J. Ward - Dark Lover

Time to go. It was really time to-

Except he couldn't leave without at least having a taste.

Yeah, but he was a selfish bastard if he laid one finger on her. A nasty selfish bastard to take any of what she was offering in the haze of smoke.

With a curse, Wrath opened his eyes.

Man, he was so cold. Cold down to his marrow. And she was hot. Hot enough to make that ice go away, at least for a little while.

And it had been so long for him.

He willed the lights in the room off. Then he used his mind to close the back door, usher the cat into the bathroom, and slide home every lock in the apartment.

He carefully balanced the cigarillo on the edge of the table next to them and let her wrists go. Her hands grabbed his jacket, trying to push it back from his shoulders. He wrenched the thing off, and as it hit the floor with a thud, she laughed with satisfaction. His holster of daggers followed, but he kept that within reach of the futon.

Wrath bent down over her. Her breath was sweet and minty as he captured her lips with his mouth. When he felt her flinch, he pulled back immediately. Frowning, he touched the side of her mouth.

"Forget it," she told him, pulling at his shoulders.

The hell he would. God help that human who'd hurt her. Wrath was going to rip the guy's limbs off and leave him to bleed out in the street.

He dropped a soft kiss to the healing bruise and then drew his tongue down her neck. This time when she thrust her breasts out, he slid his hand under her thin shirt and onto her smooth, warm skin. Her belly was flat, and he spanned it with his hand, filling the space between her hip bones. Greedy to know the rest of her, he peeled her shirt off and tossed it aside. Her bra was pale in color, and he traced the edges of it with his fingertips before cupping the creamy swells with his hands. Her breasts filled his palms, her nipples tight buds underneath the soft satin.

Wrath's control snapped.

He bared his fangs, let out a hiss, and bit through the bra's front closure. The thing snapped back, and he latched onto one of her nipples with his lips, drawing it into his mouth. As he suckled, he shifted his body and stretched out on top of her, falling in between her legs. She absorbed his weight with a throaty sigh.

Her hands came between them as she reached for the front of his shirt, but he didn't have the patience to let her undress him. He lifted up and ripped the material off his body, popping buttons and sending them scattering across the floor. When he came back down, her breasts hit the wall of his chest and her body surged under his.

He wanted to kiss her mouth again, but he was way past anything soft and gentle, so he worshiped her breasts with his tongue and then moved down to her belly. When he got to the waistband of her boxers, he drew them off her long, smooth legs.

Wrath felt something in his head pop as her scent reached him in a fresh wave. He was perilously close to orgasm already, his release poised in his shaft, his body shaking with the need to take her. He put his hand between her thighs. She was so wet and hot that he growled.

Crazed though he was, he had to taste her before he invaded her.

Drawing off his sunglasses, he put them next to the ciga-rillo before pressing kisses over her hips and across the tops of her thighs. Her hands tangled in his hair as she urged him exactly where he was headed.

He kissed her softest skin, drawing her core into his mouth, and she came over and over again for him until he couldn't fight his own need any longer. He pulled back, shrugged out of his pants, and covered her with his body once more.

She wrapped her legs around his hips, and he hissed as her heat burned his erection.

He used what was left of his strength to pull back and look down into her face.

"Don't stop," she breathed. "I want to feel you inside me."

Wrath dropped his head into the fragrant hollow of her neck. And slowly drew his hips back. The tip of his erection slid into place beautifully, and he sheathed himself in her body with one powerful stroke.

He let out a bellow of ecstasy.

Heaven. Now he knew what heaven was like.

In his bedroom, Mr. X changed into black cargo pants and pulled on a black nylon shirt. He was satisfied by the way the meeting with the society had gone this afternoon. Every single lesser had shown up. Most of them had fallen into line well enough. A few were going to be trouble. And a small number of them had tried sucking up.

Which had gotten them nowhere.

At the conclusion of the session, he'd chosen twenty-eight more to stay in the Caldwell area, based on what he knew about their reputations and the impressions he had of them up close. Twelve of this group were on the very top of their game, and those he'd split equally into two prime squadrons. The other sixteen he'd cut into four groups of secondaries.

None of them liked the arrangement. They were used to working on their own, and the primes in particular resented being tied down. Tough. The advantage to the squadron orientation was that he could assign different parts of the city to them, establish quotas, and monitor performance more closely.

The rest he'd sent back to their outposts.

Now that he had his troops aligned and assigned, he was going to focus on the information-gathering procedure. He had an idea as to how to make it work, one he was going to beta test this evening.

Before he headed out for the night, he tossed his pit bulls two pounds of raw hamburger apiece. He liked to keep them hungry, so they were fed every other day. He'd had the dogs, both males, for about five years, and he chained them on opposite sides of his house, one in front, one in back. It was a logical arrangement from a defense perspective, but there was also the matter of expediency. He'd tied them up together once and they'd gone for each other's throats.

He picked up his bag, locked the house, and walked across his lawn. The ranch was an early-seventies nightmare of fake-brick siding and he'd purposely kept the outside ugly. He needed to fit in, and the rural neighborhood's price point wasn't breaking a hundred thousand anytime soon.

Besides, the house was immaterial. The land was what mattered. Ten acres, so he had privacy. Plus there was an old barn in back that was surrounded by trees. He'd turned that into his workshop, and the buffer of oaks and maples was going to be important.

After all, screams could carry.

He fingered his ring of keys until he got to the right one. Because he was going to be working tonight, he was leaving his only extravagance, a black Hummer, in the garage. The four-year-old Chrysler Town amp; Country minivan was much better cover, and it took him ten minutes to drive the POS downtown.

Caldwell's Whore Valley was a stretch of three dimly lit, trash-strewn blocks over by the suspension bridge. Traffic was heavy tonight down the corridor of iniquity, and he pulled over to watch the action under a broken light. Cars meandered the dark street, brake lights flaring as drivers inspected what was working the pavement. In the thick summer heat, the girls were out in a big way, tottering in their mile-high shoes, their breasts and asses barely covered by easy-access clothing.

Mr. X zipped open his bag, taking out a hypodermic needle filled with heroin and a hunting knife. He hid both in the door and put the passenger-side window down before easing into the flow of cars.

He was just one of many , he thought. Another schmo, trying to get a little.

"You lookin' for a date?" he heard one of the whores call out.

"Wanna ride?" another said, shaking her ass like it was a can of paint.

On the second pass, he found what he was looking for, a blonde with long legs and a big rack.