Chapter Thirty-One
The therapist’s office smelled like cinnamon and cloves and something else sweet…maybe apple dumplings. Or a basket of kittens—insert eye-roll here—to go along with how happy, go-lucky the pictures on the walls were: sailboats on a bay, leaning gently into a sunset, a winding mountain stream, trickling magically through twin banks of vibrant green ferns.
Did anyone else besides Charlize think it bizarre that the artwork should be so cheerful when the people coming here most likely weren’t?
Guess it doesn’t matter. The pictures would be gone soon, anyway. Any minute her nastiness would melt them off the walls. He he. She smirked wryly, then immediately wiped off the expression when Karrell asked, “So who wants to start?”
The therapist was sitting in a small, padded chair across from Charlize and Breen, who were sitting in two similar chairs. The grouping of three was set in front of Karrell’s desk. Behind the desk bookshelves took up the entire wall and were filled to capacity.
Karrell’s legs were crossed, and she held a pen poised over a pad of paper. She’d just finished a spiel about how these sessions were confidential, how she ran them unconventionally—sometimes they lasted ten minutes, sometimes an hour and ten minutes—and a bunch of other blather. Now she was looking between Breen and Charlize, regarding them pleasantly. No wonder she’d been able to successfully maintain a practice topside, undetected. She had the most petite fangs ever.
Charlize glanced at Breen.
He was wearing his usual cargo shorts, the bandage on his knee visible, and a rocker T-shirt, this one of the Grateful Dead. His elbows were set on the armrests, his fingers spread wide on his knees, and the carpet’s Berber rating appeared to be fascinating him.
Despite his promise to talk in session, he didn’t appear to have any intention of starting. She could hardly blame him. She was nervous too.
Why the hell she’d agreed to go to couples counseling, she didn’t know. Well, she supposed she did know: hormones. She damn well wanted regular bootie calls, and if trying to be Breen’s mate—try, mind, she didn’t have to succeed—was what it took to do the tube steak boogie whenever she wanted, then so be it.
You can’t throw away Breen, Marissa had said.
So, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, and Charlize knew when she was beaten. The limiting realities of Vârcolac culture had kicked her horny little ass, so here she was, ready to put enough window dressing on this “relationship” to get what she wanted. But that was it. Nothing profound was going to get discussed here. Hell, no, and fuck that. Bad enough she’d slipped up yesterday at the hospital and blurted out stuff about her mom disappearing for three days. Now Breen had all kinds of sappy notions in his head about her “caring.” Yeah, she cared all right—cared about her vagina.
Karrell flipped to another page on her pad. “Why don’t I start by telling you what I know from your files.” She checked on some notes. “Charlize Renault, chef and marathon runner. Breen Dalakis, warrior and gamer. About six weeks ago, you two had an incident in the community gym. Breen bit Charlize and then bonded with her via follow-on sex. Due to the fact that the bond was a misunderstanding, Charlize subsequently decided to act as Breen’s blood donor only. Now, however, you’re both here, and I’m assuming it’s because you’d like to change the dynamic of your relationship. So how about we kick it off there?” Karrell folded her hands over the top of her notepad, the pen sticking up between her fingers. “What don’t you tell me what your goals are?”
Charlize thought about what to say. Why the hell not the truth? “I’m here for the sex.”
“Oh?” Karrell looked over. “How’s that?”
“As you said, I’ve been Breen’s donor, and in this weird-o community, I can’t have sex with him unless I’m his actual mate.”
One eyebrow lifting, Karrell glanced at Breen, but he still wasn’t giving her anything.
“So my goal,” Charlize said, “is to see if we can work out some kind of…regular sheet wrestling, if you get my drift.”
A smile tugged at Karrell’s mouth. “I think I understand, yes.” She probably did. She was a real free-love-looking Karma Mama type, with long, straight gray hair—a mixture of white and steel colors—hanging well past her butt. A braided leather band held back strands at the forehead. She wore simple cotton drawstring pants and a loose shirt, both in earth tones, the long, flowing garments more suited to yoga class. Maybe she wanted to stay ready to break into meditation at any moment, perhaps whip up a roll or two of sushi. “Sex can be a place to start, if it works for you both.”
