“Wait—what are you doing—”
The man’s hands were quick and impersonal, passing over the folds of the buff-colored robe fast and hard. With every swipe, more of that incense smell wafted up into her nose.
“It’s the best we can do,” he muttered as he tossed the brown sticks back onto the desk. “Now listen to me, when we’re out there, don’t fuck around. Follow behind me, keep your head down, and . . .”
When he just stopped talking, she glanced down at herself again. “What?”
“You don’t know, do you,” he said remotely.
“Know what?”
“Where you really are.”
“You want to draw me a map? That’d be great. Thanks.”
“I’m not talking about location.” Apex shook his head and yanked the hood piece up, the mesh swinging into place over her face. “This is fucked up. Just so you know.”
“Really.” Rio arranged the screen with impatience. “I hadn’t noticed. I thought I was at the Ritz.”
“Let’s get this over with.”
“I couldn’t agree more.”
At the door, she hung back—because of all the grrrrr he-man bull-crap the guy was throwing around—while he leaned out and checked the corridor. Then on his signal, she joined him—except as she fell in beside him, he elbowed her back so he was the tip of their spear.
“And do you have your gun?” he hissed.
“No,” she muttered, “I left it behind because it didn’t match my outfit.”
The man cursed. “How does Lucan stand you.”
“I’m wondering the same thing about your patient.”
Apex stopped dead. “He is not mine.”
“Right. Which is why you were crying next to his bed—”
“Don’t push it, female.”
Under the hood and the screen, Rio made googly eyes at him—and knew it was for the best that he couldn’t see her face.
When he resumed the forward motion, she resolved to stop poking at him. As fun as it was, she needed to start memorizing where they were.
She was going to have to write it all down as soon as she could.
And hey, the good news about pairing up with the guy? Apex so completely annoyed her that she wasn’t thinking about her dead brother as much anymore.
Yay.
As Lucan lay in his berth with his eyes closed, he went back in time, his short-term memories like a spool of celluloid film run in reverse, people sucking out of doorways instead of walking through them, corridors flowing in the opposite direction, words he’d spoken called home to his throat, his lungs.
And then he was where he didn’t want to be, but couldn’t get free of.
The way you’re staring at my lips right now.
So do you want to do something about this?
Now he went forward, but in slo-mo, savoring the way that woman had looked at him, the way she’d scented, how he could feel the softness of her breasts against his hard chest. And then there was the contact of her mouth against his— The groan that came out of him was something he swallowed. And to make sure the sound stayed inside, he repositioned himself a couple of times—which didn’t mean shit considering he was tight as a key in a lock. Not a lot of room . . .
As his hips rolled, the erection that had johnny-on-the-spotted because of everything he was thinking about rubbed against the backside of his fly. Baring his fangs as they lengthened, he moved his arm so that his hand was in range—and then he thought about what he was going to do.
Did he really want to jack off in here? While she was down in that clinic on her sickbed— Well, technically she wasn’t ill. She was hurt.
“Oh, that’s so much better,” he muttered.
Closing his eyes—because hey, you never knew, maybe he could sleep instead of be a dirtbag—he . . . went right back to the moment when she’d dropped her mouth to his.
His hand didn’t require any order from his brain to move a little and cover his— Lucan hissed. The weight of his palm along the top of his thick shaft juiced him up to the point of not saying no. Kicking one leg out as far as it could go, which was not far at all, he thrust his pelvis like he was penetrating that woman’s hot, wet sex.
More with the hissing.
And then he didn’t give a shit who in the other cubicles heard him.
He was back on that bed with Rio, and he was kissing the everliving shit out of her—and because this was a fantasy, he curated Kane out of the clinic’s picture and locked the door that had no lock.
Then Rio’s clothes disappeared without her or him removing them, her breasts exposed to his eyes, his hands, his mouth.
And then they were changing positions. She was . . .
“Fuuuuck,” he groaned as he yanked down his fly and sprang his cock.
In his daydream, Rio pushed him back and then got up on all fours.
Looking around her shoulder, her eyes shone with sexual heat. I ache, Luke. Can you help me?
Or something like that; her lips were moving, but he wasn’t really hearing her. Not that he needed her to tell him what to do.
The glistening stripe between her legs was all the conversation he needed.
Lucan mounted her in a surge, and his erection pierced into her sex— The orgasm that exploded into his hand was translated into the fantasy: As his palm went up and down, yanking, pushing, pulling, and come jetted out onto the front of his pants and the hem of his sweatshirt . . . in his mind, he was pumping her full of his scent.
Marking her.
To the point where he bit her on the shoulder to hold her in place and reached around to the top of her sex— She was not wolven.
That one god-awful realization cold-watered the whole goddamn thing. In an instant.
As his hand stopped and his fantasy derailed from its track and went free-falling off the bridge of his delusions, he banged his head back into the hard pallet. A couple of times.
She wasn’t even a vampire who could just look down on him for being a half-breed wolven—because females of worth did not fuck creatures like him.
Rio didn’t even know his kind existed.
Either of his kinds.
And if she found out, it was not going to be the sort of news that made things better for them. Easier for them.