He jerked her off the table and turned her in the same motion. Her skin felt flushed and damp, and she whimpered when he spread his hand over her lower back and slid it up, urging her down over the table. He tightened one hand on her hip and the other in her hair and plunged into her, biting back a cry at the way her body welcomed his, hot and eager and wet.
She gasped then groaned out a command. "Harder."
"No." Blake clenched his jaw and gentled his thrusts, slowing them until he barely moved at all. "Not this time, Ella. I'm in charge." His blood pounded through his veins, and he knew she could hear it. He wanted to lean forward, brace his arm next to her, invite her to bite into the veins he already knew would stand out in stark relief under his skin.
But that was madness. "You don't own me," he whispered, his voice raw. "Not anymore."
"Blake—" It was a tortured whisper this time, and she twisted her head to look over her shoulder at him, seeming unconcerned by the grip he had in her hair. Her dark eyes were almost black in the dim light of the hall. "Please. You're the only one who can get me off. Please—"
He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against her hair. Getting off was what their relationship meant to her, what it had always been about. She found him entertaining and she could control him and he could make her come, and he would never mean more than that.
It was a hard lesson. One he thought he'd already learned.
He slipped both arms around her and gave her what she wanted, a single, deep thrust. "You never got it, Ella." He panted. He did it again, stronger this time, speeding his movements until he pounded into her. The world went white as his hips snapped against her ass, and Blake ran a frantic hand down her body to rub her clit. "It's more than this. More than sex."
She screamed this time, threw back her head and cried out his name as he drove her brutally over the edge. She came hard, and the clenching heat around his cock felt even better than he'd remembered. His shout echoed hers and he bit her again, muffling the desperate groans he couldn't hold back.
His control shattered, his balls tightening as pleasure pulsed and then exploded through him like a grenade. The world was perfect, only the two of them in it, and Ella shook under him, pressing back into his erratic thrusts until he stilled. When the haze of animal lust and satisfaction cleared from his head, he loosened his hands, realizing too late he'd left bruises on her. He never meant to but he usually did, ugly marks that marred the creamy smoothness of her skin.
A familiar, sick feeling washed over him, driving away the euphoric warmth of afterglow. His cock slid out of her as he straightened. She didn't move, so he fixed his pants and then dragged her back up to sit on the table. "Look at me."
Her eyes drifted open. "Yeah?"
He steeled himself against the almost relaxed look on her face. Ella didn't relax, didn't let her guard down. She was untouchable. Stone.
It should have been harder for him to tilt his head, to expose his throat to her. "Drink."
"No." One slim hand pressed against his chest, pushed him back a step or two and forced him to remember her tiny body held a strength that matched his own. She slipped from the table and peeled the pants back up. "Not in the hallway. I have a room upstairs."
Panic surged in him for a split second before he tamped it down. He couldn't go to her room. He'd end up tangled in sheets that smelled like her hair. Tangled in her. "Fuck you, Ella. Do it here."
"No," she said again, and this time he could hear the edge under her voice. The fear. She struggled with the zipper of her pants for a moment, her usually deft fingers clumsy. "Please, Blake."
He'd never heard her say that word so many times in so short a time period. He gritted his teeth and nodded. "Fine. Fifteen minutes." With any luck, he could find a room, get some sleep, and head back home to New Mexico at first light.
Her relief was almost palpable as she led him around a corner to a service elevator. The metal doors were polished until they gleamed, giving him a clear reflection of her face as she slipped a slim card out of her back pocket and swiped it through a card reader above the panel. A green light flashed on, and she punched the top button, still silent as the elevator started a smooth, quiet ascent.
"Is this your place or something?" He stayed perfectly still behind her. "You seem to know your way around."
"I own it," she admitted after a quiet pause. "I own a couple places in town, now."
"Good for you." The words held no rancor, no bitterness, and it surprised him. "Really."
"Except now I'm in a bit of trouble." The elevator made a soft ding, and the doors slid open, revealing an almost spartan apartment completely at odds with the lush decorations downstairs.
Ella stepped through the doors and then turned, holding out her hand in invitation. "Welcome to my evil lair."
Blake arched an eyebrow at her and ignored her proffered hand as he walked into the apartment. "Where do you want to do this?"
The doors whispered shut. Ella took a breath and stayed where she was, her gaze on him. "You don't even want to know why?"
"You said you were in trouble, and that you needed it." He half-sat on a nearby table and ignored her vulnerable expression and the way it made his chest ache. "Did you lie?"
"No." She leaned down and unzipped her boots, and the fall of her hair shielded her face from him. "I'm backed into a corner. I have to challenge the City Head."
The words were vintage Ella. He'd stayed with her long enough to understand that vampires played power games like no one else. Their immortality gave them the time and patience for social plots of Machiavellian proportions. The politics of humans seemed simplistic in comparison, and they found the shifters laughable. Animals.
He also knew that men still dominated the schemes. For all their superior posturing, vampires weren't all that different from the other races. Just another boys' club, one into which Ella had insinuated herself. She didn't play by the rules, no matter whose they were. She'd been challenging and defeating men long before he met her, and she'd be doing it long after he was gone.
The knowledge had once depressed him. Now, it only amused him.
"No one has to go looking for dominance, Ella," he noted blandly. "Leaders have to defend, but challengers have a choice."
She paused in the act of pulling off her second boot, lifting her head to study him. Then she snorted and rose to her feet again, leaving her expensive boots crumpled by the door. Without the added inches she seemed even smaller, a delicate looking woman who could bend steel. "I've always found it odd," she admitted, crossing the room in a graceful prowl. "You know that the betas may challenge you. And yet you simply...wait. Wait for it to happen."
"What else am I supposed to do? Kill everyone who might pose a threat?" Blake scoffed. "I'll leave that to you vampires. It's no way to live, if you ask me." He studied her and tilted his head again, exposing the side of his neck. "This is cheating, you know. You deserve to be beaten."
She braced her hands on her hips, and the look she gave him could have flayed flesh from bone. "I'm cheating? At least I'm asking you." Her hand tangled in his shirt, yanked him down until his face was even with hers. "How do you think Raul has gotten so much power? He keeps people like you chained in his fucking basement for midnight snacks. And he's sent three assassins after me this month."
His heart thumped painfully. She was always her most beautiful when she was angry. "Doesn't make you any better. Just means you're both sorry bastards." He bared his neck again. "Now fucking drink so I can get the hell out of here."