Hunter's Salvation (35 page)

Her breathing hitched. He felt her stiffen under him, felt her clench around him as she moved closer and closer to orgasm. “That's it, Jess,” he muttered against her mouth. “Come for me—let me feel it again.”

She climaxed with a gasp, and he captured that soft, broken sound with his lips, riding her through the orgasm until she stopped bucking and thrashing under him. Her hand stroked down his sides, stopping at where his jeans rested just below his hips. He gritted his teeth and pulled away. His cock ached and throbbed, and his body screamed at him to climb back on top of her, push inside her, and fuck her until he exploded.

He wasn't going to, though.

It took some doing to zip his jeans up over himself. He was hard, pulsing, and wet from her, and shoving his rigid flesh back inside his jeans was a little piece of hell. Jess lay on the bed, unmoving. She stared at him with dark, shuttered eyes, and he shifted until he could lie down and pull her against him. “I didn't come for that,” he said softly. “I don't expect you to believe me, but it's a fact.”

Her voice was remote as she responded, “Well, then why did you come?”

For the longest time, he wasn't sure how to answer. He knew what he
wanted
to say. But he didn't have the right to say it, and not just because he'd hurt her before. He'd meant what he'd said to Kelsey at the hospital. Even if Jess did think she was falling in love with him, it couldn't work.

He couldn't think of anything that could describe his sudden descent from witch to mortal man. But even if it hadn't happened and he was still a witch, he knew it wouldn't work.

He couldn't fit into her life here, and beyond that, he didn't know what the hell he was supposed to do with his own. He recalled what he'd said to her, and wondered if maybe those words were directed more at himself than at her.

Let me go,
Cora had said. Vax had meant it when he'd told her that he didn't know how. Guilt over his dead wife had been his companion for nearly a century.
Let me go. And tell her you love her.

It wasn't that easy. It couldn't be that easy.

“Did you know I was married?”

She tensed against him, and then she jerked back. She sat up and stared down at him, and then she rolled away, getting off the bed as though she couldn't move away from him fast enough.
“What?”
she demanded.

Slowly Vax sat up and climbed out of the bed. She was pissed. He didn't have to be an Empath to sense that. He might be a little dense, but he wasn't totally stupid, so instead of going after her, he just stood by the bed and repeated what he'd said.

Her reaction wasn't exactly what he'd been prepared for. She crossed the room and balled up her hand. He saw the punch coming, but not soon enough to evade it. His preternatural speed was gone, yet another thing he was going to have to adjust to. His head snapped with the force of her blow, and blood flooded his mouth. Gingerly, Vax probed the cut on the inside of his cheek with his tongue. “Feel better?”

“No, I don't, you son of a bitch.
You're fucking married?
”

Maybe he was totally stupid, Vax decided. The reason for her fury finally penetrated, and he couldn't help but smile a little.

“You think this is funny, you prick?” She swung at him again, but this time he evaded it. He caught her clenched fist and lifted it to his mouth, kissing the back of her hand.

“No. No, Jess, I don't think it's at all funny. Maybe I wasn't clear enough. I
was
married. A long time ago.” He let go of her hand and turned away, staring out the window. All the houses seemed to crowd in on him. Now that he was awake and aware, he could feel the presence of others. If he relaxed his shields even a little, the thoughts and dreams and emotions of all those sleeping people would crowd in on his mind. Losing his magick had weakened his shields. Vax didn't think he'd ever felt this exposed, this raw and open before.

Turning away from the window, he leaned back against the wall and looked at Jess. She was staring at him, still furious. Still enraged. So fucking beautiful, it made his heart hurt just looking at her. “She died before you were even born.”

Jess opened her mouth to say something. Then she closed it without saying a word. A thoughtful look crossed her face, and she whispered, “Fitzpatrick—he said you had a wife.”

“Yeah.” Vax had all but forgotten that.

“He also said you killed her,” Jess added. She turned away from him, her movements tense and jerky as she strode to the wardrobe across the room. As she opened it, she said, “How did she really die?”

“He wasn't lying, Jess. I killed her.”

At those flat, emotionless words, shock rippled through Jess. The jeans she had pulled out of the wardrobe fell from numb fingers, and she never even noticed. Slowly, she looked back at him and asked, “You're not serious…are you?”

Instead of answering her, Vax asked, “Did Kelsey tell you…tell you what's happened with me?”

Jess blew out a breath and stared at him. Okay, so was he going to answer her or not? Getting answers out of him was like pulling teeth. But instead of demanding he explain what the hell he'd meant when he said
I killed her,
she answered his question. “No, but I figured it out when you didn't Heal like you should. Somebody pumped you full of that poison, didn't they? You're human now.” She cocked her head, studying his face closely. Her ability to sense emotions was seriously limited, although she was getting better at reading him. But she couldn't decide one way or another how he felt about this new change in his life. “You okay with that?”

Vax snorted. It was the same derisive, cynical sound she'd heard from him on a regular basis. Amazing how sarcasm could be such an endearing quality. “Don't have much choice in the matter, do I? Would you believe it, though? Being normal was really all I ever wanted.”

“You wanted your wife. You loved her.” He didn't have to say it. She could tell. Jess wondered what had happened to her—he couldn't have killed her, though. Jess couldn't believe that.

“Yes.” He nodded, his eyes staring into nothingness.

Okay. Jess swallowed against the knot in her throat. His coming here didn't necessarily have to mean much of anything. He'd been a jerk on purpose. She was figuring that part out, and she was pretty sure she knew why he was here. He felt guilty for being an ass, and he wanted to smooth things over. Fine. She could let him. Jess wasn't going to pine away over a man who was still pining for his dead wife. But she wasn't going to let him take his sweet time getting this over with. She wanted it done and over and him out of here so that she could indulge in a good old-fashioned crying jag. Then she'd get to work on getting over him. It would be harder, though, now that she knew she hadn't been so totally wrong about him.

