As he kissed his way down to her neck, he regretted the raw marks he’d left at her vein, and brushed them with his lips, once, twice.
“I’m sorry,” he said, roughly.
“Whatever for?”
He had to reclose his eyes as that husky voice of hers penetrated his haze—and promptly sexed him up even more. What had she asked … oh, yeah.
“I shouldn’t have been so rough.”
“Well, I didn’t mind being held down. At all.”
Annnnnnnnnnd didn’t that get him seeing double.
“Are you going to return to where you were?” she asked.
Fuck yeah. “Yes … right now. If you want—”
The undulation of her body and that moan was the best “I do” he’d ever heard.
Trying to keep a lid on his inner beast, he kissed his way over to her collarbone and then had to pull back and just look at her. Her breasts were the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen: She was perfectly built, her nipples tight on top of the pale swells, her skin smooth, her breathing a taunt to his self-control.
He was as careful as he had been with her mouth.
Extending his tongue, he licked a circle around her nipple—and going by the way her hands speared into his hair, she approved.
“Oh…” she groaned.
He smiled before he sucked her in. Nursing at her, he eased onto his side and swept a hand down to her waist, her hip, her thigh … her inner thigh.
She gave way for him like water, her body loose and trusting as he suckled and inched his touch higher, and higher. He was almost at her core, and planning exactly where to stroke her when—
An image of a human invaded the space between his ears.
At first, he couldn’t figure out what the fuck his brain had coughed up … but then he recognized the random woman as one he’d nailed in the back of a car over a year ago. And the clarity was a killer. He saw everything in HD, the lipstick smeared on her front teeth, the mascara smudges under her eyes, her botched boob job where one of her nipples was wall-eyed.
But none of that was the worst part.
No, the worst was the way her head moved up and back, up and back—because he was inside of her. His cock was in her sex, going in and out, the rhythm growing faster so that he could come and be done with the session.
His erection, the one that he was getting ready to slip into Selena, had been in a cesspool. Had been in … hundreds of dirty human women who hadn’t brought up safe sex or STD tests or whether or not they’d already contracted AIDS from letting sluts like him into their panties.
The fact that he couldn’t contract their diseases did not matter in the slightest.
Filthy was filthy.
Jerking back, he hissed and closed his eyes, trying to order an evac for all of that shit.
“Trez?”
“Sorry, I…” Shaking his head, he refocused on her breasts—and felt nauseous from self-hatred. “I’m just—”
Another human woman tackled his brain, this one that real estate agent he’d done at the warehouse he’d just bought: He pictured her hands spread against the wall as he fucked her from behind, her wedding ring flashing.
“I’m sorry,” he grunted. And then it was more with the head shaking—like the memories were objects he could knock off his table of consciousness. “I’m…”
In rapid succession, he saw the brunette he’d let suck him off in his office. The redhead he’d done with that blond in the club bathroom. The threesome with those college girls, the Goth at the cemetery, the waitress at Sal’s, the pharmacist when he’d gone to get Motrin one afternoon, the bartender at that place, the woman he’d seen at the car dealership …
Faster and faster, until the images were like bullets one after another after another, firing into his brain.
As he peeled off of Selena, it seemed both bizarre and totally appropriate that the only thing he could think of was that the Shadows were right.
Sex with humans had contaminated him.
And he was paying the price for the poison, right here and now.
Sitting at the kitchen table, Assail could only stare at his cousins. The pair of contract killers, drug dealers, and enforcers had not only washed up before the meal, they were now easing back in their seats and looking like they wanted to loosen their pants.
As Marisol’s grandmother got to her feet again, Assail shook his head. “Madam, you must enjoy this food on which you worked so diligently.”
“I am enjoying.” She headed back for the counter and cut more bread. “These boys, they need to eat more. Too thin, too thin.”
At this rate, she was going to turn his backups into—what was the expression, sofa potatoes?
And what do you know, even though those two males were stuffed, they took another slice of her homemade bread, and dutifully layered on the sweet butter.