11: Bolt Saga, Book 11 Read online

Oh, my God.

  I’ve never experienced anything like this.

  With eager speed, I repeat the action for my right swell. I gasp and then groan. It feels even better with both breasts. So damn good…

  Almost too good.

  My chest now feels like an erotic power grid, circuits crisscrossing and colliding with heat and arousal, to the point that I can’t feel air entering and exiting my lungs.

  Am I still alive? Do I want to be?

  “Em?” Reece’s voice registers, though it’s broken up by all the static in my senses, as if there’s a crappy radio connection separating us. “Emmalina? Fuck!”

  That comes through clearer. Not the words—but the panic behind them. His panic. Why?

  Okay. I’m alive, then—but shifting into a strange version of the meaning. My head is swimming. My heart is hammering. There’s pressure on me—so much pressure. Who shoveled all the boulders onto me?

  “Jesus God, baby. What the hell have you done?”

  His growl sounds far away, registering through a mist of consciousness. I answer by lifting a weird smile. I know his question is lethally serious, but I can’t give him a coherent answer. The words echo through me in my own voice but with different emphasis—what the hell have you done?—as I peer down at my chest and my hands massaging the liquid electricity all over my breasts. I moan again. The sound spins through my senses. The marks of his milk across my flesh… It’s like gazing at magic come to life, and I’m covered in its hot, bright sorcery.

  But how is it taking me over from the inside too?

  Everywhere.

  His power penetrates in places it’s never been before. It scrapes at my bones. Squeezes my blood vessels. Bites at the organs that give me blood and life, patiently waiting to stab all the way inside.

  That’s when understanding washes in.

  My breast ducts.

  Which must have carried the electricity in and spread it through me that fast.

  Well, hell.

  But even trying to grasp that whole realization is like trying to locate the sun through smoke. Still, I look up through the heat storm, knowing it’ll be there. Knowing he’ll be there. My sun. My heat.

  My everything.

  “Emmalina!”

  My killer?

  Ironically, possibly…yes.

  But as soon as the thought beats in, even past my wheezing lungs and thundering heart, so does its contradiction.

  Definitely, imperatively, no.

  Only it’s damn clear, as soon as I behold the horrified lightning in his eyes, that only one of us believes that.

  He’s still lost to the dread of accusing, trying, and convicting himself for my murder. Because apparently, reasoning out everything that happened with Kane wasn’t enough for hashing out that neurosis.

  Ridiculous, senseless man.

  Doesn’t he see the obvious yet? That we were a tag team getting me into this mess. That we obeyed the screams of our lust and listened to the magic of our connection, not the cores of our logic.

  But more critically, not recognizing that logic is the perfect way back out of this bullshit.

  “Fuck!” He’s bellowing again. And again. And again. The repetitions have quickened, keeping time with my strangled strains for breath, while he’s completely stopped seeing the pleading in my eyes and the cries of my mind. He’s picked now to turn off that crazy ability to read everything I’m thinking? Seriously? “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck! Emma. Oh dear fuck. Emma. Not you too.” His violent movement, twisting his entire upper body, is discernible despite my fuzzed-out vision. And then how he sharply whips his face toward the stars too. “Not her too, damn it! Haven’t you taken enough from me today?”

  “Reece.” Incredibly, perhaps only because of the fate of the stars that brought us together, I’m able to scrape my hand up to his forearm and then stab my nails in deep enough to jolt his attention. “Damn it, l-l-listen. I”—have to take a second and gulp for air—“I’m g-g-going to—”

  “No!” he spits. “You’re not going to die, goddamnit!”

  Again through the interference of providence, I smile. Or maybe I just think I do. No matter what, something like humor floods through me. “G-Glad we’re both on…the s-s-same page.”

  He stops. Stares hard. Damn it. No man should look this hot with dread wrenching his face and tears shimmering in his eyes. “What the hell are you—”

  “I am going to die, baby…unless you sh-sh-shut up and listen. And then st-st-stop and th-th-think.”

  He exhales hard. Gawks at me even harder. “Think about what?”

