Primal Heat Read online

  “I am in the military,” she answered. “Was.”

  Her bitterness wasn’t lost on him. “I might consider this conversation strange, if I were talking to anyone else I wanted to have enormous amounts of sex with.”

  “How so?” she asked. “And how enormous?”

  He chuckled wickedly. “That remains to be seen.”

  She put her hand over his when he reached for the light switch. “I don’t need to see anything.” She slid her hand up his bare back and through his hair. “I only need to feel.”

  She pulled his head down, and her mouth found his before he could question her. He let the awareness of her apprehension go in the wash of sensation from her kiss. What did it matter if she was being shy? He could see in the dark, anyway.

  What about your tattoo? He thought.

  Here.

  She placed his palm on the center of her flat stomach. He felt the heat of bruises surrounding the mark, and knew why she didn’t want him to see. Recovery was so much easier for his kind when they were injured that it was easy to forget that damage could be mental as well as physical to their more fragile mortal cousins. And healing both could take longer.

  “You are the most beautiful thing in my world,” he told her, and carried her to the bed.

  How sweet, Phillipa thought, and held on tight. As they stretched out together, she savored the solid reality of him, his strength, his warmth.

  You’re really here.

  I’m really here.

  It seemed as natural as breathing to share her thoughts with him.

  “I’ve waited too long for this,” he said as his hands caressed her.

  For a moment she was angry for the time lost between them, but arousal overcame it. And it was lust rather than temper that caused her to sink her nails into the taut muscles of his back.

  Matt gasped, then laughed, overjoyed at the fierceness of her lovemaking. A sharp, quick nip on her breast brought him the taste of her. She returned the favor by biting his shoulder.

  Do that again, he told her. Make me bleed.

  She responded with a harder bite, drawing a little blood. Her tongue lapped across his skin like a cat just discovering cream.

  He had the advantage of fangs, and he used them. He’d never been so hungry, or so satisfied. Yet not sated. He could go on tasting her forever, and not just her blood.

  Matt took his time kissing and touching his way all over her body, and kept his growing desire under tight control.

  Come for me again, he thought every time a fresh orgasm took her, caressing her until he made it happen. Her skin grew slick with sweat, and he loved the salty sweet taste. She moaned and shook, and ground her body against his. He was hard and hot and needy, but he didn’t stop arousing her.

  Not yet.

  Though he shook with the effort, he waited until she shouted, “Enough!”

  “Should I stop?”

  “Don’t you dare.”

  “Enough what? Be specific. Can you say please?”

  “No. Make love to me, already!”

  His answering shout was half laughter and half triumph. Sliding inside her was the greatest satisfaction he’d ever known. Possessing her drove him into frenzy. The world became an inferno as he pounded into her.

  When release finally came, it was with a mutual explosion that was more than ecstasy. Matt felt like he was dying, and taking her down into the dark with him—only to be reborn. And she was still with him.

  After all that, all he could do was hold her tight and go to sleep.

  When he awoke many hours later, Phillipa was gone.

  Fair’s fair, he though, since he’d walked out on her the first time.

  But he was still furious with her for leaving.

  Chapter Seven

  W hat the hell was I thinking?” Phillipa moaned.

  “You went to bed with him again, didn’t you?” Jo accused her.

  “Oh, yeah.” Her body was still buzzing from the pleasure.

  “What were you thinking?”

  “I wasn’t thinking. What’s the matter with me?”

  “Where should I start?” Jo answered.

  Phillipa pulled her cell phone away from her ear and glared into it, as if her sister could see her. Then she shifted on the edge of her bed, sighed, and held the phone back to her ear. Much of the contents of her large purse and a small suitcase were scattered around her on the bed. She was so rattled that she wasn’t sure if she was preparing to flee the scene or get ready for this afternoon’s ceremony. She was scattered, confused. Dazed.

  And thoroughly pissed at herself for once again succumbing to her totally devastating attraction to Matt Bridger.

