Page 65 of Lover Forbidden (The Black Dagger Brotherhood #23)

Dev was waiting outside the Commodore, under the glow of its signage, when he got Lyric’s text, and he read the message twice—because he was confused.

They were supposed to meet here, so why had she gone to his place?

Fucking hell, that apartment building was the last address he wanted her anywhere near.

Racing around the corner, he got into the shadows, closed his eyes, and dematerialized.

Something he was not in the regular habit of doing.

To avoid both his parents, he had shut out the black magic that threaded through his very cellular makeup—but there was a time and a place for the shit.

And with his female waiting out in the cold, in an unsecured area?

Where slayers had been gunned down a few nights ago?

And where he knew there had been at least one inside the building, maybe a minion sent out by his father as a scout to his location?

For that matter, Dev was also worried he’d tipped off his presence when he’d revealed himself to dear old Mummy.

When he re-formed, it was in the alley next to his building, and as he ran out of the lane, he—

There Lyric was, standing on the stoop, huddling in the windbreaker he’d given her the night before, that knit scarf around her neck. Her hair was tied back, and she was wearing blue jeans and those boots of hers that laced up to her ankles. No makeup, no frills, no fancy dress or shoes.

She was… more perfect than anything he’d ever seen before.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said as he jogged forward. “Hey, you want to head to your place—”

He scented her tears before he saw them shimmer in her eyes, and the next thing he knew, he was pulling her into his arms and ushering her inside, out of the cold.

“I’m sorry.” She sniffled and wiped her face. “I forgot we weren’t supposed to meet here. It’s been a long, long day… my granmah —mother died.”

“Oh, shit. That’s awful—”

“We knew it was time, yet it was a total shock.” She put her hand over her heart. “But yeah, it’s been a hard day.”

“Do you want to go home? Does your family need you?”

“Oh, we spent all day together.” She shook her head. “Can we just stay here? I don’t want… I want to be away from my life for a minute. I just need a break.”

Well, fuck. Guess they were staying. “Ah… sure. Yeah. Let’s take the elevator.”

The good news was that the doors opened as soon as he pushed the up arrow, and then they were inside the car. He hit his floor and immediately pulled her back into his arms.

He’d been planning on talking to her, laying everything out, telling her the whole goddamn truth even though for sure she wouldn’t believe it at first. But with a death that recent? How in the hell was he going to drop more bombs on the female…

As the doors opened and they stepped out, he tried to seem casual as he put his arm around her waist and led her down to his apartment.

In reality, he was on high alert to the point of raging paranoia.

He felt marginally better after locking them in his place, and reminded himself that he had ways of protecting them both—

“Dev.”

There was such an urgency in her voice that his heart skipped a beat. “What do you need.”

Even though he knew. And maybe it made him perverse, he just really wanted to hear her say the words. Not because he needed the ego boost, but because he wanted to store them away in his memory for when she hated him.

“You,” she said hoarsely. “I need… you tonight. I need to feel alive, and you make me that way because it’s magic when you touch me. Please. I’ve been doing nothing but crying and reminiscing—and I can’t be in the past right now. I can’t… be with my memories right now.”

She stepped into his body. “Make love to me, Dev. Please . I need your magic, and I need it now.”

Fucking hell. Like he was going to say no, though?

Cradling her face in his hands, his eyes roamed her perfect face, from the flushed cheeks to the bloodshot, puffy eyes to her parted lips.

Then he lowered his mouth to hers. The kiss started off slow and soft, but God…

it didn’t stay that way. The desperation was unleashed on both sides, everything she didn’t want to think about igniting all that he wasn’t talking about, the two of them burning together.

Burning for each other.

He ended up taking her over to his bed, and when she fell back, he went with her, covering her body with his own. Clothes melted away. Reservations melted away. Reality… melted away. And that was the way he wanted it, too.

Just for this one time. Before he told her who he really was. And if she would just give him a chance to explain, she might see him as something other than the parents he refused to be like.

“Lyric,” he groaned.

Underneath him, she was glorious all naked and undone, her blond hair on his shitty pillow, her body all curves and length intertwined with his own.

With raw lust, he kissed his way to her breasts, and heard her call out his name as he worked her nipples, his hands seeking the heat between her thighs—

She was beyond ready for him.

There were reasons to draw this out, until the anticipation cut like a knife and the release was all the sweeter for the pain of delay, but that was not tonight. That was not now.

Shoving his hand down to his hips, he angled himself and—

With a thrust, he—

Shorted his fucking brain out.

The sensations of sliding smoothly into her were too goddamn good, but it was more than just her tight, hot hold. It was her breasts against his bare chest, her mouth under his, the way she moaned his name—

Dev started pumping, and he meant to go slower, but there was going to be none of that. Linking a hold under her knee, he stretched her up and went even deeper. Faster. Harder. Until he felt her nails in his back and there was no way to keep kissing her and the headboard banged against the wall.

She took all of him.

And he did what he could to hold out so that she could orgasm first, but he really didn’t care about baseball or golf or anything right now.

