#karrett

Garrett didn’t feel like prey very often. He had been roaming as a predator for centuries and he’d forgotten what it was like to be vulnerable. To feel invisible eyes on you and not know if they meant to catch you or not. But tonight, he walked Forks, Washington at the time of night where anyone smart would be heading home. The roads under the streetlights shimmered wet from the day’s rainfall, and the cold white glow turned the sleepy town to shadows and silhouettes. Based on the distance thunder miles away, more rain was coming.

The vampire was supposed to be back up on the mountains with the rest of the Denali coven. But ever since their cousins had the family from Alaska to an unremarkable town in the American Pacific Northwest, Garrett found himself returning. Maybe it was the lack of sunlight that made moving around in the day a little easier (the Cullens certainly cracked the code on that). Maybe it was the expanse of misty forests that left plenty of room for one who could run far and fast.

Maybe, it was because residents liked to go out by themselves at night. You didn’t get that as much in the remote, Alaskan mountains. Maybe an occasional lost hiker, but a single human alone in the woods didn’t provide much of a challenge. In a town, even a small one, you had more potential eyes that could see you. Downtown Forks on a very late Friday night had a few stragglers and enough people still out and about that a hunter could get caught.

And honestly, if Garrett was going to indulge, why not make it fun with a little challenge?

He leaned his back against the brick wall of the old abandoned warehouse just a few blocks down from the movie theater. The witching hour was getting close. The bars and restaurants that lined the street that weren’t close had only a handful of patrons left. Even for the night that most humans stayed out late, things were winding down. Garrett activated his lighter with a metallic flick and lit the cigarette between his teeth. He didn’t smoke. Tobacco had no effect on the undead until it was in a human’s blood. But anything to make him look conspicuous. If he was lucky, someone may come and ask for one.

His eyes flicked up and down the street. It was a frosty autumn evening, the rusty orange leaves providing the only color on the streets. Maybe the cold had scared off most of the usual late-night revelers. Garrett chuckled and pinched the cigarette between his teeth as the smoke escaped his lips. Humans, with their warm soft bodies and fear of anything cold. Garrett found it kind of cute. Reminded him of his human nights in the tents, hoping that snow was the worst thing he’d feel, and not a bullet from a Brit.

Don’t worry, Garrett thought to himself as he watched the doors to the bar down the street open. A group of college-aged partiers stumbled out, laughing and bunching up against the wind. There are worse things to feel than cold and bullets.

The lot of them made their way down the sidewalk in the opposite direction. Garrett could hear their slurry conversations even from a distance. Mostly arguments over whether any of them were sober enough to drive, or if they were better off finding an Uber at this time of night who could hold all of them. Garrett didn’t like to go after groups. He already wasn’t supposed to be out here, doing what he was doing. The more people went missing, the bigger the search party, the bigger the news story, and he didn’t need that getting back home.

But then, to his luck, one of the stragglers separated from the rest of the group. The rest of his friends didn’t seem to notice. The drunken young man had his phone to his ear, trying to grab a signal from an Uber or a friend with a car or someone. His friends disappeared around the block corner while he ducked into an alley next to the bar to make his call. He might as well have been presented to Garrett on a plate with silverware.

Garrett took another drag from his cigarette. A single ember glowed orange against the dark night and fell to the wet sidewalk at his boots. He flicked it clean, then sauntered across the street to the other alley. This one was long enough that Garrett couldn’t see the end of it, whether it led to another street or a dead end with a dumpster. A single white light was attached to the wall of the building next door, casting a white harsh light on the brick walls and concrete ground. It flickered a little, and a tiny moth bumped against it.

“Come on, man…I’m only ten minutes away, come get me…”

The poor guy was begging to someone on his phone. He seemed to be the most inebriated of his friend group. His hand was pressed flat against the wall of the bar to keep himself from tumbling to the ground. Perhaps his friends didn’t want to be in the same car as him while he was in such a state. Garrett may have pitied the poor man, if his eyes were not blackening with hunger.

“You seem a bit lost,” Garrett said.

The boy snapped his head up and glanced over at Garrett. The vampire gave him a pleasant grin, holding the burning cigarette between two fingers, as casual as if he were striking a conversation up in the bar.

“I’ll…later, man,” the boy said.

He turned off the call and dropped his phone into his jeans pocket. He stumbled over to Garrett, steading his hand on the wall and squinting like he couldn’t see in the dim light.

“No offense, man…” he said. “But…your eyes look real weird, man…they’re like red…”

Garrett gave him a tight-lipped grin.

“Genetic mutation,” he said. “Affects less than one percent of the population.”