  “I’m sorry I called,” she told her sister. “You’ve got enough on your mind without having me whine at you.”

  Philippa prided herself on not being a whiner. She was self-sufficient, sure of herself, in control. Or she had been.

  “I’ve got to get me back,” she said. “Being around Bridger is not helping.”

  “Very good point,” Jo said. “He’s rather well known in his family for not being the settling-down kind.”

  “Who wants to settle down?” Phillipa protested. “I just want—to stop wanting him, I guess.”

  “Oh, crap. You’ve been carrying a torch for three years, haven’t you?”

  “I wouldn’t put it like that.”

  Even if it was the truth.

  “It’s not like I’ve been thinking about the guy,” Phillipa explained. “It’s more of a visceral thing. It’s like a physical craving that has nothing to do with my brain. My body—” She sighed again. “My body doesn’t need the distraction right now.”

  Since she was on eight different medications, and had a calendar full of medical appointments. But right now, her sister had a newborn baby, and a passel of in-laws visiting her.

  “I shouldn’t have called. I’m sorry. What can I do to help today? Do Mom and Dad need picking up at the airport?”

  “They do. You can. But let’s get back to why you called.”

  “That’s okay. I don’t—”

  “So, you slept with Bridger again. How come you’re not still with him? Did he walk out on you?”

  “I walked out. Ran, really,” Phillipa admitted. “I woke up realizing that I can’t deal with any more complications, and I pretty much panicked. I reacted like a total wuss.”

  And now I have to face this guy in a few hours, at my nephew’s christening. And he and I are going to be the godparents.

  “Oh, crap,” she muttered. “This is going to be awkward.”

  “You mean the ceremony? Nonsense,” Jo stated firmly. “You’ll both perform your part without any fuss or bother. Won’t you?”

  Phillipa caught the adamant tone of her sister’s voice. “Yes, ma’am,” she acknowledged. “You sound just like Mom.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Maybe I could get Pete to come as my date.” Phillipa shook her head, instantly ashamed of herself. “No, that wouldn’t be fair to him. It’s not right to use a friend.”

  “It might not be safe, either. You do not want to make a man like Bridger jealous.”

  Phillipa gave a shaky laugh. “I doubt he’d be jealous. We’ve got a physical attraction, but nothing more. Besides, there’s Octavia. I’m sure she’ll be vying for his attention.”

  And what was that emotion curdling in her stomach? Certainly not jealousy, she hoped. No complications. No entanglements. Be grateful if Octavia wants him.

  “Grrr…”

  “What’s that?”

  “Nothing,” Phillipa answered. “I’m just crazy.”

  “Well, stop it. Take a cold shower.”

  “Good idea.”

  “Then go to the airport,” Jo ordered. “And don’t you dare be late getting to the ceremony.”

  “Let me help you.”

  Phillipa kept walking across the hot tarmac. She’d spotted the man coming up behind her when she’d pulled into the parki
ng lot. His car had been following hers, but she wasn’t sure for how long. Her cop senses were definitely not working at the moment.

  He moved closer. “You’re in danger.”

  She pretended not to hear. The Las Vegas airport was one of the busiest in the world, and this end, the area her sister called the Whaleport, was especially noisy with the steady traffic of small corporate and private planes. There were a lot of cars and hotel limos waiting in front of the building, but she didn’t see anyone but herself and the nut behind her walking across the lot. Not that she was particularly worried.

  “They haven’t corrupted you yet,” the nutjob went on. “But it’s only a matter of time. It’s dangerous for me to be talking to you. I’m under orders not to approach, but it’s wrong not to try to save the innocent. Your sister’s already damned, and—”

  “All right. That’s it.” Phillipa spun around to face the nut.

  He stopped suddenly, stumbling when he almost ran into her. He was young and clean, and dressed respectably. His eyes were wide with surprise and his expression was intense, but Phillipa didn’t detect any immediate signs that he was on drugs.

