Never Really Over

“Stop staring at me like that, woman. Bloody well let me in.”

Admittedly, he looked pathetic; soaked to the bone from the downpour, his ginger-blond curls clumped together, the tips beading droplets onto his broad shoulders. He cradled his right side, the scent of blood ebbing off it in delicious wafts. Crimson accompanied it, staining his torn shirt and seeping through his fingers from his attempt to stop the bleeding.

His jaw tightened at my silence. The rage in his piercing blue eyes was palpable, but his gaze was quick to fall to my feet. His muscular shoulders hunched, whether from pain or misery, I wasn’t sure. I found it delicious, no matter the cause.

My grey eyes cast to my bow, held at my side in my fingertips, swinging it, as I was unaffected by his circumstances. And he knew it.

“Please, Dru. Let me in.”

My gaze returned to his beautiful face. “Oh? You paint me the villain, then expect me to welcome you back with open arms. Is that how you think this works?”

His silence at that prompted a sadistic smirk to slip across my lips. He kept his eyes pointed away from me, but the restraint was plain on his tight brow. Everything in him was bubbling, his blood ramped up to a boil. I knew the look, knew him too well. I knew his temper too well.

It’s nice to know some things never change, I thought.

“Drusilla.”

My name came out slow, edged with a growl on his sexy Scottish brogue.

“Michael,” I mocked. I widened my eyes at him, making sure he knew I didn’t take his threats seriously…still.

He licked his lips and summoned the strength to keep his temper in check. “Let me in.”

I cocked my head to the side and crossed my arms at my chest, the violin bow resting on my upper arm. “Making demands, are we?”

“For Christ’s sake, woman! Let me in before I catch my death.”

Truthfully, I tried to fight the sad smile that found me, but it won out.

“But death has already found us, hasn’t it, my dearest one?”

He winced as if I slapped him. It was still a sore spot, after all these years.

We were no strangers to death; we were incredibly intimate, a ménage à trois, an erotic entangling. Michael was bound to us, me and death, and there was no real escape, something he had yet to learn.

His free hand balled into a tight fist, and he shut his eyes.

I gave him a small nod. “I see you don’t need reminding.”

He opened his eyes and lifted them to me. “Please.”

No matter our dark pasts and the fact that I was the villain in his story, his voice was always my weakness; rough, brash, and increasingly stubborn, but gentle, passionate, and sweet like candy. It made my knees weak, especially seeing him wounded.

I kept my eyes on his broken form. “Brielle.”

The young maid stepped up to me. “Yes, Madam?”

“Please invite Mr Connolly in.”

****

He sipped his glass of scotch, his movements still stiff from annoyance.

My eyes sought him out with intense hunger, especially since he took off the soiled shirt to let the maid patch him up. His upper body was on display, less that of a bodybuilder and more of a farm boy, as he had been when I happened upon him forever ago. He was still beautiful to me.

Even worse, his curls were drying; no longer were they dark like lustrous honey, but now a silky ginger with golden highlights. Every ringlet was delicious, just like Michael himself.

I crossed my leg over the other. “So, I am going to assume your usual heroics brought you to my door like this.”

“What’s it to you?”

His head hung low as he eyed me. He still cradled his side, though the glass was in his free hand.

I used the back of my hand to brush my silken jet-black locks off my shoulder. “All in the name of the greater good, and it gets you shanked in the ribs.”

“Drusilla.” His voice boomed in the little salon, but it didn’t shake me.

“Temper, temper, my love. I’m curious though. After all, you went on and on about the evils and atrocities I’ve committed in my five hundred years, yet I can’t even name one circumstance where I was in such a pitiful state as you are right now.”

“What does it matter? I’m still here, still in this pitiful state, as you call it.”

Silence settled in the room. I moved my hand to my thigh and kept my eyes focused on him. “What happened?”

He sighed as he set the glass down on the coffee table, then he relaxed back on the sofa. “I’m sure you will call it justice, or perhaps my just desserts.”

My brow rose with delight. “Oh?”

“They turned on me. They used me for what they needed and then turned on me. I’m now being hunted. There’s even a bounty on my head, as they spun the story to make me out to be the aggressor, as the—”

“The villain?”

He frowned deeply and tore his gaze away. “Yes.”

“It doesn’t feel good, does it?”

He ignored my words. “I had no place else to go. Believe me, this is the last place I want to be.”

I gave him a slow nod, letting his words resonate before I stood from the sofa. I turned my back to him and sauntered towards the fireplace. My chin lifted with my gaze to the impressive oil portrait of blood-red roses above the mantle.

“Yet, you’re here…”

“Begrudgingly,” he muttered.

A sadistic smirk crossed me; his displeasure for being in my presence was a farce. There was lust in the air, thick, cloudy, delicious as it fogged up my senses. Especially the common one.

I kept my back to him and my eyes on the painting. “Well, you know what this means, then.”

“Enlighten me.”

“They have taken your power.” I turned to him but stayed in front of the hearth. “You now have to take it back.”

He leaned on his elbow on his right leg. His hand was lax, no longer cradling his ribs, as the wound was almost healed. His chest was magnificent in the warm light, the dusting of darker hair still sending a frisson of desire right to my fingertips. But it was the look in his steel-blue orbs, the heat in them, that thrilled me most of all—was he thinking the same forbidden thoughts?

I continued as I took a step forward, “And you can’t walk up to their door, knock on it, and ask nicely, either. You can’t be the good guy, the hero. Not in this instance.”

He lifted his head at my words. He got to his feet in a single, smooth movement, his heavy steps booming in the room with his approach. I still didn’t flinch.

He was also rock solid, even as he stared down at me. “What do you suggest I do, then?”

“Isn’t it obvious, my love? You burn the house to the ground with them screaming in unending pain inside.”

His eyes moved to my lips. “Kill them all.”

“Every…last…one.”

My touch was light on his pecks, grazing over it in time with my voice, before I trailed my index finger down the center of his torso to the band of his jeans.

“Be the villain, you mean?” His eyes kept on my lips, his voice filled with an unsure breathlessness.

I shrugged my shoulder a little. “If they want to make you out to be as such…”

He let a seductive smirk loose. He grabbed my throat and pulled me close, squeezing it; I could still breathe, but he was in control. He lifted me up on my tip-toes, our noses grazing.

His eyes swirled with a vicious, fiery corruption.

“I should give them what they want.”

His voice rumbled in my chest, and his breath was hot on my lips. It was almost enough to floor me, though my hand was over his at my throat and kept me steady.

My eyes widened with a devilish glee. “And then some.”

The smirk on his kissable lips didn’t even budge, even as he crushed them down on mine, claiming me hotly. I guess with the toxic, dangerous, bloody love affairs of the undead, it’s never really over until one of us crumbles into dust.

And when at each other’s side, our enemies shake, bowing to our awesome power. They’ll regret thinking they could destroy us…but only just before we destroy them.