A Conquest Like No Other (3 page)

Witnessing yet another display of
the affection Charli had for Emily made Nikki’s thoughts move to her own mother
as she fulfilled her promise to Emily. No matter what the circumstances,
Nikki’s mother had ensured her daughter knew that she was loved every day. As
someone living with cystic fibrosis, Nikki’s mother never thought she would
have children. Nikki was a surprise and a miracle in her mother’s eyes and she
had never failed to tell her so, either. The disease stole her from Nikki when
she was at college, but she was thankful for every minute she had with her
mother.

Like her mother, Charli’s love
for Emily was a beautiful reminder of the unconditional love a mother and child
could share. It was something Nikki wanted to have one day with her own
children. If she allowed a man close to her. Again Viper’s stunning face popped
into her mind, causing her to drop her phone charger. What the hell had gotten
into her?

Stepping back into Emily’s room
with the chargers dangling between her fingers, she said, “Okay, young lady,
let me see that smile.”

Immediately, she was rewarded
with the brightest grin she had seen in days. Handing Charli the cords, Nikki
went about taking Emily’s vitals. For such an otherwise healthy and vibrant
young child, Emily’s seizures were a hiccup in her promising childhood.

Reaching toward the power point
above Emily’s bed, Charli explained, “I’m charging her iPad first so we can
return your cord to you before you head for home.”

“Actually, as soon as I do hand
over, I’ll be finishing. But that’s okay, I have another charger at home,”
Nikki replied. “Home is calling me right now.”

Charli smiled and was about to
say something, when a blank look appeared in her eyes. Nikki’s immediate
suspicion was that Charli hadn’t outgrown her seizures after all. Maybe they
had just become less severe and noticeable. As quickly as it disappeared, her
smile returned. Charli’s eyes met hers and she said, with a wink, “Yes, I can
understand your urgency to get home.”

She would have questioned
Charli’s meaning had Emily not gained her mother’s attention. Deciding she
would keep an extra eye on Charli, as well as her daughter, Nikki took herself
to the nurse’s station in preparation to pass her patients’ charts over to the
night shift.

Chapter
Three

Less than twenty minutes later,
Nikki grabbed her things from her locker, anticipation growing with every
second. Just a short lift ride down, and she would be out in the fresh air.
Even though her love for her job was still ever present, it would seem that
with every home time the urgency to leave had increased. Since being kidnapped
she had developed a love for the outdoors. It seemed to call to her, calming
her when she hadn’t even realized she needed calming. She could only put her
new affinity with open spaces down to being held in a putrid-smelling warehouse
while being threatened by monsters of the human kind.

The first breath she took when
she stepped outside of the hospital seemed to zing through her body, awakening
it as if she had just been asleep. She couldn’t explain it, but her mind had
likened it to that jolt she always felt when drinking whiskey. It was like a
hit of adrenaline, arousing every nerve ending. The farther away she moved from
the large grey building the more alive she felt.

When she reached her car, she
looked around, her eyes searching for something. Somewhere amongst the metal
maze she knew as the hospital car park sat a car, waiting. When trouble had
found Gabby, Devil had insisted they both remain under guard for their own
protection. Their work day had consisted of being driven to and from work by a
couple of guards who would park outside the hospital and wait for them to
finish their shifts. While the level of protection had been downgraded, Nikki was
still under guard.

As she slowly pulled out onto the
street, her tail made itself known. The black SUV maintained its distance,
leaving one car between themselves and her. Each day was the same, and each day
Nikki found herself snickering to herself. It wasn’t as if she was clueless to
their presence. Yet still they attempted to remain invisible to her.

As she neared her house, she
noticed a beast of a motorbike in her driveway. Then she saw him. There in all
his glory stood Viper, looking like every woman’s wet dream. She watched as he
looked toward the street. With a nod to the black SUV, his attention was
immediately turned back toward her. So caught up in her confusion at this man’s
presence at her house, Nikki almost missed her tail car driving off down the
street.