  “What is the matter with you?” she demanded. “What about my sister?”

  “It’s not really her fault, but she’s beyond saving now. He made her what she is,” he answered.

  “Who?”

  “The vampire.”

  Good lord. He was a rambling maniac who’d been out in the Nevada sun too long.

  He came closer, his voice dropping to a whisper. “The vampires are after you, too,” he confided. “They want all our beautiful women to be their sex slaves.”

  “Do they?” she answered, backing a step. She clutched her car keys between her fingers in case she needed a defensive weapon. “Well, that’s mighty selfish of them.”

  He nodded, the sarcasm lost on him. “It’s not too late for you. You can help us destroy the vampires. You can get revenge for what they’ve done to your sister. And—”

  He suddenly looked like a deer caught in headlights, and backed hastily away.

  “Hi, hon. Who’s your friend?”

  Phillipa turned at the sound of her father’s voice. For once she was glad that her father was always too impatient to wait to be met at the baggage claim area. Her parents had come looking for her, towing their wheeled luggage behind them.

  “That was no friend.” When she glanced back, the stranger’s van was backing out of its parking space. She was annoyed that she couldn’t make out the license plate number with her current vision problems.

  “He looked like a loon,” her mother observed.

  Mom was a veteran detective. “Nothing gets past you,” Phillipa told her. She accepted a kiss on the cheek from her father, and took her mother’s bag. “We better get going. Jo will have my head if we’re not at the ceremony on time.”

  “May I have a moment of your time, Marcus?”

  “Your tone is civilized, Matthias,” Marc Cage answered him. “But that’s not what your eyes say.”

  “I am Prime. We aren’t civilized.”

  He followed Marc into a small office off the hall entrance where the guests were gathering.

  When they had a bit more privacy, Marc asked. “You hung over?”

  Matt didn’t completely know what a hangover felt like to a mortal, but he supposed he was experiencing the vampire equivalent. If it was possible to have too much sex, he’d had it. He’d taken blood, and given it, and done too much of that, as well.

  “Damn,” he muttered. “The woman is—”

  He shook his head. Some things were meant to be kept private. Even though he’d shared memories of sexual exploits with his cousin before, this was different. Phillipa was different.

  “Damn,” he said again.

  Marcus nodded. “That’s the Elliot women, all right.”

  “You are not taking this seriously.”

  “I’m dead serious. You do anything to hurt my bondmate’s sister, and you’ll answer to me for it.”

  Knowing the first reaction for a Prime was to snarl at the threat, Marcus stepped back, let him show a bit of fang and claw, and waited for him to calm down.

  Within moments Bridger took a deep breath and gave an acknowledging nod. “Fair is fair to take care of your family. Besides, I couldn’t bear to see her hurt.” He pointed sternly at Marc. “And that, cousin, is the point.”

  Marcus looked disgusted. “Not that old song again. When you find your bondmate, you have to live with the gift the goddess grants you. Even if it is inconvenient.”

  “It isn’t inconvenient for me. It’s dangerous.”

  Marc smiled. “But you’re not denying she is your bondmate. That’s a good start.”

  “There is no start. I cannot allow it to happen, for her sake. For her protection.”

  “Bullshit. That excuse has always been bullshit. It was convenient when you were younger, but you’re past a hundred now—your mind, your body, and your soul need completion. You’ll never be happy until—”

  “I don’t care about being happy,” Matt cut him off. “I don’t need to be happy. Not for what it could cost the woman I bond with.”

  Marc sneered. “Could. Would. Should. If. What the hell do any of them have to do with what is? Cope with what happens, not with what might happen.”

  “Easy for you to say, when you haven’t made the kind of enemies I have.”

  “Do you want to break her heart?”