If this poor boy had any brain cells, they had drained out of his head with the alcohol. He snorted out a little laugh.

“That’s crazy, man,” he said.

Garrett reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his pack of Marlboro Reds.

“Want one?” he asked, extending his hand with the box.

The boy staggered and shifted where he stood.

“No…thanks man…” he said. “I don’t smoke…”

At that moment, the boy clenched his stomach and dipped his head down as he gurgled up a pile of vomit onto the wall corner. Garrett watched him expel his guts, dripping down the brick wall to the ground. After a few minutes, the boy was relieved enough to lift his head back up to him.

“Sorry…” he said.

Garrett shook his head.

“You seem to be having a hard time,” he said. He stepped closer and offered the box again. “Go on, have just one…it’ll help you relax.”

The boy didn’t seem to be in much of a mood to fight. He sauntered closer to Garrett, reaching out to take the box from his hand. 

It happened in a split second. Garrett dropped the box before the boy could take it, grabbed him by the arm, and pinned him high against the wall with his fist in his shirt. The drunk boy yelped as he was hoisted in the air, squirming against the brick at his back.

“You stupid little boy,” Garrett said. “Didn’t your mother teach you not to take things from strangers?”

The boy was whimpering like helpless little prey. He kicked his legs and writhed against Garrett’s hand, but he was helpless to escape.

“Please…please, man,” he said. “I don’t have money, I don’t have anything you want…”

“Oh, don’t sell yourself short, boy.” The vampire leaned his wicked grin close to the human’s sweaty face. “You have plenty of what I want.”

The boy’s heart was racing and Garrett could hear it. Knocking at the boy’s chest, sending his hot, adrenalized blood pumping through his veins, waiting just under that supply pink skin. Garrett’s mouth watered and he felt a tingle in his teeth. He had not had a drop of human blood in over a year, and oh, he missed it.

But just before he could open his mouth to bare his teeth, Garrett suddenly felt a sharp, fast gust of wind blow past him. It was strong and sudden enough to knock the vampire to the ground, losing his grip on the human. The boy screamed, before suddenly disappearing from Garrett’s sight.

“The fuck?” Garrett spat.

He pulled himself up to his feet and looked out from the alleyway. Up and down both ways of the street, the drunken frat guy had disappeared. Garrett couldn’t even hear him anywhere, no footsteps running away. A human couldn’t fight off and get away from him that fast. The only being that could would be…

“You’ve slipped far away from home, have you, darling?

A feminine voice crawled from the darkness at the end of the alley. Garret turned back to face the long stretch of the alley. He couldn’t see the end of it beyond where the wall light ended, but he knew that voice. It was a voice that had whispered in his ear for over a year now. 

“My apologies, my love,” Garrett said, turning to face the shadows. “I was feeling a bit hungry is all.”

Kate sauntered out of the shadows into the harsh white light. Her straight blonde hair glowed under the bulb, and shimmered on the black fur trim of her coat. Garrett tried to blend in when he went out in human towns. A leather jacket, simple black clothes underneath boots that had not seen an easy day since the last war. Perhaps a bit unusual, but nothing someone’s eyes wouldn’t glaze over after a moment’s notice. But his lover had come to town dressed in a long dark coat like she was still living in that old Slovakian village.

“Unless you’re planning to pluck a pigeon from the phone wires and suck it dry,” Kate said. “I don’t see what food you could find in a city that you can’t find in the forest back home.”

A guilty smirk crept across Garrett’s face.

“Okay, you got me,” he said. “I…may have relapsed a bit.”

Kate raised an eyebrow and gave him a look. The kind Garrett received from his mother as a boy when she caught him stealing sweets from the kitchen. 

“Garrett,” Kate said. “You don’t hunt humans anymore. You agreed to that when you joined us in Denali.” She stood in front of him, tipping her head up to match her yellow eyes to his. “If you wanted a late night snack, Alaska has enough grizzly bears and caribou for lifetimes.”

Garrett huffed.

“I’ve been eating nothing of it for a year,” he said. “I’ve been good.”

He brought the cigarette to his lips again. Kate watched him suck in a breath of it, and let it out in a grey wisp that obscured her face.

“You know, it’s a lot like quitting an addiction,” he said. He looked at the cigarette as he twisted it around in his fingers. “Some humans, when they try to stop…they don’t give it up all at once. They started small. Do it, but a little less.” His eyes flicked back to hers. “Find something new to do with their mouth and bodies. Chew gum. Eat sunflower seeds. Pick their teeth with toothpicks.”

“So that’s what this is?” Kate asked. She reached over and pinched the thing out of his hands. “You’re trying to frame your relapse as just ‘waning off’?”

