Oh, no, you don’t, she thought grimly, determined to break his steely control.
Vash took his knowledge and skil , his ability to hold back ejaculating even while he climaxed, as a chal enge. He was too contained. Too reasoned. While she’d been damn near insensate with pleasure.
Setting her hands over his, she pinned them down with her weight.
Then, she took him. Not like the first time. Never again like that. This time, she chained him with desire, his and hers, and the delights of her body. She drove him hard and fast, giving him no quarter, forcing him to the precipice at a speed he couldn’t back away from.
“Vashti,” he gasped, then he cursed viciously. Swearing at her, tel ing her to slow down, hold on, give him a minute.
When he came this time, it was harder than before, his breath heaving from his lungs, his legs straining beneath hers as he shot hotly into her.
She felt him go off, relished his shout of her name. Feminine satisfaction pumped through her, kicking off her orgasm to catch the tail end of his.
His arms banded around her, crushing her tightly against him. They succumbed to their desire together.
As the sun rose over the desert sands, Elijah found himself greeting the new day in the best shape of his life. No mean feat, considering he’d been on his deathbed the day before. His wounds had healed without scarring, and his strength was back in spades. Whether that was due to the Sentinel blood pumping through him or the lingering charge from a night spent with a warm and passionate Vashti, he couldn’t say.
Fuck me until I can’t take any more.
Hel if Vashti hadn’t taken him at his word. He’d tried to hold back, tried to make it last. For her sake as wel as his. She’d been enjoying him so much, taking her pleasure with unabashed delight, instinct driving her into a primal state of animal need and desire where her body had silenced the doubts and anger in her mind… “Alpha.”
He looked over his shoulder at Raze, who wore black dress slacks and a gray silk shirt, the quiet elegance of his attire making him almost unrecognizable. Pivoting to catch the mini-duffel the vampire threw at him, Elijah asked, “What’s up?”
“Let’s go. You can change at the airport after we check in.”
Brows raised, he glanced at Syre’s office door. Vashti had disappeared behind it about twenty minutes before, leaving him to get the last few teams on the road while she updated the vampire leader about her personal plans to visit the Huntington post.
“Her orders.” Raze had the decency to refrain from gloating. “She put you with me last night.”
Ah. Now he knew what she’d wanted to talk to him about before desire distracted them, just as he knew she’d changed her mind and planned on heading out to Huntington with him instead.
Shaking his head, he adjusted his grip on the bag in his hand and grabbed his shades from the desk. Changed mind or not, they had a few things to work out. She needed to learn that making decisions and giving orders relating to him—relating to them—required both of them. “Let’s rol .”
They walked to the door abreast of each other.
The hel of it was, Elijah understood why she’d want the distance, and he understood that it was the information he’d dug up about Charron’s kil ers that had altered her plans. If she’d bothered to talk with him about it, he would’ve told her he didn’t care if she was attracted to him for info, sex, or access to the lycans—anything could serve as a foundation for a relationship between them, something he’d decided he had to pursue because he couldn’t keep his hands or his mind off her.
What troubled him was the hour or so they’d spent together after they’d sated their hunger for each other. An hour during which they’d gone over the composition of the teams. An hour during which she hadn’t said a goddamn word about shoving him off on someone else. He’d even asked her point blank what it was she had wanted to talk to him about and she’d evaded the question with a breezy reply.
As Salem had said, they had nothing if she wasn’t going to talk to him.
“Where are we headed?” he asked as they stepped outside.
“Seattle.”
With an earsplitting whistle, Elijah stopped two Jeeps that were pul ing out of the lot. He approached the first driver and asked for her team’s orders, then switched them with the team in the car behind them. He tossed Raze’s orders into the mix so that al three teams were reassigned.
Then he reminded the lycans that his cel phone number was programmed in their contact lists.
“Don’t hesitate to cal me,” he said to each team, “for anything. Even if you just want to talk, I’m here for you.”
As the two SUVs resumed their exit from the lot, Elijah glanced at his new partner. “Now we’re going to Shreveport.”
Which was apropos, since it was Nikki’s abduction from the city that had first brought him to Vash’s attention and vice versa. Micah had been mortal y wounded there, tortured by Vash in an effort to glean Elijah’s identity and location.
“You think she’l come looking for you,” the vamp surmised.
He tossed his duffel in the backseat of the Jeep Raze selected. No reply was necessary, so Elijah didn’t give one.