Dark Solace (36 page)

“How long can we sit here before they kick us
out?” Lash said with a yawn, closing his eyes and relishing the
heat.

“Probably another hour,” I answered. “If you
keep eating more food, anyway.”

“Not a problem,” Lash said, quickly getting
up and heading to the buffet.

* * * *

As we walked out to his truck, he nudged me
with his shoulder. “Thanks for inviting me,” Lash said happily.
“Basking felt really good, Sar.”

He opened the truck and got in, as I got in
on the passenger side.

“I know how much you like the sun,” I said,
shutting the door softly.

“I like you more,” Lash said hungrily,
sliding me over against him on the seat.

I leaned against him the whole way, breathing
in his scent. Too soon, we were pulling into the driveway.

“Drive over by the barn,” I said suddenly.
“Park behind the woodshed.”

Lash gave me a curious look, but did as I
asked.

I turned to him. “Do you have something we
could sit on in the truck bed?”

“Sar, we can’t have sex,” Lash hissed,
shifting in his seat. “I gave my word.”

“I’m not asking you for that. I just thought
we could cuddle a little, maybe kiss and touch,” I tempted him.
“I’d ask you to come inside my house, but Theo would smell your
scent. We can’t go to Hayden. My barn is too cold, and a hotel
seems too tawdry just for cuddling—”

Lash gave me an incredulous look. “Sar, I may
be snake, but I’m not cold enough to resist you if you get me
worked up—”

“I am not going to seduce you,” I said
firmly.

“Yes, you are,” Lash groaned, moving
uncomfortably in his seat. “I’m already hard for you just talking
about touching you, and I haven’t kissed you at all. Kissing you
and touching you will just make it worse.”

“We don’t have to do it, then,” I said
dismissively. “Just drop me off.”

“Stay here,” Lash hissed. He got out of the
truck and slammed the door, then began rummaging in the back of the
truck. A few seconds later, he was boosting me into the back, and
then he crawled up behind me. “How’s this?”

Lash had laid down a foldable foam mattress
pad, and put a few blankets over it.

“Fine. I—”

He pressed me back with his body, kissing
fiercely as his hips ground into me. I kissed him back, running my
hands up under his shirt to caress his warm skin.

Before a minute was up, I was dying for the
contact of our naked bodies. When he reached up under my shirt,
sliding my bra up so he could cup my breasts in his hands, I arched
my back with a cry and reached down, stroking him with my hand
through his jeans. Lash rolled quickly onto his back and pulled me
on top of him. Grabbing hold of my hand, he pressed it hard against
his straining jeans. “Touch me, Sar,” Lash panted. “Don’t do
anything more, just touch me with your hand, please—”

I grabbed the closure with shaking fingers
and unzipped his pants, reaching inside. Lash convulsed the moment
my fingers touched his swollen flesh. As I curled my fingers around
him and brought him out, he quickly unbuttoned his jeans and slid
them down. I stroked him, rubbing my thumb across the head, loving
the feel of his penis so hot and firm. Lash began to thrust hard
into my hand almost immediately. Within seconds, he came with a
sharp cry, spilling semen onto my hand and the blanket we were
lying on. Lash jerked in my arms as he finished. Tenderly, I held
him, brushing his lips with my own.

“I’m sorry,” Lash sighed.

I gave him an odd look. “What for?”

“Because this isn’t fair to you. I can’t give
you any release without making love to you, or being inside you in
some way. We can’t do either of those. Goddamn it, I shouldn’t have
asked—”

“Hush,” I said firmly, squeezing his erection
in my hand. Lash went rigid, letting out a hiss. “Come for me
again,” I teased. “But this time inside me.”

“We can’t,” Lash groaned, his organ instantly
stiffening in my hand. “I gave my word. I won’t break it even for
you, Sar—”

“Devlin gave me permission,” I tempted. “He’s
still hurt, Lash. He said it was okay for us to be together.”

Lash groaned loudly.

“Be with me. I want you.”

Lash rolled on top of me, kissing me
frantically as he began pulling off my jeans. He threw them aside,
then bore down with his hips...

“Sar!” Lash said loudly, jolting me out of my
fantasy.

