Lover Revealed

him.

Hesitant at first, she followed his example, running her grip up and down, marveling at how his satin skin slid over the stone core of him.

When he gritted his teeth, she stopped. 'Is this all right?'

'Yeah… damn…' His chin tilted back, the veins in his neck popping. 'More.'

She put her other hand on him, stacking her palms, moving them together. His mouth fell wide open, his eyes rolling back in his head, a sheen of sweat breaking out over his body.

'How does this feel, Butch?'

'I'm so close already.' He clamped his jaws together and breathed through teeth that were locked light. But then he grabbed her hands, stilling them. 'Wait! Not yet…'

His erection pulsed, kicking in their grips. A crystal drop appeared at the tip.

He took in a ragged breath. 'Hold me out. Make me work for it, Marissa. The longer you burn me, the better the end will be.'

Using his gasps and the spasms of his muscles as a guide, she learned the peaks and valleys of his erotic response, figured out when he was getting close and just how to suspend him at the tip of the sexual blade.

God, there was power in sex, and right now she had it all. He was defenseless, exposed… just as she'd been the night before. She loved this.

'Please… baby…' She loved that hoarse breathlessness. Loved the straining cords in his neck. Loved the command she had as she held him in her hand.

Which made her think. She let go and attended to his sack, sliding her hand under the weight of it, cupping him. With a curse, he knotted the sheets up in fists until his knuckles went white.

She kept going at him until he was twitchy and covered with sweat and shaking. Then she bent down and pressed her mouth to his. He gobbled her up, grabbing her neck and holding her against his lips, mumbling, kissing, thrusting with his tongue.

'Now?' she said in the midst of the kiss. 'Now.'

Taking him in hand, she moved her palm faster and faster, until his face contorted into a beautiful mask of agony and his body grew tight as a cable.

'Marissa …' With no coordination, he grabbed the hospital gown and pulled it over his hips, shielding him from her eyes. Then she felt him jerk and shudder and something warm and thick came out of him in pulses, covering her hand. She knew instinctively not to lose her rhythm until it was over.

When his eyes finally opened, they were fuzzy. Satiated. Full of a worshiping warmth.

'I don't want to let go of you,' she said.

'Then don't. Ever.'

He was softening in her palm, a retreat from the hard staff he'd been. Kissing him, she took her hand out from under the hospital johnny and looked down, curious as to what had come out of him.

'I didn't know it would be black,' she murmured with a little smile.

Horror flooded his face. 'Oh, Christ!'

Havers walked down the hallway to the quarantine room. On the way, he checked on the little female he'd operated on days before. She was healing well, but he worried about sending her and her mother back out into the world. That hellren was violent and there was a good chance they would be back in the clinic again. But what could he do? He couldn't let them stay here indefinitely. He needed the bed.

He kept going, passing his laboratory, waving at a nurse who was processing various samples. When he got to the housekeeping door, he hesitated.

He hated that Marissa was locked up with that human.

But the important thing was she hadn't been contaminated. According to the physical they'd done on her early yesterday, she was just fine, so her lapse in judgment evidently wasn't going to cost her her life.

And as for the human, he was going home. His last blood sample had been very close to normal and he was getting stronger at an astonishing rate, so it was time to get him the hell away from Marissa. Havers had already called the Brotherhood and told them to come get the man.

Butch O'Neal was dangerous, and not just because of the contamination issue. That human wanted Marissa—it was in his eyes. And that was unacceptable.

Havers shook his head, thinking that he'd tried to keep them apart back in the fall. At first, he'd assumed Marissa was going to drain the human and that would have been fine. But when it became obvious that she was pining for him in her illness, Havers had had to step in.

God, he'd hoped she'd find a true mate at some point, but certainly not an inferior, roughneck human. She needed someone worthy, though it was unlikely that would happen anytime soon, given the glymera's opinion of her.

But maybe… well, he was aware of how Rehvenge watched her. Maybe that would work. Rehv was from very good bloodlines on both sides. He was a little… hard, perhaps, but he was appropriate in the eyes of society.

Perhaps that pairing should be encouraged? After all, she was untouched, as clean as the day she was birthed. And Rehvenge had money, lots of it, though no one knew how or why. Even more important, he was unswayed by the glymera's opinions.

Yes, Havers thought. That would be a good pairing. The best she could hope for.

He pushed open the closet door, feeling a little better. That human was on the way out of the clinic, and no one had to know the two of them had been locked in together for days. His staff was blessedly discreet.

God, he could only imagine what the glymera would do to her if they knew she'd been in close contact with a human male. Marissa's tattered reputation just couldn't withstand any more controversy, and frankly, Havers couldn't take it either. He was utterly exhausted by her social failures.

He loved her, but he was at the end of his rope.

Marissa had no idea why Butch was dragging her into the bathroom at a dead run.

'Butch! What are you doing?'

He cranked on the sink, forced her hands under the water, and grabbed for a bar of soap. As he washed her off, the panic in his face stretched his eyes and flattened his mouth.

'What the hell is going on here!'

Marissa and Butch both wheeled around to the doorway. Havers was standing in it without benefit of a hazmat suit—more furious than she'd ever seen him.

'Havers—'

Her brother cut her off by lunging forward and yanking her out of the bathroom.

'Stop it—ouch! Havers, that hurts!'

What happened next was too fast for her to track.

Havers was suddenly just… gone. One minute he was pulling at her and she was fighting against him, and the next Butch had him flattened facefirst against the wall.

Butch's voice was a nasty drawl. 'I don't care if you're her brother. You don't handle her like that. Ever.' He pushed his forearm into the back of Havers's neck to emphasize the point.

'Butch, let him—'

'We clear?' Butch growled over her words. When her brother gasped and nodded, Butch released him, walked over to the bed, and calmly wrapped a sheet around his hips. As if he hadn't just manhandled a vampire.

Meanwhile, Havers stumbled and caught himself on the edge of the bed, his eyes crazed as he rearranged his glasses and glared at her. 'I want you to leave this room. Now.'

'No.'

Havers's jaw went slack. 'I beg your pardon?'

'I'm staying with Butch.'

'You most certainly are not!'

In the Old Language, she said, 'If he would have me, I would stand at his side as his shellan.'

Havers looked as if she'd slapped him: shocked and disgusted. 'And I would forbid you. Have you