Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 142050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 474(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 474(@300wpm)
And so was she.
CHAPTER FORTY
Noodle legs.
Holy fucking shit, as Dev walked along the snow-covered urban sidewalk, he had seriously loose legs, to the point where he was amazed he was not only upright, but throwing out fairly even strides. Beside him, on the other hand, Lyric was having absolutely no problems with the ambulation—
He stole another glance at her.
She was fucking resplendent in the wind, her blond hair loose in the cold gusts, his windbreaker protecting her from the tundra temperature, her cheeks flushed from the chill. Or all that exertion back in the stairwell.
Dear Lord, from her damn exertion.
As they hit the straightaway back to her place at the Commodore, he kept replaying what she’d done to him, and what do you know. His dumb handle was beyond ready for more of her attention. Just the memory of her lowering herself onto her knees in front of him was enough to bring back the blood flow—and the fact that she had done it to him in that stairwell? With all those people in the convention center? She’d surprised the hell out of him.
Between her lips, and that leather top with her breasts almost spilling out—
“Whoops!”
As she grabbed for his arm, he snatched her from a free-fall, swinging her off her totally impractical thigh-high boots.
Not that he didn’t appreciate the boots. Fuck him very much, he wanted her to straddle him, wearing nothing but the frickin’ boots.
Lyric’s laughter was free and light in the winter night, and as he settled her against his chest with an arm behind her knees and another around the small of her back, he knew two things: He didn’t ever want to let her go; and he was going to have to do just that.
“We should have taken an Uber,” he said roughly as he started walking again.
“It’s not that far. Only, what—like eight blocks?”
“On ice. Those boots of yours are deadly.”
Lyric extended one leg out. “You don’t like them, huh.”
“Oh… I like them.” He rather liked the idea of her making him kiss them. While he was on his hands and knees. “Just not outside in January in Caldwell.”
“You can put me down, you know.”
“I’m good. If you are.”
Lyric smoothed some of his hair back. Then she laid her head on his shoulder. As he continued on, he cherished the feel of her against him, the use of his muscles to keep her up off the ground, the way his body inflated with purpose.
His sire really had been part vampire, hadn’t he.
All Dev’s life, he’d taken after his mother’s side of things, no fangs, no drinking blood, no transition, and no night-only shit. But there was something primal happening, right under his skin, as he carried Lyric to that apartment she didn’t really live in… something that felt ancient and important.
Not that she could ever take his blood.
“What else were you going to talk to me about,” she asked. “Back at the stairwell.”
“Before or after the incredible blow job.”
Lyric’s laughter vibrated into him, and he would have closed his eyes just so he could track every nuance of it if he could have. But he didn’t need both of them on their asses.
Up ahead, the vertical lettering on the side of the high-rise glowed like a false moon: COMMODORE. Of course she would have an apartment in a place like that—a place where she could take humans if she was going to be with them—
A sudden urge to snarl cut off that line of thinking.
But come on. Like she hadn’t had lovers before? And maybe there were other reasons for her to have a crash pad in the midst of the other species: Like a pretend driver’s license or social security number, it was another level of nothing-to-see-here.
Part of the necessary ruse.
“Dev? What do you need to tell me?”
He shook his head. “Sorry, I just…”
“It’s okay.” She cleared her throat. “Look, I know that you’re not going to see me again after tonight—”
“That’s not what I was going to tell you.”
“It isn’t?”
No, his revelation was going to lead to that, though. When she threw him out for being her mortal enemy.
All he could do was shake his head again, and take them across the street—jaywalking, of course, because there was no traffic—so they could go down the last block. As he surmounted the steps to the glass ring of doors, he felt like something was stabbing him in the chest, and the sensation got so much worse as he lowered her back down onto her own two feet while he leaned forward to get the door for her.
The warmth and light of the lobby should have been a welcome relief, but as they both waved at the security guard behind the front desk and headed for the elevators, the sense that he was sending her off into a world he could never be part of made him long for the darkness and the cold.