Infernal: Bite The Bullet (10 page)

“And who is Dante?” I probed at a bleeding patch
and he hissed, batting me away.

“An old friend.”

Right. Most friends went out for drinks. “A
friend? So what, you decided to carve each other up for old times’ sake? We
need to get you to a hospital.” From what I’d seen, he needed to be
professionally tended, and I’d only caught a glimpse of what lay beneath his
shirt.

“No hospitals,” he said roughly, twitching away
from my hands again. “He wasn’t trying to have me killed. They let me go with just
a reminder.”

“A reminder of what?” I wrapped my fingers in a
shred of his shirt to hold him still.

He glared at me, but didn’t move. “That I belong
to him.”

“Belong? Like a slave?”

He sucked in a breath as I peeled back the fabric
of his shirt. Crusting blood had made it stick to his skin in spots.

“Oh my God.” I wished I hadn’t pushed him into
letting me see, because the damaged they’d done made my gorge rise. Carved in
his abs was that same symbol I’d seen on all the victims in those photographs.
An obscene, blood-drawn corruption of a symbol of peace. My mind flashed to
those pictures of my brother, and if I’d had anything in my stomach, I would
have lost it.

Focus, Neva. This man is not your brother.

Black bruising spread over his skin in blotches,
worse than I’d imagined, ink-blot stains on his ribs and stomach that churned
up my worry.

Judging by the grazes on his knuckles, he hadn’t
let them do this to him willingly. He’d taken a hell of a beating. I wondered
how many men it would have taken to subdue a body like his. I eased more fabric
away from his skin and discovered other scars, ones I hadn’t noticed before:
puckered circles that looked like they might be long-healed gunshot wounds.
God. His body was a map of violence, and it only got worse when I got a closer
look at the fresh lacerations.

They’d used a box-cutter or a razor blade to
mutilate him. The wounds were shallow but oozing, and I ghosted my fingers over
the mark they’d engraved across his stomach.

“What does this mean?” I asked quietly. He didn’t
move, just sat, breathing shallowly while I inspected him.

“The broken cross is Gilles’ calling card.”
Konstantyn twitched when I accidentally touched the curve of the cross, and I
whipped my hand back.

“Gilles de Rais? From those photos? Who is
Gilles?”

“Not who. What. A secret occult society, led by
Dante.”

“Charming. I bet there’s a waiting list out the
door to join that little fraternity.”

He almost smiled.

“Does it hurt?”

He shrugged.

“Take off your shirt.”

He smirked a little at that.

I rolled my eyes and held my hand out until he
peeled the shirt carefully over his head and gave it to me.

“Satisfied?” he asked.

Oh yeah.

Wait, no. He was hurt, and I was not perving.

“Better give me your pants too. They’re ruined.
You go walking the streets looking like a deranged butcher, you’ll just get
picked up again. I’ll put them in the washer-dryer, they’ll be clean and dry in
a couple of hours.”

“I should go now,” he said, eyeing the door like
he wasn’t sure why he’d let me drag him inside in the first place.

“This is non-negotiable,” I replied. “I called
Dalton on you. The least I can do is help you get cleaned up.” Besides, having
seen those photographs, and now the same symbol on him, and this new
information about the society, I knew I was on the verge of discovering who’d
killed Daniel. Whether I liked where it was going, or not.

He nodded and held my eyes as he unbelted, popped
the buttons and slid the combats down his hips.

Aww crap.
Trust him to be going Commando.
It took every ounce of my self-restraint not to stare, but I still got a good
eyeful of what I’d been ogling at the club. He was even more impressive in the
flesh.

I was mortified, he was cool as a breeze. Cheeks
blazing, I averted my eyes and tossed a cushion in the direction of his groin.
He caught it and covered himself with a low laugh. I got a faceful of his pants
in return.

Scowling, I bundled up his clothes. “You lie down.
I have a first aid kit, let me go get it, okay?” I waited until he obeyed.

Eventually, he sprawled out with a bitten-off
curse.

Leaving him there on the couch, and hoping he
didn’t die before I returned, I shoved his clothes into the washing machine.
They smelled good, in spite of the blood. I peered back out into the living
room to check he was still breathing, and then went to the bathroom.

