“Don’t touch me!” she cried out, her mind replaying the way Mason had thrust into her despite her pleas for him to stop. Despite her mind’s brutal replay of her worst nightmare, her body’s reaction, her seemingly physical desire which was starting to border on desperate need for this man, didn’t abate, leaving her bereft on a stormy sea of confusion.
Jacob’s own struggle was just as difficult as he knew hers was. At least he had the comfort of knowing what was going on between them, he thought with yet another sigh of regret. The best thing he could do for his mate right now was turn her over to Abby and hope another woman could ease Grace’s mind somewhat.
“Stay here and I’ll send Abby up to you. She’s been raised around us, can explain what’s going on and best of all for you, she’s human.” Jacob turned to leave, then, without turning around, added, “Not that you asked, but my name’s Jacob Carter.”
Chapter Seven
“Man, it sucks to be him,” Luc said as he and Damien watched Jacob return to Mason’s bedroom. “Isn’t there something we can do?” While neither he nor his brother, Jon, were in any hurry to tie themselves down to one woman, he had seen and heard enough from his mated brethren about the nearly irresistible bond to empathize with Jacob’s plight.
“Like what?” Frustration, guilt and grief made Damien lash out but he was instantly sorry when Luc turned and simply raised one brow at him in question. “Sorry. I’m pissed at this whole situation, but mostly I’m pissed at myself for not seeing what was right in front of me. I should’ve forced Mason to talk to me, should’ve seen how truly unhappy he has been since he was turned.”
“Hell, Damien, you’re not our goddamned parent. Mason, and only Mason is accountable for his actions. You shoulder too much as it is, you’re not responsible if one of us goes off the deep end.”
Damien knew Luc was right, but he couldn’t help feeling as if he not only let Mason down, but his victim and Jacob also. The force of his seething fury at Mason’s actions was only tempered by the gnawing inner torment of his suicide, the loss of his brethren’s moral code as well as his life nearly overwhelming him with a confliction of emotions. In truth, Mason had spared the three of them the anguish of having to end his existence. But while that small consolation meant they had less to grieve for, denying them a chance to avenge the wrong done to Jacob’s mate kept the rage festering.
Then there was the ever present guilt that he harbored over his actions after he had first been turned by Isabelle. If it hadn’t been for his weakness in succumbing to Isabelle’s seductive lies and lifestyle, he might have been able to find a way to kill her instead of an innocent woman, might have been able to spare all of them the trauma of falling prey to that evil witch. That was a burden he would always carry, a load he had no way of lightening or making amends for.
““Go back to the manor, Luc,” Damien said tiredly. “I’ll do damage control here, make it look like Mason just up and left. No one should come looking for him until he’s late on the rent payment and I doubt if the landlord spends any time or effort on trying to track him down.”
Damien what’s wrong? Do you need me?
Mason’s small house was dark and quiet and the sudden intrusion of the soft, intimate sound of Abby’s voice on his guilt laden mind as he swept up Mason’s ashes added another layer of gut wrenching pain and anger to his battered senses, the concern she couldn’t hide nearly his undoing. This past week had been hell trying to avoid any more sexual encounters with her, more difficult since she was now ensconced in his home where she fit perfectly. He rose each evening in time to pick her up when she closed her shop at six, and it took every ounce of his determined will to keep from tossing her down and fucking her so hard she wouldn’t be able to walk for days. His body was slowly losing the extra strength he was capable of amassing through sex, his power to move with inhuman speed as well as dematerialize and solidify in another place miles away diminishing with each day he denied himself what she so freely offered.
Why aren’t you sleeping, bebe?
Abrielle sat up in Damien’s bed and clutched the covers to her, her body reacting as it always did to him when he called her baby in his French dialect. The intimacy of speaking telepathically, of he
aring his deep voice in her head, had her breasts swelling, her nipples peaking and her thighs tightening over her aching, empty pussy. I can feel your pain, and your anger. What has you so upset? She knew Marie’s death preyed on him, but she still couldn’t quite forgive him for his abrupt departure last week, the way he had simply left her with the taste of his semen still on her tongue and her body still pulsing with her own climax, nor could she understand his distance this past week despite her now residing under his roof and seeing him every evening before he took off for the night and left her alone with one of the guys to ensure her safety.
Another error in judgment, Damien thought but didn’t voice to her. His cock was making its demand known, straining against his zipper with the need to bury himself inside his mate, to slake this never ending thirst he had for Abrielle and feel the renewal of his full strength and power. His body’s demand that he claim her, that he give in to what he desperately wanted and needed increased every day, and now that overwhelming lust was enhanced by his rage at yet another loss. He was still reeling from Marie’s death, from the terror and pain he knew she had suffered simply because she had the misfortune of being close to him, and now he had to find a way to cope not only with the loss of a man he had known for over a hundred years but of the way Mason had turned his back on him and all the brethren and what they stood for.
I’ll be home soon, Abby. Go back to sleep.
