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V could see them on his peripheral as clear as if he were staring openly at their goodbye embrace and kiss, sequestered though they were in the foyer. He could anticipate Butch’s arms loosen their hold on his shellan, and indeed, he felt the big male turn from her and towards where he was seated at Command Central. He kept his gaze locked to his computers, but minimized Minesweeper. He’d been gaining on a personal win record until exactly three minutes ago.
“Alright, my two wives, Daddy’s goin’ huntin’.” The cop laughed at his own joke and V stilled himself from throwing the cordless mouse at the male. He turned in time to see Marissa frown at Butch. He raised an eyebrow, that was interesting. Did she not want their roommate teased or did she not like the joke.
“Want me to drop you at Safe Place? I’ll tell Z we need to make a small detour.” Butch reached out a hand and ran a thick fingertip across the exquisite cheekbone of the female.
V shuddered his lids closed.
“Um, no, darling. Thank you.” She leaned forward and said softly, “I need to do a few things here first and then I’ll be on my way.”
Butch mocked a hand to his chest. “Refusing the Escalade? Suit yourself.” He turned again to Vishous. “Alright then, my man, sorry you won’t be pounding the pavement or the lessers tonight. Again. Careful or you’ll become a bonafide computer nerd. So not your style.”
V just nodded, his gaze locked to one of the three monitors in front of him. “Get your ass gone, cop. Your inane prattle bores the shit outta me.”
Butch laughed. “Eloquent and profane. You gotta love that in a Male.”
He was gone and only the sound of the door slamming lightly behind him allowed V to exhale.
Butch’s shellan moved slowly through tasks that Vishous was certain were unnecessary. From the bedroom to the dining room table where her handbag sat open, back to the bedroom, a quick duck into the bathroom, back to the handbag, snapping it shut, opening it again, slipping the long strap onto her shoulder then off. He saw all this while feigning concentration on one of the computer monitors. He had given up entirely on Minesweeper, his focus was shot. Finally, after the third setting back down of the Gucci, he snapped.
“Marissa.” His voice was smooth, but the edges sharp. He pushed back from the bank of computers, stood and walked into the dining room, watching as her elegant fingers played with the leather strap of the bag, now back on her shoulder. “What is it?”
She turned to him, more quickly than he anticipated and he stepped back from the expression on her face, unable to read her, reaching out with his mind and feeling a feminine tangling of confusion mixed with a kind of soul certainty. What was this?
“Vishous.”
He waited, completely at a loss. Tentatively, “yes?”
“I, well, I would speak with you.”
More silence. “About?”
She exhaled, closing her eyes and V felt his world tilt a small bit. He was perplexed and perplexed just wasn’t something he ever was. “Marissa?” he asked softly. “Is there something that I can help you with because if not, I’ve got to tell you straight out, I’m not sure where this conversation is headed. Or why we’re even having it. Whatever it is.”
The silence stretched between them so tangible a thing it was almost a third participant in their stilted non-conversation. V opened his mouth to say something but wasn’t even close to knowing what that something was going to turn out to be when she rapid-fired him.
“I know. Vishous, I know. And I want to tell you that I know and that...”
“Whoa, female. Slow down.”
She was shaking, pulling at the strap of her handbag, she pushed it off her shoulder and the bag dropped to the floor.
“Here, sit down.” V reached behind her, brushing her arm with his own and he heard her inhale sharply, then he grabbed at one of the chairs and pulled it out for her. She sat. He pulled out another chair and sat directly in front of her. The gapping between their knees a dangerous distance. He scooted his chair back a foot. He began to lean over to retrieve her purse for her, but realized he was leaning into her lap and he sat up quickly. “What do you know, Marissa? What is it you think you know?”
“I know about you. And I know about Butch.”
V felt his heart slow, still, and then begin jackhammering wildly in its rib cage. He nodded, breathing in, then out, in, then out. What in the name of the Scribe Virgin was she suggesting she knew? “I’m not following you. I mean, I’m not getting where you’re...What are you saying? What do you know because I don’t know much of anything anymore.” His hands were broad and warm on both of his thighs.
She looked at him for what seemed like forever, then she reached up to her own mouth, one slender finger extended, and she slipped the tip of it between her lips. He watched this, feeling a familiar ache in the long roots of his fangs. Her eyes went half-mast and she swirled her fingertip inside her mouth, then the pink tip of her tongue slipped between her finger and her upper lip and as her fangs elongated she pulled out, pad side up, and caught her own flesh on the razor fangtip, blood welling like tears. He sat mesmerized, felt himself holding his breath as she leaned towards him, her knees suddenly touching his, her hand moving towards his face. He willed his eyes to stay open, holding her gaze as she pressed the blooded fingertip against his lips, tracing the heavy bow of the top one, then pushed into his mouth, her own saliva and blood a delicious tonic on the width of his parched tongue. His eyes rolled involuntarily in the sockets and with sudden flared nostrils he breathed in hard and caught her knuckle between his teeth, growling low in the back of his throat.
