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His gaze went red before he forced that killing rage back. Good thing, too, because she wasn’t done.
“She also said you sounded bored in bed with me earlier, and I’d never be able to handle what youreallyliked to do, and you’ve told her plus half the women you fuck that you’re in love with them, and you’d have tossed me out years ago if I hadn’t inflamed your interest by leaving you first…oh, and that she was the one you munched on a couple months ago in Chicago.”
“Bugger,” Annette whispered one floor below them.
Bones barely heard that as rage torpedoed his blood through him. In his worst imaginings, he’d never thought Annette would betray him with such vicious lies. For a moment, he actually couldn’t speak from the shock of it.
“I am going to flog Annette fleshless for this,” he ground out when he had enough control to form words again. “And if I were you, I wouldn’t have stopped at wounding her. I would have finished the job and killed her. Bloodyhell.”
He snatched the door open, nearly ripping it from its hinges. “Rodney, take them back and leave Annette here!”
“On it,” Rodney said in a very subdued tone.
“Is it true?” Cat’s gray gaze appeared darker from doubt. “You’re pissed at her, sure, but is that because she lied to me? Or because she told me the truth?”
God, that she would even think that! His eyes closed from the weight of it. “I hate having this conversation under these circumstances, but I had no intention of concealing my past from you. The short answer to only thefirstpart of what Annette said is yes, I have been with many women, human and otherwise.”
“Usually in bunches?” she prodded, her tone going hoarse. “For a total of thousands?Tensof thousands?”
Bones opened his eyes. She was now sitting on the edge of the bed as if her legs couldn’t hold her anymore. He went over and knelt in front of her so their eyes were nearly level. Her expression was anguished, and anguish ripped at him, too. How to make her understand that it wasn’t the frolicking flesh fest Annette had made it out to be? How to convey the desolateness that had gnawed at him like an immortal, ravenous beast?
“After I was changed into a vampire, I spent two decades brooding over the fate that Ian forced on me,” Bones said, starting at the beginning. “But eventually, I decided I may as well have a grand time being undead. Back then, I had a talent for exactly one thing, and that was shagging. If the girl fancied additional feminine company as well, I certainly didn’t object. Then, as the years passed, I began meting out death to those I thought deserved it. Soon, killing became the other thing I excelled at, and I started making an income from it. Between the two, I reckoned I was as happy as I had any right to be.”
And that wasn’t very happy. Oh, he’d enjoyed himself here and there, but happiness went much deeper, and only when he’d found it did he realize how it had eluded him before.
“My life went on like this for centuries, and yes, Annette was frequently one of my lovers, either alone or accompanied. Then one day, a friend asked me to find his daughter’s murderer, and I tracked her killer’s operation to a bar in Ohio. There I met you, and I fell in love. You can’t imagine what that was like after centuries of…emptiness. I hadn’t thought I wascapableof loving someone like that, but I did, and more than that, I finally believed I had something to offer apart from a good shag or a deserved killing. For the first time, I felt whole, complete…and now, my oldest, most trusted friend has sought to rip that away by taunting you with my past in the hopes of destroying your feelings for me.”
He couldn’t keep the bitterness from his tone at that last part. If Annette had stabbed him in the heart, it would have been less cruel. Out of everyone else, she’d known how much he loved Cat because she’d felt it when his shields had broken, and his pain coursed into her. Yet still, she’d tried to sentence him to a lifetime more of that pain.
Cat’s eyes briefly closed, and a ragged sigh escaped her. “I can’t relate to all the sex, but for the past four and a half years, I had nothing to offer anyone except my ability to kill, too. So, yeah…I know what a dark, lonely feeling that is.”
Warmth broke through the chill from his rage. He’d hoped she would understand, but she’d done much more than that because sheknewthis pain. Yes, her time with it had been brief and his had lasted centuries, but it was still very real.
“Don’t judge Annette too harshly,” she said next, shocking him. “She’s in love with you. That’s why she acted like such an ass with me. Granted, I don’t like hearing about your extensive sexual history, but I can handle it as long as it remains in your past because I willneverparticipate in a threesome, foursome, fivesome, whatever. So, if that’s what you’re hoping I’ll eventually get into…then we have a problem.”
Her gaze was defiant, but a faint tremor went through her. She really did fear that she wouldn’t be enough for him, as if anyone could ever replace her.
Bones let his hands rest on her knees. “Except for that one instance I truly regret with Annette, I didn’t touch another woman while we were apart because I don’t want anyone but you. And as far as telling other women that I loved them, when I was a whore, I used to tell all my clients that. Part of the job, as it were. That’s why I’d said it previously to Annette, but not since I was a human selling my body to survive have I said it to anyone except you.”
Her gaze brightened with tears, and she leaned closer, until their heads were nearly touching. Feeling her breaths land on his skin and seeing that priceless trust fill her gaze again almost razed him from the emotions it unleashed.
“Well, then…okay,” she whispered.
“Okay?” He pulled her into his arms, searching her face, scent, and each movement in her body to see if she meant it.
She touched his cheek, her gaze never flinching. “Okay.”
He lowered his head. She met him halfway, her lips velvet and her body a satiny cage as she held him like she was afraid someone would snatch him away if she loosened her grip. He never wanted to stop kissing her, but someonehadtried to snatch her away, and he couldn’t let that go unanswered a moment longer.
“I still have to deal with Annette,” he murmured, breaking their kiss. “You might look leniently on her, but she violated my trust, and I cannot dismiss that. Annette,” he snapped, turning away from Cat to face the door. “Get up here!”
Cat only loosened her grip enough to shrug. “Do it your way, but I suggest another one. You could beat her bloody, or-”
Bones layered on his ice. She’d suggest leading with mercy instead of punishment. Or taking the evening to decide Annette’s sentence, or something else he’d refuse because nothing would stop him from meting out his justice now-
“-you could give me such loud, screaming orgasms that the sound of them blisters her ears-”
-exceptthat. Bloody hell, Annette who?
