chapter Twenty-one
VAMPIRES DON’T DIE
(Duh)
STELLA held hands with Wyatt as they approached his apartment, feeling giddy and girly and achy with anticipation. She had said, out loud no less, that she loved Wyatt. And she had meant it. It was amazing. More than a hundred years without ever experiencing love and here it had been, right in front of her face for years. But maybe that’s why she loved Wyatt. She wasn’t the impulsive type, really. She needed to let her emotions simmer and rise to a boil. Over four decades, apparently. Thank God she had eternity, because she was no quick decision maker.
But there was one thing she wanted to get to quickly now, and that was his bed. “I’m glad you live so close.”
Wyatt laughed. “Me, too. And I’m also glad I don’t have a roommate. I don’t know how Cort and Drake stand living together.”
“I think they play a lot of Guitar Hero.” Stella watched Wyatt stick his key in the lock and push the door open. “You have a nice place, you know. Johnny was such a slob.”
Saying her brother’s name still caused a stab of pain in her heart, but she didn’t want to stop talking about him, especially not with Wyatt, who had cared about Johnny as well. Who had been there for her the minute her grief had exploded.
“He was totally a slob.” Wyatt pulled her inside. “But I like things clean. I left the dust behind when I left the Wild West. I’ve been in this place ten years and you’re the first woman to set foot in my bedroom.”
“I’m not there yet.” Stella kicked off her shoes by the front door and closed it behind her. She set her flowers down on his coffee table. “And your bedroom leads to your courtyard. A lot of women we know have walked through at parties.” It was being nitpicky, but she wanted to clarify. She was fishing for compliments and he seemed to know it.
“That’s true. A few women have used it as a hallway, but no one has ever been in my bed.” His palm cupped her cheek and she turned into him, her skin sensitive to his touch. “No other woman ever will be.”
She sucked in a breath. He was talking forever. That should scare her. But at the moment all it did was thrill and arouse her. She reached out and tugged Wyatt’s T-shirt up so that she could run her hands across the hard planes of his sculpted chest. Five nights a week she watched him play his bass guitar and she never tired of it, the way he mastered the instrument, the way he kept his arms low and relaxed. Bass was sexy and Wyatt was even sexier, and she was very much aware of that at the moment. He helped her take his shirt up over his head, then he shook his hair loose. It was just the right length, brushing the shoulders, perfect for musicians and models alike.
Wyatt’s jaw was too square, his nose a little hooked, for the perfection of the runway, but as a musician he was perfect. And he was hers.
His gun medallion fell against his chest and she toyed with it before letting her fingers trail down past his pectorals to the smooth skin of his abdomen. She popped the snap on his jeans.
Fingers stilled her before she could take down his zipper. “You’re overdressed,” he told her.
“I can fix that.” Stella dropped her purse on the hardwood floor. Then she peeled off her own shirt and tossed it on top of his.
Wyatt reached forward and traced the top of her black bra with one finger. “You’re beautiful.”
She was average for a vampire, but with him, she felt beautiful. “You’re not so bad yourself.”
“Come here and kiss me.”
But he didn’t wait for her answer or for her action. Wyatt ate up the space between them and buried his hands in her hair. His mouth took hers in a passionate kiss that had her inner thighs aching and her nipples beading, desperate for attention.
“Oh!” she said, stunned at how shattering the impact of skin on skin, lips on lips, hips pressed against hips was.
It was like the volume had been turned up, like their acknowledgment of what they felt had stripped down any barriers of reserve that had remained and allowed their passion to scream at its highest setting. Desire amplified.
“Stella, God, I want you,” he murmured, his teeth nipping at her earlobe before reclaiming her lips.
His hands were everywhere, caressing from her shoulder blades to her ass, giving it a thorough squeeze, then slinking around to the front to tease at the seam of her jeans before heading north to taunt her nipples. Just when she adjusted, accepted his touch somewhere, he retreated, and she moved restlessly, unable to keep up, his sensual assault setting her body and nerves on edge. It felt decadent and urgent and out of control. Normally she didn’t like out of control, but this . . . this was divine.
He popped her bra open.
She yanked his zipper down.
But before they could go any further, he scooped her up into his arms and swung toward the kitchen. “I promised you a bed.”
A wall, the floor, a bed. She wasn’t sure at the moment she cared, but she did have to admit, being carried was a novelty. A hot one. Stella put her arms around his neck and flicked her tongue across his nipple.
There was a brief pause in his step while he cursed, but then he continued to move through the kitchen to the bedroom. His bed wasn’t made. He dropped her down onto the rumpled blankets. She turned her head and buried her face in the cool cotton sheet. It smelled like him, masculine and earthy. Whiskey. With a tug, she stripped off her unhooked bra with her hand between her breasts and tossed it aside.
Wyatt descended on her, taking a nipple into his mouth with enough ferocity that she yelped in both pleasure and near pain. Then he went to the other one, plucking at it like the strings of his bass with his fingers, then his tongue. Somehow he managed to slide into her jeans at the same time, wiggling his way into the dewy dampness of her inner thighs.