Butch sprawled on his back, black satin sheets bunching beneath the sheer bulk of him, flesh gleaming with sweat, and he on his knees, tense on his haunches, poised between the male’s spread thighs. Looking down, seeing his own broad, long-fingered hands pressing the cop’s knees open, sliding down the length of thigh to the delicious juncture of erection and tight scrotum, up over the hip bones, pressing firmly on the rock-hard abs as he leaned forward, into the male. With a sudden, violent movement filled with need and intense longing, he scooped Butch up hard behind the cop’s broad shoulders and slammed his body up against his own. Heaving forward, finding this other male’s mouth with his own, hungry beyond sanity, tongue laving across lips, his teeth, fangs, down into the concave of the flaring collarbone where he reared back then hit his male hard with an open-mouthed bite, bruising his own lips, sucking bruises into the freckled flesh. Mine.
His eyes snapped open and his hand came up quickly to grab at the female’s wrist. He pulled her finger from his mouth, running her hand down to his neck where he felt her fingers brush his jugular. He stood quickly, iron grip locked around her thin wrist, pulling her up and out of her chair. As he rose to his full height, she came between his knees, falling against his chest and still he held fast. His free arm moved around her, flat palming her lower back, then moving back out to the narrow flare of her hip, holding her hips hard away from his own.
“What are you playing at, female?” He was surprised to hear the tremor in his voice and swallowed hard.
“I know. That’s all. I know,” she whispered, her breath hot through his silk button-down, right above his five-chambered heart.
V lowered his head, breathing in her distinct ocean scent and the bonding smell of Butch. With a start he realized that the spicy smell was not setting off warning bells in his head but instead was calming him and filling him with a sense of protection and responsibility, physical, emotional and mental watchdogging. He breathed it in deeper, filling his lungs. He would have to examine this closer, perhaps do some research; surely this must be unprecedented. He suddenly let go of her wrist and in a quick and decisive move pulled her into a brotherly embrace before stepping back out of her sphere, finding her hands and lowering his gaze to hers.
She was trembling. “And I wanted to tell you, it is alright. I understand.”
“Marissa.” His voice was controlled now, a potent elixir. He watched as her eyes closed slowly and she nodded, her thin shoulders shaking beneath the opulent fabric of her gown. “There is nothing to “know” and what you think you “know” is something that even I don’t understand. And what you just,” his breath shook out of him, “fed me, well, I don’t know where you got that or what that was exactly...” He was at a loss, completely. Emotions were moving through him slowly but deliberately and although he wanted to take the time to feel and savour and understand each one, he reached out instead towards her, towards his best friend’s mate, with his formidable mind, searching for feelings of warmth and friendship, a platonic friendship and when he found them, stretching between them, he latched on hard. With all his acuity he pushed the feelings towards her, into her mind and watched as she visibly relaxed, her wrists going lax in his palms, her face beautifully smooth and composed. He released her hands, bent down for the bag and handed it to her. “I’m going to call Fritz for the car and get you to work. Is that alright with you?”
She nodded.
He disappeared into the kitchen, made the call, then poured a large tumbler of Grey Goose and sipped it, looking over the rim, through the doorway and into the other room where she was still standing in the exact spot and posture he’d left her in. With a quick toss, he downed the rest of the drink, grimacing through the burn and set the glass down, the crystal singing out.
“Here, I’ll walk you out.” He walked through the rooms and opened the front door. Outside the car was just pulling up.
She moved past him, the elegant downturn of her shoulder, the perfect posture, the long and glorious mane of hair. She paused in the doorway. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry if I took a step that should not have been taken, said something,” she whispered, “did something, that should have remained unsaid, undone....”
“Marissa. Believe me when I tell you this, it’s okay. Please don’t feel that way.” He paused. “Butch loves you completely.”
“It’s not about that, though, is it, Vishous?” She turned and looked at him, her gaze unwavering. “Good-bye, nallum. Until the dawn.”
He was still standing in the foyer long after she was gone.
Why was Marissa envisioning her mate...to be his mate? V leaned over to the bedside table and grabbed another hand-rolled, lit it, up on one elbow, before falling back again onto his bed, one thick forearm over his eyes. Why couldn’t he just have a vision of well, what Butch envisioned....not that Marissa’s envisioning was....bad. Nope, not at all. He leaned over again, stubbed out the smoke, then rolled onto his stomach and closed his eyes, replaying the scene Marissa had fed him over and over and over until he was sated with it. And still, he was hungry.