Alison’s eyes opened wide; then she had the audacity to actually smile. You are so jealous.
He growled all over again and narrowed his eyes. If wanting to tear Leto’s limbs off one by one means I’m jealous, yeah, I’m jealous. But it was more than that. Jealousy was a very small word compared with what he was feeling right now. Jealousy was a breeze when what he felt carried hurricane-force winds.
You know, all your cardamom is starting to get to me. I feel like I walked into a Moroccan café. Her voice had a soft quality, seductive, not what he expected right now.
This isn’t over.
Then we’ll talk later.
Just don’t ever go into the mind of another man again. Have you got that?
She put her hands on her hips, those hips covered in a whole lot of tight clinging leather. His gaze drifted down then back up.
I’ll do what I please, she responded, but her blue eyes had taken on a challenging glint, which had less to do with her will in the matter and more to do with wanting to get him worked up.
He caught her bu**ocks and pulled her right up against him. Despite the fact that Endelle stood by grinning at the new kind of spectacle he was making, he ground into her and let her feel exactly how worked up he was.
Much to his pleasure, Alison’s pupils dilated. Her lips parted. She took breaths like she’d forgotten how to breathe.
Endelle made a series of gagging sounds. “Okay, now you’ve gone too far. Jesus H. Christ, a pair of vampires in heat.”
Alison looked at Endelle. “I need a shower,” she said and with that, without another word of explanation or of apology or begging of permission, she lifted her hand and vanished.
“Holy shit,” Endelle cried. “She just folded between dimensions!”
Kerrick knew the tunic he wore was not the best outfit to have on for what he was feeling. He was about to beg a fold from Her Supremeness, but Endelle held him back with a slight pressure on his arm. “Hold up, Warrior. I should let you know that we’re not having a public ascension ceremony for Alison.”
“Makes sense.” He really needed to get the hell out of there.
“The little peach isn’t finished yet, so I’m not making it easy on him. We’ll have the ceremony at my palace and a dinner afterward. Got it?”
Kerrick could hardly hear her. He was picturing Alison stripping off all that leather, turning on the faucet, steaming up the shower. And he really needed to teach her a thing or two about warrior-vampires and what they expected from their women.
But Endelle could rattle on. “I want all the warriors present and whether you like it or not, I want Marcus there as well as Havily and no, you don’t need to know the f**k why. Beyond that, it’ll be a closed ceremony.”
He really didn’t give a good goddamn about Marcus. Especially since his mind was full of Alison, water streaming down her hair, over the curves of her body. He wanted to lick those dimples just above her bu**ocks.
“I’ve told Thorne to put a twenty-four-hour guard on the Queen Creek house. The warriors will work a rotation through the rest of tonight and all day tomorrow.”
Images of having an entire night with Alison and maybe an entire day did little to calm him down. He nodded once more. “Good. That’s good.”
“All right, horn-dog. Get going.” Endelle lifted her arm and the next moment Kerrick landed ass-first on the granite island in the kitchen.
He didn’t care. His thoughts were all for Alison and her trip inside Leto’s head. He slid off the island, clenched his fists then lowered his chin. He really needed to give her a lesson about inappropriate mind-diving.
He growled low.
His fangs emerged and lengthened.
He listened. He heard the shower running, not in the guest bath but in the master bath.
Oh, yeah. She’d gone to his bedroom this time.
His body shuddered. He got very firm, possessively hard. He needed to make sure she understood that her mind, her body, her blood were not to be shared with anyone except him.
The breh-hedden had returned with a howling vengeance.
He sent her a little message. You are to stay the hell out of Leto’s mind or any other man so long as we’re joined.
* * *
Alison nearly fell on the wet tile as Kerrick’s words punched into her head. She caught herself with one hand by gripping the showerhead just above her. She returned the soap to the inset in the wall behind her then rinsed.
Her heart banged around in her chest, although it wasn’t fear beating at her this time. Kerrick’s voice in her head, laced with jealousy and possessiveness, drove through her body like a fast car on a salt flat and nothing but air in the way.
She knew what was coming and her body screamed for it—full-on sex with her warrior vampire. She pressed her back up against the tile, hardly able to breathe, her hands to either side of her.
Water flowed on her from several different directions, from several different heads.
There would be no preamble this time, or soft touching of her br**sts or feathery wet kisses over her abdomen or between her thighs, no teasing sensual fangs probing gently or releasing a seductive potion into her skin.
When he appeared, stripped naked, chin dipped low, fangs distended, expression determined, she was ready. His thick sex was hard as a missile and her knees struggled to work at all. However, she knew in about a nanosecond that would so not be a problem.
He entered the shower growling, his shoulders hunched, his thighs tensed. He slid one arm around her waist, pulled one of her legs up, angled his hips, and drove into her. She threw her head back and cried out, the pleasure so intense she was already close to orgasm. He pounded into her and with just a handful of strokes sent her over the edge. She came so fast and so hard that she doubled over him and bit his shoulder. At the same time, the resulting wave of power struck him and he grunted his pleasure. How much she loved that she couldn’t hurt him.
He kept growling and driving. The man had a point he intended to make and he took his time. She came again, clenching around his rock-hard cock. Each time, waves of her power hit him, and each time he grunted in response. So sexy, he whispered in her mind. All that power. Now tell me you’ll keep clear of other men.
I’ll keep clear.
When she returned to earth, he still drove hard.
“Give me your neck,” he commanded. His split resonance nearly caused her to come again. She tilted her head back and to the side. She would deny him nothing right now. She closed her eyes. He sank his fangs in a quick thrust that stung like hell at first. As soon as he took heavy pulls, desire flared over her neck, over her br**sts, and down her abdomen to once again tighten her internal muscles.