Her breasts came up against his bare chest, her nipples rubbing against his skin, her core weeping for him. To hell with desperation; the need to have him inside went farther than that, until her emptiness without him was an agony.
Her leathers were on the floor a split second later.
Then with a quick hop, she jumped up and locked her thighs around his waist. Reaching down, she positioned him against her sex and squeezed her heels into his ass, making the penetration so very real. As his arousal sank deep, she took all of him, the sliding push enough to make her orgasm wildly.
Riding her release, her fangs shot out into her mouth, and John broke the kiss to tilt his head and flash his vein.
The puncture was sweet. The strength that came from him meteoric.
With hard draws, she drank as his body hammered into her, pitching her off that cliff again, sending her into a crazy descent that somehow had no hard landing--and he followed her, making that glorious leap without a parachute, his orgasms shuddering into her.
There was only the briefest of pauses . . . and then John started pumping again--
No, he was carrying her to the bed in the darkened room, the motion of his striding thighs pushing him inside of her and pulling him free and pushing him back.
She remembered every single sensation, storing each one deep in her mind, making the moment infinite and ageless by virtue of the power of memory. And as he settled on top of her, she did what he had done for her: offering her vein to him, she ensured that they were the most powerful team they could be.
Partners.
Just not the permanent kind.
FIFTY-TWO
As John's body got it on with Xhex's, his mind briefly retreated to that moment in the bathroom when he'd waited for her to agree to their arrangement.
Sure, he'd sounded all lay-down-the-law, but the truth was he'd had no leverage: She was either going to go with it or not, and if she didn't, he had nothing to hold over her. Bottom line? There was absolutely no threat of withdrawal, no proactive anything, no if-this-then-that he could bring to the situation.
And that was what had dawned on him while he'd sat on the sofa in the billiard room, pretending to watch TV with Tohr. All day long, he'd heard Rehvenge's voice in his head, over and over again.
Her end game doesn't include anyone but herself.
John was not a fool, and he was not prepared to let his bonding for her paralyze him anymore. They had a job to do and they had a better shot at getting it done if they worked together. After all, this wasn't any ordinary lesser they were going after.
Besides, the story of the two of them was written in the language of collision; they were ever crashing into each other and ricocheting away--only to find themselves pulled back into another impact. She was his pyrocant and there was nothing he could do to change that. But he could sure as shit cut the bungee cord that was torturing him.
Man, he wished that tattoo of his weren't permanent. Then again, at least it was on his back and he didn't have to look at the goddamn thing.
But whatever. They were going to get Lash and then go their separate ways. And between now and then? Well . . .
John let his thoughts drift away as he reconnected with the surging sex and the roaring taste in his mouth as he fed. Dimly, he once again caught the bonding scent rising from his own skin, but he shut that reality out. He wasn't going to allow his head to get scrambled just because of that dark spice. Not for a minute longer.
Bonded males were crippled without their females, true enough--and a huge part of him would always be hers. But he was going to keep living, goddamn it. He was a survivor.
As he moved inside Xhex's tight hold, his cock was a solid shaft of power and another release soon slammed through him and into her. Breaking the seal on her vein, he lapped the punctures with his tongue and then latched onto one of her breasts. With a shift of his leg, he split her thighs farther apart and rolled onto his back so she was on top.
Xhex took it from there, bracing her hands on his shoulders, swinging her hips on the base of her spine, her tight stomach curling and releasing as she rode him. With a silent curse, he grabbed onto her thighs and squeezed, her muscles shifting under his hold, and he didn't stop there. He drew his hands farther up, to the juncture where her legs met her torso, that electric crease drawing him to where they were joined.
His thumb slipped into the carnal heart of her and found the top of her sex, rubbing it in circles--
In the dim light from the bathroom, he watched her arch back, her fangs cranking down on her lower lip in an effort to keep herself from crying out. He wanted to tell her to let her roar free, but he didn't have time to pity her discretion--he came hard, his lids squeezing shut as he shuddered beneath her.
Catching his breath, he felt her pause to breathe deep . . . and then she was changing position.