His presence had her pussy
responding. Fluid soaked her underwear. With every pulse of her inner walls,
her ire grew. She didn’t like the way her body reacted to the sight of this
man. She had sworn never to allow a man any power over her body again, and yet
here she was becoming hornier by the second as if the past hadn’t happened. It
did happen, and she had the scars to prove it.

Getting out of her car, she
fought the call of this gorgeous, tattooed man. His multicolored skin attempted
to hypnotize her, beckoning her to his side. Instead her feet remained planted
on the driveway, refusing to carry her anywhere near him. With her hands on her
hips, she demanded, “What are you doing here, Tatts?”

****

Viper would have laughed at
Nikki’s use of that name. He suspected she was using it to piss him off. He
knew he hadn’t reacted well to her noticing his skin markings. His only excuse
was that his head was stuck too far up his ass for him to appreciate the gift
he had been given. Now that he had come to his senses, he liked the idea of her
noticing anything about him. If he had his way, the name Tatts would be her
name for him, and her name alone. He would accept it from no one else.

Lifting the bag he was holding,
he responded to her question. “I brought you dinner, compliments of Gabby.”

Instantly her anger was
forgotten. She walked toward him, offering him a beaming smile. Her whole face
lit up, giving her a more youthful appearance. Her eyes shone with excitement.
With the sun setting behind her, he quickly realized the error in his original
assessment of her hair coloring. Brunette just didn’t seem adequate. The
falling sun behind her highlighted the gold streaks that infiltrated the brown.

Viper was once again in awe of
how beautiful she truly was. She had been on his mind since he’d left her on
her doorstep just over a week ago. Though not always in the light she deserved.
Even after his talk with his brothers, when he was alone, his mind still fought
the inevitable. It had taken another two trips down to the nightclub for his
whole being to accept that Nikki was it for him. No other woman would do.

Of course his nightly ventures
hadn’t gone unnoticed. Judge had taken some convincing to hand over the file on
Nikki’s attack. True to his words, it wasn’t a pretty read. So much so Viper
had spent the last two days confined to the private rooftop pool area, being
forced to contain and control his rage.

Judge insisted on handing it over
up there, in the presence of Devil and Chaos. Before finishing the first page,
Viper had come to understand his brothers’ actions. They were hovering over
him, waiting. They didn’t have long to wait. As he continued to read, both
Judge and Devil held him down with a hand on his shoulders, while Chaos had
enclosed them all within a magical bubble, trapping his rage.

A
fae’s
magic, while still coming from Mother Earth, revolved solely around emotions.
The more Viper felt, the stronger his magic became. His rage, according to
Chaos, was so strong that it would have demolished the building they were
standing upon. It had taken him two days to gain control over his power and
emotions. Two days he had little memory of. His thoughts at the time were
consumed completely by what he had read in that file. As well as the punishment
he wished to rain down upon Paul Watson.

Now he was standing on Nikki’s
front porch, with her remaining cautiously out of arm’s length. Responding to
the questioning look upon her face, he said, “I’m sorry, what?”

“Can I have my dinner?” She held
her hand out expectantly, though still maintained the supposed safe distance
from him.

“Aren’t you going to invite me
in?” He would have been pissed at her attempt to dismiss him, had he not seen
the desire in her aura.

“Why would I do that?”

“Because it’s only polite,” he
gently chastised. “I have traveled from the hotel to deliver you dinner. The
civilized thing to do would be to invite me in and share my offerings.”

A defeated look flitted across
her face before it was replaced by anger. “Fine, but don’t get any ideas. You
eat, then you leave.”

Covering the smirk he had no
other way of concealing by bowing slightly, he replied, “As you wish!”

As he walked around his mate’s
home for the first time, he took in the lounge room as they moved toward the
kitchen. The furniture, while mismatched, seemed to suit the room. Of what he
knew of both women, neither had much growing up in the way of material items.
But they had something that many children lacked in their lives—love. The
furniture spoke of their colorful and bright personalities, while holding what
he suspected were their most treasured possessions—photos of their childhood,
of two women he thought to be their mothers, and of two best friends taking on
the world together.

