“Hey, the food’s here,” Cat said as a new vehicle pulled up. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m starving.”

  “I think I’ll change before supper,” Annette said, slinking out of the living room.

  “Excellent idea,” Bones said. “You should, too, Kitten.”

  Her gaze darted away from his. “I have to get the food-”

  “I got it,” Rodney said, smiling.

  Cat gave Rodney a single glare in reply, but then compressed her lips and followed Bones upstairs.

  “Not now,” she said as soon as the bedroom door shut. “Yes, Annette and I fought, but we settled it. Plus, the guys are now here and so is dinner. Let’s sit down on whatever furniture is left and eat. The rest can wait.”

  Her legs were planted, her arms were crossed, and her chin jutted out with more than its usual amount of stubbornness. Everything about her screamed “back off!”

  Bones forced his impatience aside. Let her have this charade of a dinner, then. He could spare an hour to get himself under control, too. “All right. But nothing’s been ‘settled.’ You’re still seething mad, I can smell it, so we are dealing with this tonight.”

  With that, Bones left, and braced for the battle to come.

  38

  Annette spent the dinner putting her charm on full display. Juan looked half in love with her by the time dessert was served, and Cooper had relaxed enough to laugh. Even Tate no longer acted as if he had a stake shoved up his dour arse. But all of that was background noise to Bones. His focus was on Cat.

  She kept glancing at him, too, but then her gaze skipped away, and her scent remained a burnt aroma that not even the heavy garlic from the Italian food could mask. The reason why was obvious. He didn’t know why he hadn’t guessed it at once. Annette must have told Cat she was the woman from that regrettable night in Chicago. But was that all she’d said?

  “Cards, gentlemen?” Annette said once the last fork had been set down. She even produced a deck from her purse and began shuffling the cards.

  Bones stood. “Not for Cat and me, but by all means, Annette, enjoy your game with the blokes. Then you can take them back to the compound. Rodney will accompany you and show you the way. After that, your luck will have run out.” Then, Bones turned to Cat. “Shall we?”

  Cat got up, muttering, “That was hardly polite.”

  She still couldn’t stand to look at him for more than a few seconds, and he was supposed to fret about her mates feeling mildly uncomfortable by their abrupt exit?

  “You may as well leave it open,” Cat said once Bones shut the bedroom door behind them. “With everyone’s upgraded senses, they’ll all still hear us.”

  “Anyone ill-mannered enough to eavesdrop when they can choose to ignore us does so at their own peril,” Bones countered. “And dinner was a waste of time since you barely ate, so now, tell me what happened between you and Annette.”

  Her mouth tightened. “A catfight, no pun intended. Annette said some nasty things. I did, too, and then I stabbed her to make a point. Okay, that last one was a pun.”

  “So, that’s it, then?” Bones’s tone dared her to look at him. “All’s well and no hard feelings?”

  She met his gaze, swallowed hard, and nodded.

  He pulled her close and bent his head. His mouth had barely brushed hers when she tensed as if she’d been slapped. Fear iced his veins. What the hell had Annette said to her?

  “Right,” he said in a carefully controlled tone. “There are two ways I’m going to hear every blasted word that Annette said. The first is from you by request. The second is after I beat the truth out of Annette, which sounds gratifying now, but it would defeat the greater good. I’ve always said that you can tell me anything, Kitten. The question is, will you?”

  The polite mask Cat had been wearing cracked. Her brows drew together, her face flushed, and her lips pursed as if she were holding back a torrent of curses. All of it was a relief. This was the real Cat, not the controlled imposter from dinner, as she proved when she drained the last of the gin from a mostly-empty bottle on her nightstand dresser.

  “Fine,” she said curtly. “Annette basically told me that you were a raging pervert who preferred your women in minimums of twos, usually more, humans especially because of their warm bodies, you’ve fucked more women than the population of this state, and because of all that, I’d never hold your interest.”

  His gaze went red before he forced that killing rage back. Good thing, too, because she wasn’t done.

