Page 45 of Lover Forbidden (The Black Dagger Brotherhood #23)

Lyric had never used either of the downtown apartments before.

She and her brother had each been given one a while ago—a couple of years ago now—in recognition that they were both out of the change and probably should be living lives separate from parental proximity.

Except neither she nor Rhamp had moved out of their rooms at the Wheel.

Why bother, really. Rhamp used Shuli’s for his private endeavors, and otherwise slept where he always had.

For her, she liked being in the community underground location.

There was always someone to talk to, something to do, something to learn.

And she’d certainly not needed a place to go for—

“The Commodore?” Dev said as they rounded the corner.

The remark was a casual one, neither here nor there particularly, but she knew that the high-rise was the most luxurious in the city, the Caldwell equivalent of NYC’s the Dakota.

Well, if the latter were modern. And had been through a $100 million renovation about five years ago.

She glanced up at his profile. “It’s just a one-bedroom unit. Nothing fancy.”

“How long have you lived here?”

“I don’t—I mean, I live with my parents.” She paused, expecting him to ask… something, anything. “And my brother.”

As he made some kind of hmm sound, she wanted him to say something more, but again, that was so ridiculous. There were too many limits on what she could tell him—and anyway, if this was a real “dating”-type deal, details about families eventually led to inquiries about introductions.

And given that Rhamp wasn’t even speaking to her at the moment, the fact that her next-of-kin’s were all vampires was actually the secondary problem.

Oh, and Dev was moving, anyway. So… yeah.

Together, they walked up the building-wide steps that ascended to the refurbished marble entry.

The Commodore looked more like a governmental office building with its concrete collar of steps that rose to the glass necklace of its entries, but there was only so much you could do to spice up twenty-five layers of windows rising out of the urban ground.

They mounted the half dozen snow-cleared levels, and as he put his hand on her elbow, she was reminded of his manners.

And the mother who had died who he hadn’t liked.

What was it about physical attraction that made you want to get into the mind of the other person?

she wondered. Then again, with how intensely she was feeling, she did want to understand him, as if in doing so she could understand her own powerful response.

Although on that note, given the number of inquiries he hadn’t made of her, clearly she was on a one-sided quest in this relationship.

Situationship, rather.

As they entered the lobby, they stomped their soles off on the matting and their footfalls echoed all around. The security guy at the desk gave them a wave, and as they both returned it, she wondered if she was going to be asked for ID because it had been so long since she’d been here.

Except the security system no doubt had facial recognition software.

Over at the bank of elevators, Dev punched the button, and they waited together.

In the reflection of the polished steel doors, she looked at the pair of them.

He was calmly perusing the lobby they’d just gone through, his body relaxed as he wandered around with his eyes.

God, how she envied him, especially as she watched herself jump as the arrival bing! went off.

“What floor?” he asked as he got in by the rows of glowing buttons.

“Fourteen.”

“You got it.”

There was a subtle bump, and then up, up, up, and away they went. When the next bing! came, she felt like it had taken a second and a half, but that was distraction for you.

“Here we are,” she murmured as she stepped out.

While she walked along the corridor, she kept an eye on the numbers by each door. They went down… until she got all the way toward the end. Then frowned.

“Oh, wait. Sorry, it’s back there. Sorry, I’m all turned around.”

“No problem.”

Lyric doubled back, taking them past the elevators again and down halfway to the other end. “Here we are.”

The copper key went in fine, but she held her breath, wondering if she had the right—

The bolting mechanism turned just fine, and she opened things up. The scent of fresh lemon greeted her nose, and she was surprised. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been in here, and yet it had clearly been cleaned recently. Fritz and his staff were just amazing.

The interior was dark, and she tried to be discreet patting around and searching for a wall switch.

She ended up wandering out past the half bath and the entry into the kitchen, and wondered whether she shouldn’t just will things on and call it motion detection.

Crap, she couldn’t remember if there were lamps or maybe it was track lighting—

Thank God. A switch. “I’ll just turn this on.”

Click.