“I’d say it works.” Charlize laughed deeply. “We’ve only had sex twice, but both times were great.” At least she had climaxed like her vagina’s rocket boosters were hurtling her off the planet.
“All right. Super. It’s always useful to find out what is working in a relationship.” Karrell gave her attention to Breen. “And for you, too, Breen, the sex with Charlize has been good?”
Good. Charlize almost snorted. Sex with her was generally described with more bells and whistles than good.
“I, um…”
Charlize blinked once at Breen, then bolted upright. What?!
Head down, Breen was still inspecting the carpet.
“What the hell does um mean?” Charlize demanded.
He didn’t answer.
She crossed her arms firmly beneath her breasts and set her mouth. “You know what, pal, no one’s ever complained to me in the past, but if you don’t want to have sex with—”
“I’m not complaining. It’s just, uh…the sex is always…” He cleared his throat. “Violent.”
“Vio—?” Charlize rolled her eyes. “Oh, take a chill pill, will you? I just like it rough sometimes.” She snapped her attention over to the therapist. “Don’t analyze. It doesn’t mean anything. I’m just a passionate woman.”
“Of course.”
Charlize slung a gesture at Breen. “I thought a Vârcolac, of all people, could handle the rough stuff.”
“I can handle it. It just seems too… I don’t know. Not like sex should be.”
Charlize huffed. Like you would know. “Look, I can do the slow ride, if that’s what you want. Just—”
“Perfect,” Karrell piped in. “Then you two have your first homework assignment. Between now and our next session in three days, you are to have sex together, but gently. Absolutely none of the rough stuff.” The therapist smiled. “Sound good?”
Sounded stupid and boring. “Sure.” Charlize curled her lips. “Sounds great.”
Charlize couldn’t fuck Breen the first night after therapy because she had to work at the restaurant, but the next night she arranged for her roommate, Hadley, to be gone for a few hours, and for Breen to arrive at seven o’clock. Around six-thirty, Charlize slipped into a slinky lavender baby doll nightie, going commando underneath, white lace trimming the plunging neckline.
She inspected herself in the full-length mirror and smiled at her reflection. Things might start out slow tonight, but they sure as hell wouldn’t stay that way. Driving men to ferocious feats of sexual insanity was a proud forte of hers.
At seven o’clock on the dot, Breen knocked—well, the man did live only two doors down.
She flung the door open and posed, leaning one shoulder seductively against the jamb. “Hel-lo.”
Breen examined every inch of her. His eyes flashed.
Ooooh, a high-dollar emotion.
He had dressed up to the extent that he was wearing pants instead of shorts, although still of the multi-pocketed cargo variety. His T-shirt was dark brown Fleetwood Mac. The scruffy five o’clock shadow he’d sported in the hospital was now shaved off.
“What’s with the wine?” She nodded at the bottle in his hand.
He held it out to her. “I thought we could have dinner first and talk for—”
“Why would we want to do that?” She fishhooked her index finger into the collar of his T-shirt and pulled him into her apartment. The door banged shut, and she continued across her living room and into her bedroom.
Plucking the wine bottle out of Breen’s grasp, she set it on her dresser, then came to stand right in front of him. Peering up at him through her lashes, she smoothed her hands along his pecs, over his shoulders, then up the back of his neck. God, his body was so yummy. “It’s been ages since I’ve seen you naked,” she purred, then did a kittenish arch against him, pushing her ass outward while pressing her breasts to his chest. “Strip for me,” she moaned, then took a step back to watch.
He just stared at her.
She saucily slanted a brow. “Undress.”
He pulled off his shirt in a single motion and tossed it across the room. Efficient and expedient.
She laughed low in her throat. “No. Sexy-like.”
He looked at her again.
“You know, get naked slowly, maybe dance for me a bit.”
He thumbed open his pants, then walked his legs out of them, along with his shoes.
Quick and down to business. “No?”
“I don’t know how to do that.”
She smiled. Well, it doesn’t matter. She had what she wanted. Breen, without clothing, looking so survival-of-the-fittest masculine with that physique of his. Naturally built from hard work and real-life fighting, his sinews and tendons were delineated under smooth, taut flesh, his chiseled abs a beautiful symmetry of hills and valleys, rolling down to… She drew a nostril-widening breath. Long time, no see, Big Boy. Day-um, she’d forgotten how nice his equipment was. Hanging down over a full, potent sac, his cock extended several inches past it, soft now, but as she stared, it started to rise.
