Crave the Night (35 page)

She'd taken off her leather jacket, leaving
her in a black tank top and jeans. The clothing was practical, but
on this woman, it was so fucking sexy, Dak felt his self-command
slip.

Would she be passive in bed like the bland
bedroom or would Nicole be wild like her colorful living room?
Dak's money was on wild, and the desire to confirm it burned
through him. "Step back," he warned her, voice low. She didn't.
"Step back, because if you don't, we'll be mated in less than ten
minutes and I'll be pissed about that."

Her gaze jerked up to his and that's when
Dak realized she'd been staring at his erection. A feeling of
inevitability washed over him and tightened around his throat like
a noose.

He wasn't sure he cared. Not at the
moment.

Docile or wanton, Nicole would make him come
hard. Eying the distance to the bed, he decided he could get his
jeans unzipped before they reached it. It would be easier if she
were wearing a skirt, but Dak guessed less than a minute to get her
pants open and pushed down to her thighs. He could strip her naked
for round two.

Nicole's eyes widened and she took a giant
stride away from him. Wise woman.

"We should go sit down in the living room,"
she suggested and didn't waste any time getting away from him.

Dak watched her go. He needed a minute—maybe
more—to regain some calm. That had been close. Too close. As much
as he wanted to blame Nicole for his near-loss of control, he
couldn't. She was as helpless against the onslaught as he was,
maybe more so since she didn't understand exactly what was
happening.

If he'd been smart, he never would have come
here. Hell, if he had even one brain cell that wasn't overloaded
with desire, he'd walk out the door right now.

Since he remained stationary, Dak figured
his mind was toast. What a mess. He drove both hands into his hair
and tugged, but it didn't make his head start working any better.
Shit, hell, and damn. And the reason he'd agreed to come here to
begin with needed to be discussed. Nicole wanted explanations about
demon mates and he owed it to her. It wasn't as if he could drop a
bomb like that without having to deal with the fallout.

With a soundless growl, Dak returned to the
living room. Nicole stood next to the coffee table, and when she
sensed his presence, her chin came up. Her glare didn't intimidate
him, but it did cause the desire he'd barely contained to surge
again.

"What has you pissed off?" he asked. "The
fact I assumed you wouldn't tell me no if I took you down to the
bed? Given the way your thoughts have run since we met and the mate
connection, it's not arrogance."

The red in her eyes flared brighter. "Why do
you act as if being mated to me is a fate worse than death? It's
insulting."

For an instant, Dak could only
stare.
That's
what had her
furious? "You're taking offense and you don't even know what mating
entails. It's not only sexual exclusivity, it's a merging on all
levels. It means we'll be in each other's minds—sharing thoughts
and reading emotions will be effortless. Do you want me to have
that kind of tie with you? It's damn intimate and I'm not thrilled
with the idea of giving you that much of me."

She strode toward him, temper hot. He almost
didn't move, but at the last minute, self-preservation kicked in
and Dak backed up. Nicole stopped in her tracks. "That's why you
wouldn't let me close to you yesterday, this mate thing. But I
don't get it; what's the big deal about distance?"

At least her anger was gone. "Proximity
affects the bond. The more time we spend together, the stronger it
gets. The closer we are to each other physically, the more powerful
the lure becomes. If we have sex, the bond locks into place and
lasts until death. Thousands of years with no one else."

That reignited her temper. "And you want
others."

Shit, he was fucked on this question and it
was one for which he wasn't prepared. He'd expected her ask how it
could happen or deny such a thing existed. Dak should have
realized, though, that Nicole would feel the same possessiveness
toward him that he felt for her. Maybe she'd been raised human, but
she was a female demon with the instincts to match.

Sticking his hands into the pockets of his
leather jacket to keep from reaching for her, to keep from soothing
her ire with touches and kisses, he said, "I'm twenty-nine. Not two
hundred and twenty-nine, not two thousand and twenty-nine—only
twenty-nine. I'm not ready to be tied to anyone. A thousand years
from now, I'm sure I'd be thrilled to find you, but we're both too
young to be bonded to each other for life."

