"You should be a second," he said on a ragged breath, when she lifted her head. "If it's just you and I left to rebuild, youhave to know certain things."
"Carlos, the numbers-"
"I've got 'em." Ash fell from her unburned hand. He took her hand and kissed the center of it. "You never commit important things to paper. They can be discovered," he said. "His mother didn't have much to leave him after the government did their thing. Besides, I have an account number." He tapped his temple with one finger.
"He wouldn't want you to steal from-"
"What? Other drug dealers, Mafia, the government?" He dragged his fang along the edge of her shoulder and swept it up her throat. "Let me show you how it's done."
His arms encircled her, one palm flattening against her back, the other against the swell of her bu**ocks. The strike was so swift that it made colors dance beneath her lids. Knowledge, power, and desire filled her, arching her back, her nails digging into his shoulders.
Her cry fractured the night, and instinct clawed its way up and out of her. She bit him so hard they both stumbled backward. It was all building inside her, almost a painful, overwhelming tide. All she had to do was release her resistance and say yes.
"Be mine," he whispered. "Share my strength, fight with me, side by side as a mate."
Conflict tore at her. She couldn't answer him, nor could she pull away.
"Baby, all you have to do is stop fighting the inevitable."
A slow shudder started in the pit of her womb, and it climbed up her abdomen, ripped through her torso, and entered her lungs. He siphoned it up through her veins, into her throat until tears wet her eyes, the shudder becoming his name in her mind as the orgasm crested. "Yolando!"
His knees buckled and he caught her and took them both to the ground. She'd called him by name. The sound of her voice reverberated through him, a dark echo. He held her in a firm grip, her legs wrapped around him, his hand cupped beneath her head, keeping it from touching the ground. Her long, dark hair spilled across the grass and into a section of the white prayer line. Light danced along the strands of her hair, making it glow. Heat rose and warmed his face. But it wasn't comparable to the heat she'd stoked in him.
She began to cry. He could literally feel the depth of love that she had for the man who'd built her this sanctuary. It flowed through her veins, poisoned her tears with the agony of her decision. Her commitment was so deep for this human that he could almost feel it connected to her soul, actually giving her one of those, its pure essence oozing through her skin into his and coating him with a desire beyond raw lust that he'd never known.
The conflict broke through the steel cage of his conscience; as much as he wanted her at the moment, he didn't want her like this. Vampiric instinct compelled him to simply take her throat; willing or not, she had no defense. Everything vampire within him knew that the pleasure he could give her, even while she wept for the human, would be incomparable to anything she'd ever experienced before. But he also knew that she'd never forgive him... eternity was a long time. With Tara he could do forever, as long as she was his in her heart. Right now, she wasn't. She didn't want this to happen, even though her body did.
Yonnie forced himself up, bracing his weight on his arm as he stared down at her. He'd vowed that he'd never violate a woman against her will; he'd seen his own mother raped and destroyed by men as she tried to hold onto her dignity while her pride was stripped na**d on a plantation-barn floor.
"Has he been faithful to you?" Yonnie asked her, the frustration making his arm around Tara's waist tremble.Please, baby, I know what he's done to you. Carlos transferred everything in our line to me! Every tear you've cried, I know of, because you're in my line -we share the connection. Talk to me.
When she only sobbed harder, he pulled out of the intoxicating mind lock with her. She had to say it, tell him it was all right to love her like they both needed it now. The words had to come out of her own mouth. No illusions, no games, no trickery involved. He wanted her straight. Her heart his. No forgery to accept at this point. He kissed her temple. "While he's on the road, rolling with the band, moving country to country, has he ever taken another knowing he had you... an incredible, gorgeous woman waiting for him?" He kissed her throat, scored it, and drew his mouth away, pure fury lacerating him as she clutched her misplaced loyalty. "When he was in Brazil, didn't he take another woman to bed who looked like you?"
The desire to violate her and satisfy himself battled with his urge to just drop her on the grass and leave her. This human, the Guardian named Rider, didn't deserve her. How could a man simply walk away from a woman like this? "Why didn't you just turn him? Make him like you, so you could be with him forever, since you can't seem to leave him? I don't understand. Then you allow him to dog you... why? You don't have to exist like this."
His questions only made her cry a new torrent of tears. His voice was hoarse as he nuzzled her temple. "Baby, why do you allow him to do that to you? Hold his ass accountable," Yonnie said, his voice tender but firm. He kissed her temple hard, unable to draw himself away. "I'll take care of you, baby... I'll give you whatever you want, whatever you need. Just be with me."
"He's done so much for me," she whispered. "I can't leave Rider."
Yonnie dropped her and stood.
"Has he?" Yonnie stared at the cabin. "A house is the least you deserved. Has he sacrificed for you, the way you have for him?" He stared at her hard. She sat up, wiped her face, avoiding his gaze.
"But you sacrificed for him." Yonnie waited. "Too much, I think. Even human blood."
"That's different," she said, still not looking at him.
"How? He's even made you close yourself off from real pleasure. Has you living like a nun." Yonnie spat out the remnants of her blood on the ground and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "You've even accepted not cuming. He can't take a bite or deliver one to release you-and you died in your damned prime!" He rubbed his palms down his face, so thoroughly outraged at the concept that he could barely stabilize his breathing. "You're emotionally and physically starved," he said, his glare becoming tender as tears ran down her cheeks. "And you make excuses for him because he's human... yet, whenever the urge hits him, he can go for a drink, watch the girls dance the poles, jack off if he has to or take one of them to bed. And you choose to live like that?"
"He's human, and it's different-"
"How? In what way? Don't you have needs? Only his matters because of a cabin? When you met him, you saved his life as much as he saved yours. Fair exchange. Your debt was paid. What do you owe him now, Tara? You think you're not worthy of loving on your own merit alone? Ask yourself: Did he give up his friends, interacting with his own kind, screwing his own kind, anything that makes his life easier to live?"
When she didn't answer him he stared at her until their eyes met. "You gave up everything for him.Everything . After more than twenty years of existing like this, don't you deserve to do more than survive?"
She only swallowed hard and turned her face away from his. Humiliation and defeat caused her shoulders to hunch. Yonnie came to her, knelt, and touched her face. He wanted to claim her. Not as a trophy but as a part of him. He'd never experienced the kind of love she had for this Rider, and if she could ever give a fraction of that to him, his lonely existence would be worth it. Her struggle to remain faithful to a human who hadn't plundered him.
"I envy him," Yonnie whispered. "You tell that bastard that if he ever messes up, you've got someone waiting to give you the world. I can wait. I've got time on my side." Yonnie drew his hand away from her face. "Make sure you also tell him that the only thin thread standing between you and me is your decision, and the fact that my boy Carlos doesn't need dissention in his ranks while he's rebuilding right now."