Lover Revealed (Black Dagger Brotherhood #4)(34)

“You did well, sire,” the nurse said.

“Next stop, the Olympics.” He pulled the sheets up himself.

After the nurse left, he glanced at Marissa. She was sitting on the cot that he’d insisted be brought in for her and her head was bent over the needlepoint she was doing. Ever since he’d woken up about an hour ago she’d been acting a little strange, as if she was on the verge of saying something that she couldn’t quite manage to let out.

His eyes went from the bright crown of her head, to her delicate hands, to the peach gown that overflowed her makeshift bed…and then he eased his stare back up to the bodice of the dress. There were dainty buttons going all the way down the front. Like a hundred of them.

Butch shifted his legs around, feeling restless. And found himself wondering how long it would take him to slip each of those pearls loose.

His body stirred, the blood pooling between his legs, making him swell up hard.

Well, what do you know. He really was better.

And man, he was a sonofabitch.

He rolled away from her and closed his eyes.

Trouble was, with his lids down, all he saw was him kissing her on Darius’s second-story porch last summer. Oh, shit, he remembered it clear as a photograph. He’d been sitting down and she’d been between his legs and his tongue had been in her mouth. They’d ended up on the floor when he broke the chair—

“Butch?”

He opened his eyes and jerked back. Marissa was right in front of him, her face on his level. In a panic, he glanced down to make sure the sheets hid what was doing between his thighs.

“Yeah?” he said with so much gravel he had to repeat himself. Christ, his voice box always had rough edges, his words perpetually a little hoarse, but if there was one sure thing that made that worse it was thinking about getting naked. Especially with her.

As her eyes scanned his face, he feared that she saw everything, right down to the core of him. Where his obsession with her was the strongest.

“Marissa, I think I should go to sleep now. You know, rest and all that.”

“Vishous said you came to see me. After Wrath was shot.”

Butch squeezed his lids shut again. His first thought was that he was going to drag his sorry ass out of bed, find his roommate, and beat the guy. Goddamn, V—

“I wasn’t told,” she said. As he looked at her and frowned, she shook her head. “I didn’t know you’d been by until Vishous told me last night. Who did you see when you came? What happened?”

She hadn’t known? “I, ah, a doggen answered the door. After she went upstairs, she said you weren’t receiving and you’d call. When you never did…I wasn’t going to stalk you or something.”

Well, okay…he’d stalked her a little. She’d just never known about it, thank God. Unless of course, V, that loose-lipped fool, had filled her in on that, too. Bastard.

“Butch, I got sick and I needed some time to regroup. But I wanted to see you. That’s why I asked you to come calling when I ran into you back in December. When you said no, I thought…well, you’d lost interest.”

She’d wanted to see him? Had she said that?

“Butch, I wanted to see you.”

Yeah, she had. Twice.

Well, now…didn’t that perk a guy up.

“Shit,” he breathed, meeting her eyes. “Do you have any idea how many times I drove past your house?”

“You did?”

“Practically every night. I was pathetic.” Hell, he still was.

“But you wanted me to leave this room. You were angry to see me here.”

“I was pissed—er, angry because you weren’t wearing a suit. And I assumed you’d gotten roped into being here.” With a shaky hand, he reached out for a lock of her hair. God, it was so soft. “Vishous can be very persuasive. And I didn’t want your compassion or your pity to put you someplace you didn’t want to be.”

“I wanted to be here. I want to be here.” She grabbed his hand and squeezed.

In the oh-my-God-this-has-to-be-Christmas silence that followed, he struggled to reorder the last six months, to catch up with this reality they’d somehow missed. He wanted her. She wanted him. Was it true?

Felt true. Felt good. Felt…

He let incautious, desperate words fly. “I am pathetic over you, Marissa. Yeah, totally fuc—er…really pathetic. Over you.”

Her pale blue eyes teared up. “Me…too. For you.”

Butch wasn’t even aware of making the big move. But one moment they were separated by air. The next, he was putting his mouth on hers. When she gasped, he pulled back.

“Sorry—”

“No—I—I was just surprised,” she said, eyes on his lips. “I want you to…”

“Okay.” He tilted his head to the side and brushed her mouth. “Come closer to me.”

With a tug on her arm, he eased her onto the bed, then pulled her over so she was lying on top of him. The weight of her was little more than warm air and he loved it, especially as he was surrounded by her blond hair. Putting both hands to her face, he stared up at her.

As her lips parted in a gentle smile just for him, he saw the tips of her fangs. Oh, God, he had to get into her, had to penetrate her in some way, so he leaned up and led with his tongue. She moaned while he licked into her mouth and then they were kissing deep, his hands threading into her hair and cradling the back of her head. He spread his legs and her body eased between them, increasing the pressure where he was hard and thick and hot.