Payne sat up and met him straight in the eye. "What has always been meant for you remains yours for the taking."
He closed his eyes briefly. Then he didn't want her to get the wrong impression. "It's not like it would matter to me if you weren't ... I mean, it's not a propriety thing - " Hell's bells, he couldn't seem to talk tonight. "I just can't bear for you to be hurt."
Her smile made him grateful for the mattress under his ass. Because if he'd been standing, she'd have knocked him out.
"I'm sorry about last night," he said. "I made a mistake - "
She put her hand to his mouth. "We are where we are now. That is all I care about."
"And I have something I need to tell you."
"Are you leaving me?"
"Never."
"Good. Then let us be together first and then we shall talk." Easing upright even farther, she replaced her fingers with her mouth, kissing him deep and long. "Mmmm ... yes, much better than speech, I should think."
"Are you sure you want - " That was as far as he got before her tongue robbed him of thought.
Groaning, he got up on the bed, holding himself above her. And then meeting her eyes, he slowly lowered his body on top of hers ... with the last contact being his erection between her legs.
"No going back if I kiss you now." Shit, his voice was so guttural, he was practically growling at her. But he meant the words. There was some other force driving him - this was not about sex, although the mechanics of the act were involved. In taking her virginity, he was marking her in a way he didn't understand, but didn't question.
"I want you thus," she said. "I've been waiting for centuries for what only you can give to me."
Mine, he thought.
Before he kissed her again, he turned to the side and released her hair from its braid. Spreading the dark waves out over the satin bedspread, he ran his fingers through the length.
Then he curled his hips into her core, pushing and retreating, and repeating the move ... as his hand swept up to below her breast and gripped the fragile fabric of the robing.
Frankly, he was shocked at what he wanted to do.
"I wish to be naked before you," she commanded. "Make it so, Manuel."
That frickin' robe didn't stand a chance. Jacking up, he grabbed onto both the lapels and split it right down the front, ripping the material clean apart, baring her br**sts to his hot eyes and the cool air. In response, she arched and moaned - and that was it: He was on her tightening ni**les with his mouth and down to her core with his hands. He was all over her, driving her to an orgasm by sucking on her and rubbing her carefully, and when her fast, desperate release came, he swallowed her cry.
He wanted to give her more - and he had every intention of doing so - but his body wasn't going to wait. His hands fumbled with his pants, cracking his belt and downing his zipper to spring his cock.
She was ready for him, slick and open - and aching, given the way her legs sawed against him.
"I'll go slow," he said against her mouth.
"I am not afraid of pain. Not with you."
Shit, so maybe in this they worked physically as human women did. Which meant the first time was not going to be easy on his woman.
"Shhh," she whispered. "Do not worry. Take me."
Reaching down, he positioned himself, and - oh, f**k ... he nearly came. She was hot and wet and -
She moved so fast, he couldn't have stopped her if he'd wanted to. Her hands reached down and clamped on his ass, her nails digging into him and then -
Payne thrust up with her hips and at the same time pulled him down and he went in all the way to the hilt, the penetration utterly and irrevocably complete. As he cursed, she went rigid and hissed from the strike - which was just too damn unfair, because, f**king hell, she felt good. But he wasn't moving - not until she recovered from the invasion.
And then it dawned on him.
Snaking a hand around the back of her neck, he drew her lips close to his throat. "Take me."
The sound she made had him orgasming inside of her - it was too f**king hot for him to hold back. And as his c**k spasmed, her fangs struck deep into his vein.
The sex went wild. She moved against him, her tight core fisting him up and milking him as he came again ... and then he started to pump his hips hard. The drinking and the crazy rhythm swept them both away into a heady pounding of bodies that he knew they were each going to feel in the morning: There was nothing civilized to this; it was male and female distilled down to the most primal core.
And it was the very best of anything he had ever had.
Chapter Fifty-seven
Thomas DelVecchio knew exactly where his killer was going next.
There was no question in his mind. Even as Detective de la Cruz was back at HQ, working with the other boys on theories and leads - all of which were smart enough - Veck knew where to go.
And as he approached the parking lot of the Monroe Motel & Suites with his lights off and his motorcycle in an idle, he thought it was probably a good idea to call de la Cruz and let the guy know where he was.
Ultimately, however, he left his phone where it was in his pocket.
Halting the BMW in the trees to the right of the parking lot, he kicked out the stand, dismounted, and hung his helmet on the handlebars. His gun was in its holster under his armpit, and he told himself it was going to stay there if anyone showed.
Mostly believed the lie, too.
The terrible truth, however, was that he was animated by something that had been dormant for a long, long time. De la Cruz was right to be wary about him as a partner - and correct to question where the father's sins ended and the son's began.
Because Veck was a sinner. And he'd joined the police force to try to drain that out of himself.
It was probably better to get that shit exorcised, however. Because sometimes he felt like there was a demon inside of him, he really did.
Still, he wasn't here to kill anyone. He was here to take a killer into custody before the bastard got back to work.
Honest.
As Veck approached the motel, he stuck to the darkness of the trees and focused on the room where that latest girl had been found. Everything was as the CPD had left it: There was still crime scene tape in a triangle around the door and the portion of the sidewalk right in front - also a seal in place at the jamb, which theoretically could be broken only on official business. No lights on inside the room or out in front of it. Nobody around.
Settling behind a thick-trunked evergreen, he used his blackgloved hands to pull his black wool hat down closer to his black turtleneck.
He was very good at staying so still that he all but disappeared. He was also very good at channeling his energy into a pervasive calm that conserved resources while leaving him hyperalert.
His prey was going to show up. That murdering madman had lost all his trophies - his collection was now in the hands of the authorities, and the CSIers were scrambling to tie him to multiple unsolved murders across the nation. But the sick bastard wouldn't come here in hopes of getting some or all of it back. The return would be about revisiting and mourning the loss of what he had put so much effort into acquiring.
Would it be reckless on his part? Absolutely, but then, that was part of the gorging cycle. The killer wouldn't be thinking clearly, and he would be desperate from his losses. And Veck would just cool his heels over the next couple of nights until the appearance was made.
As time passed and he waited, and waited, and waited some more ... he was as patient as any good stalker. Although it did dawn on him that this could be disastrous, him being here alone. With a knife holstered on the back of his waist. And that damn gun -
The snap of a twig drew his eyes to the right, although not his head. He did not move or change his breathing or even so much as twitch.
And there he was. A surprisingly slight man weaving his way cautiously through the forest's crinoline of fluffy bushes. The expression on the man's face was nearly religious as he approached the flank of the motel, but that wasn't the only part of what identified him as the killer. His clothes were covered with dried blood, his shoes, too. He was limping, as if he had a leg injury, and his face had streaks gouged in it - from fingernails.
Gotcha, Veck thought.
And now that he was staring at the killer ... his hand crept down to his hips and went around to the back. To his knife.
Even as he told himself to leave the weapon where it was and go for his cuffs, he didn't change course. There had always been two halves of him, two people in one skin, and in moments like this, he felt as though he were watching himself act, sure as if he were a passenger in a cab and whatever destination he was bound for was not going to be a result of his own efforts.