  “A-A-About how you need to h-h-help me.”

  He grinds so hard for air, I wonder if both his lungs have been stabbed by rogue electricity too. He rears up but only by a few inches, looking tormented about even that distance. “How?” he demands. “How, Velvet?” As his voice cracks, so does my hammering, failing heart. “Tell me what you need. Tell me! I’ll pull out my own fucking heart if you can take it and use it. My lungs. My air…”

  His anguish is what my fortitude needs. And my determination. “N-N-Not your heart or your lungs, baby.”

  “Then what?” he grates out. “How?”

  My hand is still on his arm, my fingers digging in next to his wrist. Still, my teeth grit and my face twists as I focus on lowering my hold…

  Directly between his thighs again.

  “You…you know how.”

  Guided by my raw desperation to live and my utter certainty that this man is the way to that life, I work my grip along his entire length—relief drenching me as his flesh pulses and grows for me. Comes back to life for me…

  “You kn-know what I need, Mr. R-R-Richards.” As I grip him tighter, I look up to lock his gaze with mine. “You kn-know what elixir I can drink to be whole. You kn-know what you need t-t-to do…to be my hero now.”

  Chapter Four

  Reece

  She’s got to be fucking kidding.

  Or totally insane.

  Or completely right?

  The rebuke isn’t coming from the rage in my heart or the sorrow in my soul. It’s a dictate from my head, backed by the surety of my sharpest instincts. Yeah, the ones I’ve honed on missions throughout the last year, engaging the shitheads in the worst parts of town.

  Only this time, I’m the goddamned criminal—being given a path to redemption by the one angel who should have no mercy for my soul.

  Even crazier? She wants to bring me that redemption with my cock in her mouth.

  Even more ludicrous? I actually see the wisdom of her plan.

  I want to deck myself for even thinking it—of course you “see” that wisdom, you foul dickbrain—but even if the plan included me getting grinded from head to balls in a meat processor, I’d be just as willingly joining my fingers to hers, preparing myself for the ordeal. I’d be clenching my teeth just as tightly, fighting to ignore the strain of her skin and the struggle of her breathing, to keep myself erect. I’d be breathing just as hard and fast to keep as much of my essence inside, to give as much of myself to becoming her life force again.

  To saving her life with my life…

  “Lie back, Emmalina.” I hate my chilled tone, and her little shiver proves she’s not a fan either, but if I’m to get through this without second-guessing my every move, it’s necessary. Time isn’t a luxury right now. Getting inside her is.

  As soon as she’s flat in the dirt again, I scoot up her body until my balls graze her chin. Christ, she’s so pale. How the hell am I going to do this to her? Why is she going to let me?

  “Open your mouth.”

  Jesus fuck. Just like this.

  “Wider, baby. More. Take more of me.”

  She’s so tight. So wet. So perfect. Even more so as she expands the back of her throat to get even more of me in, until I’m hissing with a mix of torment and heat and pressure and pain. I buck my hips as my soul sobs.

  And my heart prays.

  Holy God, if you have never he
ard any of this sinner’s prayers before, please hear this one. Let her live. If you have to take every drop of my life to do it, then fucking do it.

  Let. Her. Live.

  I’m so deep now. She’s meeting the sizzling fire of my head with her eager mewls, though the rest of her body is inert and frail beneath me—an acknowledgment that brings just enough sorrow to keep me from completely coming.

  “Emmalina. Fuck. We’re almost there, Velvet. I…I need to pump.” As if my body has a will of its own, my hips start to roll. The friction of my girth against her lips is more incredible than I want to admit. “Need to…move, okay? Need to…fuck you. So good. So good…”

  Her moans gain a new pitch. I have no idea if I’m helping or hurting at this point, but as soon as she lifts one weak hand, splaying her fingers against the front of my thigh, it’s all the encouragement I need. Every inch of my leg prickles and coils. My ass clenches and pushes.

  Inside her mouth, I’m nothing but fire.

  Inspiration.

  Desperation.

  And at last, explosion.

