Lover Revealed (Black Dagger Brotherhood #4) - J.R. Ward Page 0,44

his mouth on hers. When she gasped, he pulled back.

"Sorry-"

"No-I-I was just surprised," she said, eyes on his lips. "I want you to..."

"Okay." He tilted his head to the side and brushed her mouth. "Come closer to me."

With a tug on her arm, he eased her onto the bed, then pulled her over so she was lying on top of him. The weight of her was little more than warm air and he loved it, especially as he was surrounded by her blond hair.

Putting both hands to her face, he stared up at her.

As her lips parted in a gentle smile just for him, he saw the tips of her fangs. Oh, God, he had to get into her, had to penetrate her in some way, so he leaned up and led with his tongue. She moaned while he licked into her mouth and then they were kissing deep, his hands threading into her hair and cradling the back of her head.

He spread his legs and her body eased between them, increasing the pressure where he was hard and thick and hot.

From out of nowhere, a question shot into his mind, one he had no right to ask, one that tripped him up and had him losing his rhythm. He pulled back from her.

"Butch, what is it?"

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He stroked her mouth with his thumb, wondering if she'd had a man. In the nine months since he'd kissed her before, had she taken a lover? Maybe had more than one?

"Butch?"

"Nothing," he said, even as a fierce possessive streak clawed into his chest.

He took her mouth again, and now he kissed her with an ownership he had no right to, one hand shooting down to the small of her back, pressing her into his arousal. He felt this urgent need to stake a claim on her so that anything male would know whose woman she was. Which was nuts.

Abruptly she jerked back. As she sniffed the air, she seemed confused. "Do human males bond?"

"Ah... we get emotional, sure."

"No... bond." She buried her face in his neck, inhaled, then started to rub her nose against his skin.

He gripped her hips, wondering just how far things were going to go. He wasn't sure he had the strength for sex, even though he was totally erect. And he didn't want to presume anything. But Jesus God in heaven he wanted it from her.

"I love the way you smell, Butch."

"It's probably the soap I just used." As her fangs dragged up his neck, he groaned, "Oh, shit... don't... stop..."

Chapter Eleven

Vishous came into the clinic and headed straight back to the quarantine room. No one at the nursing station questioned his right to barge on through, and as he went down the hall, the medical staff tripped over their own feet to get out of his way.

Smart. He was heavily armed and edgy as hell.

The day had been a wasteland. He hadn't found anything in the Chronicles that approached what had been done to Butch. Nothing in the Oral Histories either. And worse, he was sensing things in the future, parts of people's destinies realigning, but he could see nothing of what his instincts told him was happening. It was like watching theater with the curtain down: Every once in a while he would see the velvet drape move as a body brushed the far side or he would hear indistinct voices or the lighting would shift under the tasseled hem. But he knew no particulars, his gray cells shooting blanks.

He strode past Havers's lab and went into the housekeeping closet. As he stepped through the concealed door, he found the anteroom empty, the computers and the monitors carrying on their sentry duties alone.

V stopped dead.

On the glowing screen closest to him, he saw Marissa lying on the bed on top of Butch. The cop's arms were Page 76

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around her, his bare knees split wide to accommodate her body as the two of them moved against each other in waves. V couldn't see their faces, but it was obvious their mouths were fused and their tongues wrapped.

V rubbed his jaw, dimly aware that under his weapons and his leathers, his skin had grown hot. God... damn...

Butch's palm was slowly sliding up Marissa's spine now, going under her profusion of blond hair, finding, caressing the back of her neck.

The guy was totally sexed up, but he was so gentle with her. So tender.

V thought of the sex he'd had the