Chapter Thirty–Three

CHAPTER THIRTY–THREE

C ome with you?” Mayhem repeated. “Where?”

Even though, duh, the answer was yes. Disney World? Sure. Off the lip of the fucking Grand Canyon? Fine. Edge of the world? All she had to do was—

“I know asking you is a little forward.” Mahrci reached out. “And it’s not because I think you can’t handle yourself.”

Oh, so this was about Remis and his band of Brooks-Brothers-wearing thugs? Hey, at least the bastard’s name fit, ’cuz Mayhem sure as shit would like to ream—

“I’m not worried about him.” He smiled. “And you can be as forward as you like with me. I’m just curious where we’re going.”

An answering grin teased her mouth. “We’re? So you’ll—”

“I told you.” He memorized the way she looked at him. “I go with the flow. And you’re . . . my kind of flow.”

“That’s just . . . thank you.”

There was a long moment. Then he couldn’t help himself. He stepped into her and touched her face.

“You’re welcome. Although I feel like I should be the one with the gratitude. And you still haven’t answered me, but it’s good. You just let me know where to go and I’ll be there. I trust you.”

“Let’s leave as soon as you’re done, okay?” That worried look came back to her eyes. “Please?”

“Sure.” Even though he really didn’t want to get back to work. He had . . . other things . . . on his mind. “I’ve got about—well, let’s say another couple hours? And I’m going to need to do some final testing with Apex.”

He wasn’t exactly sure where the guy was, but he had a feeling it was across the yard in that garage. That wolven had always been a thing for Apex. Maybe the thing.

What a road, though. With that kind of past?

“Oh, and listen, I didn’t bring much,” Mayhem tacked on. “As long as Apex is good with taking the SUV back to Caldie? I’m free as a bird to ghost out.”

Mahrci’s smile returned and he couldn’t help it. He dropped down and brushed her lips with his own. As she gasped, he eased back.

“I maybe shouldn’t have done that. Not the time or place—and don’t worry, I’m not making any assumptions.”

Well, he was making one: She still wasn’t being completely truthful with him. Yes, she was worried about that ex of hers—he just had the sixth sense there was more to it than that. But hey, whatever it was had given him an in he was more than happy to enjoy: He’d been wrestling with the fucking rank-ass idea he was never going to see her again, and what do you know, for a go-with-the-flow male like him?

That had not been the right flow for him.

“No . . . it’s all right,” she murmured. “I want to do a lot more of that. The . . . kissing, I mean.”

Well, wasn’t that a hi-how’re-ya to his hey-nannies. “Me, too.”

“Good.” She laughed in a little awkward rush, and started to head for the door. “Well, I guess I’ll leave you to it—”

“Mahrci.” As she paused, he lowered his voice to a growl. “I’m not scared of your father, either. Just so we’re clear.”

As she put her hand to the base of her throat, it was as if she were feeling someone squeezing the life out of her.

“I am,” she said roughly. “I’m terrified of him.”

All that mattered, Mahrci told herself, was that Hemmy had agreed to join her at her safe house.

The one she had bought in secret, and furnished herself, and kept quiet about.

The rest could be sorted out from there, once they were both safe: Their relationship. Her father. The future in all its forms. Which, if they could just get free of her situation, she was suddenly looking forward to for the first time in . . . well, maybe ever.

Abruptly, she nodded as if she were in a conversation, instead of talking to herself. Then she blurted, “I’ll just need you to take my vein before we go—”

As she spoke up, Hemmy’s head jerked to attention. Then he dropped the laptop and lost his balance, all at the same time—and when he tried to catch himself before he fell, they both calculated where his boot was going to land at the same time: The computer. With all his work on it.

He did what he could to correct the lurch, but he went too far, his heavy weight veering off-kilter wildly. So she did the only thing she could. She launched herself at him, pushing him backward onto the bed, landing on top of him in a tangle as they both hit the mattress. While they bounced, she had to laugh and so did he.

“I guess that was a little bit of a surprise,” she said as she went to roll off him.

Hemmy put his hands on her hips, stilling her. “Where are you going so fast, female—if you’re comfortable, I am.”

Looking into his eyes, she flushed. Underneath her body, his muscles and heavy bones were a landscape that she fit herself into with a precision that seemed like destiny. She also couldn’t ignore the way her breasts pressed into his pecs or how the hardening length at the front of his hips made her want to straddle him properly.

Need, hot and hungry, bloomed in her veins.

“I’m okay here . . .” she said in a guttural voice. “If you are?”

In an equally low tone, he replied, “I’m very okay.”

Think , Mahrci . Think— what were you saying?