I flushed red, realizing we were at my house,
and I couldn’t even remember the trip home, any of it. Lash was on
his side of the truck, where he was supposed to be, fully clothed.
God, could I be a bigger idiot? What had Carol just been telling
me! What in hell was wrong with my self-control?

“You okay?” Lash said curiously.

Not to mention that there was no way in the
world that an inflatable mattress would fit in the back of an
Avalanche truck. The bed was too small and Lash’s truck had no cap,
so we’d have been making love out in the open for everyone to see,
freezing our asses off in the process. Now if we had driven into
the barn, put the mattress up in the loft, and gotten under some
blankets there, maybe...

“What were you thinking about?” Lash pressed
insistently. “You are blushing like I caught you masturbating.”

I flushed deeper, making Lash erupt in
laughter. “I’ve got to go.”

Lash moved fast to block me, grabbing hold of
my arm. “What were you thinking about?” he hissed again, his
shifting eyes agitated.

“About you,” I admitted, sagging back onto
the seat.

“About us together?”

I nodded.

“Sit here with me a while,” he said, settling
his arm around me. He let out a sigh, then asked, “Are you happy?
Is this what you wanted from your life?”

Unexpected introspection to be coming from
him. My eyes looked up to meet his dark intense ones. Was that
sadness? “Lash, what do you mean—”

“Don’t play dumb. It doesn’t suit you,” he
said bluntly. “I know what you are going through now with Theo is
my fault. It’s not so much about you almost dying for him; it’s
about the sex we had. The other stuff has been going on for months.
Sure, it might be a source of fighting, but Theo and you weren’t
going to break up over it. This is serious, like back last fall
when Danial and you were together, and Theo couldn’t handle it. He
can’t handle what we did. In fact he’s probably more upset over you
and me than he ever was about you and Danial.”

How did he know about that? Devlin must have
told him. I bit my lip.

“Are you sorry you saved me?” Lash continued.
“That you said yes?”

I reached out and grabbed his face. “Never,”
I said forcefully. “And don’t ever think that I am. If I had it to
do over, I would still have gone to find you, knowing what would
happen when I did. I may not be happy, Lash, but none of that is
your fault. You gave me a choice, remember? And I’m doing what I
can right now to see my way clear of this mess I’m in with
Theo.”

Lash took my hand off his face, and held it
in his callused one. “I’m not sorry, either.” He squeezed tightly.
“I know Devlin offered you the option of including me, if you agree
to his terms. I know you are going to give him another Oath, and
that you’ll do it soon, at the latest by the end of the year.”

Oh shit. I went still.

“Don’t do it unless you can handle what he’ll
ask of you,” Lash said sternly. “Dev is sure you’ll agree to
whatever he asks, so long as he tells you we can be together, but I
don’t want to be with you at the expense of you being unhappy. I
know Dev. With him, nothing is ever free.”

Technically, Dev temporarily had already
given permission, but to speak up about that would not be in my
best interests. “Do you know what he’s planning to ask?”

“No,” Lash answered, uneasy. “I’d guess that
he’d want me to give you times when you were just with him, maybe
for me to not sleep with you in his bed at all, maybe for me not be
with you without him there, participating. But it might be
something worse, Sar, so just be careful. Don’t do it because you
know how much I want to be with you, out of some sense of pity or
something—”

I had to alleviate the tension of the moment.
“If I did it out of affection for you, would that be okay?” I said
lightly.

Lash lunged, pushing me to the truck seat
beneath him as he bared his fangs, hissing. I went still beneath
him, fear making my stomach churn. A drop of saliva fell from his
left fang onto my cheek. I recoiled, shivering. “You don’t joke
about this, Sarelle,” he hissed angrily. “Now say you understand
what I said, that you won’t do it unless you are okay with his
terms. Before you agree to anything, you ask him to list out those
terms for you, all of them! Got it?”

I nodded, trembling.

“Say it!” he hissed angrily.

I repeated his words back to him, my tone
uneven.

My sudden fear enraged him further. “I care
about you!” he hissed. “Don’t sell yourself for me, Sar. You sold
yourself to Dev back in January for the lives of Danial and Theo,
and you saw how well that worked! Don’t do it again unless it’s
what you really want!”

“All right,” I whispered. “Please let me
up.”

