Lover Unleashed (Black Dagger Brotherhood #9)(63)

Then her hand snaked around to his nape and clamped on, holding him in place so hard, he realized she could snap his neck if she wanted.

“Oh, God,” he moaned, giving himself over completely. “Oh—f*ck!”

The strike was strong and sure, two points going in deep, the sweet pain robbing him of sight and sound until all he knew was the sucking draw at his vein.

That and the massive orgasm that rolled through his balls and pumped out the head of his cock, his hips jacking up against her as his erection kicked and jerked . . . and kept going.

He wasn’t sure how long the release lasted. Ten seconds? Ten minutes? Or was it hours? All he knew was that with every drawing pull she took from him, he came some more, the pleasure so intense he was ruined by it. . . .

Because he knew he wasn’t going to find this with anyone but her. Vampire or human.

Palming the back of her head, he pushed her down tighter, holding her to him, not caring whether she drank him dry. What a way to die—

Too soon, she went to pull away, but he was desperate for her to keep going, and tried to force her to stay at his throat. It was no contest, though. She was so strong physically, it was as if he had put up no protest at all. And didn’t that make him come again.

As overrun as his nervous system was, he still felt the retraction of her fangs from his neck and knew the exact moment she was out of him. Then the biting pain was replaced with a soft, lapping stroke, as if she were sealing him closed.

Falling into a semi-trance, Manny’s lids lowered and his head lolled on the top of his spine like a deflated balloon. From out of the corner of his eye, he looked at her perfect profile, the illumination from the monitor giving him plenty of light to watch her lick her lower lip—

Except it was not the computer.

The screen saver had come on and all that was showing was a black background with a Windows logo.

She was glowing. All over. From head to foot.

He guessed they did that, and how . . . extraordinary.

Except she was frowning. “Are you all right? Mayhap I took too much. . . .”

“I’m . . .” He swallowed. Twice. His tongue felt numb in his mouth. “I am . . .”

Panic set into her beautiful face. “Oh, fates, what have I done—”

He forced his head upright. “Payne . . . the only way it could have been better is if I’d come inside of you.”

She was momentarily relieved. And then she asked, “What is coming?”





TWENTY-TWO


Up at the Pit, Jane was moving fast through her bedroom. Opening the closet’s double doors, she started pulling white shirts out and throwing them over her shoulder onto the bed. In her haste, hangers flipped off the rod and bounced on the floor, or twisted around and got pinned at the back of the closet—and she couldn’t have cared less.

There were no tears. Which she was proud of.

On the other hand, her whole body was shaking so badly it was all she could do to keep her hands corporeal.

As her stethoscope slipped off her neck and landed on the carpet, she stopped only so she didn’t step on it. “God . . . damn it—”

Straightening after she picked the thing up, she glanced at the bed and thought, right, maybe it was time to quit with the white shirts. There was a mountain of them on the black satin sheets.

Backing across the room, she sat down next to her Mount Hanesmore and stared at the closet. V’s muscle shirts and leathers were still all arranged; her side was a train wreck.

Wasn’t that a perfect metaphor.

Except . . . he was a mess, too, wasn’t he.

God . . . what the hell was she doing? Moving down to the clinic, even temporarily, was not the answer. When you were married, you stayed and worked it out. That was how relationships survived.

She left now? No telling where they were going to end up.

God, they’d had what, all of two hours of back-to-normal? Great. Frickin’ great.

Taking out her phone, she called up a blank text and stared at the screen. Two minutes later, she flipped the cell shut. It was hard to put everything she had to say into 160 characters. Or even six pages of 160s.

Payne was her patient, and she had a duty to her. Vishous was her mate, and there was nothing she wouldn’t do for him. And V’s twin had not been prepared to give her any time whatsoever.

Although apparently that was something she was willing to grant her brother. And obviously, Vishous had gone to their mother.

God only knew what was going to come of that.

Staring at the mess she’d made of the closet, Jane ran through the situation over and over again, and kept coming to the same conclusion : Payne’s right to choose her destiny superseded anyone’s right to trap her in her own life. Was that harsh? Yes. Was it fair on those who loved her? Absolutely not.

Would the female have hurt herself worse if there hadn’t been a humane way of doing it? One hundred percent, yes.

Jane didn’t agree with the female’s thinking or of her choice. But she was clear on the ethics, as tragic as they were.

And she was determined that Vishous hear her side of it.

Instead of running, she was going to stay put so that when he came home, she would be waiting for him and they could see if there was anything left of their life together. She wasn’t fooling herself. This might well not be something they could work through, and she didn’t blame him if that was the case. Family was family, after all. But she had done what the situation had called for according to the duty she had to her patient. Which was what doctors did, even when it cost them . . . everything they had.