Immortal Danger (Night Watch 0.5)(54)
Author: Cynthia Eden

He exhaled and took a step toward her. "Good to know."

Her lips curved, just the faintest bit. Her shoulders were stiff, and there was a strange tenseness to her face. "Maya?"

She looked back at the moon. "I didn’t thank you."

He stalked closer. "For what?"

"Getting me out of that alley. Saving my ass." She shook her head and the silky mane of her hair drifted around her face. "I died in an alley like that once-or at least, my human self did. I sure as hell didn’t want it to happen again."

He reached out his hand. Curled his fingers over hers. "Hey, you would have done the same for me, right?" He tossed the words back to her, expecting a smile, preferably a full one, or a laugh.

Instead, she said, very softly, "Yeah, I would have." She swallowed, opened her mouth, then hesitated.

"Maya?" Something was going on, something he didn’t understand.

"When she was fifteen," her fingers were steel tight beneath his, "my mom gave birth to me in an alley like that. I was born in the dirt and the trash."

He stilled, his heart thundering. This was important. She was trusting him with her past.

He knew Maya Black didn’t trust many people.

"I was in foster homes at first, then she got me back-don’t really know how. She was always drinking and whoring herself out-there were so many men. Men who liked to hurt her."

There was more she wasn’t saying, he knew it. "Did they like to hurt you?"

A nod.

Bastards. What he wouldn’t give to find them all and to-

"She died when she was twenty-four. God, no one should die that young." The wrought iron groaned beneath her fingers. "There was so much blood. I stepped in it, trying to get to her. Her eyes were open, staring straight up. She’d always been pretty, even when she was drinking and high, but-he made her ugly. In death, she was so ugly. Face smashed in. Lips cracked and dripping blood…" She broke off, shaking her head. "I couldn’t help her. I wanted to, so badly. But there was nothing I could do."

That’s why she’d become a cop, he realized. To atone for a life that hadn’t even been hers to save. "It wasn’t your fault, Maya."

"No, but she didn’t deserve to die like that." Her sigh drifted on the wind. "She tried to be good to me-sometimes she’d take me to the park or buy me some crayons, but she was sick, you know? The drugs-they had her too messed up inside."

There was an ache in her voice, one that made him hurt.

"I went back to the homes after she died. Bounced around for years. Didn’t let anyone get too close."

She still didn’t, he thought, and wished things were different.

"Cammie said she closed her eyes and saw the vampires. For most of my life, I’d close my eyes and see my mother." She shook her head. "I don’t want the same thing to happen to the kid. I don’t want her to live with fear. To stare into hell."

"She won’t." He’d make certain of it.

Maya’s hold finally eased on the railing. "No, she won’t." Said with absolute assurance. She shook her head, as if shaking off the past, and turned toward him. "She’ll live a long, good life, won’t she, Slick?"

If he had anything to say about it, yeah, she would. He nodded.

"Good." One of her hands was still beneath his. Her fingers turned, curled around his. "You’re a pretty solid guy, you know that? For a, you know, thousand-year-old, fire-breathing dragon." The words were light, but there were lines of tension near her mouth.

She was still holding something back from him.

"And you’re something damn special, Maya Black, for a vampire with a serious attitude problem." She was special, and so very important to him. Becoming more so each moment.

Her lips curled into one of those real smiles that he liked.

Her fingers broke free of his and rose to stroke his chest through the shirt he wore. "I’ve been thinking about you," she said, and her voice was tinged with the faintest huskiness.

At her touch, his c**k immediately began to swell. "Oh?" He’d wanted her since she first woke and he’d gotten to taste her sweet flesh. He’d tamped down the hunger, wanting to play the gentleman and to show her that he had control, not the beast that lusted within him.

But she was looking at him now, with a fierce need in her eyes, and her lips-so red and wet-were just inches from his.

"After the way you touched me, I couldn’t stop thinking about you." Her index finger traced over his left nipple. "I think it’s time we finished what you started."

He wanted to, with every cell in his body, but…"Maya, the wolves are patrolling, they’ll see us."

He didn’t want anyone seeing her body but him.

Her smile stretched, but didn’t reach her hungry gaze. "Relax, Slick." She pushed him back, forcing him deeper into the darkness alongside the house. "No one can see us from here."

He wasn’t so sure about that. His back was to the wall. The glass doors were about five feet away, and Maya-

She was undoing his jeans.

"Maya-"

"Relax." His zipper slid down with a loud hiss. "Isn’t that what you said to me?"

His c**k sprang into her waiting hands. At her light touch, his erection tautened, arousal building hot and fast.

She made a faint hum in the back of her throat and her fingers tightened around him.

Adam clenched his back teeth.

Her hand began to move on him, slow, steady strokes from root to tip. Again and again.

"Do you like this?" She asked, her voice husky.

"Yes…"

She kneeled before him, lowering her mouth just over his straining erection. "What about this?"

Her lips closed over the tip of his cock, sucking lightly.

"Yes!"

Her tongue licked him, a long, winding caress that covered the head of his shaft. Then her mouth was moving on him, sucking strong and hard and she took more of him into the wet warmth of her mouth. More, more .

Adam thrust against her, unable to stop the desperate movement of his hips. Her mouth-so damn good.

She took him in deep, caressing every inch of his c**k with her skilled tongue and lips.

His balls were tight, his muscles locked, and he knew that if he didn’t stop her soon, he’d come in her mouth, in the next thirty seconds.

"Maya." Her name was a warning, one gritted from between his teeth.

She didn’t stop.

" Maya." A shudder worked over him. So close.

Her mouth tightened around him.

He grabbed her head, forcing her to stop the delicious motions. She looked up at him, eyes wide and full of dark desire.