He needed her, needed what she could give him and Abby refused to let his stubbornness keep her from helping him through whatever he was dealing with. Opening her mind further, she let him see her, enticed him to watch as she pushed the covers down and slipped off his tee shirt that she had been sleeping in this past week. Come home, Damien. Running her palms down her chest, cupping her breasts and lightly grazing her nipples before lowering her hands to her thighs and spreading them, she let him visually see how much she needed him, how ready she was for him.
Damien clearly saw the moist, pink recesses of her vagina, could practically smell her arousal as he watched those plump folds close around her invading finger. He could feel his hardened resolve slowly softening as his cock spit and his palm heated and pulsed, his body demanding he take what he needed and wanted. Seven days of having Abby close, seven long nights of denying himself that which he craved more than anything else, coupled with Mason’s crushing betrayal and the grief of Marie’s, and now Mason’s deaths, had him struggling to keep control.
Damn it, Abrielle. If you want to help me, knock it off! He knew his voice was as hard and demanding as his cock, but from the way her cream was coating her finger as she slowly withdrew from her sheath, his anger didn’t faze her in the least.
Make me, Abrielle taunted, the desperation she heard behind his anger giving her the gall she needed to continue.
Damien could no longer control the driving need to possess her, claim her for his own. That dare found its way past his barriers to shred his control. God help them both, he thought as he shimmered and reappeared in his room. He tried to control his anger, but it still simmered just beneath the surface as he strode across the room and hauled her up against him. Fisting her hair at the nape, he tilted her head up and glared down into her surprised face, the accelerated beat of her heart easily felt against his chest.
“I taught you the danger of rousing a sleeping tiger, cherie. You should have heeded my warnings.” He didn’t give her a chance to reply or back down as he swooped down and kissed her for the first time. His mouth was hard and demanding, giving her no choice but to open for him, no choice but to accept his probing, sweeping tongue as he molded her smaller, naked body to his taller, harder frame. His other arm went under her buttocks to lift her pelvis against his groin, leaving her in no doubt about where this was going this time.
Abby moaned into his mouth, dueled with his tongue as her lips moved under the onslaught of his. She had wanted this for so long, craved him for what seemed like forever, she was more than happy to have him kiss her with ruthless, dominate intensity for the first time. She knew where her taunt might take her, risked pushing him past the point where he was comfortable by preying on his vulnerable state, and it was only the absolute surety she had that he wouldn’t harm her that kept her from quaking in misgivings instead of shaking with nearly uncontrollable lust.
“Now, Damien, take me now while I’m so hot I’m burning up, now before you have time to think, time to back out and leave me cold again,” she pleaded against his lips before nipping his plump lower lip hard enough to have him gasping.
The demanding, aching need in her voice matched that of the intense need racing through his veins and settling in his groin, further engorging his cock, something he didn’t think was possible considering how hard and full he already was. At least he maintained some semblance of control as he realized he couldn’t risk taking her here, alone in his room where he didn’t have the comfort of knowing others were close enough to stop him if he got out of control. And the way he was feeling right now with her stormy blue eyes never shying away from him even though he knew his eyes were red tinted and she could glimpse the pointed edge of his fangs, and the feel of her soft body glued next to his, her hips gyrating unconsciously, rubbing her mound against his rigid hardness, there was a very good possibility he would forget himself once he was inside her like he had that one other time. No, he wasn’t so weakened from the lack of blood and sex like the one time he had been out of his mind due to Isabelle’s machinations, but his body’s demand for his mate, a demand and need he had denied himself for three years, was so strong he felt out of control, a feeling he couldn’t deny any more than he could deny Abby again.
“You should be careful what you ask for, Abby. Hold on.”
Abby was still clutching Damien’s shoulders when they suddenly appeared in front of the wall of windows and French doors downstairs in the large converted ballroom. She didn’t even have time to re-orient herself from the dizzying trip before Damien turned her to face the windows, the meager light from a few lit lamps behind them barely enough to let her make out the shape of the pool and beyond, the tree shrouded entrance into the bayou.
Damien clasped her hands and placed them against the glass panes, palms flat, fingers spread. Blanketing her body with his own, he leaned over her shoulder and whispered in her ear, “Do you see my cats lurking out there, hear them at night as they catch their prey and devour it to sake their blood thirsty hunger?” His hands trailed slowly from her wrists, down her braced arms, over her shoulders and around her back to cup her breasts as he spoke. “They’re creatures of the night, just like I am, part of my world that few have seen, and lived to tell about it.”
It wasn’t the soft menace in his tone that made Abby shiver. She knew what he was doing, and it wasn’t going to work. She could have told him if he wanted to scare her off, kneading her breasts and rolling her aching nipples between his fingers definitely wasn’t the way to do it. She saw Tasha and Micah stealthily pacing at the edge of the yard, trying to decide if they wanted to wait around and see if Damien was going to come out and play or to give up and return to the dense bayou to do as Damien had said and hunt for prey. It wasn’t the warning behind his words that he often spent his nights hunting prey that had her shaking against him, but the onslaught of pleasure zipping from her tortured nipples down to her pussy, pleasure that was surprisingly heightened when she saw both Jon and Luc’s reflections in the glass. Seated behind them, watching openly and unashamedly as Damien caressed her, she felt a surge of lust overriding the iota of embarrassment flushing her face.