Braced on the sink, I took a moment to look at my
shocked face in the mirror and wondered what the hell I was getting myself
into. I couldn’t just turn the man out on the street. I’d been responsible for
him getting taken into custody. Splashing some water on my face, I wiped off on
a towel and opened the mirrored cabinet. I retrieved the red first-aid box and
some aspirin, and filled a glass of water from the sink, before heading back
out to the man on my couch.

He looked up at my approach.

Good. Not dead.

“Here, take these,” I said, offering the pills and
the water.

“Thank you.” He tossed them back and swallowed a
mouthful, his face scrunching in disgust. “Got anything stronger than water?”

I thought about it, and went to fetch the
half-drunk bottle of Baileys from the refrigerator. It was all I had.

He stared at it curiously as he took it and I
cocked my hip against the arm of the couch. Konstantyn necked the bottle as
though it was water and he was parched, and then sprayed the liquid, cursing in
revulsion. “Poison! God. What the hell is this sugary filth?”

“It’s alcohol.” I smirked.

His face was a picture. Clearly it wasn’t the kind
of alcohol he’d wanted.

He looked at me in disbelief and I snorted, taking
up the first-aid box and coming around to stand in front of him. I patted his
arm. “It’s all I’ve got, so suck it up.”

Surly, he drank it like it was cod liver oil, and
lay back on the couch to let me clean up his wounds. As I stroked the iodine
soaked cotton over the ridges of his abs, I caught him staring at me with those
green-flecked eyes. My hand shook and I concentrated on my task, pretending it
wasn’t getting hard for me to breathe. Catching the drips that escaped down his
flank, the whole thing was oddly intimate. Him bleeding, and me tending. When I
had to dip lower, he moved the cushion enough to give me access, revealing the
delicious definition of his muscles, his hip-bones, the dark arrow of his happy
trail. He truly was a glorious specimen of manhood. My eyes lingered, and I got
the impression he was concealing an erection. Or maybe that was just wishful
thinking.

I’d never make a nurse with my inappropriate
thoughts.

In my attempt at renewed diligence, I swabbed at
his lacerations a little too roughly. His thigh flexed and the cushion fell off
to one side, and as it turned out, my thoughts were spot on, though my
imagination had seriously underestimated his size.

I swallowed, and heard him clear his throat in
something that sounded more like a growl. No way I could look him in the eyes
now, not after thinking, not after seeing…
Shit
. Dragging the swab of
antiseptic lower, I tried to focus on the wound that carved across his hipbone.
He’s injured
, I told myself.
He’s injured, he’s... hard as steel and
smooth as velvet, and you just touched him.

Konstantyn’s breath caught in his throat and my
eyes snapped up to his, the apology dying on my lips as my body caught fire
from the flames flickering in his dark gaze. His hand reached out so slowly, I
swore the world had stopped turning. Strong fingers unfurled mine from their
reflexive clutch around the cotton swab. He guided my fingertips back to where
they’d brushed, and I moaned.

The thick base of his erection was hot on my skin
and I flushed like I’d been infused with his heat, desire quickly overriding
concern as he dragged my hand up under the cushion.
Crap.

His eyes positively glowed, his chest heaved, and
when his cock kicked beneath my fingertips, he didn’t need to guide me anymore.
I palmed him, the cushion knocked away as my hand curled his rigid length in a
firm base to tip stroke.

Konstantyn groaned and the sound snapped through
to a part of me – the logical part – that had shut down.

God, what was I doing?

What was he letting me do?

My hand froze as my lust battled with my conscience,
and then I couldn’t think at all as his firm lips slanted over mine in a rough
crush that ceased all brain function and fluttered my fingers around the pulse
of his arousal. The sound that came out of me was embarrassing, a whimper of
surprise melting into his kiss as my mouth opened for him and I gave myself
over to the heat coiling between my thighs and urging him on.

Oh hell
.

I shouldn’t have urged him on, I shouldn’t, but he
tasted like Bailey’s and raw man and he silenced the world when he kissed me.
No fear bombarded me, no worrying about my next move, no fearing the worst, no
doubting myself. There was just Konstantyn, and the way his mouth took mine,
letting me sink into him. Despite the turmoil in my head, my hand stroked up
his length as his tongue curled around mine.

