CHAPTER 17
They drove for nearly an hour in awkward, strained silence before Asher finally spoke.
“We’re going to need some gas before we get back to the ranch.”
He gestured to a dimly lit gas station with an attached convenience store, the only sign of civilization they’d seen for countless miles on this stretch of I-15. As they pulled off the deserted road and into the rundown station in the middle of nowhere, Naomi thought back to something Asher had told her.
“Is this the place where you first met Ned?”
He gave a curt nod and killed the engine. Some of her enthusiasm to be sitting in the very spot Asher had been fifteen years ago dimmed at the way he hardly acknowledged her. In fact, he seemed vaguely annoyed by the idea that she knew something about his past. As if after everything they had shared before, now she was trespassing.
He was drawing away from her emotionally, returning to the stony loner she’d met that first night in the desert. She supposed she had no one to blame but herself for the abrupt change in him. After all, she was the one who’d tried to pretend there was nothing between them when it seemed like he had intended to stop her from going to see Michael and the kids. She had felt cornered and her hackles went up. Now, she wasn’t sure how to take back what she’d said. If he even cared one way or the other.
“Asher—”
“This won’t take long,” he said, climbing out of the truck.
She sat back against the old leather seat and waited as he fueled up. A few moments later, the gas cover thumped closed and he rapped on the driver’s side window.
“I’m going to pay inside,” he said through the glass. “Be right back.”
She nodded and watched him walk toward the station. The young woman standing behind the counter was watching him too. Tall and curvy in her low-cut tank top and layers of Vegas showgirl-heavy makeup, the platinum blonde barely concealed her interest in the muscled male prowling with preternatural grace across the empty station lot.
She turned on a big, flirty smile as Asher stepped inside and approached the register. They spoke for a few seconds while he pulled some cash out of his back pocket and handed it to her.
Naomi didn’t like the sharp jab of possessiveness she felt to see Asher conversing with another woman when he had hardly uttered a dozen words to her since they’d left Michael’s house. Frustrated, she turned the key in the ignition and started scanning for some music on the radio. There wasn’t much to choose from, just an old country station that sounded like it was being broadcast from out of a tin can.
“Screw it,” she said, turning it off and slumping back to glance out the front of the truck.
Asher was gone.
And so was the pretty cashier.
Naomi’s stomach dropped, cold and heavy as a rock. Where were they? She didn’t want to think about why they had both disappeared so suddenly, nor did she want to acknowledge the hurt and suspicion that was taking up residence in her breast.
A few moments later, she spied Asher’s head and shoulders towering over the top of one of the aisles. While he stalked out of the place and headed for the truck, the cashier went back behind the counter adjusting the strap of her top.
Asher got in without a word of explanation.
Naomi watched him put the truck into gear and turn back onto the road. “Everything all right?”
He nodded. “Good to go. We should be back at the ranch in less than twenty minutes.”
As much as it seared Naomi to give in to her jealousy, she couldn’t keep a lid on her emotions for long. They had only gone about five miles before she glanced over at him in the light of the dashboard.
“She was pretty. The girl back at the gas station.”
He shrugged. “Yeah. I guess so.”
“Is that why you went inside?” She tried to seem casual, unconcerned, but to her ears her voice sounded hollow.
He looked at her in question. “I told you, I went inside to pay.”
“I know what you told me, Asher.”
“Okay.” There was an edge of irritation in his level tone. “So, what are you asking?”
“Nothing. Forget it.”
She glanced out the window for a long while, knowing she really had no right to ask anything more. He didn’t owe her answers or explanations. God knew he didn’t owe her any apologies. After all, she’d gone willingly into his bed and he hadn’t promised her anything in return.
Still, it hurt to think of him being attracted to another woman. It more than hurt to think he might have taken that attraction even further—especially while she waited in his vehicle outside.
But dammit, she had to know.
When they had finally turned onto the bumpy dirt lane leading to the ranch, she couldn’t keep the words from tumbling out of her.
“Did you fuck her?”
He swung a hard look at her. “What? Jesus. Is that what you think?”
“Did you?”
“No.” He parked the truck, and took out the key, his jaw held tight.
The tendons in his neck were thick and taut like cables, the angled bones of his cheeks seeming more sharply hewn somehow, unearthly so. Even in the low light of the truck’s interior, she could see that the glyphs on his arms and neck were dark and pulsating.
“I didn’t want sex from that woman, Naomi. I wanted her blood.”
Maybe she should have been relieved. She knew what he was. She understood he had to feed. But even these words carved her out. “That’s the real reason you went inside—to drink from her?”
“Yes.” A single word. No intonation in his cool, lethal voice.
She gave a stiff nod, then practically lunged for the door handle. She couldn’t get out of the vehicle fast enough, couldn’t get far enough away from him. She spilled out to the dusty ground and ran, not stopping until she reached the paddock fence where the horses stood.
Asher was right behind her. “What are you doing?”
“Go away, please.”
“Why are you so upset?”