"You assume thousands of years, but I'm half
human. My life span is around eighty years. You'd be free in no
time."

He ignored her sarcasm and answered
seriously. "I don't care what you think you know about half demons,
it's wrong. Those who died at some normal human age? They're the
ones who never accessed their full powers. Believe me, if we mate,
you'll be connected to your magic."

Nicole smirked. "Right. I have sex with you
and I become damn near immortal."

His own temper began to burn. "I'm the one
trying to prevent us from becoming lovers. With next to no help
from you." That made her angrier yet which pissed Dak off even
more. "You keep wanting to touch me, to kiss me, to bite me. I know
it, Nicole. You can't lie to me. You pictured us doing it on the
loading dock last night and tonight it was against the side of a
building."

She went white.

"You don't like me reading your mind? Well,
good luck keeping me out once we're mated."

"How much can you see?" She sounded
appalled.

"Right now I'm mostly picking up thoughts
and emotions from you that are sexual in nature. It'll expand the
more time we spend together whether we're mated or not. Do you
understand now why I'm fighting to stay away?"

She shrugged, but her pallor suggested she
was beginning to get an inkling of the closeness of the
connection.

"Stand aside," he asked quietly, "and let me
have the vampire. I'll bring you her dead body if you need proof
I've killed her, but stay out of my way."

Nicole shook her head vehemently before he
finished speaking. "No, I made a vow—" She scowled. "I'm killing
the vampire. You stand aside."

"A vow to what? To who?" Dak asked,
but she only glared at him and he dropped it. "If I could walk away
and avoid seeing you, don't you think I'd already be gone? This
assignment came from my king and no one tells the demon
king,
sorry, I can't do
it.
"

"Then we have a problem, don't we?"

Oh, yeah, wild.
With an attitude like hers, Dak would bet everything he had
that she'd be fierce when they were in bed together. The image of
her riding him, head thrown back filled his mind and he forcibly
pushed it aside. "I'm better suited to killing her. You haven't
held your own against Mary Beth yet."

"Maybe not, but you can't find her without
me."

Dak scowled. The last thing he wanted to do
was admit the truth of that statement, and after tonight, he
wouldn't be able to follow Nicole covertly. He'd let her inside his
shield, and the instant he got within sensing range in the future,
she'd know he was there.

"Show me how to use my powers, Dak."

The entreaty on her face, in her voice,
nearly compelled him to say yes because it would make her happy. He
fought the urge. Instinct, the one that demanded he protect his
mate at all costs, rose to save him. If Nicole fought the vampire
even with demon powers, she would probably lose. Mary Beth was old
and no doubt battle tested from the vampire wars. Nicole would be
wielding talents she'd hardly learned to use.

"No."

Her anger hit him like a nuclear blast and
he cursed silently. Their bond had expanded already. He was doomed
unless he got out of here immediately and stayed away. Dak eyed the
door.

"I won't let you follow me to the vampire,"
Nicole said. There was no sign she was mad in her voice or on her
face, but he felt the emotion. "And if you can't find her, you
can't kill her."

"You can't kill her either."

"That doesn't mean I'm going to quit trying.
Mary Beth dies or I die, but I'm not walking away."

She was serious. Unable to stand still, Dak
strode around the living room. Nicole was demon to the core. Only a
demon developed that kind of obstinate obsessiveness. If she were
human, he could probably reason with her, make her see how
foolhardy the decision was. But a demon on a mission? Nothing would
change her mind.

That damn protectiveness which had saved him
earlier reared up, only this time it was like an anchor around his
waist, dragging him so far beneath the surface, he had no hope of
reaching air before he drowned. He fought against it anyway and
fought hard.

He lost.

