Thea Harrison - Serpent's Kiss

And just that afternoon she had taken a half-hour nap. It was such merciful refreshment, she woke with tears in her eyes. Rune stretched out on the bed beside her, his head propped in one hand, watching her as she slept. She turned to him and surprised a look of such tenderness on his face, her eyes watered more than ever. They moved at the same time, and held each other tight. He rocked her a little, his face buried in her hair.

Maybe it wouldn’t last. Maybe it was just a reprieve, and her symptoms would return. Neither one of them wanted to take the ghost of crazy Python’s word for anything. The wisest, most prudent thing they could do was continue to pursue all avenues of research, which was why they wanted to recruit Seremela to work on the project full-time. But for now they were holding steady, against time and everyone else. They held their own.

Other people got in touch. Carling had Duncan petitioning Julian to allow him to oversee the safe removal and transport of her library. She was almost certain she had managed to coax Duncan into opening a law office in Miami. She might even convince him to relocate. She was talking to other people too. She suspected Julian would miss several highly talented people from his demesne very shortly.

Aryal called Rune daily to tell him how much ass he sucked, and how much she hated him. Once she called to tell Carling how much ass she sucked too. Carling laughed and invited the harpy for a visit. The other sentinels called, sometimes to ask work-related questions and sometimes just to shoot the shit. Dragos never called, and Rune never called him.

Carling watched Rune carefully as he talked and laughed with the sentinels who were his friends. She ached that she couldn’t make that better for him. But no matter how much she looked for it, she never saw a hint of anything other than what he had told her. He missed his friends but he really did have no regrets.

Still, it would be good to get a better picture of what they might do next. As Rune told Constantine one day with a grin, “I think I might have to buy a Don Johnson suit while I’m down here. You think you’re suav-ay, brother? Johnson was suav-ay. You don’t hold a candle to him.”

Carling was not a big fan of TV, so she had to Google that reference too. She found herself chuckling at the photos of the 1980s Miami Vice series. Then she turned thoughtful.

For now she set aside her iPad and her books, and she ran her hand down Rune’s arm to ask silently for the remote. He handed it to her, tilting his head back to give her a sleepy-looking, sexy smile. She turned off the flat-screen and asked him, “Are you all right?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“We’ve both had quite an abrupt change of lifestyle,” she said carefully. “It’s a lot to adjust to.”

“I know. It’s going to take a while. The answers will unfold over time.”

“I just want to be sure they unfold fast enough for you,” she said.

“Are you kidding? This is the best vacation ever. It’s too bad we’ve only got the villa for two and a half more months. I could use a good six months more of this. Besides, we’ve figured out a lot already. We should start looking at houses in the greater Miami area, and we’re going to open up a research facility and coax Seremela to come on over to the dark side. You’ve already got your baby boy Duncan half-convinced he needs to move out here, and Rasputin and Rufio are arriving tomorrow evening. As for me . . .” He shrugged and ran his fingers along her arm. “I might look into consulting opportunities with the local police force as a temporary gig while we sort everything else out. That won’t hold my interest forever, but it will be enough for now, so stop fretting.”

Her gaze narrowed. “I do not fret. I consider all angles.”

He started to laugh. He tugged at the shirt she was wearing. “You’re so full of bullshit sometimes. You’re fretting, darling Carling. It’s cute. You also swore you would never wear a T-shirt with a hairy, bespectacled man on it.”

She looked down at herself. She was wearing his old Jerry Garcia T-shirt, a pair of panties, and nothing else. “This is the ugliest item of clothing I have ever seen,” she said. It had also become her most favorite item of clothing. “It’s a good thing I don’t have to look at myself very often when I wear it.”

“It looks much better on you than it ever did on me,” he told her, his voice turning husky.

“We’ll have to agree to disagree on that.” She set the remote on the back of the couch and ran the palm of her hand over his hard muscled chest. His skin was always so gloriously warm.

Hunger stirred, both sensual and otherwise. Her gums tingled. He raised himself on his elbows and lifted his face as she bent over to kiss him. She whispered against his mouth, “I want to bite you so badly.”

Raw sexuality flared hot in his aura. “So bite me,” he murmured.

Her eyelids felt too heavy. They drifted closed as she drew her lips along the side of his neck. She nipped gently at his skin and got a frustrated growl in response.

“You call that a bite? That’s not a bite.” He rolled off the couch and yanked her to her feet. He muttered, “I’ll show you a bite.”

She started to laugh. She felt drunk again, and saturated with his presence. She put her arms around his waist, cuddled against his bare chest and nipped at his nipple. “Promise?”

He put his hand under her chin to turn her face up to his for a scorching kiss. Then he led her to the bed. She pulled away long enough to drag his T-shirt over her head, and then he was on her.

She fell back on the bed as he came down on top of her. He tore off her panties in one impatient yank. Then he started biting her.

He suckled at her beautiful breasts, tugging at the plump gorgeous flesh of her distended nipples with his teeth, while he fingered the juicy softness of her labia. His hands were shaking. He moved lower and sank his teeth into the soft flesh of her side, just under her rib cage, biting sharp enough to sting but not enough to bruise.

Hunger and arousal pulsed through her. She was becoming accustomed to their companionship. She had forgotten how much the appetites of the flesh were also things of the spirit. They twined up her body, as Rune settled between her legs and put his mouth to her.

He ate at her as though he could never get enough, with a patience coupled with ferocity that caused her to pull up her knees as the pleasure stabbed deep. Her climax started gently and built in intensity as he licked at her with a steadily increasing rhythm. She stroked his hair as she shook with it. Then she coaxed, “Come here.”

“No,” he said. He bit her again, hard on the sensitive skin of her inner thigh, while he rolled his thumb over her clitoris.

That one would leave a bruise. The second climax punched through her, and there was nothing gentle or sane about it. She cried out and her torso arched off the bed. He pleasured her, yet she felt so empty, and she was starving again. “Come here,” she growled.

“No, I don’t think so,” he said. He parted her flesh and suckled strongly at her.

The sensation was so piercing, and yet she was so damn empty, and starving , that she came up on her elbows with a hiss, and for the first time in two hundred years her fangs descended.

She rolled over to her hands and knees and prowled toward him across the bed. “I said come here.”

Rune’s face was hard angled with desire, his lion’s eyes glittering like polished stones. He stared at her mouth, frozen. Then he purred, “You going to come take me now for real, baby? Promise?”

Insouciant alpha. She sprang at him and struck, sinking her teeth into his neck. They both groaned as the wild liqueur taste of him exploded on her tongue. She whined at the back of her throat and started to shake.