Kate flicked the cigarette onto the concrete and stamped it out with her leather boot.

“I understand that human blood is a difficult thing to let go of,” she said. Her eyes sharpened on his. “But I want to know why you decided to come back to Forks. Are there not enough poor drunks in Denali you couldn’t be out harassing”

Garrett nibbled on his lower lip. Yes, Alaska had plenty of unsuspecting wanderers who would make an easy meal for a relapse vampire.

“Maybe I was just nostalgic,” he said. He leaned closer to her, close enough there forehead nearly touched. “After all…this town is how you found me.”

Kate gave him a kind of disapproving smirk.

“Well, good thing I found you before you could wane onto that poor little man,” she said. Her long fingernails trailed up Garrett's jacket, then up the back of his neck to his shaggy dark hair. She curled his fingers into it, like she could pick him up by his scruff. And she very well could. “So now, I can take you home, before you do something stupid.”

Her tone was icier than the October air and her eyes could cut concrete. But it only sent an excited shiver through Garrett’s body. Kate was once a bodyguard, a protector of those once highborn, and Garrett could see that hound-like fierceness in her eyes. Especially when she was angry.

“Perhaps,” he said. His breath came out a wisp in the cold. “But…you haven’t got me yet.”

Before Kate could even respond, Garrett snapped her hand from his hair and took off out of the alleyway. He moved at a vampiric speed so he looked like a rust-colored blur. Kate clenched her teeth and took off after him.

The streets were ghost towns empty by this time. Good thing too, or someone might have felt a sharp, sudden breeze as two vampires took off past them faster than the speed of sight. Across asphalt, over roofs, between fire escapes. Kate trained her huntress eyes on her mate as she chased him down through Forks. The storm that had been rumbling in the distance was getting closer. With it, came lightning. With lightning, Kate felt a stronger pulse in her palms.

The wind whipped at Garrett’s ears as he ran. He jumped up onto a window balcony, then up onto the room of an apartment complex. He glanced over his shoulder to see Kate breeze up onto the roof and start charging behind him. A giddy laugh crawled up his throat and from his mouth. If he had a heartbeat, it would be skipping in his ribs. 

The thunderstorm finally crept over the sky above them. Forks, Washington and its damn rain. The icy cold downpour made the air misty and Kate would have lost him if it wasn’t for her heightened senses. Thankfully, the rolling clouds gave her a new weapon to end this.

Breath huffing with each step, Kate lifted her hand above her head. White sparks crackled between her fingers and in the clouds above. She imagined it as the string of a balloon, connecting the energy in the sky to her hand. She could grab a bolt of lighting in her hand like the grip of a sword.

Once she had one in her grasp, hot in against her deathly cold grip, she clenched it and sent it hurling forward. Years in arching and axe-throwing had done Kate well, as her aim sent the shock of electricity right into the back of Garrett’s leather jacket.

Through the fabric to his flesh, Garrett felt a shock unlike any other touch Kate had given him. It hit him just as he leapt in the space between two buildings, and sent him falling and rolled onto the adjacent roof. His body skirted against the concrete, stopping just before a skylight window.

“Gah—fuck!” he groaned.

Vampires were not used to pain. At least, not the way humans were. Kate could bring Garrett to his knees with a light brush from her electric fingers. But a bolt of lightning, fresh from a storm cloud to her hand, made him feel weaker than he had in three hundred years since his turning. He gripped his arms around himself and writhed on the ground in pain. He rolled onto his back with a groan, rain pattering on his face. Just off his head, he could hear Kate’s boots scraping against the wet concrete.

“I don’t want to hurt you, love,” she said.

Kate was suddenly above Garrett, and she pressed a boot to the center of his chest. Garrett hoofed against the weight over his heart.

“But I will if necessary to get you back home,” she said. “I’m not letting humans see us, bring the Volutri after our asses, just because you couldn’t control yourself.”

Garrett’s chest rose and fell with every breath, as much as it could under Kate’s foot. His eyes rose up her black leather leg, up the fur lining of her long coat, and finally to her eyes that glowed gold against the dark gray sky. She was like a Slavic goddess and the thunder roared overhead with her wrath. Or perhaps like Valkyrie, coming to collect a fallen soldier on the battlefield. Garrett thought back to his Revolutionary days, and how the prospect of dying in battle rather than becoming immortal would have been more tempting to him if an angel of death like her was greeting him at the gates.

“Is it just to get me home?” he said with a darling grin. “Or do you just like it…?”

He tipped his head off the ground and cupped a hand behind Kate’s ankle. He moved his mouth close enough to plant a kiss atop her foot. His eyes held hers as he did.

