“Your place?” I asked. “I don’t want to go home yet.”
Jared agreed and pulled out onto the street without asking any questions. When we got to his place, he didn’t waste much time in pouring us both a drink—something with a little kick to it, to take the edge off. When he was done, he joined me on the couch and set the drinks down on the table in front of me. I didn’t reach for it immediately. Instead I let myself sink into the couch and relax, exhaling the tension from my lungs and running my fingers through my hair. My eyes settled on the pattern on the molding at the top of the wall, and again my mind drifted. But not for long.
“Screw them,” he said, breaking the silence. “If they won’t trust the people who want to help them, they don’t deserve you.”
I turned my eyes up at him now. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying we can get on my bike right now and get the hell out of this city. We can go anywhere we want and start fresh, just you and me.”
“You’d really want to just leave?”
“Look, neither of us are from here. To them, we’ll always be outsiders, and that’s probably why they sided with Tamara. Not because of what she was saying, but because she is from New Orleans. She’ll always be able to hold that over you, and there will be some who will value that more than your rational, compassionate ideas.”
A long silence followed, into which tension wormed its way back in. He was right about a lot of things, but that didn’t change the fact that, along with Remy, I had done a lot of good for the city lately—establishing a democratic system, the magick school, improving relations with the vampires. These were all great achievements, and they were being ignored in favor of one woman’s backwards, fear-inspired agenda.
I didn’t think I could let that go. I also didn’t think Jared was being entirely serious. Yes, we could have just gotten up and left, but would we have been able to live with ourselves knowing we had abandoned these people only days after they had been attacked by crazy bloodsuckers? Probably not.
Still, I enjoyed the fantasy of it.
“We can’t,” I said, finding his hand and squeezing it, “I know what you’re trying to do, but we can’t just get up and leave, and you know that.”
“Yeah, I understand that,” he said, “And we won’t go anywhere; I just wanted you to know where I stood, and that’s by your side. Not because of what happened between us at the party, but because you did the same for me when I defected from Belial’s gang.”
“Thanks,” I said, though I turned my eyes down toward our joined hands because staring at him now suddenly became almost impossible. He was being sweet, and kind, and supportive, and maybe on its own that wasn’t enough to bring my insides to a boil. But combined with the memory of the kiss we had shared at the party, moments before everything went to hell, all of this was turning my cheeks red and sending warm tingles rushing through me.
“You okay?” Jared asked, noticing how I had turned away. Inside me something snapped. Before he could ask again, and before the silence between us stretched on too long, I turned up at him, cupped his face with my hands, and pressed my lips against his.
He tasted like whiskey, and as I kissed him, it was as if the world had started to fall away again, just as it had in the ballroom. I could have kissed like this forever—just the two of us, away from the city, away from its people, and its problems. His kiss stole the air from my lungs, and I didn’t want it to stop; I didn’t want to breathe. With a firm hold, he cupped the back of my neck and leaned deeper into me, possessive in his touch, but also tender and gentle.
My pulse pumped at breakneck speed as my body melted into his. Slowly, I searched for the hem of his shirt and slipped my fingertips inside, blindly navigating the firm landscape of his abdomen, his ribs. Jared pulled me closer to him, and a weak gasp escaped from my lips as I fell on top of him, desire now filling every inch of me, causing my nipples to harden behind the fabric of my bra.
I pulled my hands out of his t-shirt and broke the kiss for an instant so I could yank my dress over my head and toss it aside.
Jared stared at my body, his breathing ragged, eyes burning and hungry. It was now or never. Make or break. The door was there; the way out clear. I was straddling him, now—one leg on the floor, the other bent on the couch, with Jared between my legs—but I could have gotten up and run; run home, back to Lumière where it was safe, where I would be alone.
But that meant leaving him now and forever; I wouldn’t get another chance.
Jared pulled his shirt off, and when I saw him beneath me, laid bare, desire took control of my hands and lips, which were driven to his chest as if it were magnetic. I kissed where I could, breaking only to catch whatever breaths my lungs could manage, while his hands worked at the clasp on my bra, freeing my breasts and my sensitive nipples to brush up against his bare skin.
It was clear he was full of heat and yearning, but he allowed me to take my time mapping the landscape of his abdomen with my lips and tongue until he could take it no more. He pulled me up to his chest, and in one quick movement he picked me up in his arms and carried me to his bed.
He laid me down on my back, kissed my chin, my neck, my breasts, but I flipped him over like a woman possessed and straddled him again, kissing him all over as he had done to me. When my lips reached the soft patch of hair just above his waist, my hands wasted no time working at his belt buckle and the buttons on his jeans, but he pulled me up to his mouth again before I could go any further.
My breath trembled and quaked as our lips met again, tongues dancing with one another. With quick, decisive hands, Jared reached for my underwear and slid his hand inside, searching for my wet, throbbing, center. I was an aching wreck before he touched me, and when his fingers reached the spot I so desperately wanted him to touch, I moaned loudly into his mouth.
Jared’s fingers worked in a gentle, but firm circular motion. With one hand planted on the sofa and my head buried in the crook of his shoulder, I ground my hips harder against his hand until finally, and in no time at all, I reached the pinnacle of a powerful orgasm which left me quivering and weak. But I wasn’t done with him yet.
With our combined efforts, we had all his clothes off in only a couple of seconds, and he laid me on my back on the bed. I opened myself up to allow his body to fit exactly where it needed to be, then I guided him into me, letting go of him and immediately gripping the sheets with both hands. I bit my lip to stifle the whimpering, but his name slipped through the net.