As illumination bloomed, she looked over her shoulder. Dev had hung back, and while he leaned against the wall, his hooded eyes were on her.

“You don’t have to do this,” he said as he nodded over his shoulder at the door they’d come through. “I can leave now that you’re safely home.”

She glanced around. The place was like a hotel room, in the anonymous sense of the words.

Neat, tidy, with functional furniture in the right places.

The color scheme of gray, cream, and white was clearly intended to calm the weary mind, and the view of the western horizon showing the twin bridges and the city’s twinkling other side was beautiful, but cold.

She met his eyes in the reflection from those windows, and all she could think of was that he was leaving Caldwell.

“No.” Turning around, she went over to him. “You’re going to stay.”

Reaching up to his windbreaker, she trailed her hands down the pads of his chest. Even through the layers, she could feel the heat coming off of him, and when she got to the lower hem, she didn’t hesitate. She lifted the folds up his torso.

He was hardening already.

It was obvious at the front of those jeans.

And seeing that… no, she wasn’t stopping this time. The thing was, this wasn’t a one-night stand. She’d been looking for magic, and even with all the shadows between them, she’d found some with him. Sure, they would only have right now, but she was going to remember him for a very, very long time.

Besides, hadn’t the last couple of nights—hell, the last month with her granmahmen —proved that there were no guarantees about anything? Even if they tried to date, who knew what would happen.

“You are so going to stay,” she repeated.

In response, Dev nodded and put his arms over his head, letting her do the work as she shucked the jacket off of him.

Tossing the thing on the nearest armchair, she immediately put her hands back where they’d been, on his pecs.

They were warm, and his muscles flexed under her palms like her touch was resonating through his body.

Lyric did not look at the strong column of his throat. She focused on his mouth, especially as she leaned into him.

“I can see how much you want to kiss me,” she breathed.

His hands slipped into her own coat and peeled it off her shoulders. “Yeah. It’s bad.”

“Good.”

She had no idea where he threw what he removed from her, and she didn’t care as he dropped his head.

With his mouth just an inch above her own, she ran her hands up his back.

The muscles along his spine rippled as he put his arms around her, and God, she loved the power in him.

The hardness of him. So very different from herself.

With an easy shift, he picked her up and carried her to the sofa.

Laying her out on the soft cushions, he knelt beside her. “How far do you want this to go?”

“I don’t know. I’m not thinking too much ahead right now.”

“Good.”

Dev loomed over her, and then melded their mouths.

With a moan, she arched into him as he kissed her, his lips stroking, seducing, none of that hard, hot passion from before—as if he was giving her a little time to consider what they were doing.

And she had a feeling he was also giving her physical space because she could scent his arousal: He was ready to mount her and orgasm inside of her already, the mating instinct clearly not so different in humans.

But he was holding his body back, keeping things in check…

Even as he started to explore. With tantalizing deliberation, his touch drifted across her stomach, and she felt a tugging as he pulled the bottom of her blue sweater up from the slacks she’d worn.

Then came a little skin-on-skin, his warm, calloused palm moving over her belly, going around to her ribs…

moving up to right below the cup of her bra.

Meanwhile, his tongue licked into her, and when she felt a moan rise up in her throat, she didn’t hold back.

His chuckle was very self-satisfied, the vibration on her mouth making her wonder what it was going to feel like when he was at her breasts—

On a quick shift, Lyric sat up and ripped the sweater off herself. Underneath, she had a button-down shirt on, and as she lay back down, Dev’s eyes raked over the next layer he was clearly going to take off her.

“Yes,” she whispered, answering the question in his hot stare.

Easing back on his heels, he went to work on the fastenings of her shirt, starting with the one at the bottom first. Then the next.

And the next… the next. His eyes were hooded and volcanic as he looked at what he was revealing, inch by inch, the two halves of the shirt falling free as if the damn thing was complicit.

As he got to the last button, the one right in front of her bra, he growled, “It’s gonna be hard to put the brakes on if this goes much further.”

“Let me help you with that.”

Lyric reached up and unfastened the final one.