“That feels good,” she breathed, figuring she was stating the obvious but not really caring. The bed was soft beneath her and he was hard over her and she was in love.
The moment needed words, even small ones.
“I’m glad you like it. I think you’ll like it even better with your jeans off.”
She wasn’t going to argue with that. Or the skill with which he divested her of the pants. Before she could do much more than nod, she was bare before him. Wyatt nuzzled up the inner side of her knee, his lips and nose teasing and tickling her. Gripping the bedsheet, she waited in deep anticipation, her womb aching with the need for him. For him deep inside her.
But that wasn’t what he had in mind and she knew it. After a leisurely route up her thigh, Wyatt stroked her curls with both thumbs, staring at her most intimate spot with a great deal of intensity. She didn’t mind him looking. She would just prefer he were touching. He blew on her clitoris and she jerked on the bed, her backside tightening in reaction.
Stella lifted her hips a little in invitation to urge him to put her out of her misery, because she was starting to think this was one of the very few ways a vampire could die, and her number was just about up. “Wyatt . . .”
“Yes?” He spread her folds and brushed his lips lightly over her.
“I don’t know.” She honestly wasn’t sure if she had been meaning to say anything or not. All she could think about was his tongue and the delicious strokes it was now making across her clitoris. “Yes, yes.”
Letting her eyes drift shut, she gave herself over to the sensations that were swamping her, the tight pressure of his hands on her thighs, his hair tickling her pelvis, his breath coming in short, hot bursts on her sensitive flesh. His mouth licking and sucking and eating her. Moisture flooded her and she groaned in ecstasy.
She thought he might tease her, take her to the edge and pull back, but he didn’t. He just kept doing those delicious things to her, his tongue darting inside her moist opening, and back again, until she felt the orgasm building up, higher and higher. Still she held it back, not trusting it, but Wyatt urged her on.
“Go ahead, I can feel how close you are. Let go.”
So she did. She let go of everything. The past. Her inhibitions. The need for order. She just gave in to her body, to Wyatt, to the love she felt for him.
With a yell, she came in the most freeing orgasm she’d ever had, the waves of pleasure not tumultuous, but sweeping and fluid. “Yes, yes, yes,” she chanted.
Then Wyatt was shucking his own jeans and moving in between her legs. His erection teased at her warmth, triggering little aftershocks of delight. Catching her under the knee, Wyatt drew her right foot up to his shoulder. She wasn’t sure why it surprised her but it did, in a good way. She knew he was going to be deep, deep inside her and that was such a wonderful thing. He held her gaze, waiting, drawing out the mutual suspense.
Stella knew how to change that. Letting go of the sheet, she rolled her palm over her nipple, biting her bottom lip on the gasp the movement elicited.
It worked. Wyatt groaned and thrust into her, burying himself to the hilt.
Oh, yeah. That’s what she was talking about. Stella lay back and dropped her free hip farther open. For him. She wanted to take him as deep as she possibly could, feel the immense pleasure that the man she loved could give her with his cock fully inside her warmth.
“Make me come again,” she demanded.
“I’m happy to.” Wyatt struggled to maintain his composure. Stella had no idea what she did to him. She turned him inside out. Took him to the very edge of his control.
Her body wrapped around his cock in a warm, tight embrace and he could feel the pulsations of her building orgasm. He was barely moving, just a slow slide in and out, not pulling out all the way, and she was already reacting to him like she was going to come. That he could do that to her so easily made him want to come. Her taste lingered on his tongue and her body was lithe and sexy beneath him. Her taut nipples rose toward him and he turned his head to kiss her smooth delicate calf.
Wyatt set a hard rhythm, knowing that’s the way she would want it. Stella liked to take it. And he was determined to give it to her.
Pumping faster, he bit back a groan, meeting her gaze as her eyes widened in pleasure.
“Oh, yes. That feels so good.”
“Good?” he asked. “That’s it?” He wanted to hear her say it. He wanted her to beg for it.
So he pulled all the way out of her, gritting his teeth on a silent curse as his cock throbbed in protest. Stella yelled out, her hand coming toward him.
“Wyatt, no! Don’t stop.”
That’s all he needed to hear. He fisted in her hair and plunged deep inside her.
Stella’s body stiffened, then she broke apart in a gorgeous, big, no-holds-barred orgasm, a frantic yell of ecstasy breaking past her lips. Wyatt had thought to hold off on his own release, but when he saw her, heard her, there was no way he could stop himself.
With his own groan he came in a ball-draining explosion that wiped his mind clean and shook him to the core.
So that’s what it was like to have sex with the woman you loved.
It was the hottest damn thing he’d ever encountered.
“Holy moly,” was Stella’s opinion.
He couldn’t have said it better. “Babe. Damn.” He’d find better words when his blood returned to his brain. At the moment he was nothing but shaky arms and deep gut-grinding satisfaction.
