a little too close to genocide.”

  “Is not.” She shook her head but didn’t stop her pacing. “You’re just being dramatic. Vampires are evil. I’ve known enough of them to know the truth.”

  “You’re basing this on what happened with one.”

  “I’m basing it on that and on a few other experiences, coupled with the fact that I get paid very well for this. It’s a job. A job I happen to enjoy.” Now she stopped and spun toward him, her gaze darkening. “You’re the one who killed the vampires who were threatening Rex.”

  He just stared at her, refusing to confirm or deny.

  “Had to go and ruin my fun, didn’t you. Why hire a woman when he could hire a man—a vampire—to do the job instead. What makes what you did so different from what I do? You’re even worse. You kill your own kind.”

  “Those vampires weren’t the good guys.”

  “And you are?”

  Wasn’t that a loaded question? He chose his answer carefully. “I don’t hurt people just for the fun of it.”

  “I take that as a no. I wish my sister would learn to mind her own damned business.”

  “She’s worried about you.”

  “Worried my ass. She just likes to mother everyone around her. Well, I don’t need a mother. Or a sister. Hell, I don’t need anyone, but everyone wants to be my family. They all think they know what’s best for me.”

  She turned away and stomped to the window, pushing aside the shade and glancing into the darkening night. At that moment he caught another glimpse of the woman under all the show—soft, vulnerable and alone. She might be good at hiding it, but she was damaged inside. And there was nothing he could do to fix it. Nothing short of somehow getting her to let him loose and take her to her family.

  “I don’t want to be your family.”

  She glanced at him, the cool façade slipping back into place. Gone was the innocent girl, replaced with the knowing woman Becca had become. “No, you’d rather just drain my blood.”