  “She also said you sounded bored in bed with me earlier, and I’d never be able to handle what you really liked to do, and you’ve told her plus half the women you fuck that you’re in love with them, and you’d have tossed me out years ago if I hadn’t inflamed your interest by leaving you first…oh, and that she was the one you munched on a couple months ago in Chicago.”

  “Bugger,” Annette whispered one floor below them.

  Bones barely heard that as rage torpedoed his blood through him. In his worst imaginings, he’d never thought Annette would betray him with such vicious lies. For a moment, he actually couldn’t speak from the shock of it.

  “I am going to flog Annette fleshless for this,” he ground out when he had enough control to form words again. “And if I were you, I wouldn’t have stopped at wounding her. I would have finished the job and killed her. Bloody hell.”

  He snatched the door open, nearly ripping it from its hinges. “Rodney, take them back and leave Annette here!”

  “On it,” Rodney said in a very subdued tone.

  “Is it true?” Cat’s gray gaze appeared darker from doubt. “You’re pissed at her, sure, but is that because she lied to me? Or because she told me the truth?”

  God, that she would even think that! His eyes closed from the weight of it. “I hate having this conversation under these circumstances, but I had no intention of concealing my past from you. The short answer to only the first part of what Annette said is yes, I have been with many women, human and otherwise.”

  “Usually in bunches?” she prodded, her tone going hoarse. “For a total of thousands? Tens of thousands?”

  Bones opened his eyes. She was now sitting on the edge of the bed as if her legs couldn’t hold her anymore. He went over and knelt in front of her so their eyes were nearly level. Her expression was anguished, and anguish ripped at him, too. How to make her understand that it wasn’t the frolicking flesh fest Annette had made it out to be? How to convey the desolateness that had gnawed at him like an immortal, ravenous beast?

  “After I was changed into a vampire, I spent two decades brooding over the fate that Ian forced on me,” Bones said, starting at the beginning. “But eventually, I decided I may as well have a grand time being undead. Back then, I had a talent for exactly one thing, and that was shagging. If the girl fancied additional feminine company as well, I certainly didn’t object. Then, as the years passed, I began meting out death to those I thought deserved it. Soon, killing became the other thing I excelled at, and I started making an income from it. Between the two, I reckoned I was as happy as I had any right to be.”

  And that wasn’t very happy. Oh, he’d enjoyed himself here and there, but happiness went much deeper, and only when he’d found it did he realize how it had eluded him before.

  “My life went on like this for centuries, and yes, Annette was frequently one of my lovers, either alone or accompanied. Then one day, a friend asked me to find his daughter’s murderer, and I tracked her killer’s operation to a bar in Ohio. There I met you, and I fell in love. You can’t imagine what that was like after centuries of…emptiness. I hadn’t thought I was capable of loving someone like that, but I did, and more than that, I finally believed I had something to offer apart from a good shag or a deserved killing. For the first time, I felt whole, complete…and now, my oldest, most trusted friend has sought to rip that away by taunting you with my past in the hopes of destroying your feelings for me.”

  He couldn’t keep the bitterness from his tone at that last part. If Annette had stabbed him in the heart, it would have been less cruel. Out of everyone else, she’d known how much he loved Cat because she’d felt it when his shields had broken, and his pain coursed into her. Yet still, she’d tried to sentence him to a lifetime more of that pain.

  Cat’s eyes briefly closed, and a ragged sigh escaped her. “I can’t relate to all the sex, but for the past four and a half years, I had nothing to offer anyone except my ability to kill, too. So, yeah…I know what a dark, lonely feeling that is.”

  Warmth broke through the chill from his rage. He’d hoped she would understand, but she’d done much more than that because she knew this pain. Yes, her time with it had been brief and his had lasted centuries, but it was still very real.

