Wild and Free (The Three #3)(34)

He looked back at me. “Could be a coincidence. But I’m having some issues with coincidences, waiting for you for what feels like an eternity and then running into werewolves and vampires for the first time in my life when you hit town.”

“So you think, for whatever reason they want us gone, someone tried back then?”

“That’s what I think,” he confirmed.

Marvelous.

“Why do you think she didn’t do it?” I asked.

“Right now, I don’t think she didn’t do it. Right now, I’m thinking that someone stopped her from doing it. She took me down because she drugged me. But she was petite and slim. No way she could drag my ass thirty yards when I was dead weight. That said, the bar I was in was rough. I’m a werewolf vampire, but I’m a biker. That’s the kind of place I hang. Could have been someone walked out, saw her, stopped her, dragged me to safety, but didn’t want to get involved by phoning the police, or maybe they didn’t want to bring trouble to the bar by doing it or having me found in the lot.”

“I’m not liking this, Abel,” I informed him.

“Not likin’ it much either, Delilah, because I can’t die. But with what it did to my face, I know that knife would have been the end of me.”

My head jerked on the pillow. “You can’t die?”

His eyes gentled as they looked into mine. “Bao bei, I’m a werewolf vampire. I’m immortal. Don’t know for certain, but do know since Jian-Li’s great-great-great-grandmother found me, I’ve lived two hundred years.”

Was he serious?

“What?” I cried.

His head tipped to the side. “Thought I made that clear.”

“You…did…not,” I retorted.

“Delilah, I told you I waited three lifetimes for you, and that’s only three because I was at one point a little kid, even being what I am, so I didn’t know I had a hankering for green-eyed temptress, biker bitch * for a coupla lifetimes.”

I ignored the biker bitch * part and snapped, “I didn’t know you meant literally.”

“Well, I did.”

“That’s also insane,” I hissed.

“Any less insane than anything else you’ve learned the last coupla of days?” he shot back.

I clamped my mouth shut.

He grinned.

I unclamped my mouth. “Don’t you grin at me, Abel. Remember that thread I was hanging by?”

He kept grinning as he answered. “Yeah.”

“Well, you’re supposed to keep it strong, not unravel it.”

He dipped his face closer again and asked, “How do I keep it strong?”

I bucked up against his body in an annoyed way and answered, “I don’t know. You’re supposed to figure that out.”

“Thinkin’ I’m done drawing from you, I won’t numb you with my mouth.”

My head tilted sharply on the pillow again. “What?”

He didn’t answer.

He slanted his head the other way and kissed me.

Our first kiss.

It had tongues. It was slow. It was long. It was sweet. It was gentle. Then it wasn’t. Then it was rough and consuming and f*cking unbelievable to the point that when he broke his mouth from mine, I was panting and clutching him to me with arms and legs.

“You okay now?” he asked, and at my words coming back to me like that, my stomach dipped.

“Better,” I said snippily, but that was all for show and he knew it, since it was also breathy.

He gave me another grin.

Then he gave me another kiss.

While doing it, he rolled so I was on top.

That was when I started kissing him.

And I felt better.

Then I broke the kiss and looked down into his wild and beautiful eyes, more so right then because I could see they were lazy but turned on, the blue had partially seeped back, but the brown was again suffusing it.

And I went about making him feel better.

“I want this, whatever it is you’re about to do to me, and I’ve spent twenty-nine years getting to know me, so I know I wouldn’t give what I gave earlier and what I’m about to give to a monster. Monsters don’t inspire loyalty like you’ve inspired in your family. And monsters don’t think twice about giving into whatever urges they’re feeling, even if it hurts somebody.”

The look in his eyes changed, went gentle but intense, the blue totally gone.

However I wasn’t done.

I curled my fingers around the side of his neck. “And it breaks my heart you’ve spent two hundred years getting to know yourself and all you’ve come up with is that you’re a monster. You aren’t, Abel. I’ve known you less than two days and I know that for certain. It might take twenty-nine more years of my life to convince you of it, but if this is what I think it is, I’ll have that time and you have my vow I’ll bust my ass to try.”

When I was done with my speech, he lifted his hand to my neck, curled his fingers around and up into my hair, and he rolled me again. His eyes were no longer gentle but totally intense.

He didn’t say anything.

He kissed me, not gentle or slow, all rough and consuming.

He continued to say nothing as he took my mouth, his hands moving on me, and it began again. Not the same as before. He was slow and gentle, taking his time, building it, his hands eventually getting the addition of his lips and tongue gliding on my neck, tracing a path to my nipple, then the other, down to my belly, only for his tongue to slide across the top of the triangle of hair between my legs and head back north.