“Oh, the vein thing.” She shook herself back into focus. “Right. Well, I don’t want to give you an address or anything—that way, if someone asks you, you can be truthful. You don’t know where I am. But if you take my blood, you’ll always be able to find me—and where we’ll be staying.”

Reaching up, he traced her face with his fingertips. “That’s a brilliant idea. There’s just one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“It has to be your wrist.” His touch drifted down to her jugular. “Not here.”

Mahrci’s breath caught. “Why not . . . there.”

“Too much for me.” He shook his head ruefully. “I have self-control, but there are limits, and until we—or if we . . .” He stroked her vein with his forefinger. “. . . get all the way there, I need to take from the wrist.”

A sudden image of him baring his fangs and bringing the twin, sharp points to her throat flooded her with even more heat—and it shouldn’t have been a surprise, but wow, what a relief to think of something that came with pleasure, instead of stress and worry.

She stared at his lips. “There will be time for that. Later. When we are away from here.”

The soft growl that came out of him was the kind of thing she felt in her marrow. And even though it was folly, she wanted a hint of what was to come.

She moved her wrist up to his mouth. “Take my vein. Now.”

Hemmy closed his eyes and arched up, his hips rolling against her, his long, hard erection pushing into her upper thighs. With a moan, she split her legs around his lower body—

They both groaned in need. And yet his hand was gentle as he took her forearm and held it steady. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

As she didn’t trust her voice, all she could do was nod.

The next thing she knew was the brush of his lips, soft and warm, against the center of her palm. And then at the heel. And finally . . . right over her vein as he kissed her there.

“Do it,” she commanded.

There was a hiss as he bared his fangs, and then—

The bite came with a sweet sting of pain and she threw her head back and exhaled his name. The sensation of the sucking, warm and slick, went through her entire body, until her brain melded things and she felt it . . . on her sex. Letting herself fall limp, all she wanted to concentrate on was what she was feeling—and she threw gasoline on the fire by imagining them naked, skin on skin, him between her legs, penetrating her as he—

Hemmy broke the contact and slipped out from under her, hopping off the bed. As he stumbled, he caught himself on the wall, stopping his forward pitch with his palm on the doorjamb into the bathroom.

The sound of his breath sawing in and out of him was the sexiest thing she had ever heard.

As the puncture wounds on her wrist weren’t sealed, she licked them closed. And then had some paranoia that maybe he’d leapt away because he hadn’t liked her taste—

“I just need a minute.” He pushed into the loo and stood over the sink, still in that bend. “ Fuck .”

“Hemmy?”

“I’m just trying not to . . .”

“Throw up?” she said as she sat forward with horror. “Is there something wrong with my—”

On a quick pivot, he put his hands on his hips and stared out at her with a wry expression on his face.

The enormous erection straining the front of his pants was especially obvious because of the overhead fixture he was standing beneath.

Talk about your mood lighting.

“I don’t know how I’m going to work with this ”—he pointed at the thing—“in the way.”

Mahrci licked her lips. “So why don’t you . . . take care of it. And show me what you like while you’re at it.”

That groan came back again. “Yeah?”

Mahrci nodded. “I want to watch.”

With a low curse, Hemmy cupped himself through his jeans, and as he did, his head fell back, the ropes of muscles that ran up the sides of his throat flexing. As she felt an answering pleasure in her core, she squeezed her thighs together.

“Let me see you,” she whispered breathlessly.

At her urging, his fingers worked the button and the zipper with a facility she admired. And then he pulled the two sides back—

His sex broke out, thick and hard and proud, and slipping a grip around the shaft, he didn’t wait. Hemmy began stroking himself, the corded strength running down his forearm and into his hand flexing and releasing with the movement.

Desperate for some friction herself, she rubbed her legs together, her body hungry for what seemed so far away, and yet was so tantalizingly close. And as her breasts grew heavy and her breath got short, he quickened his rhythm, his hips thrusting and pulling back as his fist went up and down—

“Do you feel me,” he said in a guttural voice. “Inside of you . . .”

“Yes,” she gasped. “Oh, God—”

Later she would replay the electric moment, over and over, when he grabbed a towel off the counter and put it over the head of his erection. Meanwhile, her eyes squeezed shut as she orgasmed at the same time he did—who was first? Did that matter?

Hell, no, it didn’t.

All she cared about was them getting to her safe house, and having some proper alone time—so they could do this a couple more times, fully naked, in bed.

When she finally returned to herself, her lids lifted. She was in a different position altogether on the mattress, her feet tucked under, her knees locked together, one hand pushing into the juncture of her thighs. Across the way, Hemmy was collapsed back against the bathroom sink, that towel still held in place.

His hooded eyes sought hers. “I am going to work faster than I have in my entire life.”

Mahrci flushed and smiled. “Good.”