Lash leaned in closer, his grasp tightening.
“Serena told me yesterday I could come to her, that I was welcome
in her bed. I could see by her eyes she didn’t want me, that she
was still afraid of me! You put her up to it, Sar! Listen to me and
listen well, because I am only going to tell you this once: don’t
interfere in my sex life ever again! I don’t need your help to get
laid!”

“I won’t,” I said, struggling beneath him.
“Now let me go.”

Lash brushed my neck with his fang tips,
stopping my struggles instantly. “Just one thing more, Sar. My
appointment tonight is with a woman I know by the name of Gina.
She’ll take care of my needs for me from now on. She’s very
skilled. It’s been too long for me already without any sex, and I’m
aching for the release of a woman’s touch. And she is all
woman.”

My stomach really roiled then, imagining him
with another woman, loving someone else. Hurt flooded me, then
jealousy.

Lash moved off me abruptly. “Get out of my
truck,” he hissed. “Before I say something I’ll regret later.”

I hustled out of the truck, slammed the door,
and darted for the house. If I could only get inside the house I’d
be okay. I needed to not see him, to not think about what he was
going to do with her, about how it was making me feel...

The door of the truck opened behind me. Lash
reached me in a few strides, then spun me around to face him. “For
a woman who says she cares for me, you seem awfully upset to think
I might get some relief,” he hissed, his dark eyes flashing. “Where
do you get off being hurt and trying to make me feel guilty? Dev
told me we could be together late last night. All today I waited
for you to say something. You never said a word about it, not even
in the truck just now, when I gave you the opportunity to come
clean! You were happy to let me think you wanted me as much as I
wanted you, because you didn’t have the guts to tell me you just
didn’t want me anymore!”

“I still want you,” I whispered, afraid of
him and of how much I longed to touch him. “But I can’t be with
you! We can’t—”

“Sure you can,” Lash hissed eagerly, each
guttural word exploding with desire. “I’ll make it easy for you.”
He kissed me deeply, molding his body to mine.

God, he felt so good... “Stop, please,” I
said, breaking away from him.

“No,” Lash hissed, his grip on me tightening.
“I tried to be respectful of your decision to be with Theo because
I thought you deserved a choice. But Dev was right and I was wrong.
You need a little force, for someone else to take control from you.
Your body’s giving away your lie.” He kissed me again forcefully,
backing me up towards his truck as his hands roamed my body. “I can
smell your wanting—”

“Stop it!” I shouted. I tried to push him
away. Lash easily grabbed my hands in his and held them out at my
sides, bracing me against his truck. Kicking my legs apart, he
ground his pelvis up into mine lightly, letting out eager hisses,
his forked tongue stroking my neck.

My heart raced, the sensation of his erection
teasing. Quickly, the rising heat became undeniable, making me go
limp in his grasp. And the lust for him was all my own. God, he
felt so good. He would feel even better inside me...

“You’ve got me hard as rock for you,” Lash
hissed, lust heavy in his tone. “And it feels so good to you,
doesn’t it? You know how much better I can make it for you, Sar.
Just say the word, and I’ll take you to the nearest hotel. I’ll
make love to you, I’ll go down on you, whatever you want, for as
long as you want. You can have all of me, everything I have,
everything I can give you. And whenever you’re ready for more, all
you ever have to do is ask—”

I shivered eagerly in his grasp, images of my
fantasy instantly replaying. I wanted to tell him yes...

“I won’t ever leave you less than
satisfied.”

I blinked at him, uncomprehending.
“What?”

Lash pulled back from me, breathing hard.
“Dev’s not taking care of business,” he hissed, smirking knowingly.
“None of your boys are. You smell so strongly of your lust it’s
coming off you like waves, you’re needing to be fucked so bad!” He
grasped my hips, letting out a groan as he leaned into me. “When I
get done with you, you’ll be singing a different tune, if you’ve
still got any voice left that is—”

I went from shock to instant rage, my eyes
narrowing in fury. “Let me go, you son of a bitch! We’re done
here.”

Lash drew back, his face a mask of rage.
“Forget the hotel! How about I fuck you right here, against the
truck?” he hissed sarcastically. “You wanted me to that night in
the Everglades, just like you want me to now. Maybe we’ll even have
an audience, if I’m hearing things right—”