Hunting His Vampire Mate (Blood Bonded Mates #4)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN || MICHAEL

D anny insisted that we shower together. And I was helpless to resist him.

I’ve never done it before, he informed me silently. This was accompanied by a little pang of longing that swept through the bond.

Then we’ll shower together. But no funny business.

He smirked at me. Of course not. I wouldn’t dream of it.

The moment we stepped into the shower, with the warm spray beating over both of our bodies, he dropped to his knees and took me in his mouth, all down to the hilt.

I got hard almost immediately.

For being so new at this, Danny was doing a fantastic job. Like he’d been doing it all his life.

I let out a low groan, pleasure licking through my body as my mate serviced me. Then, when I was close, he pulled back.

My eyes widened in outrage. But then he flashed me a wicked smile. Then he turned around and bent over slightly, placing both hands on the wall of the shower to steady himself.

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Again?”

“As many times as you can go,” Danny replied, looking back at me over his shoulder, his spiky black hair slicked with water and his eyes hooded with lust. “I’ve got a lot of catching up to do. We could’ve been doing this after every hunt.”

“You’re not sore from ten minutes ago?”

His gaze was hungry, raw with need. “Michael, stop worrying and just fuck me.”

That shut me up.

I slid into him, feeling the delicious tight heat of his hole enveloping my cock. And it was just like the first time. Fucking miraculous.

I let out a low groan as he bucked back, taking all of me in one go.

Grabbing his hips, I rutted into him hard, fast, and a little rough. Judging by both the strangled moans escaping his lips with every thrust and the blinding pleasure rocketing through the bond, I knew he liked it.

He liked it a lot.

I could feel an echo of what he felt: the delicious fullness, the feel of having my hard cock sliding in and out of him, the almost too-much ecstasy of having the pleasure spot inside of him worked over, the yielding and blissful relief of just being , of letting me take care of him and not having to think all of the time. The glorious closeness he felt, something he’d never once experienced before with another person.

Mixed with my own pleasure, it was too much, and it sent me over the edge again. I gripped his hips and thrust deeper, unleashing my orgasm inside of him with a strangled animalistic sound, the ecstasy of it blotting everything else from my mind.

Then, with my cock still inside of him, I reached around and gripped his aching hardness. I began to stroke it as I moved inside of him, more gently this time, focused on giving him as much pleasure as possible.

He let out a gasp and shot rope after rope of warmth all over my hand.

I grinned and pulled out.

He winced a little. “The only time it doesn’t feel great is when you pull out.”

“Sorry,” I told him, landing a kiss on his lips. “So tell me about this ‘practice’ you were doing?”

Danny grinned. “Nothing could’ve prepared me for the real thing.”

“I still can’t believe you were using a dildo.”

“You had mentioned you were more of a top. I figured I should get used to the sensation. Just in case I ever got brave enough to try that with you.”

“I would’ve let you fuck me for our first time, Danny. And if you want to, I’d be down. I’m not a strict top. I’d be whatever you needed.”

He smiled, his eyes going warm and soft as they locked with mine, and he nodded. “I know.”

I hesitated, but I couldn’t help the curiosity I felt. “Did you like it?”

He shrugged. “It was… okay. A little painful at first, I guess. And very strange. But not terrible.” He paused, letting out a laugh. “I wasn’t really hitting the right place, though. Not like you do.”

“I have a lifetime of practice.”

He held my gaze. “It goes without saying, but I’m not comfortable with the hookups. Not now, especially.”

I blinked at him, stunned that he could even imagine that anyone else would ever cross my mind at this point. “Good. Because I belong to you. Body and soul. There won’t be anyone else. Especially not if I’m going to be fucking you three or four times a day.”

“Maybe more,” Danny grinned, leaning forward to land a kiss on my lips.

I shook my head, my eyes going wide with mock-alarm. “Danny, my poor mortal body couldn’t possibly.”

He landed another kiss on my lips and pulled me close, so that our naked bodies were pressed against each other. I cupped his perfect ass and turned the kiss dirtier, parting his lips and exploring his mouth with my tongue.

I started to grow hard again.

Danny pulled back slightly, his eyes dancing with mischief when they met mine. His lips curled into a wicked smirk. “Liar.”

I smirked back. “Guilty as charged. Now, what are you gonna do about it?”

* * *

Our shower took so long that the water turned lukewarm, then cold. But we had both gotten clean—eventually.

“What do you think it’ll be like?” Danny asked, when we were lying in bed together again, with him curled up in my arms. “When we go to Seattle, I mean?”

“Well, it sounds like we’ll be staying put for a couple of months,” I mused. “Having a regular place to crash is something I could get used to, I think. So probably not all bad.”

“We’ll be surrounded by vampires,” Danny said. “I mean, right?”

I gave a mental shrug. You’re a vampire. And besides, these are going to be the good guy vamps, right? Like Bryan and Thierry.

He snorted. “Not sure if Thierry qualifies as a ‘good guy.’”

“You know what I mean.”

Danny nodded and fell silent for a long moment. I could sense the gears spinning in his head.

“Do you want that?” Danny asked suddenly.

I knew, from the bond, what he meant: did I want to put down roots?

And did I? The idea of having a home with Danny, a place that was just ours, after years on the road, a place where we could belong… Well, I didn’t hate it. The idea was actually pretty enticing.