Dak stopped pacing and turned to glare. Damn
her, he couldn't allow her to die. That meant sticking close to
ensure Mary Beth didn't kill her. It meant training Nicole in her
magic to give her a fighting chance if he went down, and to do
that, he'd have to spend a lot of time with her.

It was a foregone conclusion they'd wind up
chained to each other before they were finished.

His voice was choked, but then he was trying
to strangle back the words. They escaped anyway. "I'll teach you
how to be a demon. I just hope you don't regret our becoming mated
as much as I will."

Nicole balled her hands into fists and
took a stride toward Dak before she regained control. Why the hell
was she getting mad about his aversion to being mated? It wasn't as
if
she
wanted it either.
Demons were an enemy for crying out loud. And it wasn't as if he
were rejecting
her.
Not
really.

Even if it felt that way.

She quashed the irrational anger and focused
on what mattered. "We're adults. Just because we want each
other—mate thing or no mate thing—doesn't mean we have to give into
the need." Dak didn't say anything, but his expression was so
patronizing, Nicole felt her temper slip. "We can say no, damn
it."

"For a time." His tone matched his
expression.

When she realized she was grinding her
teeth, Nicole forced herself to unclench her jaw. "Why do you have
to be such an ass?"

"Why do you insist that human actions
and reactions apply to demons, too? We're not human and this
mate thing
is very real. The
repercussions are lifelong whether you're ready to accept that or
not."

A chill went through her, but she ignored
it. "The only thing that matters is learning how to use my powers
in order to kill the vampire. We can start my lessons now."

Resignation and frustration washed over her.
His emotions. Nicole shifted and tried to quell the uneasiness.
She'd always been a fairly empathic person, but this was more than
that. "Well?" she prompted when he didn't speak.

"We can run through the basics, but more
than that will have to wait."

Nicole's jaw went tight again. "I won't
allow you to stall." He muttered something she couldn't quite make
out and pivoted abruptly. She waited until he made a circle around
her living room. "There's no reason why you can't spend the rest of
the night teaching me, and since sunlight has no impact on demons,
we can keep going past dawn."

"Do you think a single lesson is going to
teach you enough to kill a vampire who's at least a thousand years
old?" Dak shook his head. "Even if that were possible, I can't do
it."

Her eyes narrowed. "Don't—"

Dak scowled fiercely enough to stop her
words. Not because he worried her—he didn't—but because she
suddenly found herself wondering if that was the expression he wore
when he came. She wanted to know. Nicole struggled to put aside the
image of him rocking between her legs and listen to what he was
saying.

"I told you I took a blast that left me
weakened. My powers are maybe a fraction of what they should be.
I'll need hours of sleep before they return to normal."

"You strengthened my wards," she argued and
hoped he didn't pick up on the breathlessness in her voice.

"That's not the same thing."

Did he expect her to buy that? "Sure it
is."

"It isn't. The draw is shallower." Maybe he
read her lack of comprehension because he sighed. Loudly. "I'll
show you what I'm talking about tomorrow when I've recovered. Once
you experience it for yourself, you'll understand what I'm saying."
He took a step toward the door.

Nicole glared. If he thought he was walking
away that easily, Dak could think again. Before she could stop him,
though, some strange energy raised the hair on her arms. His entire
body went rigid. "What the hell is that?" she asked in a
whisper.

"Get your coat."

She didn't argue. Nicole shrugged into her
leather jacket, checked to make sure her two knives were tucked in
their sheaths, and moved to Dak's side. They were going to run. He
hadn't sent that, but it was as if he'd allowed her to slide into
his head and share a few very limited thoughts. It only weirded her
out a little.

Dak took her hand, his warm fingers
linking with hers, and he tugged her to the front door.
Dak?

Mary Beth is nearby. She
fired the amulet; that's the energy you perceived.

Nicole hadn't picked up the vampire and she
should have. As Dak opened the door and wrapped his energy cloak
around her, she searched for Mary Beth, but came up empty. He was
supposed to be unable to sense the vampire. Was she really
there?