A sliver of wanton heat slid from her belly into her loins, making her ache to be filled by him. Not yet. She still had ferocious feats of sexual insanity to inspire. Wrapping her hand around his impressive organ, she swept her thumb back and forth across the wide top. Tension rippled through Breen. The smooth crest became slick, and the scent of sex rose up between them. She licked her lips. It was going to be a challenge to suck off all of this monster, but she was always ripe for these kinds of challenges. Dropping to her knees, she grabbed his cock firmly by the base and steered him toward her mouth to—
He bent over and caught her by the elbows, urging her back to her feet. “Not this time.”
“But…” She blinked. “I…” How could she drive him to ferocious insanity of sexual feats if she—No, she meant…
He slipped his fingers underneath the thin strap of her lingerie and, lifting the nightie a bit, tugged the silky material back and forth across the crest of her breast. Her nipple poked up against the cloth, and a small gasp floated past her lips. Okay, this is actually very good. The frustration that had begun to build inside her stopped its ascent, and she sagged her lids half-closed. Her sex melted, and a quiver of pleasure fluttered along the flesh of her belly.
Breen tugged the strap off her shoulder, baring her breast, and bent his dark head to her nipple. His tongue flicked out. He wet the erect point, then glossed his thumb over the dampness, and did it again. Heated lightning burned from her breast to her core. She shivered. His tongue, velvety and attentive, swirled around her nipple, languidly exploring in one direction, then circling in the other. She tangled her hands through his hair, tightly, then tighter still as she was nearly overcome with the need to have him powerfully inside her.
Clutching his shoulders, she raised one leg until she’d wrapped her calf around his hip, then angled her bare crotch against his fully erect cock.
With a sharply indrawn breath, Breen captured her around the waist with a corded arm and pushed her backward toward the bed, moving her where he wanted her to go with his muscular chest and his prowling animal energy. Her lowered foot skimmed along the carpet, then the back of her knee bumped into the mattress. Suddenly she was flat on her back.
Breen brought the full length of his body down on top of her, locking them pelvis to pelvis, pressing her against the unrelenting strength of his thighs, the flat boards of his belly. His erection was an iron rod prodding the area between her vagina and her anus. Her labia pulsed at his nearness. Her breasts ripened, and her womb quickened, and, God, she had to have him.
She flung her legs around his waist, dug her heels into him, and in a move of sheer, crude possession thrust her hips upward.
His cock jammed into her lower butt cheek.
She opened her eyes.
He’d shifted out of the way.
“There’s no rush,” he said softly.
She scowled. What the fuck? He was stopping again?
Resting his weight on one elbow, he touched a finger to the small hollow at the base of her throat, then stroked across the ridge of her collarbone.
She took in air while anger burned a scorching path through her hair follicles. She ground her molars together, the pressure burning her gums. She did not like to be stopped. Things wouldn’t go the way she wanted if she wasn’t the one in charge here.
He turned his attention to her other breast, cupping and massaging it, then ducking his head to her nipple, pulling it deeply inside his mouth. The sensations of wetness and heat and animal hunger sent more unstoppable wetness rushing to the area between her thighs. Every suckling swirl of his lips and tongue was making nerve endings all over her body come alive with quivering sensitivity, but even though what he was doing felt great, the gentle awe with which he was doing it was rapidly becoming irritating. He was going to ruin everything by taking the no-rough-stuff edict too seriously.
You do care. You’ve shown it to me, Charlize. You can’t take it back now.
The sap was trying to make this more than it was. She squirmed. “Do you think maybe we could actually screw, you know, sometime this year?”
His head came up. His lips were moist and full, his fangs showing in pointy glimpses between them, the cords in his neck visible. A question surged forward in his eyes, but met a sandbar of uncertainty there.
Oh, God. “I like what you’re doing,” she rushed to say, an automatic, verbal stroke of his ego. No matter how much of a pain in the ass she could be in everyday life, in the bedroom, she never hurt male pride. “I’m just eager to get to the main event.” She slid her hands down to the hard contours of his buttocks and gave him an encouraging squeeze-pull. “Please?”