“Is that true, my love?” he said in a low, velvety purr. He held her with both hands and pressed thick kisses up to her ankle.. “Do you like to hurt me…do you like making me your prey…?”

Even through the leather, Kate could feel his hot breath, she felt a stir down her body. Hunting humans for blood was a vice she gave up a long time ago. But hunting vampires for other purposes was a different kind of temptation. Especially when said vampires had a handsome face and tuggable hair.

“Are you trying to flirt your way out of trouble?” she asked.

Garrett’s eyes glinted, and when he smiled, so did his teeth.

“Is it working?” he asked.

A threat of a smile tugged at the corner of Kate’s lips. Garrett did this often since they met the Cullens’ home a year before. Whenever she was cross with him, he thought he could bat his eyes, bite his lip and shift his hips a little, and she would let him weasel out of whatever nonsense he’d gotten into.

And the worst part? Sometimes it worked.

Kate removed her boot from Garrett’s chest, then reached down and grabbed him by the front of his shirt. She lifted him high up in the air. Despite his taller height, she had him over his head, his feet just hanging an inch over the ground.

The rain had passed by this point, but thunder still rumbled nearby and Garrett’s boot dripped onto the roof. Kate’s eyes flicked over to the skylight roof and Garrett could see a wicked idea crossed her eyes.

In one swift motion, she tossed him back onto the skylight roof. Glass shattered against Garrett’s back and he tumbled from the ceiling, then landing on his back on a plush, bouncy mattress.

A bedroom. The skylight led into a bedroom. Of all the rooftops Kate could have stopped him on, Garrett had landed atop a luxury hotel with impeccable rooms. Deep burgundy walls, an oriental rug, a diamond chandelier, and a large dark dresser. Dominating the room was a large bed of a white lacy duvet and a dark wooden frame. The place was charmingly old-fashioned, like something from centuries ago.

Garrett glanced up at the jagged hole his body left in the glass. Kate stood there looking down at him, before dropping herself down into the room and landing cat-like on her feet. Most of the glass had thankfully landed on the floor. Garrett pushed the remaining off.

“You’ve always been good at making entrances,” he said.

“And you’ve always been good at pissing me off.”

“Can you blame me?” He flashed her a cheeky grin as she approached closer to the bed. “You’re so beautiful when you’re pissed off.”

Garrett remained on his back as Kate crawled onto the bed. He anticipated her full weight on top of him. Instead, she pressed her knee down between his thighs. Garrett sucked in a breath and stiffened, his cock pulsing under her weight.

“Fuck…Katrina…” he breathed.

The way her full name slipped off his tongue made Kate shiver all over. She wanted to push her name from his mouth again, and again, and again…

She curled her fingers into his jacket, one of many he carried around in that nomadic suitcase of his. With one hard tug, she ripped the whole thing off him, leaving the thing in two pieces. Garrett winced against the tearing sound.

“That thing was an antique you know,” he said. “Bought that one in the forties. Probably worth a lot of money now.”

Kate ignored him and ripped the sleeves from the jacket with two clean tugs. With two strips of leather, she had just enough to tie a knot. She took each of Garrett’s wrists and bound them both to the headboard.

“Don’t want me to run off again?” he said.

Kate simply shook her head.

“No,” she said. “I’ll catch you.”

She tightened binds around Garrett’s hands. His breath hitched a little when he did. Kate knew how to make effective restraints from just about anything. 

“I won’t have anything to wear on the journey home,” he said. “I’ll be so cold in the rain and snow.”

“Serves you for running away to eat humans.” Kate finished tying the binds then looked down at Garrett: “You’re just as strong as me. Why not just snap yourself free and go?”

Garrett pursed his lips and gave her an impish look. Kate narrowed her eyes, a grin threatening to split into her lips.

“You could have found human prey in Denali,” she said. “That’s not why you came to Forks.”

Her mate bit down on his lip like a schoolboy who’d been caught doing something naughty.

“And now you’ve caught me,” he said. “So what will you do with me?”

He gave his hips a playful shake. Kate had several ideas of what she’d like to do to him. A few of them quite mean, but he’d probably love those even more. Her eyes traced around the room. There was some art work on the wall. A painting of Venus, a few cherubs. If one looked at the wallpaper close enough, one could see tiny heart patterns in the design. The air smelled like candles had been burning earlier. A vase of writhing roses were arranged on the night stand. Then, her eyes landed on two suitcases that had been left by the door. One was flat on its back and half unzipped.

Kate slipped off the bed. Garrett watched her as she sauntered over to the suitcase and leaned down to it.

