He covered her shaking mouth with his, and when he felt the soft curve of her lips move in response to his, it felt so damn good, just as he had remembered it, just as he had always known it would.
No, it didn’t feel just as he remembered — it felt better. It felt like a vital, necessary part of his life had come back to him. Ravenously he parted her lips with his tongue and conquered the private recesses of her luscious mouth.
And she kissed him back.
Her active, eager involvement, the sensation of her tongue colliding with his, set fire to all of his nerve endings. After having been so parched for so many years, he drowned himself in her.
She gripped him at the back of his head with both hands while she wrapped those long, slender legs around his waist, and in response, he growled low in his throat while his cock swelled to stiff attention, pushing at the restraints of his jeans.
He needed to lay her down on the floor, spread her legs and feast on her tender, private flesh again. He needed to hear her breath catch and sigh, while she stroked her fingers through his short hair. He needed to bury himself so deeply inside of her, he never truly came back out. He…
As he framed her face with both hands, he felt something wet slide over his calloused fingers. The sensation jolted his eyes open. She was leaking tears, and the muscles in her arms and legs trembled.
It brought him back to his senses. While he might be a bastard, and his soul might be incomplete, he wasn’t completely heartless. He wrapped his arms around her again until he was simply hugging her, and rocked her in a gentle, soothing movement.
“It’s all right now,” he repeated. “Melly, I promise you, everything is going to be all right.”
“I can believe you now.” Pulling back slightly, she wiped at her eyes with the back of her hands.
After having gone so long without holding her, he was reluctant to let her go even that much, but fresh sounds came from the direction of the gate as the ferals began to return, reminding him of the challenges they had yet to face.
“You need to eat the rest of that sandwich,” he told her. “And I need to clear out the feral infestation so we can get the fuck out of here.”
Her expression calmed into resolve as she listened to him, and she nodded. “Before you do, you need to take more blood.”
Immediately, he said, “Absolutely not. You’re in no condition for me to take any more from you.”
“That’s not true.” When he started to argue, she put her hand over his mouth. “Listen to me. You have to. You were hurt so badly, you weren’t healing, and yet still, you barely took enough blood to close up your wounds. Not only are there too many ferals, but we really don’t know when Justine is going to come back, and she’s every bit as old as you are. You might be the Nightkind King with all the Power you’ve gained from taking blood oaths, but she hasn’t been injured like you have.” She searched his gaze. “It’s not like you can safely feed from the other Vampyres, is it?”
Closing his fingers over her slender wrist, he removed her hand. “No. They’re feral because they’ve had too much drug-contaminated blood. I can’t risk it.”
She shrugged. “There you go. You need to do it for both our sakes, because I’m counting on you to help me get out of here.”
His mouth tightened, but her logic was inescapable, so after a moment, he nodded. “Fine, I’ll take more blood — but only a little, and only after you’ve eaten.”
“Okay.” Not meeting his gaze any longer, she pulled off his lap to explore the contents of the grocery bag.
Only then did he remember that he was supposed to hate her. It was a little late in the day to be recalling something as essential as that. Rolling to his feet, he rubbed his face and regarded her thoughtfully.
He thought about saying something dismissive about the kiss, but he couldn’t help but note how studiously she avoided meeting his eyes.
All right, then. Message received. It looked like they were going to pretend it never happened.
Confused, he scowled at her. He didn’t know if he felt relieved or not. The aggressive, predatory part of him wanted to push for any advantage he could get, but his hands were still damp from her tears.
He clenched them into fists. Then he went to complete the job she’d started on demolishing the frame of her cot.
Within a few moments, he had snapped off two of the remaining three legs to use as stakes. He paused to look around. Aside from the cot and the blanket, there was virtually nothing else in the bleak cell. She really had pulled off a couple of miracles, with very little to work with.
There was a fresh scar on the rock at the back wall, and he strode over to investigate the spot. It was where the bullet from Anthony’s gun had struck. Julian rubbed the area with the ball of his thumb. She was so damn lucky the asshole had chosen to give her a warning and not shoot her outright, and doubly lucky that she hadn’t been hit by the ricochet.
Turning away, he picked up the blanket and the thin mattress. After tearing a strip of cloth from the edge of the blanket, he rolled the bedding into a tight bundle and tied it with the strip.
Now it was Melly’s turn to ask him, “What are you doing?”
He glanced at her. “We have no idea how big this tunnel system is, or how complicated it might be. We also have no idea where we are in it, so we don’t know how long it’s going to take for us to find our way out. If we need to take a break and rest, it’ll be a lot more comfortable to do it on a mat than on bare stone.”
Her shoulders sagged. “I hadn’t thought of that. When I first broke out of my cell, the tunnel system seemed pretty big.”
“I’m not surprised.” He walked back into the cell where he’d been chained. “If this is anything like the other tunnel system, some of it is natural, but Justine’s definitely added to it over the years. This area and these cells are man-made.”
“I hate her so much.” She popped the last of the sandwich in her mouth and peeled a banana. “I’m not used to hating somebody that passionately. I hope I get to see her turn to dust.”
The drawn, tight look to her features had eased, and a healthy flush of color banished the paleness from her golden skin. Squatting beside her, he opened the bag to look inside. There were more bottles of water, chocolate bars, a bag of granola mix, some single-portion packages of cheese, a couple more sandwiches wrapped in the distinctive paper of a well-known deli in San Francisco, another banana and a few apples.
“Look at that,” he said. “He really brought you good food.”
She said bitterly, “I guess this was supposed to be my reward for doing whatever he wanted.”
Julian met her gaze. Letting go of the bag, he stroked her hair off her face and pressed his lips to her forehead.
“I have such extreme, conflicting urges,” he murmured. “I still need to tear him limb from limb, but at the same, I also wish you could have gotten the chance to stake him twice. Because damn, Melly, now that I know you’re all right and my heart isn’t going to explode out of my chest, I can tell you, it was a mighty fine thing to witness what you did.”
Leaning against him, she sniffed. “I done good, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you did.” He laid his cheek on top of her head, and they rested together like that for a few minutes, without words of anger or pain spoiling the air between them.
There was, however, plenty of sexual tension. He would have to be truly dead not to notice the way her soft, plump breast felt as it pressed against his bare chest, or the way her fingers curled around his bicep as he stroked her hair.
But it was a tension he held under strong control. Not that long ago, she had been in tears, and he still had a pack of ferals to kill.