  Lightning and lust. Rain and redemption. Sin and salvation. Oh fuck, how I hope—as I spill and flow and come and come and come, letting every searing drop tear through and up and out of me, every single burst taking a new prayer with it.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck; please let this work; this has to work; this needs to work…

  In the aftermath of the detonation, there’s eerie silence.

  Too much silence.

  With a long groan, I pull away from Emma.

  Who’s joined the silence.

  “Velvet?”

  I slide down until I can frame her cheek with my palm.

  Her still, cold cheek.

  “Emmalina.”

  Not an entreaty anymore. A demand. A refusal to accept what I’m seeing and feeling.

  What I’m not seeing and feeling.

  No more of that gorgeous flush across her face. No more of the steady thrum she always brings to the air, the vibrant life she brings to my world…

  “Fucking Jesus. Emma.” Another command, this time at the full force of my roar. Like that helps. Like I’ve done a goddamned thing to help her except lose control like the filthy mutant I am. Instead of thinking rationally and considering a plan that made even half a thought of sense—a plan a normal person would have enacted—I believed the most bizarre solution had to be the right one.

  Because that’s what I’ve become. A freak existing in a land of upside-down. Where demented bitches have control over my friends, and their final whispered words to me are a plea for their own death. Where the love of my life goes into cardiac arrest because of foreplay and then begs me for even more sex as the solution. Where I’m holding her lifeless body in the middle of a mud puddle, having fucked her to death in the mouth.

  Where all of this leads to the only inevitable questions I should be asking myself.

  “What the fuck have you done, Richards?” I roll back onto my haunches, pulling her close and rocking her against my chest. “What the fuck have you become?”

  As fast as I’ve gritted them, I boot them up again on my lips—prepared to repeat them as many times as it takes for answers.

  But the truth is, I already have them. Permanently stained on the walls of my soul—with the blood of my father, my friends…and now my woman.

  “Ohhhhh!”

  The woman who reignites all the joy, relief, and celebration in my spirit with the high, gorgeous, orgasmic scream she rips into the night.

  “Ohhhhh, Reece!”

  Who seizes me by my biceps, using the leverage to haul herself off the ground, her wide turquoise eyes consuming my vision before mashing her lips on mine with ferocious, delicious need.

  “Mmmmmm!”

  Who sends her hot moan through my mouth and down my throat, all but making me come again from our sinuous, sizzling connection.

  “Shit,” she erupts when we’ve finally broken apart. “Shit, shit, shit!”

  I’m not sure whether to growl or laugh while securing my hands beneath her, supporting her supple form in all its writhing gorgeousness. I end up doing both, unable to help myself. She’s never been more hypnotizing, as if her every inhibition was left behind in the resurrection of her climax, and she’s celebrating by offering her naked beauty to the moon and me. She’s free and flawless and fair…

  And alive.

  So fucking alive.

  Thank you.

  My soul turns it into a litany as I continue to hold her, reveling in the erotic spell of her. At last, after she’s taken at least fifty full breaths and I’m no longer dreading she’ll stop, I lower my face to the crevice between her breasts, inhaling the coconut and honey ambrosia from her sweat-trickled skin, reaffirming the heartbeat that answers my fervent kiss.

  “It’s good, baby?” I rasp.

  “Good?” She laughs. “This isn’t good. This is…this is…”

  “Magnificent?” I supply when it’s obvious another orgasm is sneaking up on her from the inside. “A miracle?” And because I can’t help myself once again, I lean in deeper, sliding my tongue into the succulent fruit at her core. At once, tangy juices drench my tongue, and I know I’ve found my most favorite dessert.

  “Oh, God!” Her cry comes right before the vibrations through her pussy, turning into scintillating sucks on my tongue and waves of heat against my lips. She drops a hand into my hair and twists, using the hold as leverage to grind that perfect pink pulp into every corner of my mouth. It’s a treat I’ll savor forever. A moment I’ll remember always. The night heaven returned my velvet angel to me. The night I gave thanks for that by devouring every inch of her pulsing sweet cunt.

