used. "Go ahead. And don't worry about being gentle. Take me. The harder the better."
Marissa bared her fangs and bit him. The two sharp penetrations shot through the drug haze, and the sweet pain speared into his body. As he moaned, he thought that he'd never been grateful for his impotence before, but he was now. If his cock had worked at all, sure as hell he'd have pushed that gown out of the way, parted her legs, and had her nice and deep as she fed.
Almost immediately she pulled back and licked at her lips.
"I'm going to taste different from Wrath," he said, counting on the fact that because she'd fed from only one male, she wouldn't know exactly why his blood hit her tongue in an odd way. Actually, her inexperience had been the only reason he'd been able to help her. Any other female who'd been around a little would know too much. "Go on, take some more. You'll get used to it."
Her head dropped again and he felt the tingling sting of another bite.
He wrapped his heavy arms around her fragile back and hugged her close as he shut his eyes. It had been so long since he'd held anyone, and though he couldn't afford to let in much of the experience, he found it sublime.
As she sucked at his vein, he had the absurd impulse to cry.
O eased up on the truck's accelerator and glided past another high stone wall.
Page 202
J R Ward: Lover Awakened
Damn, the houses were huge on Thorne Avenue. Well, not that you could see the mansions from the street. He just assumed that with hedges and ramparts like these, there weren't a lot of split-levels and Cape Cods going on.
When this particular barricade split to allow for a driveway, he hit the brakes. To the left there was a little brass plaque that read, 27 THORNE AVENUE. He leaned forward, stretching for a look beyond, but with the drive and the wall disappearing into the darkness, he couldn't tell what was on the other side.
On a what-the-hell whim, he turned in and proceeded down the lane. A good hundred yards from the street there was a towering set of black gates, and he stopped, noting the cameras mounted on the top of them and the intercom system and the air of keep-out.
Well... this was interesting. The other address had been for shit, just an average house in an average neighborhood with humans in the living room watching TV. But whatever was behind a setup like this was big business.
Now he was curious.
Although infiltrating these barriers would require a coordinated strategy and some careful execution. And the last thing he needed was the inconvenience of tangling with the police just because he'd broken into some highflier's McMansion.
But why would that vampire have pulled this address out of his ass to save himself?
Then O saw something weird: a black ribbon tied to the gate. No, two of them, one on each side, waving in the wind.
Like they were for mourning?
Fixated by his own dread, he got out of the truck and crunched over the ice, heading for the ribbon on the right. It was mounted seven feet off the ground, so he had to stretch up his arm to finger it.
"Are you dead, wife?" he whispered. He dropped his hand and looked through the gates into the black night beyond.
He went back to the truck and reversed down the driveway.
He needed to get past that wall. Had to find someplace to dump the F-150.
Five minutes later he was cursing. Damn it. There was nowhere to park on Thorne that wasn't totally conspicuous. The street was nothing but walls, with barely any shoulder. Fucking rich people.
O hit the gas and looked left. Right. Maybe he could leave the truck down at the bottom of the hill and jog up from the main drag. It was a half mile at an incline, but he could cover the distance quickly enough. The streetlights he'd have to pass under were a bitch, of course, but it wasn't like anyone living on this road could see out from their ivory towers.
His cell phone went off and he answered it with a nasty, "What."
U's voice, which he was beginning to hate, was tense. "We've got a problem. Two lessen were arrested by the police."
Page 203
J R Ward: Lover Awakened
O squeezed his eyes shut. "What the hell did they do?"
"They were taking down a civilian vampire and an unmarked patrol