Lucas ran a hand through his hair and looked at Valerie for a long moment, intent on her face, then her hands as though he was looking for some tell-tale expression or gesture.
He nodded stiffly, and Rachel stepped around her and stalked to the other room, Lucas following her and closing the door behind them. The room felt huge now that he and Rachel were gone.
Jack walked to the chair in the corner and was about to sit down. “No, wait,” Val said. He turned to look at her, a blank look on his face, like he had already closed down. Like he was a dead man walking. She went up to him and hugged him, wrapping her arms around him, her head on his chest. Her throat burned with tears. This was a bad situation, and Jack was going to get himself killed if he wasn’t careful.
“
It will be alright,” she said. He was so familiar. His smell, his warmth. But not his body, or standing with him and being held. She had never hugged him enough to be familiar.
“
I’m sorry,” he said, voice rough. She pulled back to look at him but his palm came to the back of her head, holding her in place so she couldn’t see his face. “I didn’t listen to you.”
“
Why not?” She knew the answer, but she wondered if he did.
She could tell he was shaking his head, feel a slight tension in his shoulders. “I knew best. That’s how it’s always been.”
She tried to laugh but it sounded more like a huff. “You’ve always known best? No, you’ve always been the one with the most conviction. The hero complex. But this isn’t a question of who’s right or wrong. It’s a matter of survival. How important is living? To me…it’s
really
important. You might have picked up on that,” she said with a tremulous smile, trying to lighten the mood a little.
He was quiet for a long time. She knew what he
expected
—to die a la vampire. And what he thought he
deserved
—more a la vampire. But she didn’t really know what he wanted. If he even wanted anything. Maybe it wasn’t something he ever let himself think about. “I want to get you out of here. And I want to go back to when we were in Hawaii and you told me this would happen and I decided I could keep you safe.”
“
Keeping me safe is no longer your responsibility.”
His arms tightened around her, giving the hug a Boa Constricter vibe. What, he was going to squeeze her feelings for Lucas out of her? Her voice was muffled in his sweater. “You
were
right. What we want and what we get are two different things. I want a normal life and it’s not happening. I get that. It’s also pretty irrelevant since we might die here. But please, please try to get out of here with us. You can’t give Lucas the satisfaction of killing you. He’s ruthless.”
“
How can you say that to me and still go to him? He’s compelling you, Val, I know it,” Jack said.
“
I’m not compelled. That’s not how it works. Compulsion is only effective in small doses, and it has limits. I just have a thing for emotionally unavailable men,” she said, chuckling uncomfortably.
He let her go, and she stepped back, crossing her arms over her chest and moving back towards the fire.
“
I need you to survive this. I always understood you and why you did things and now…I have no idea what the hell is going on with you. Honestly, you’re either being a total jerk or you’re behaving recklessly, and I just don’t get it. It’s not like you.”
He gave her a smile that held nothing in it. Not vacuous, but desolate. Happiness had checked out long ago. “You don’t know me, Val….
I
don’t know me. But, you’re right. We have to get out of here. Just… promise me… promise me you won’t let him feed off you.”
Val wanted to lie to him. Just promise him she wouldn’t, and then do whatever she wanted. She could even make a case that lying was the best course of action, considering how trigger happy Jack was. But he already didn’t trust her. And truthfully, he needed to let her go. She wasn’t his responsibility anymore. He needed to find something else worth living for. She wondered what he was thinking and what he saw when he looked at her.
“
He’s not going to drink my blood,” Val confessed.
Hurray for the truth.
“
What do you want, Jack? Dad is gone. And I’m gone, too, right? Is that what this is about? I’m one step away from being a lost cause?”
“
No,” he said harshly. “You’re not. I’ll get you out of here. I’ll save you, I swear.”
“
Please, Jack. Please try to not give him a reason to kill you.”
“
He already has a reason to kill me.”
“
Okay. Well, try not to give him a reason to act on it.” She walked to the door and opened it. Rachel was leaning against the wall. She came forward and jerked her head back toward Lucas.
“
Boss man wants to talk to you,” Rachel said and slunk past her, closing the door behind her.
The storeroom was small, no more than a few steps to pace in either direction. Val stepped inside and took a breath, feeling bewildered and in shock. She was also sad and a little bit angry. That was how Jack always made her feel, it seemed like.
He’d been her friend, but she knew when that had ended. It had ended the night they almost had sex on a million dollars of Monopoly money.
Then they’d been lovers and that had been so brief and stressful that it seemed unreal. Like something she’d imagined that had never happened—déjà vu, maybe? And it shouldn’t have happened, because now things were worse.
If she could go back, would she undo it? Sure, it made her miserable now, but at least she could move on and wouldn’t spend her whole life pining after him. Now she could move on.
To the dead? Nice trade-up.
Lucas was leaning again the wall, arms crossed, ankles crossed, looking very relaxed, but then he stood, as if to ready himself for an attack. Valerie felt her heartbeat change, speed up a little. The confined space, his declaration that she was his priority, his rage and jealousy. …It
totally
turned her on.
He seemed closer, bigger, harder, in this small space. Desire flowed over her, like water in a dry creek bed, soaking up her will— welcome and wanted.
Compared to the snow and the frigid environment outside, he looked warm. The dark blond strands of his hair looked like the sun, the blue of his eyes like a warm sky. He was warm here in this freezing environment. When Lucas was cold, he was appealing, but Lucas warm? Warm she didn’t want to resist.