She pivoted in the opposite direction of him and stormed another few feet. He seemed to materialize right in front of her. “Tell me, Naomi. Why does the thought of me feeding from another woman piss you off?”
She scoffed brittly. “Because I’m an idiot, apparently.”
He gave a tight shake of his head. “You know I’m Breed. You know it’s my nature—it’s a goddamn necessity—that I take a blood Host.”
“Yes, I know all of that,” she snapped, glaring up at his carefully schooled face. “I know what you are and what you need.”
His eyes flashed with tiny sparks of amber. “Then why are you so hell-bent on condemning me for it now?”
“Because I love you.” The admission rushed out of her. Once it was freed, she felt some of the weight lift from her breast. None of the pain ebbed, though. “I love you, Asher. And thinking about you being with another woman—drinking from someone—tears me up inside.”
He scowled, a low snarl building. “You shouldn’t say such things.”
“Why not? Because you don’t want to hear it?” She was seething now, all her cards on the table with him. She had never felt so vulnerable in all her life. “I’ve fallen in love with you, Asher, and that scares the hell out of me.”
The sparks that lit his gaze had turned molten as she spoke, his pupils swallowed up by the light. As he reached up to cup her face in his hand, she saw his glyphs churning with living color. “Let’s go inside now. This is not the place for what needs to be said. And it’s not safe for you outside, especially in the dark.”
She slowly shook her head. “It’s not safe for me in there, either. Because every minute we’re together makes me want to pretend the rest of the world—the real world—doesn’t exist.” She withdrew from his touch, even though it was hard to deny herself his comfort. “I’m just so scared, Asher. I’ve been through pain before, but I’ve never given anyone the power to hurt me like you can. I didn’t realize what that meant until tonight.”
“The last thing I want to do is hurt you.” He caught her face in both of his hands and gently brought her to him for a kiss. Tender, unhurried, breath-stealing. “And the only vein I want is yours.”
She frowned. “But you and that woman—”
“I went in the station with every intention to feed from her, but I didn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to put my mouth on someone who isn’t you.”
“Asher . . .”
“Don’t,” he said, shaking his head. “Don’t look at me with that kind of relief. Because you’re right. Being with me isn’t safe for you, either. Because if I ever drink from you like I want to, there’s no undoing it. I’ll be bonded to you forever, Naomi. I’ll always want you, crave you . . . hunger for you.” He drew in a breath and let it out on a dark, strangled curse. “Hell, I’m going to feel all of that whether I have your blood in me or not.”
She swallowed, her throat dry. “Then take it, Asher.”
His scowl deepened. “You shouldn’t say that. You don’t really know what kind of man I am. I don’t have the honor it takes to turn you down.”
“So don’t.” She reached up, stroking his handsome face. She could see his torment so clearly now. He wanted her, but he was starving in another way too. She could see the anguish of it written all over his face. “As for honor, I’ve never known a better man.”
A faint smile tugged the corner of his lips. “You know at least one. Michael.”
“That’s not what I mean. I’ve never known a man I wanted the way I want you.”
She tilted her head to the side and pulled out the tie that held her hair in its ponytail. Sweeping the loosened strands around to one shoulder, she bared herself to his fevered gaze. To the razor-sharp fangs that seemed to lengthen even more as his gaze locked on her throbbing artery.
“Ah, fuck,” he rasped. “His breath sawed in and out of him as he lowered his face to her neck. His tongue was hot and wet as it brushed tentatively over her carotid. “I can feel your heart racing. I swear, I feel it in my own veins whenever I’m next to you.”
He licked her again, more deliberately now, a teasing, testing stroke of his tongue over her fluttering pulse. Naomi’s heartbeat thudded in her breast, hammering in anticipation of his bite.
Asher growled, an animal sound that vibrated all the way into her marrow.
Then he pressed his open mouth to the side of her neck and sank his fangs deep.
“Oh, God.” She wasn’t prepared—not for the jolting flare of pain, nor the rush of heat that flooded in on its wake. It felt so good, so primal. So powerful.
Arousal bloomed in her core, as sudden as a flashfire, and deep as a volcano. She arched against him, wanton and wild. His body was hard, his erection grinding into her in heavy demand. On a gasp, she tipped her head back and watched the sea of stars overhead blur into a field of diamonds as she lost herself to the pleasure of his heat and his elemental thirst.
Each strong pull of Asher’s lips and tongue at her vein was echoed by a sensual and building pressure in the center of her. She was wet and panting, desperate to feel him inside her.
“Asher, I can’t bear it . . . the pleasure is too much. Please . . .”
He groaned sharply against her throat, his tongue sweeping over the punctures. A tingling sensation followed as her wounds healed. He shuddered, and when his gaze lifted to hers it glowed with a devotion that staggered her.
“Now, I’m taking you inside,” he rasped, his fangs enormous and glinting in the starlight. He scooped her up into his arms. “My sweet, delectable Narumi. You belong in my bed.”