  “Don’t judge Annette too harshly,” she said next, shocking him. “She’s in love with you. That’s why she acted like such an ass with me. Granted, I don’t like hearing about your extensive sexual history, but I can handle it as long as it remains in your past because I will never participate in a threesome, foursome, fivesome, whatever. So, if that’s what you’re hoping I’ll eventually get into…then we have a problem.”

  Her gaze was defiant, but a faint tremor went through her. She really did fear that she wouldn’t be enough for him, as if anyone could ever replace her.

  Bones let his hands rest on her knees. “Except for that one instance I truly regret with Annette, I didn’t touch another woman while we were apart because I don’t want anyone but you. And as far as telling other women that I loved them, when I was a whore, I used to tell all my clients that. Part of the job, as it were. That’s why I’d said it previously to Annette, but not since I was a human selling my body to survive have I said it to anyone except you.”

  Her gaze brightened with tears, and she leaned closer, until their heads were nearly touching. Feeling her breaths land on his skin and seeing that priceless trust fill her gaze again almost razed him from the emotions it unleashed.

  “Well, then…okay,” she whispered.

  “Okay?” He pulled her into his arms, searching her face, scent, and each movement in her body to see if she meant it.

  She touched his cheek, her gaze never flinching. “Okay.”

  He lowered his head. She met him halfway, her lips velvet and her body a satiny cage as she held him like she was afraid someone would snatch him away if she loosened her grip. He never wanted to stop kissing her, but someone had tried to snatch her away, and he couldn’t let that go unanswered a moment longer.

  “I still have to deal with Annette,” he murmured, breaking their kiss. “You might look leniently on her, but she violated my trust, and I cannot dismiss that. Annette,” he snapped, turning away from Cat to face the door. “Get up here!”

  Cat only loosened her grip enough to shrug. “Do it your way, but I suggest another one. You could beat her bloody, or-”

  Bones layered on his ice. She’d suggest leading with mercy instead of punishment. Or taking the evening to decide Annette’s sentence, or something else he’d refuse because nothing would stop him from meting out his justice now-

  “-you could give me such loud, screaming orgasms that the sound of them blisters her ears-”

  -except that. Bloody hell, Annette who?

  “So, if you have any former-whore-turned-promiscuous-vampire tricks you’ve been holding back, bring them on,” Cat continued, her gaze slanting with challenge. “But, you’d better outperform any service you gave to Annette or anyone else, because if I don’t wake up tomorrow red in the face from embarrassment over what you did to me, I’ll be disappointed.”

  Bones stared, barely able to believe what she’d just said even though her words had set his blood on fire.

  “No you don’t, you clever little bitch,” Annette muttered before snatching the door open.

  Bones rose from his crouch in front of Cat. Annette’s golden gaze was nearly frenzied with desperation as she looked at him, and then behind him at Cat.

  “We have business to sort out, you and I,” Bones said, letting an arc of his rage slice into Annette through their tie. “Later,” he emphasized, and slammed Annette out of the room and his emotions.

  Cat’s breath caught as he turned back to her. She was still seated on the edge of the bed, but her color was higher, and her pulse throbbed at the hollow of her neck. She’d meant her decadent dare, but now that he’d accepted it, she clearly didn’t know what to expect.

  Oh, he’d show her, and she would absolutely love it.

  “Trying to hang my knickers around your neck?” he asked in a lower, silkier voice.

  She cleared her throat. “You don’t wear any.”

  No, he didn’t, and she’d soon lose hers, too.

  He took her hands, enjoying her anticipatory twitches as he pulled her to her feet. Then, he leaned down, letting his words fall against her cheek. “I should assure you that in bed you have nothing to prove to me, or that I’ve never enjoyed making love to anyone more, and I will. Later, because only a fool passes up what you just offered me. Now, I am short on some props, and one night isn’t nearly enough time to run through all the ways I’ve fantasized about taking you, but I promise you this,” his lips grazed her skin, “you’ll be scandalized in the morning when you can think again.”

  39

  Bones unbuttoned his shirt, letting the fabric slide over his skin in a leisurely caress as he drew it off. Cat watched, her gaze caressing him, too. Her breathing accelerated when he tore the sleeves free and fastened them over her eyes in a makeshift blindfold.