He jumped, like he’d forgotten I’d even touched
him, and when I did it again, the growl he rewarded me with went straight
between my thighs.

How long had it been since I’d kissed someone like
this?

Months, maybe.

I couldn’t even remember, and that meant it had
either been more than months, or it hadn’t been memorable. With the way
Konstantyn danced, that wouldn’t be the case if I let him get any closer.

His hand wound in my hair, strong fingers weaving
at my nape and pulling me in. I whimpered that stupid sound again, the helpless
one that said I couldn’t pull away. He had me desperate, the tension I’d felt
when we’d danced blasting back with his touch and overflowing into a passion
that clawed at me. He made my mind blank and my body roar and I was going with
the heat building up inside me as my lips trailed along the stubborn angle of
his jaw.

“Neva...”

That accent was unfair, rumbling down to the space
between my legs that was wet and tingling for him. Why did he have to say my
name like that? My hand pumped him tighter, twisting over the blunt crown of
his cock, and my lips mapped muscles I’d wanted to taste since I’d first laid
eyes on him. Cutting open-mouthed kisses across his collarbone, the cool metal
of the bullet around his neck touched my lips as I trailed lower.

He fisted my hair and arched into my hand, and I
was on a track of desire that couldn’t be derailed. When my tongue ran the line
of muscle along his hip, he cursed something I didn’t understand and bucked up.

It was too much temptation, too much of a release
from the thoughts that had been spinning continually since my brother’s murder.
I probably couldn’t have talked myself out of it if I’d tried. My mouth
replaced my hand in a slick kiss. Bracing my palm on his rigid, muscled thigh,
my lips parted around the head of his cock. I suckled, he groaned. My tongue
flicked around the sensitive ridge, and he hissed. His abs flexed and his hips
curled up as I took him into the hot wetness of my suctioning mouth.

“Fuck, Neva...”

The way he said my name spurred me through my
madness, pulled me back to lick along his length. My tongue coiled around his
rigid arousal, drawing him back into my mouth as his hips set a rhythm I took
on with throaty whimpers. The way he moved was magnetising, the way he tasted
intoxicating, and I wanted more of him. Shifting on my knees, I kissed him
deeper, swallowing him down as he kicked up. My hands planted on his thighs,
feeling them tense and release as he rode between my lips.  It was a dance
if I’d ever seen one, an erotic give and take that fed me thick inches and
accented growls.

This hadn’t been in the plan when I’d made the
decision to tend to him, but it was the whole plan now.

My body hummed with lust as his twitched and
shuddered, his fingers dragging my hair from my face and tugging until my eyes
flipped to his. That seemed to be his cue. Konstantyn’s hips jerked off the
couch, and his curses flooded the room.

“Neva, I’m going to come...” he warned, gripping
my hair to the point of pain.

I just sucked him deeper, my cheeks hollowing in
on an eager draw.

He rewarded me with a shout that made my core
clench and rush wet. I took him to the back of my throat as he fell apart in a
beautiful grind of undulating muscle, stuttering thrusts working his passion to
my tongue in hot surges of pleasure.

I swallowed him, lapping along his twitching
length to milk the last drops of his climax, and for the first time in forever,
I felt relaxed, my focus dedicated to hearing his hoarse grunts as I suckled
him to a slump of satiation on my couch.

“Neva...” he panted, watching me through dark,
hooded eyes that were languid and burning with heat. Sparks lit under my skin
as I licked my lips, his taste a gloss I savoured, until my mind blinked back
online, and the “Oh fuck, what did I just do?” scrambled through thoughts
buzzing with lust.

He must have seen something in my eyes, because he
sat up.

“Ah, ah, Neva, stay with me,” he growled, his
strong fingers vising my wrist and hauling me up as his powerful body slid down
until his knees hit the floor. His hands coaxed me in long sweeping caresses
and dragged my pants down, urging me into a straddle over his face. His touch
shut me down again, fogged over the “What the fuck?” and set me alight. Then
his tongue ran a wet, flat rasp along the seam of my sex and my fingers
clenched into the short strands of his hair, raking his scalp as my hips rolled
of their own volition and he captured my delicate folds in the kiss of his
mouth.