A Hunger Like No Other (Immortals After Dark #2)(69)

With another growl, he reached over and tossed her to her front. As she struggled, he held her down to bare her generous, perfect arse.

Groaning, he brought his hand down on her curves, not a slap, more a pawing that landed hard. Since he’d met her, he’d brought himself to spend each day in the shower. With her scent fresh in his mind and his hands still warmed from her skin, it was always violently powerful.

She gasped when he kneaded her curves. It would have to be enough.

Time to shower.



Emma still felt his hand against her. It hadn’t been a hit or a slap, but—Freya help her—an exquisitely delivered message.

What was wrong with her? Why was she thinking this way? She shivered and moaned. The beast in the cage?—that’s what he’d told her. Well, the beast had just swiped a hand out of the cage and delivered a good smack on her backside. It was a masterful, masculine touch that made her want to dissolve, and left her rolling her hips against the bed.

The urge to touch her sex was overwhelming. She wanted to beg to ride him. Her body twitched as she fought it.

The necklace he’d fastened around her was actually a choker that had gold strands and jewels cascading down over her breasts. It was heavy on her and felt sexy and forbidden. When she moved, it swayed and tickled her nipples.

Something about this necklace and the way he’d pressed it upon her signaled…possession.

He’d done something to her tonight. The bed spun, and she felt like…giggling. She also couldn’t seem to stop running her hands up and down her body. When her thoughts came, they were clear, but soft and slow….

She didn’t know how much longer she could take him touching her without begging for him. Right now on the tip of her tongue, “Please.”

No! She was already different from others in her coven—part hated foe, weak compared to her aunts.

If the timid vampire Valkyrie returned home aching for her Lykae?

The disgust and disappointment they would feel. The hurt in their eyes. Besides, she believed if she gave this up, she’d have no power between her and Lachlain—surrendered with a whispered, “Please.” If she succumbed, she wouldn’t be going home. Ever. She feared he had the power to make her forget why she’d ever wanted to.

The bed spun more wildly. She frowned as realization hit her.

He’d gotten her drunk.

The bastard had gotten himself…so that she would…when she drank…Oh, that son of a bitch! She hadn’t even known this was possible!

She’d get him back for this. Uncalled for, tricking her like this. She couldn’t trust him. He’d said he wouldn’t lie, but she found this just as dishonest.

In the past, she would’ve just accepted this, taken it meekly as yet another time her wishes and feelings were ignored, but now she refused. Lachlain needed to learn a lesson. He needed to learn that sometime in the last seven days, she’d become a creature with which one did not f*ck.

When she licked her lips for the thirtieth time since he’d gone, a nebulous idea formed.

A wicked, evil idea. She glanced around, embarrassed, as if someone could hear her thoughts. If he wanted to play dirty, if he wanted to throw down that gauntlet, she’d swoop the thing up….

She could do it. Damn it, she could be evil, she could.

A hazy memory arose of when she was younger, asking her aunt Myst why the vampires were so evil. She’d answered, “It’s their nature.” Now Emma grinned drunkenly.

Time to get back to nature.



Emma woke to the sound of the phone ringing. No phone in the history of telephonics had ever sounded so annoying. She yearned to crush it with a ball-peen hammer.

She blearily opened her eyes, turning in her blankets to see Lachlain leave the bed and limp over to answer it.

She reached a hand up and ran it over the warmed bedcover. He’d been lying there, stretched out on top of it. Had he been watching her sleep?

Lachlain picked up, then said, “He’s still no’ returned? Canvass farther out then…. I doona care. Call me the minute you find him.” He hung up the phone and ran a hand through his hair. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen anyone look so exhausted as Lachlain. She heard him exhale wearily and noticed his shoulders were tense. She knew he was searching for his brother and was sorry that he didn’t know where he was. After all these years, Lachlain still wasn’t able to tell his brother he was alive. She felt sympathy for him.

Until she rose.

Her head began pounding in a rush, and as she stumbled to the bathroom, she realized her mouth was bone dry. Brushing her teeth and showering helped her head and mouth, but had minimal effect on her dizziness.

He’d given her the mother of all hangovers—a run-in with the wrath of grapes. Her very first. If he’d truly had “a dram or two,” surely she wouldn’t have been that tanked and wouldn’t be this hungover now. Last night, as she’d dressed and set out to explore once more, she’d been buzzed all the way up until she collapsed in her blankets at dawn. And the floor of the massive castle had spun. She was sure of it.

He must have drunk like a frat pledge before coming to her.

Bastard.

When she exited the bathroom in her towel to go to her closet to dress, he followed, leaning against the doorframe as she picked out clothes. There were new pieces everywhere. Purses and shoes as well.