They ate in silence, though not
uncomfortable. With Nikki as his eating companion he could honestly admit that
it was the best meal he’d ever had. It helped that he often felt her attention
on him. Her gaze left a trail of goose bumps over his skin. The power she had
within her passing glance had him wondering about the effect her touch would
have. His cock pushed harder against the zipper of his trousers. It had him
wishing he had worn underwear for once.

“Um, can I ask you something?”
Nikki asked nervously as she pushed her empty plate to one side.

“You can ask anything of me,” he
replied honestly while trying to sound casual.

“What are you really doing here?”
she asked, looking down at her hands.

“Gabby has been worried about
you.”

“We talk on a nightly basis. She
knows I’m okay.”

“But she needed to make sure. And
since Devil refuses to let her leave the hotel at the moment, I thought I could
reassure her,” Viper offered, leaving out the fact that he too needed to ensure
her well-being.

“So you’re here to babysit me?”

“Far from it, Nikki. I thought
that since Gabby and Devil are now mates, this might be the perfect opportunity
to get to know one another,” he replied, again speaking only half the truth.
“You already know Judge, so I thought you might want to know a little about me
too.”

“So can I assume Chaos will be
delivering dinner to me next time?” she asked innocently. If only she knew what
her question was doing to him. The idea of any of his brothers feeding his mate
was unacceptable.

Forcing his anger to remain
hidden, he responded the best he could without lying. “No, he’s usually busy at
this time of night. He’s the chef in the hotel and rarely likes to hand over
control of his kitchen to anyone,” he said. “Maybe another time.”

Another time but only in my
presence,
he
added silently.

“So how often can I expect these
visits from you and Judge?” she asked, wriggling in her chair.

He wasn’t blind to the effect he
had on her. Her aura shone brighter than a ripe raspberry. It still didn’t
soothe his possessive nature at the thought of her entertaining Judge. Choosing
his words carefully, he ensured that his mate was to only expect him on the
nightly visits.

“Judge actually has something
happening at work,” he explained, expecting that to be the end of the
conversation. The questioning look he received from Nikki told him otherwise.
“You might not know, but he’s head of our security at the hotel and casino. It
would seem that a woman has managed to enter the casino, cheat at the tables,
and disappear with a couple of grand each time. And to make matters worse, she
had gone undetected several times before we became aware of what was happening.
Judge is annoyed, to say the least. He has taken it upon himself to catch the
culprit. Hence the reason he’s a little tied up at the moment. So you’re stuck
with me.”

“Oh,” Nikki said. While the sound
came out dismissively, her aura and face told another story.

Her body seemed to like the idea
of his visits, while her face spoke of her disappointment. He could understand
her reaction. It didn’t mean he had to like it, though. Again his hands itched
to squeeze the life out of that asshole Watson.

“I don’t feel right taking you
away from your work, Tatts.” Her eyes were pleading with him to take the out
she was offering.

If only she knew how difficult it
was going to be for him to walk away from her house tonight, and here she was
suggesting he limit his visits. He had no way of complying with her subtle
request, but he couldn’t tell her why. It was too soon to share the news that
they were mates. It would have her running a mile, or at least withdrawing
fully from him. And he had enough hurdles to conquer with her past and fear
without her putting distance between them.

“Nikki, let me assure you, there
is no disruption caused to my life with me being here,” he cajoled. “In fact, I
can’t think of anything I would rather do than spending the time getting to
know you. We’re family.”

A yawn escaped her, reminding
Viper that she was a human in need of sleep and had been working all day. It
signaled the end of their first night together. But he silently promised
himself and Nikki that there would be many other nights like this. Hopefully
soon, he would be going to bed with her, ensuring her safety and happiness, as
well as no longer denying what they were to each other. It was something that
was no longer in the hands of the gods or the fates but this goddess in front
of him.