In the end, his strokes grew shorter and even quicker, and as his balls tightened and his lungs burned, as she craned underneath him in spite of all his weight—

He started to ejaculate into her, just as she arched one last time herself.

Locking onto Lyric’s lips, he felt the rhythmic contractions of her core as she milked his erection, drawing everything out of him…

Even his soul.

There was a cleansing to the release.

Lyric didn’t want to think in terms of using Dev—and that truly wasn’t the point, hadn’t been the point, of the sex.

No, this raw, explosive collision had been inevitable ever since that snowy street and that stupid billboard, and she was so glad it was finally happening, his body penetrating hers, her arms around him and hanging on for dear life, her inner thighs wet from everything he was pumping into her.

But the reality was, the power of what he made her feel was so overwhelming that it lifted all the burdens she had been carrying. The worry. The sadness. The grief and the fear.

All of that upset would still be waiting for her. Just a little later, on the other side of the pleasure.

And this reprieve was what she needed to keep going.

When Dev finally came to a rest, he kept their bodies linked and lifted his head from her neck, brushing a strand of hair from her face.

“Hi,” he said gruffly.

“Hi.”

Sweeping her hands up his back, she felt some fresh welts— “Oh, no. I think I—”

“Yeah, there will be no complaints about any of that.” He caressed her lips with his own. “You’re welcome to use me as a scratching post anytime you want. But here, let me get off you so I don’t—”

“No,” she whispered. “I like the weight of you on me. And I like you inside me.”

Both made her feel like she wasn’t floating off the planet.

They kissed lazily for a little bit, and then she wasn’t sure who started moving again first. Maybe it was him.

Maybe it was just the friction of her shifting as she repositioned her hips.

But as his arousal pushed into her, he then retreated—and sank into her again. And then he eased away—and came back.

The momentum now started, there was no stopping it, and that was exactly what she wanted.

As her head rolled back and forth on his pillow, she stared up at the ceiling above. Tears came to her eyes, and they were hot down her temples. It was so good to just feel… good.

And Dev’s body was incredibly powerful as he started to pound into her again, and she only wanted him to go even harder—

As if he knew that, he pushed his torso up off her, the muscles of his chest flexing, his abdominals clenching and releasing as he dug into her in waves.

Angling her pelvis, she linked her legs over his lower body and swept her hands down his ribs.

He was a male animal, in the throes of mating, and she wanted to receive everything he had to give her.

On a primordial level, this was just so right—

Another release snapped inside of her and she arched up, her breasts rising, her breath stopping, her eyes seeing stars.

Like, actual stars.

She’d always assumed that was something for novels and movies…

Dev continued to pump, a growl coming out of him, and then he pitched forward, his face once again in her hair, his exhale a roar in her ear, the scent and feel of him taking over everything—

Click.

Click.

He was still ejaculating into her when they both looked to his door. The handle was turning slowly, as if someone were quietly testing the lock.

She’d never seen a human move so fast.

One moment, he was on top of her and coming; the next, he was grabbing a gun out of his bedside table and pushing her off the far side of the mattress. She landed with a thump right next to where she happened to have thrown her clothes.

Scrambling to get dressed, she peeked over the bed.

Dev was naked and advancing toward the door like it was second nature to him, the gun up and steady, his stare fixated on the panel, his magnificent body carved with muscle and power.

And that was when she smelled it.

The sweet, sickly stench of a lesser .

Closing her eyes, she could only guess that the slayer had caught her own scent somehow—so she had brought the enemy right to his door. Literally.

“Dev.”

He shook his head with a jerk. Then he glanced over his shoulder. “Dematerialize.”

Lyric blinked. “What.”

“Now’s not the time. I know what you are.” He nodded toward the window. “Crack that and go.”

A sudden, tingling awareness came over her, a warning that the reality she had thought she knew was not what had been going on—

All at once, a buffering hit the air around him, some kind of aura emanating out from his body before retreating.

Abruptly, he was fully clothed. And that was when it happened.

As he glanced back at her, she met his eyes…

and realized they were navy blue with a black rim, a color combination she had never seen before.

For all the times she had looked at his face, for all the times they’d stared at each other, the color of his irises had never registered.

It was the one detail she had never seen about him, she suddenly realized.

And while she was grappling with that—and so much more—he said in a voice that cracked with regret, “I’m sorry, Lyric.”

He sounded the same, maybe deeper somehow—and as she narrowed her eyes on him, her instincts screamed that he was… not human. Not human, at all. In fact, he was nothing she had ever encountered before, not vampire or Shadow, not even a symphath .

He had just hidden behind a mask of being human.

“Go.”

Right behind her, the blackout drapes parted without anyone touching them, and the window sash lifted on its own. “Fuck, will you just leave —”

The door was kicked open, and the lesser on the far side locked on her, a smile on its pasty face, two guns up front and center, in its palms.

“Gotcha,” it said.

Except then its pale eyes shifted over to Dev. Instantly, everything changed, the weapons lowering, an expression of confusion taking the place of all that satisfaction.

And then the words she’d never forget:

“Holy shit, your father’s been looking for you.”