Pulling out with a sigh, Wyatt collapsed on the bed next to her. “I love you.”
She gave a giggle, which made him laugh. “I love you, too.”
She did. He could see it in her eyes when he looked down at her. They were glassy and filled with softness. “You’re beautiful.”
Her finger reached out and traced his bottom lip. “Together feels better than alone.”
“That it does.”
With a sigh, she snuggled up against him. “I’m sleepy.”
“So sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
He would be there forever.
* * *
WYATT WATCHED STELLA sleeping from the step to his courtyard, inordinately pleased with having her in his bed, and with the fact that he had completely worn her out. She needed the sleep, even if it was just a short nap. The last few nights had been eventful, to say the least.
The moonlight was flooding his room from the open windows and door, glancing off of Stella’s curled-up body. Her face was tucked in the shadows, her hair falling over her cheek, a soft crisp breeze drifting over him, bringing the scent of flowers to mingle with the tangy aftereffects of their lovemaking. He had pulled the sheet over her lower half and put on jeans before lounging on the bricks, bare chest and feet. He loved his little courtyard, a private oasis in the crowded and noisy Quarter. Now he loved it even more that he wasn’t there alone.
Stella filled the space nicely and he didn’t want her to leave. But that was a discussion for another night sometime in the future, when they’d gotten their relationship legs steady beneath them. For now, he was content to share his space whenever she liked.
A thump in the back of the courtyard had his eyes straining to see into the dark. There were a number of stray cats who liked to visit and he didn’t mind. Most wouldn’t get too close to him since he gave off an undead vibe, but there was one tiger who was bold enough to offer his ears for a rub. But this sounded like something bigger than a cat and Wyatt stood up, suddenly on alert.
“Hey,” came a whispered, urgent voice from the corner behind a banana plant.
Wyatt pulled the door closed behind him in one swift motion, protective instincts kicking in. “Who’s there? Step into the open so I can see you.”
The person obliged, moving into the middle of the courtyard, full moonlight shining on him and his AC/DC T-shirt.
Wyatt almost had a heart attack. “Johnny?” he whispered. Oh, my God. He was fucking going crazy. Or seeing a ghost.
“Yeah.” Johnny darted a glance behind him at the wall he had just leapt down from. “You’ve got to hide me, man. She’s relentless.”
Since his crossover Wyatt didn’t dream. So this had to be real. But he still felt like pinching himself. “I thought you were dead!” he exclaimed, moving forward to get a closer look at his friend, a massive sense of relief flooding him.
“Well, that was the point. Only somehow she figured it out and she tracked me down.” Johnny was rushing forward, right on past Wyatt. “If she shows up here, you haven’t seen me.”
“Who?”
“Bambi.”
Wyatt’s relief was replaced by utter astonishment. “You faked your death to hide from a woman?”
“Yes.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Wyatt was going to kill him. Johnny was alive and now Wyatt wanted him dead. “You put Stella through hell, you asshole!”
“It was unavoidable. She’ll get over it. But now is not the time to chat about it. Now is the time to hide.” Johnny opened the door and slipped into Wyatt’s bedroom.
Where Stella was sleeping naked. Shit. Wyatt moved to follow him when another thump alerted him to a potential problem. He turned around and saw a mortal woman on the bricks of his courtyard cursing and swiping at her hair as she stood up, shaking out her leg like the drop had injured her. Which it probably had, given it was a five-foot drop and she was clearly mortal, since Wyatt could smell her blood.
“Um, can I help you?” he asked, because what the fuck else was he supposed to say?
“You can tell me where that lying deadbeat dad Johnny Malone is.”
Wyatt’s brain froze for a second and he stared through the murky darkness at a very angry-looking blonde woman in the tiniest denim shorts he’d ever seen in his life. That couldn’t be good for her health. “Uh . . . what was the question again?”
She cracked her knuckle and bounded toward him. “Never mind. I know he’s here. I saw him go over the wall. Faking his death, I mean, really? That’s not going to get his sorry ass out of paying child support.”
Wyatt was more than a little confused. Last time he’d checked, vampires couldn’t procreate. So why did this woman think Johnny owed her child support? He wasn’t exactly sure what to say but he did manage, “I think there must be a mistake.”
She stopped in her march on him and snorted. She was a pretty girl, in an overblown sort of way. Lots of bouncing cleavage and swinging hair. “Are you going to stand there and defend him? I don’t think so. Who the hell are you anyway?”
“I’m Wyatt Axelrod.” He stuck his hand out, which she ignored. “Bambi, I presume?”
Her eyes widened. “So you do know. Don’t cover for him. I’ll still find him and it will just piss me off. You don’t want to piss me off.”
No, he suspected he really didn’t want to do that.
But he was saved from having to reply by the ear-piercing scream Stella gave from his bedroom.
For the second time today Wyatt figured that was the sound of the shit hitting the fan.