  I love how you look at me, Kitten, but right now, all I want you to do is feel.

  She shivered as he led her to the bed and removed her clothing with the same sensual leisure. Then, he doffed his trousers and tore off each leg before tying her wrists to the bed frame with the lengths of fabric. He would have preferred using silk on her lovely skin, but as he’d said, he was short on props.

  “Don’t fight them,” he said when she gave an experimental tug on the restraints. “They’re not strong enough to hold you. Relax, and let me work.”

  She smiled at that, but it was clear from how she jumped at every sound that she was disconcerted at being tied naked and blindfolded to a bed. Thus, Bones was quick as he collected a few items from the bathroom before he returned to her. Even still, he had to take a moment to admire her satiny skin contrasting like moonbeams against the dark blanket, and her lush body trembling in anticipation.

  He could barely keep from falling on her in a lustful rush, but he had a promise to fulfill, so before he released any of his control, she would lose all of hers.

  Bones slid onto the bed, touching her with light strokes that mimicked the feathers he would have used, if he’d had them. After that, he grazed her skin with his mouth, staying above her waist to heighten her anticipation, and only allowing himself the barest suction on each full, lovely breast.

  Her nipples hardened as if begging him to draw deeply on them. He didn’t comply until her breathing came in gasps and her scent richened with mounting desire. He teased her nipples with his fangs, grazing the peaks with increasing frequency, until her moans were edged with nervous excitement.

  Oh, yes, he thought, filling his fangs with venom. I’m going to do everything you think I am, and so much more…

  “I want to touch you,” she breathed out, straining against her ties.

  He didn’t move his mouth, but he grasped her wrists before she could pull herself free. “Later.”

  She drew in a breath to argue. That breath exploded out of her in a rapturous cry when Bones’s fangs pierced her nipple and his venom filled it. At the same time, her blood coated his tongue, hot and sweet. He groaned, swallowing it before closing the holes with a bead of his own blood. Then, he sucked on the taut peak, the pressure maximizing the effects of his bite.

  She cried out in sensual surprise that turned to shivering expectation as he switched to her other breast.

  “Your heart is thundering in my ears, but you won’t fret long,” he murmured. “I’m going to knock the fear right out of you, Kitten.”

  With that, his fangs sank into her other nipple. Another cry tore from her while the heat in her center practically scorched his thigh. He wanted to bury his mouth there next, but he forced himself to move higher, not lower. He’d have her burning from the inside out before he allowed himself to taste her.

  After Bones closed the new holes, he slid his mouth from her breast to her wrist. Once there, he only allowed himself a moment to savor the rapid beats from her pulse before he pierced the tender spot. Blood filled his mouth like liquid candy before he closed those holes, too, and moved to her other wrist.

  Cat pushed it against his mouth before his fangs even touched her skin, moaning with demand.

  He laughed, low and knowing. “That’s the juice from my fangs filling you with all that delicious heat. If you were human, I wouldn’t dare bite you more. Too much venom would drug you, but you’re not human, so I can do this…”

  Bones sank his fangs into her other wrist. Cat’s moan turned into an extended cry. Her whole body undulated when he squeezed both her wrists, pushing that venom even faster through her veins. A light sheen of sweat broke out over her, and she quivered as if riding a delicious high. Then, she pulled on her restraints trying to touch him.

  “Don’t move, luv,” he ordered, sliding down her body.

  A harsh sound of objection left her, but she stopped tugging on her restraints…until he squeezed both her nipples, shooting more of that intoxicating heat through her.

  Her whole body lifted from the bed. “More!”

  He pushed her back down with a low chuckle. “Oh, yes. Much more.”

  Her heartbeat increased when settled his head between her thighs. Desire made that soft pink flesh glisten, and primal hunger nearly demolished him. He needed to taste her until nothing else existed, but he couldn’t. Not yet.