  “Fuck!” Another shudder claims her. Another flood of her hot liquid hits my mouth. I moan and swallow, taking her in as if she’s life to me—because she is. “Fuck! Reece! It’s…it’s so much. I…I can’t take any more…”

  “Oh, baby.” I edge my murmur with cocky chastisement. “Of course you can. And you will.”

  “Please.” She’s all breath in her throat but raw yearning in her grip, still practically tearing my hair out of my scalp. “Please. Damn it, now you really are trying to kill me!”

  So much for the fun recess. Just like that, she’s spiked me back to raw agony—and outrage.

  I slam up and over her, replacing my lips with my fingers and hovering my glowering face over her startled one. “Bite. Your. Fucking. Tongue.” I snarl it with the same vehemence as my driving thrusts into her, giving her no room to think that line will ever be a joke between us again. And while she widens those breathtaking blues with new respect, no way does it diminish their answering fire—the blazes she always brings whenever I’ve got her heart racing and her pussy throbbing. The infernos she knows I love, even now. Especially now.

  The fuses that turn her lips into a teasing, tantalizing little smile.

  “‘Bite my tongue,’ Mr. Richards?” she jibes back in a sultry drawl. “What, are you asking for permission or something?”

  I cock my head and arch a brow. “Depends on what the answer is, Miss Crist.”

  Her stare drifts down to my lips. “Don’t you think there’s always room for another bite? Or two?”

  With a savoring growl, I lower my head once again. It’s not only the most direct path to that perfect bow of her mouth; it’s the fastest way to show her just how thankful I am—for all of this. For all of her.

  What a woman the universe has given to me.

  To me.

  Sometimes I still can’t believe it. Other times, it feels like fate’s most logical and loving wisdom. Who else but Emmalina Paisley Crist could have taken my broken soul and healed it—and saved her own damn life in the process—with the magic of her complete, crazy, near-death trust stunt? The woman has to be the bravest, boldest, most batshit bonkers person I’ve ever met.

  But I’m pretty sure people have said that about every other miracle worker who’s ever lived as well.


  I just thank God—and whoever the hell else helped Him create her—that this miracle is all mine for the rest of time.

  Several hours later, after I’ve carried her home from the canyon and gotten her into a shower and bed, I still can’t stop staring at the woman. And yeah, unbelievably, attempting to blame it on the sorcery of the summer winds and the crystalline moonlight instead of the truth that barely tries to hide itself at the forefront of my psyche.

  I’ve never been deeper in love with her.

  And have never been more terrified of losing her.

  What I did with her out in the canyon…

  What I did to her…

  Before I can help it, a grunt rips up the lining of my throat. By the time it hits my clenched teeth, the sound makes barely a dent on the air, but with my pillow crunched next to hers and my chest bracketing her left arm, it’s enough to make her stir and fidget.

  “Sssshhh.” Another sound that barely brushes the air. “Sleep, my Velvet.” My miracle. My love.

  “Ummmph.” She purses her lips and furrows her forehead but doesn’t open her eyes. When the space above her eyebrows doesn’t even out, I skim my mouth across that creamy plane with mist-soft care, listening to make sure I don’t wake her again. There are times when the woman can sleep like the dead, but then she’ll have a night like this, barely tiptoeing around the REM cycle, resulting in me getting too growly and protective of her.

  Like now.

  “Damn it,” I mutter as soon as I lift up, seeing that my tender midnight care has been as effective as a bull sneaking through a china shop.

  “Well, hi there yourself.” She’s already back to flinging as much sass and sardonicism as she did in the canyon. Trouble is, cocky Bunny 2.0 is just as sexy and cute as the first version.

  Despite the admission, I’m unwilling to give up the cautious handling. It feels good—right—to treat her like a blown-glass treasure. My treasure. “Go back to sleep,” I urge in a whisper. “You’ve still got a lot of hours.”

  She strokes a couple of soft fingertips along my jaw. Asks in just as sibilant a voice, “Did you finally get in touch with the mayor?”