It’s all right, he tried to project. He would have done the same thing.
“Dallas, man. I tried to lock her in place with my mind.” Devyn could control other people’s energy, but more and more, otherworlders were learning to prevent him from doing so. “Thought I had, really, the moment Mia gave the command to fire.” He scrubbed a hand down his face. “I don’t know how the queen escaped.”
Hector, the ass**le, seemed to take everything in stride. “Got any beer in the fridge?” he asked.
Mia slapped the agent’s shoulder. “For God’s sake, show a little sensitivity.”
“What?” Hector threw up his arms. “Everyone in this room knows he’s going to be fine.”
Not many people knew of Dallas’s change from human to otherworlder, but Hector was right. The three of them did. Still. Would a little worry have been amiss?
“Plus,” Hector continued, unaffected by Mia’s hate-filled glare. “Your frantic call dragged me out of bed, and I’m thirsty. So … Dallas. Beer? Blink once if the answer’s yes.”
Stun affected limbs and jaw, not eyelids, not heartbeat, not lungs. He blinked, but prayed Hector could read the f**k-you blazing in his eyes.
Chuckling, Hector patted the top of his head and sauntered off. Prick.
Finally, in sprinted three guys with a gurney. They managed to lift him up and lay him flat. Hurt like a bitch. There was a sharp sting in his forearm, then drugs were pumping through his system, at last dulling the pain and weaving dark over his eyes.
“You die,” Mia said, “and I’ll kill you real bad.”
The perfect lullaby, he thought dryly, and allowed himself to drift away.
Eighteen
McKell flattened Ava against the seat, pinning her with his weight. She didn’t seem to mind. No, she reached up, one hand tangling in his hair, nails biting into scalp, the other sliding down his spine, riding the ridges and leaving a path of fire.
Time was his enemy just then. So was his body. He had just meant to kiss her. To soften her. To begin her seduction, their romance, their life. Instead, their lips had met, their tongues had thrust together, he’d tasted her candy-sweetness, felt her luscious heat, heard her gasp his name, and he’d become lost. Lost with no hope of being found. Now he only cared about completion.
He felt like he’d been waiting for this moment, this woman, all the centuries of his life. He didn’t care that vampires slept in the seat behind them, didn’t care that the woman in his arms was human and unworthy.
Actually, unworthy did not apply, and he knew it never had. Ava was worthy of him. He was unworthy of her. She had hunted bloodsuckers for him, and even though they had been stronger than her, she’d held her own, punched one and chased the other. Her determination was unparalleled.
“McKell.” Another gasp of his name. “Are you daydreaming? Let’s do this!”
He reacted to her eagerness with an insatiable growl of approval. The exotic benediction in her tone … if he let her, this woman would be his downfall. He kissed her, hard and deep.
When she arched her back, mashing her br**sts, so wonderfully plump, into his chest, he wanted to let her. Falling seemed … fun. No one else had ever fit him so perfectly. Or made him ache so desperately. Or controlled his body quite so forcefully. She walked into a room, he grew hard. She spoke, he grew hard. She allowed herself to be tugged into his lap, he grew hard as a steel pipe.
“Spread,” he demanded.
She opened her legs farther, allowing him a deeper cradle, and he took it greedily, rubbing against her. Full contact, c**k to feminine core. Only thing preventing him from shoving deep inside her was their clothing.
“That’s … that’s …” She groaned, eyes squeezing shut, nails still digging, slicing.
He watched her and lost his ability to breathe. Beauty. Such beauty. Not even the vampires could hope to compare. Passion colored her cheeks, the length of her lashes cast shadows, and her lips, red and wet, glistened in the moonlight like a thousand tiny rubies shaped into a heart. Her amber curls were splayed around her delicate face, a wicked frame to a heavenly canvas.
He wanted their clothes gone. He wanted the vampires killed. No one else should ever see Ava like this. No one. He wanted out of the car, where they were trapped between the seat and the dash. Although the lack of space forced them to press as closely together as they could, so her every exhalation caressed his face, her scent enveloping him, the air charging with their arousal.
Her eyelids cracked open, revealing a sliver of those toffee irises and blown pupils. “You stopped kissing. Again. We done?”
He was panting, sweating. “Not even close.” He wouldn’t just kiss her, he decided. He would touch her. All of her. Despite their surroundings, their potential audience.
McKell just kind of fell on her, then, tongue plundering. She welcomed him with abandon, taking, giving. He, too, took and gave. He kneaded her br**sts, her pearled ni**les abrading his palms. Her heart slammed with so much force, he felt the beat inside his own body. And her blood rushed through her veins, a determined stream that created a roar in his ears. A delicious roar.
His mouth watered as his fangs sharpened, lengthened. Just being around her, he could barely keep his hunger under control. Kissing her, there was no such thing as control, the fine threads broken completely. There was only need and desire.
Would he ever get enough of her?
Her tongue scraped one of those fangs, and a bead of her blood slid down his throat. He swallowed with a moan, warmth instantly pouring through him, strength fast on its heels. No. He would never get enough.
“McKell,” she rasped, tunneling her fingers under his shirt. Skin to skin … heaven, hell. Salvation, damnation. Everything, nothing. Her, just her. “Take more,” she pleaded. “Please, take more.” Then, for a moment, she froze. “But don’t you dare give me your blood. Please? Okay.”
“I won’t.” But oh, he wanted to, he realized. Wanted to mate them permanently, forever. Prove to her, to everyone, that she was his. Only his. Finally. He wouldn’t marry them, though, because they had a few things to settle first. He doubted her reason was the same, so her absolute refusal to drink from him irked.
“I’ll kill you if you do.” Even as she spoke, she relaxed, arched, body becoming fluid against his. “I swear.”
“Shut up, Ava. More kissing.”
“Where?”
His woman wanted his mouth elsewhere. He could oblige. Smile forming, he licked the pulse at the base of her neck. “Everywhere.”