His nostrils went wide and hard. He changed the position of his hips, and then she felt the crown of his cock prodding her, solid and wide. Her quivering nerve endings lit up. He started to breach her. There was pressure. She stretched around his girth, and he shoved in, finding the deepest part of her.
A raw groan escaped her. She pushed her head back into the pillow, arching her neck. Oh, Lord. Okay, all is forgiven. He felt so damned good. Who cared if he was a sappy dope, as long as he could make everything else go away.
He got his boogie on right away, and everything became even better. He sank and withdrew, sank and withdrew, moving with the power and grace that made him a fighting man.
Her sheath opened more fully to him, blossoming, milking nectar to the mouth of her core.
Breen hissed from what sounded like the back of his throat. His eyes glowed molten gold.
Winnowing her fingers into his hair, she urged him toward her and claimed his mouth in a kiss, taking things deep and penetrating right away, angling her jaw and parting her lips. She suckled his tongue inside and played with it.
He joined eagerly in the kiss, his mouth slanting hard toward hers, claiming, possessing. Heat came singeing off his body, and if she’d been an old-timey damsel, she might’ve swooned from that…from that and the steely male scent of him. From everything. Every square inch of her tingled. A potential orgasm burgeoned into a demanding throb between her thighs, a nearly frantic desperation to lose herself.
She fastened her legs around his rocking hips and pounded her crotch up into his in rhythmic unison. Yes. Yes. Yes. Harder! She dug her nails into his shoulders. Oh, God, it’s so—
He lurched to a halt and pulled his lips from hers. “Charlize,” he panted. “You’re not supposed to get rough, remember?”
“What?”
He reached up and unlatched her fingernails from his shoulders.
“I…I didn’t…” she stumbled.
“Let’s just pause a sec, okay?”
She shut her mouth. Her lungs moved in a strained way. Perspiration trickled between her breasts.
Just enough light was coming in through the open bedroom door for her to make out the boyish spill of black hair on Breen’s forehead, his golden eyes and the depth of feeling in them—everything he wanted to give to her. Everything he would expect in return. Soul-level, particle-deep connection. Her esophagus narrowed down to a thin pipette.
He slipped his fingers along her cheek, so gentle. So loving.
Pain completely drenched her, like an auto-immune rejection of her own innards. She tried to get angry over him stopping again, but couldn’t summon the emotion. Trapped in the cocoon of warmth his body created—in the warmth he clearly felt for her—emotions stirred in her that she didn’t want and couldn’t handle. Destructive things eating in patterns of wormwood through a woman’s uncomplicated need for sex and burrowing into her heart. She gave his chest a panicked nudge. “I-I can’t do this anymore. Please get off me.”
Right away he push-upped onto straight arms, his cock sliding out of her. He sat back on his heels between her spread thighs.
She scooted toward the headboard, dragging the sheet over her breasts as she sat up. Tucking her legs underneath her, she stared stupidly at him…at the scar on his leg, spigot to so much of his blood, the scar dipping into his pubic hair she knew nothing about but should know about, would know about if she wasn’t such a freak of unwifely nature. Her throat pumped a couple of times from her efforts to stop tears from coming. “I don’t mean to leave you in a state.” She gestured at his erection. “I can give you a hand-job, if you want, to finish—”
“Charlize,” he said softly. “No. Come on. That’s not what this was about.” He got off the bed and tugged on his pants, then came back over and sat down next to her. “You hungry?”
God, be anything but nice to me right now. “Breen…”
He took her hand. “I only want to be with you, Charlize. I don’t care how.”
She looked at him through blurry vision. “I don’t know how to be with you like this.”
He quick-squeezed her hand. “Easy. Let’s watch a movie together.”
Her heart beat loudly in her eardrums, noisier than it ever had before. Or maybe it always beat this way, but she was more aware of it now, with this man sitting next to her, his soul reaching out to hers, wanting to connect with her beyond simple fleshy pleasures…wanting to peel away pieces of her that could never be replaced. “I can’t be with you like this.” She reclaimed her hand. “I’m sorry.”
He gazed at her in his calm, still way.
Maybe she was a freak of general nature. A sick tremor rattled through her chest. “You should probably go.”