Bad Mouth(16)

He drew away from her and pushed his hands through his hair, his biceps bunching with tension. “No, I couldn’t have.”

“Yes, you could. You’re the third most powerful vampire in the Immortalis. You can do what you want.”

“Dammit, Val, trust me,” he snapped. She recoiled at his harsh demeanor. “Our races may appear similar, but we’re so f*cking different. You’re assuming the rules restricting transformations are ours. They are not. These men are falling through your cracks, not ours. Criminal background has no bearing in our approvals. None.”

She felt the shock of his words down to her toes. “That’s insane.”

“Why would it matter to us what they did in their former life?”

“Why do you think?” she asked. He shrugged, driving her mood from horrified to outraged. “Because they could commit more of the same crimes.”

He crossed his arms over his broad chest. “Yet they were all released from your prisons as free men.”

That took some of the wind from her sails. “That’s different,” she said. He didn’t look convinced. “Now that they’re turned, they have an eternity.”

“When you freed them from prison, telling them their debt to society was paid in full, did you stipulate the remaining length of their lives?” His point made, he didn’t wait for her answer. “Val, aside from the recent derangements, when was the last time you’ve heard of an Immortalis-related crime?”

“I—” Shit. She’d been a little girl at the time.

He nodded. “In my culture, breaking protocol just isn’t done. It has dire consequences no matter who you are. If the Rex himself broke protocol, he’d be subject to execution the same as anyone else. Turning these approved men doesn’t break any rules. But refusing the order to turn them? Fuck, Val, there’s no hiding that. I might as well offer my nuts on a platter right next to my head.”

Her shoulders sagged. “Can’t you change the protocols?”

He dropped his hands to his hips, his jaw clenching and releasing as he considered her. She’d give just about anything to know what he was thinking as he watched her with such intensity. Then he reached for her waist, pulling her in close to his body that had grown considerably hotter as they’d stood at his entryway.

“For once, I wish I could.” His gaze caressed her face. “Only when I become the new Rex will I have a chance at setting protocol, and even then, it’s a tricky mindf*ck to get the Immortalis behind it. Most see change as an enemy they need to defy.”

That was news to her. She’d always thought anything Olen Rex said was law. “But if you were the Rex, don’t they have to do as you order?”

He chuckled close to her ear, and her senses went on high alert, absorbing the heat of his breath on her skin. “A leader is only as powerful as his followers allow. Yes, they’ll do as they’re commanded, but there are boundaries. If the boundaries need to be pushed, it must be done gently.” He trailed his hand up the valley of her spine and tugged a lock of her hair. “I don’t do gentle well, Val.”

She gasped and then clamped her lips together. A shot of desire hit her hard and throbbed between her legs.

His knowing smirk made her want to dump ice water down her panties. Then his smile faded. “It wouldn’t be my priority to change protocol, not for humans.”

Of course he would feel that way, and she understood, but now that she knew about the felons, she could change that for him. “You’ve only ever seen the worst humans. I understand now why you don’t like us, but you haven’t seen the good ones yet.”

He slid both of his arms behind her and tightened his grip around her waist, aligning his body with hers. “I see you.”

The low-lidded, sensual look on his face made her body hum. She pressed her thighs together to sooth the insistent, pounding need between them. Now was the time to move away before the intent in his expression became reality, but when he lowered his head toward her, her lids dropped slowly of their own volition. The soft brush of his lips over hers was a shot of wine to her veins. It went straight to her head, and everything resembling logical thought went fuzzy. She clutched his shoulders, the fabric of his shirt bunching beneath her palms.

He slicked his tongue over her bottom lip, and she opened for him. The second he entered her mouth, he lit off like an explosive. The heat in his skin beneath her fingers ramped up to a feverish level. His hips moved against her as if he couldn’t control himself, and every thrust added to the searing pulses of pleasure in her core.

A tortured moan pushed from his throat. “Val,” he said. “Leave now or I can’t stop. I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

But she couldn’t leave, not with his hot mouth on hers, and his hard shaft against her belly, and her right brain shorted out by his kiss. She lifted up on her tiptoes and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Good Lord, he was sexy. Her body trembled at each touch and each satisfying sound rumbling from deep in his chest.

“Kade,” she whispered. He cupped her rear with one hand, keeping her tight against him while his other hand traced a line between her breasts. He covered her hardened nipple with his mouth, dampening her blouse. She whimpered when the suction and scrape of his teeth pulled a streak of delicious, nerve-tingling pleasure to the needy, swollen place where his shaft stroked. As if his tongue was there, too. And then he reached under her skirt from behind, and his fingers were there, caressing her through her silk panties. He slipped beneath the silk and spreading her wet response around her entrance and right up to the place she needed it. Her breath panted out in shallow gasps. She’d never been so on fire for a man.

She tugged at his T-shirt, pushing it up his chest, shoving him away from her breast only long enough to lift the shirt over his head. Her fingertips smoothed his thick biceps and the muscles of his pecs, and down the ridges of his abs. Even his chest hair was magnificently trim with a light sprinkle over his pecs and above his small, dark brown nipples. Lower still, she traced the V at his hips that disappeared into his jeans along with the trail of soft hair below his navel.

“I might finish just looking at you,” she said.

At the sound of her voice, he jerked away. After a moment of shock, the sudden cold distance between them forced her wits to return. Probably a good thing, considering her flesh was quivering, suffering from pleasure withdrawals.

“Fuck.” He wore a scowl and glared at her. As if this temporary insanity had been all her fault. Hadn’t he been the one to make the first move?

But she’d lost her head as much as he had. He was a vampire, the creature she had sworn should be wiped from existence. Humans were nothing more than food or entertainment to them. Still, she ached to stuff those thoughts into a dark hole and bury them.

Had she really thought his cruelty okay because those subjugates had been bad men? She wanted to tell herself it was justified, and maybe it was, but that didn’t mean he had the right to punish men who had already served their time. The rationalization had knocked down the walls of her self-preservation so darn easily, as if the subjugates’ treatment had been her only reason for not jumping Kade sooner.

“Mind if we forget this ever happened?” His voice ground out as rough as her emotions.

His words struck a sharp ache in her chest that made her breath hitch. Then a welcome numbness crept over her. She reminded herself that she hadn’t wanted what had started between them either. “Forget what ever happened?” She tried to keep self-recrimination from her voice but doubted she’d succeeded.

He nodded sharply and headed toward the living room, grabbing his shirt from the floor and pulling it back over his head. “I’m aware not all humans are like those I transform.”

“Then why—”

“Have you ever met a vampire you liked?”

“A few times, but—”

“But not enough to change how you feel about us, right?” He didn’t bother waiting for an answer as he took a seat with the balcony at his back. “Damn straight.”

“As simple as that? You’d base your judgment about an entire race on those men?”

He pinned her with stony, crimson eyes. “You are the last person who should criticize, Val. The very last person.”

She sank onto the couch across from him. Admitting he was likely right felt akin to swallowing acid, so she kept her silence.

No matter what, she had to put an end to the criminals obtaining legal transformation approvals. Because Kade wouldn’t stop. She may not see him in the same negative light as at their first meeting, but he was the same man he’d been when she’d met him. Less than four days ago, which brought her back to her first thought: what the hell was she doing?





Chapter Eleven


“Stop it.” Kade could tell Val’s wheels were turning by her expressive face.