Because that's the kind of male he was.
There was a click and whirl and the steel shutters began to lift for the night, the darkened sky revealed, her mental gyrations mercifully cut off.
She hated ruminating. Never solved anything and only made her feel worse.
"Hot water is calling us," she said, forcing her body upright. The delicious aches in her muscles and bones made her want to sleep for days in this big bed next to John. Maybe weeks. But that wasn't their destiny, was it.
She leaned over and looked down into his shadowy face. After tracing his handsome features with her eyes, she just had to bring up her hand and caress his cheek.
I love you, she mouthed in the shadows.
"Let's go," she said roughly.
The kiss she gave him was a sort of good-bye--after all, maybe tonight they finally got Lash, and that would mean an end to moments like this.
Abruptly, John gripped her upper arms, his brows tightening, but then, as if he read her mind and knew all too well the score, he released her.
As she got up and walked away from the bed, his eyes followed her . . . she could feel it.
In the bathroom, she started the water for them and went over to get some towels out of the cupboard.
She stopped as she saw her reflection in the mirror over the sink.
Her body was the same as it had always been, but she thought of the way it felt when she and John were together. She'd gotten so used to thinking of her corporeal form as little more than a weapon, something that was useful and necessary to accomplish things. Hell, she'd fed it and cared for it the same way she looked after her guns and her knives--because that was how she maintained its utility.
In their hours together, John had taught her differently, had shown her that there was profound pleasure to be had from her flesh. Which was something not even her relationship with Murhder had managed to do.
As if he'd been summoned by her thoughts, John came up behind her, his height and shoulder width dwarfing her reflection.
Meeting his eyes, she put her hand to her breast and rubbed her own nipple, remembering how it felt to have his touch there, his tongue, his mouth. The instant she made contact, his body responded, his bonding scent flooding the bathroom, his erection punching out of his hips.
Reaching behind herself, she pulled him against her, his arousal penetrating the wedge formed by her sex and her thighs. As his hips pushed in against her ass, his warm hands circled around her and stroked down her stomach. Bringing his head to her shoulder, his fangs flashed white as he delicately dragged them over her skin to the crook of her neck.
Arching back to him, she stretched way up and ran her hands through his thick dark hair. Although he'd cut it short, it was growing in, which was nice. She preferred it long because it felt so damn good going through her fingers, so silky, so smooth.
"Come inside me," she said hoarsely.
John swept his hand up and captured the breast she'd stroked for him; then he reached between their bodies, angled himself, and eased into her sex. At the same moment, he ran his fangs across her throat to her vein.
He didn't need to feed. She knew this. So she was strangely thrilled when he struck because it meant he was doing it just because he wanted to: He wanted her in him, too.
Beneath the overhead lighting, she watched as he took her from behind, his muscles flexing, his eyes burning, his erection pushing in and pulling out, pushing in and pulling out. She watched herself, too. Her breasts were tight at the tips, her nipples rosy, not just because that was the color of them, but because he'd been working on them so much over the day's hours. Her skin was aglow all over, her cheeks blazing, her lips puffy from the kissing, her eyes low-lidded and erotic.
John broke the seal he'd formed over her vein and his pink tongue came out, licking over the punctures, sealing them up. Turning her head, she captured his mouth with her own, relishing the slick slide of their tongues as their bodies followed the same rhythm down below.
It didn't take long for the sex to grow urgent and raw, no longer sensual, but powerful. As John's hips pistoned against her, their bodies slapped and their breath roared. Her orgasm tackled her so strongly that if he hadn't had a death grip on her hip bones, she would have lost her knees and fallen from him. And just as she came, John's own shudders rolled through her, the ripples emanating outward from his erection and sweeping through her body . . . and her soul.
And then it happened.
At the pinnacle of their release, her vision flipped into red and went flat--and as ectascy eventually faded, the unsummoned appearance of her bad side was a wake-up call she'd been subconsciously waiting for.
Gradually, she became aware of the growing humidity and warmth from the shower . . . and the twinkling sound of falling water . . . and the thousand points of contact between them . . . and how all things were in shades of blood.