Lover Awakened (Black Dagger Brotherhood #3)(48)

Holy shit… He was going totally light-headed here. About to black out like a stone-cold sissy.

In a desperate attempt to bring himself back to center, he focused on Bella’s dark hair. There was a lock of it close to his free hand, and the strand gleamed in the shower’s overhead light, so lovely, so thick, so different from the Mistress’s blond.

God, Bella’s hair looked really soft…. If he’d had the nerve, he would bury his hand—no, his whole face—in those mahogany waves. Could he handle that? he wondered. Being so close to a female? Or would he choke when even more fear hit him?

If it was Bella, he thought he might be able to do it.

Yeah…he’d really like his face there, in her hair. Maybe he would burrow through it and find his way to her neck and he would…press a kiss to her throat. Just real softly. Yeah…and then he might move up and brush his lips against her cheek. Maybe she would let him do that. He wouldn’t go near her mouth. He couldn’t imagine she’d want to be that close to his scar and his upper lip was all f*cked up anyway. Besides, he didn’t know how to kiss. The Mistress and her minions had known enough to keep away from his fangs. And afterward he’d never wanted to get that tight with a female.

Bella paused and tilted her head, her sapphire blue eyes shifting up to his, checking to make sure he was okay.

The concern bit into his pride. Christ, to think he was so weak that he couldn’t handle feeding a female…and what a cringer to realize she knew this while she was at his vein. Even worse, there had been that expression on her face a few moments ago, that dawning horror that meant she’d figured out what else he’d been used for as slave besides his blood.

He couldn’t stand her sympathy, didn’t want those worried looks, wasn’t interested in being coddled and stroked. He opened his mouth, ready to take her head off, but somehow the anger got lost on the trip between his gut and his throat.

“It’s okay,” he said roughly. “Rock steady up here. Rock steady.”

The relief in those eyes of hers was another slap in the ass.

As she started drinking again, he thought, I hate this.

Well…some of it he hated. Okay, the shit in his head he hated. But as the gentle pulls on his wrist continued, he realized he kind of liked them.

At least until he thought about what she was swallowing. Dirty blood…rusted blood…corroded, infected, nasty blood. Man, he just couldn’t fathom why she’d turned down Phury. The male was perfect inside and out. Yet here she was on cold, hard tile, biting through a slave band with him. Why did she…

Zsadist shut his eyes. No doubt after all she’d been through, she figured she deserved no better than someone who was polluted. That lesser had probably torn the self-respect right out of her.

Man, as God was his witness, he was going to have that bastard’s last breath squeezing out between his palms.

With a sigh, Bella released his wrist and eased back against the shower wall, her lids low, her body limp. The silk of the dressing down was wet and it clung to her legs, outlining her thighs, her hips…the juncture in their midst.

As the it in his pants thickened in a rush, he wanted to cut the thing off.

Her eyes lifted to his. He half expected her to go into seizures or something, and he tried not to think of all that ugliness she’d swallowed.

“You all right?” he asked.

“Thank you,” she said huskily. “Thank you for letting me—”

“Yeah, you can stop that.” God, he wished he’d protected her from himself. The Mistress’s very essence pumped through him, the echoes of that female’s cruelty trapped within the endless circuit of his arteries and veins, going around and around his body. And Bella had just taken some of that poison into her gut.

He should have fought harder against this.

“I’m going to carry you to the bed,” he said.

When she didn’t object, he picked her up, took her out of the shower, and paused by the sink to grab a towel for her.

“The mirror,” she murmured. “You covered the mirror. Why?”

He didn’t answer her as he headed for the bedroom, couldn’t bear to talk about the horrible things she’d endured.

“Do I look so bad to you?” she whispered into his shoulder.

When he got to the bed, he set her on her feet. “The robe is wet. You should take it off. Use this to dry if you want.”

She took the towel and started to loosen the tie at her waist. He quickly turned around, listening to a rush of cloth, some flapping, then the shifting of sheets.

As she settled in, some very base, ancient core of him demanded that he lay with her now. And not as in hold her. He wanted to be inside of her, moving…releasing. Somehow that seemed like the right thing to do, to give her not just the blood in his veins but the completion of the sexual act, too.

Which was totally f*cked up.

He dragged a hand over his hair, wondering where the hell that bad idea had come from. Man, he had to get away from her—

Well, that was going to happen soon, wasn’t it. She was leaving tonight. Leaving to go home.

His instincts went nuts, making him want to fight to make her stay in his bed. But screw that stupid, primeval core of him. He needed to go do his job. He needed to go out and find that one particular lesser and slaughter the f*cker for her. That was what he had to do.