He wasn't the ass she'd been telling herself for the past day and a half that he was. He was a proud, arrogant,
good
man, one worth loving. An ass wouldn't have felt guilt. Vax did. Maybe he even cared about her. He just couldn't love her back.

“What happened with your wife, Vax?”

Gently, he repeated, “I killed her, Jess.” His eyes were carefully blank, but she sensed something inside him. Guilt. Pain. A weird sort of acceptance. “I was out Hunting. A vampire came. Kidnapped her. Changed her. Not everybody goes through the Change intact. Cora didn't.”

Oh, God. She licked her lips and moved a little closer. Okay, now things were making even more sense. She didn't like the way the puzzle was looking, either.

He glanced at her. That thick, raven black hair shrouded his features as he quickly looked back at the ground. “I'd never loved anybody the way I loved her. And I totally fucked that up, Jess.”

“How?”

He shrugged and started to pace the room. Even if his magick was gone, nothing had changed. There was something vital about him. It was as if he carried a light inside him, and when he was near her, she felt warmed from it. When he left, she'd go cold, and her world was going to be a lot darker.

“I didn't protect her. I couldn't save her. A feral vamp stole her from me, raped her, killed her, and turned her into a vamp, and she went mad. Went feral. She had killed people. And I knew she wouldn't stop until she died. She couldn't stop.” His voice was emotionless. But it just made the pain in his eyes that much more intense. “So I killed her. It took me two weeks to find her. When I did, she asked me to save her. Told me we could make everything fine. I kissed her. Then I shoved a knife in her heart.”

Jess moved closer, and he lifted his head to look at her. As their gazes met, a tear rolled down his face. “You saved her, then. You saved her the only way you could.” She reached up and laid a hand over his chest. “In here, part of you knows that. You just have to let it go. Forgive yourself.”

She pushed up on her toes and kissed him gently. “Stop feeling so guilty. Forgive yourself and let it go.” She went to turn away, but he caught hold of her shoulders. He bent his head, looking into her eyes. His hair fell around him, and Jess couldn't resist closing her hand around a fistful of it. She loved his hair, just fucking loved it.

“What about you?” he murmured. He slid his hands down her arms and then pulled her against him, locking his arms around her waist. “Can you forgive me?”

She could do that. A few minutes ago, hell no. Punching him had helped, even if she had hit him over the wrong thing. She forced herself to smile at him. “Yeah. I can do that. We'll chalk it up to you having a really rough day. Week.”
Life.
But she kept that last part to herself. She had a feeling that if he knew how much she hurt for him now, he wouldn't like it all.

She leaned in and kissed him. Slow and gentle, trying to commit to memory every last thing about him, the way he tasted, the way he felt against her, that warm, sexy scent of his. “Consider yourself forgiven. But it wasn't bad advice, pal. I need to get on with my life. And so do you.” She kissed him one last time, quick and light, and then she disengaged herself from his arms and stepped away.

“That's what I'm doing.” He came up behind her when she would have bent over to grab the jeans she'd dropped earlier. “That's why I'm here.” He brushed her hair aside. “You know, I really have no clue how to go about it. Nothing's the same anymore. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do.”

She stepped away from him again. Vax didn't like how easily she kept moving away. At least her eyes weren't glinting with anger and pain. But the shuttered look in them wasn't much better. She gave him a bright, easy smile—one that was completely false—as she said, “After all this time, you shouldn't have to do anything because you're supposed to. Go do what you want.” Her smile gentled a little. Looked a little more real. “Go on. You've earned it.”

“Earned it.” He laughed at that and shook his head. Then he reconsidered. Had he earned it? Vax didn't know. But maybe. Just maybe. He realized though, that he didn't want to go back to his old life. Not the one before he'd met Jess, and not the one before he'd lost Cora. Even if he could. Vax was done with that life, with both of those lives—and he was
glad
.

It was over for him. He'd told Jess to go find some sort of normal life, but he was going to find one, too. One that didn't involve reinventing himself every other decade. One that didn't involve his moving around nonstop so that people never saw him long enough to wonder why he didn't age. And he hoped it would be one that involved her.

“Come here,” he murmured. He reached out and caught her wrist, pulling her right up against his chest.

“Vax…” She pushed away from him, or tried to. This time he didn't let her. Something flashed in her eyes. Looked sort of like desperation.
Now why would you be so desperate to get away from me, baby?
he wondered. If she was still pissed, he could have attributed it to that, but she wasn't mad. What he sensed coming off her was pretty far from mad. It was chaotic and confused, and Vax wasn't sure he was ready to delve into that mess of emotion.

At least not until he was a little more sure. He spun them around and pinned her back against the wall.

“Damn it, Vax,” she swore, but there wasn't any fury in her voice. She acted like she was going to push him away, but her fingers dug into his shirt and tugged him closer. “What are you doing?”

He lowered his mouth and murmured against her lips, “I'm doing what I want. Exactly as you said. What I want is to kiss you. For the next few hours. Then I'm going to strip you naked and make love to you for the next day. Maybe the next two.”

“Vax, look, you said it yourself. I need to find a life. I can't…” She gasped for air, and then she moaned against his lips as he kissed her harder. When he stopped, she muttered, “I can't move past this until I let go of you. You were right. Maybe I did start fantasizing about something more, some stupid happily-ever-after. My mistake. Just…”