“Maybe,” I replied. “If that’s something you wanted.”

“I have no idea,” Danny admitted. “But maybe we could make friends? You could be a mechanic again. Maybe you could have your own garage or something again? It doesn’t sound awful.”

“You don’t need to give up being a hunter. I’d still do it with you. If that’s something you wanted.”

“A monster hunting monsters?”

“You’re not a monster, babe.”

He let the pet name slide. “I guess Bryan’s maker does that, right? She’s a vampire, but she hunts vamps who kill people. It’s how Bryan got turned. She was saving his life, while on a hunt.”

“He was able to go back to his old life after a couple of months,” I put in. “Tobias told me that he hadn’t needed to change very much about his life. He still had his friends. He went back to college.”

“Right.”

Neither of us mentioned that Bryan had then been enchanted by a dark warlock who had used him to hurt people. It wasn’t something that either Bryan or Tobias talked about much, but we’d gotten enough tidbits to put the whole thing together. Bryan had been reeling from that when we’d first crossed paths.

But still, the point was: Danny could have whatever life he wanted, once his impulses were under control. Once he’d adjusted to what he was now.

“Maybe I don’t really care what my life looks like yet? Maybe I’d be happy with whatever, so long as I was with you?”

“You’ve got enough time to live several lifetimes now,” I added.

“We both do,” Danny said quietly. “If I give you my blood on a regular basis, a couple times a week, you’ll stop aging, and you won’t get sick. You’ll heal faster, too. You could, in theory, live as long as I do. If you wanted that.”

Did I want that?

If it meant never leaving Danny’s side—never letting him walk through life alone and abandoned ever again—then yes. In a heartbeat. I would trade away everything for him.

“Michael,” Danny warned. “You need to choose it for you, too. It can’t just be because of me. That’s not fair to you.”

Before I could reply, my phone rang.

I grabbed my phone from the nightstand and looked at the number on the caller ID: it was Sheriff Dennison.

I sat up in bed, hesitating.

As I stared at the caller ID, the reason for us being in this town in the first place came rushing back. We’d been on a hunt. One that we’d never finished. The vampire nest was still out there. They were still abducting and killing people.

What would happen when we left town?

“Answer it,” Danny whispered.

I nodded and hit the green button to begin the call.

“Another body was found this morning,” Dennison told me immediately. “Your agency is talking about sending in a task force. Please, tell me you found something.”

I swallowed, not sure how I was going to explain that Danny and I were leaving town now.

My long, awkward pause was answer enough.

“Fuck,” Dennison muttered. “That’s what I thought.”

She paused, then added, “We have witnesses that put you and your partner at the scene of an attempted abduction. They said… they said some pretty crazy stuff, Hollens. What the hell happened?”

“The bad guys got away,” I said dully.

The killings are going to continue, Danny whispered into my mind. Michael, we can’t leave here until we put a stop to it.

“They mentioned a van. Did you get a plate number? We could run it through—”

“No.”

She let out a frustrated noise. “The witnesses didn’t get it either. These fucks are just going to keep at it. Until they get sloppy.” She let out another pause. “There was a young man, Rico Alvarez. Barely out of high school. He works a night shift at a drive-through on the edge of town. He never came home last night. His mother reported him missing.”

Guilt twisted in the pit of my stomach.

Her voice turned more dangerous. “Funny thing is, the folks at bureau have never heard of you, Special Agent Hollens. I think you need to tell me who the hell you really are.”

I disconnected the call.

This was usually the moment Danny and I had to leave town. Once the local law realized we weren’t who we were claiming to be. Granted, that usually worked out well enough: we typically rooted out the monster and destroyed it before that happened.

That gave us two reasons to leave town.

“We really could call one of our hunter friends,” I suggested. “Someone else could handle this. We’ve been made, anyhow.”

“What’s going to happen to Rico?”

I grimaced. If we didn’t do something, there would be one more dead body in the morning. Rico would never make it home to his mother.

“You know what we have to do.”

“I’ll go,” I told him, lurching out of bed. I started pulling clothes on. “You’ll be fine here for a couple hours. I’ll call Tobias and see if he can help us out with a locator spell or something. If he can’t, we can look up one of our other contacts.”

“You’re not going alone.”

“I can’t exactly take Thierry with me,” I muttered.

“I’m coming with you. As long as I stay close, I should be okay.” He paused, flashing me rueful smile. “And since I’m no longer coated with powdered silver, I’ll actually be useful in a fight.”

“Danny, no. Seriously.”

“Michael,” Danny fixed me with an imploring look. “Maybe we’re going to give up on hunting after this. Who knows?” He paused. “But we have a case. We need to close it before we leave. And there’s no way in hell I’m letting you get hurt. Especially not now. You know that already, though.”

Dread knotted up in the pit of my stomach. Usually before a hunt, I felt a thrill of anticipation. Now all I felt was a sick wash of fear at all of the awful things that might happen. All of the ways Danny could get hurt. Could get taken away from me.

“I’m coming. End of story,” Danny said flatly.

I nodded. Besides, I couldn’t really stop him now. With the powdered silver no longer coating his skin, it wouldn’t even have been close to a fair fight.

Maybe he caught some of the fear I felt, rippling through the bond. Because his expression softened. “Michael, we’ve done this a million times before. I’ll be fine. I promise.”

I couldn’t help the fear I felt that he was lying to both of us.