She could hear little echoes of his voice in her mind, the promise in his words to Jack and to her—no matter what he was getting
her
out. Everyone else might die. But not her.
Wasn’t that what she’d always wanted? To be chosen first? To see death as an option, something looming in the distance and creeping closer, and yet have someone love her enough to try to keep it at bay?
He was going to speak, but she really didn’t care what he was going to say. Thoughts of Jack, of the unknown danger they were in, of Rachel the Bitch, all of it disappeared at the sight of him. She saw him and could only remember his body over hers, the things they had done. Snd hanging over all of that was the glowing notion that he would protect her. No matter what. It was enough to make her breath stutter in her chest.
She threw herself at him, arms wrapping around his neck, her mouth seeking his hard lips. And they were
hard
. There was no softness, no humanity in them. He wasn’t pretending to be human for her. Not willing to make it easier. Like he was angry too. At what? Her wanting to talk to Jack? Jack shooting at him? Being here?
Her lips met his and she shivered at the contact. His arms went around her back, enclosing her in a huge hug that meant he bent his knees a little, hunched his body around hers slightly as though he would protect her from the elements, cover her, expose himself so that she might live.
Opening her mouth she touched her tongue to the seam of his lips. He groaned and kissed her back, kissing with abandon, plunging her tongue into his mouth with fervor, wanting to reach deep within his body, meld them together on a new level, not just fucking, or even making love but beyond that, something that would recognize that commitment— that he would harm for
her
, kill for
her
, even die, just for
her
. A little bit of Val was ashamed, too, wanting something so selfish. But a primal part of her thrilled at the notion.
Her hands went to his face, sliding down the cool hard planes to rest along his jaw then slid to the back of his head, tangling into his hair, loving the thickness and softness of it. He closed his eyes, brow slightly furrowed.
He moved her against the wall, pressing his body flush to hers, mouth to mouth, chest to chest. But then it didn’t work, he was too tall. So his hands went to her thighs and lifted her, picking her up so that her legs wrapped around his hips, holding her where he wanted. She could feel him— hard and ready. He adjusted her a little so that she settled on him like a blanket over a sleeping lover, the folds of her flesh surrounding him as best they could with all these clothes between them.
She blushed, aware of how he moved against her, mimicking sex, his breathing fast, kisses frenzied and then she felt a small sting on her lip. Lucas jerked back from her and his hands tugged lightly at her waist, indicating that he wanted to put her down. She tasted blood in her mouth.
“
I am so sorry.” His tone was odd, like a boy caught in a lie. She tried to keep him holding her, wrapping her arms a little tighter around his neck and her legs around his waist, wiggling closer.
“
I’m not sure if you sound sorry or not,” she said, watching his gaze flash back to her eyes, her lips, then away again.
Tempted
.
“
I feel like a fool. I did not mean to cut you. It should not have happened. I apologize.”
She wanted to laugh. “Isn’t it the sort of thing that happens all the time? Vampires have fangs. And they are pointy.”
He sighed and tugged at her waist again, still trying to put her down. She squeezed him, wrapped her arms and legs tighter, refusing to let go. He could obviously pull her off of him and she wondered if he would, heard the quick, shallow breaths he was taking as he decided what he was going to do with her.
She felt him give in, relax a little, tension easing from his shoulders as he wrapped his arms around her to keep her close.
“
You are very stubborn,” he said, his voice so low it vibrated through her.
“
It’s endearing. What does it matter if you cut me a little? You just said you were willing to drink my blood if we were stuck here.”
“
Actually, I said you could drink mine. I do not remember the last time I cut someone while kissing. It has been…” he paused, clearly trying to remember. “It does not signify.”
“
Embarrassing, huh?” she said teasingly, her head angling back to his, wanting to kiss him again. “Then how come it happened?”
He turned his head away and her kiss landed on his jaw. She opened her mouth on that section, could feel the raspiness of his beard on his jaw bone. She nibbled him lightly, swiping her tongue across his flesh in a wet stroke.
His voice was hard with desire and weak with longing, coming out thick and quiet, the words guttural, “Because I want you.” She thought that was all he had to say and that he’d summed it up succinctly. But then he continued, “more than anything. Because I lost control and had to taste you,” he said, his head descending to hers slowly. His nostrils flared as he was an inch away from her, as though breathing in the smell of her blood.
He kissed her again and her back hit the wall, breath leaving her in a whoosh as he surged inside. She was so hungry to have him fill her body, feel his cock sink into her while his fangs pierced her neck. She wanted him to be in her twice, have him taking and giving at both ends, knowing that he was connected to her more than anyone else could be. He’d drink, drink and she’d come, shattering again and again as he took her, came in her.
Her hands were on his shoulders, kneading his skin through his shirt and then lower, slipping under his shirt, touching his stomach, feeling each delineated muscle of his smooth flesh. She sank her fingers into his skin and he stilled-head tilted to the side as he listened intently.
“
What is it?” she gasped.
“
Jack is arguing with Rachel. He says I may hurt you.”
“
Oh, I’m hurting,” she murmured and he responded with an urgent press of his hips.
Lucas laughed and she looked around, startled, like the snow should melt and birds should sing at such a joyous sound. The sex was incredible, their chemistry explosive, but happiness…. He wasn’t capable of it and she’d spent her whole life trying to find it. Hearing him laugh made it seem like happiness was not just a fantasy but
here
.
“
There was a reason why I wanted to speak to you.”