  Marc’s words hurt him, but Matt answered. “Better that than to hold her broken body in my arms.” It was an old argument, and not worth continuing. “I know you mean well, but you’ve put me, and the girl, in a very dangerous position. I won’t see her again after today, but there might still be repercussions. If there’s any trouble, it’s because you brought it on her. It will be up to you to protect her.”

  “Protect her yourself. She’s your bondmate.”

  Matt shook his head and backed away. “Let it go, Marcus. Leave me alone.”

  “She needs you as much as you need her.”

  “Leave her alone, too.”

  He wasn’t aware of the couple standing by the doorway until he turned. The fact that he hadn’t detected their presence was a stark sign of how badly Phillipa was affecting his senses. He had known the instant she arrived at the hall door, and nothing else but the struggle not to go to her had mattered to him.

  “Octavia,” he acknowledged with a nod. It wasn’t easy to even pretend politeness to the Prime with her. “Sandor’s son.”

  “Jason,” Octavia said, eyes flashing angrily. “His name is Jason Cage. To call him by his sire’s name is the rudest thing I’ve ever heard.” The shudder she gave was more mental than physical. “It reminds me of my own origins.”

  Octavia had been born into one of the old repressive, patriarchal vampire tribes. Fortunately for her, the tribe had been absorbed into the matriarchal Family Caeg when she was still young.

  The Prime put his hand on Octavia’s shoulder, though his bright blue gaze never left Matt’s. “Perhaps you don’t know that Matthias is the one who apprehended me. He’ll never see me as anything but houseless and nameless. Will you, Matt?”

  “You did your time,” Matt answered. Because Marc was looking at him sternly, Matt managed as polite a nod as he could. “We are both guests here. The mistake was mine.”

  He wondered how much Octavia and this other Cage cousin had overheard. Did he need to count Jason Cage as one of his enemies? Was Jason interested in revenge for a punishment he’d claimed was unjust?

  Matt stepped forward to warn Jason off his woman, but Marc was there before him. He put his arm around the other Prime and asked, “What were you in for anyway, Jase?”

  “Practicing sorcery without a license,” was the prompt answer.

  “Considering what you do for a living now, I don’t see the problem.”

  “Times were different then,” Jason answered.

  “And magic was less profitable
,” Octavia put in.

  Jason’s infraction had been far more than just using magic, but Matt forced himself to laugh with everyone else to help break the tension.

  “Your bondmate asked us to tell you that everyone is now here,” Octavia said. “It’s time for the ceremony to begin.”

  Chapter Eight

  T his doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, Jo.”

  Jo sighed with frustration. “Mom.”

  “For one thing, why aren’t we using the actual church instead of the church’s meeting hall? The sacristy has a perfectly good baptismal font, doesn’t it?”

  “I’m sure it does,” Jo answered. “But, you see—”

  “And why is Marc’s grandmother officiating?”

  “Because she’s the matri—matriarch of the family.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “We don’t have to understand, we just have to appreciate being asked to take part,” Dad chimed in. “Do you have something against diversity all of a sudden, darling?”

  “Of course not,” Mom defended herself. “I’m curious. I’m a detective. I’m supposed to be curious.”

  “Our part is to sit down and be quiet,” Dad went on. “Stop badgering your daughter, Connie.”

  “When have I ever badgered anyone, Matthew?”

  Keeping her attention on her family kept Phillipa from marching up to Matthias Bridger and telling him he was hers and nobody else’s.

  The longing to be with Matt was so strong it was an actual physical ache. It was as though the need had gotten into her blood and bones and being. And since she already had a nasty disease mucking up her body, she didn’t need this other crap that had to do with wanting sex with Matt Bridger. The weirdest thing was, even though she couldn’t see him, she was certain of his exact whereabouts.

  “I’m crazy,” she muttered, her hands clenching at her sides.

  When he came into the hall, she knew, even before she looked up.

  “You’re not crazy,” Jo leaned close and whispered in her ear.

  Yes, you are, another voice said in her head. We both are.