“Based on the looks of it, this seems like a honeymoon suite,” she said. She unzipped it the rest of the way.. “Let’s take a look at what the lovely couple brought…”

Her back was to Garrett, and he could see what she was sifting through. He heard a metallic clinking sound as she pulled something out from the traces of clothes. Then, his eyes widened when she stood around and saw what dangled from her finger.

It was a harness, consisting of black leather straps and silver buckles that winked in the light. For a plot moment Garrett thought the room’s guests may have come to Forks for mountain climbing. Unless he noticed that thick, silicone purple mound attached to the front.

“Oh…” he said.

Kate smirked and swung the harness around on her hook finger.

“The tenants of this room have impeccable tastes,” she said. “Or perhaps, they knew I’d bring you here. How hospitable of them.”

Garrett felt a giddy shiver up his body and his face broke into a grin. He squirmed with anticipation as his mate hung her coat on a hook by the door.

“Is this what you plan to do with your prey?” he asked. “Devour them from behind?”

“Perhaps,” Kate said.

She dropped the harness back into the suitcase. Then, she unzipped her boots and left those by the door as well. Her back was to him again, and Garrett watched her as she crossed her arms across her stomach and peeked her shirt up over her head. A black bra tight against icy white skin, brushed with pale blonde hair.

Kate turned to face Garrett and he watched him zip her leather pants. They peeled down her legs, and if not for the leather binding his hands to the bed, Garrett would have fallen to his knees on the rug and bark like an animal.

“But first,” Kate said. She approached the bed and crawled over him on her knees. “You will have to eat me.”

She fisted the front of Garrett’s shirt and pulled his face up a little closer. Her eyes regarded him with bemusement and her mate trembled under her. His gold eyes were alight and his face held a shaky grin.

“You keep running away like this,” she whispered close to his mouth. His lips tingled for a kiss. “I might have to put you in a collar and chain. Cage you in the house like a dog.”

“Is that a promise?” he asked.

Kate smirked then dropped him back onto his pillow. She hooked her thumbs into her lacy black underwear and pulled it down. As soon as Garrett caught the scent of her—cold but as tantalizingly wet as a human woman’s—his mouth began to water.

“My love…please…” he said. He was starting to pant, like the dog she said he was. “I need to taste you—”

Kate grabbed him by the hair and stopped his mouth as she pushed herself on top of his head. The first drop of her met Garrett’s tongue, and he immediately became ravenous. He split between her folds and began to lap her up. Kate let out a long sigh and tipped her head back, eyes fluttering shut.

“Fuck,” she said.

Garetted smirked between her thighs. Kate had had many lovers over her immortal life, but few of them were manful enough to drink her as eagerly as he was. She tasted as divine as she looked, and Garrett groaned deep in his throat as she gushed into his mouth.

Kate tightened her thighs around his head. As infuriating as her younger mate could be, she could not deny he had a way with his tongue, and not just when he spoke. She fucked his head deeper into the mattress under the bed frame squeaked beneath them. Her fingers fisted his hair until her nail dug into his scalp, but Garrett welcomed the pain.

“Ride my tongue,” he growled between her legs. His voice was muffled beneath her but hot against her flesh. “Fuck my head in.”

Kate grunted when she fucked, not unlike she did when she fought. She growled and hissed between her teeth as she fucked Garrett’s head deeper into the bed. His tongue was long and velvety, and curled over in just the way to make her shiver.

“Fuck,” she growled. “Fuck!”

She was getting close. Garrett could feel it in how she tightened around his tongue, her legs crushing his head with increasing pressure. A naughty part of him wanted to keep her there, edge her until her clit as much as his cock. Stop his tongue and let her just stew on top of him. 

But he couldn’t resist. He licked his tongue up to her clit then sucked directly on it. Kate arched her back and slammed a fist against the wall, nearly leaving a crackled hole, as the jolt of pleasure shot up her body. She thrusted her hips faster, fucking Garrett’s head with an almost angry viciousness. If Garrett’s hands had not been bound, he would have clasped her hips and pulled her down on him. He wanted to taste all of her. He wanted to drown in her.

Finally, he gave Kate a sharp suck and Kate came with the force of a bottle shattered against a wall. So intense that some collateral voltage sprang from her body and the chandelier in the corner started to flick. Garrett wondered if he made her come hard enough, the entire hotel would blackout.

But no such thing happened. Not this time. Kate kept pushing her hips over him even as every last drop of her escaped. She slowed her swerving movements, keeping her fingers firmly in his hair.

“I forgot…how much less infuriating you are…” she said between panting breaths. “When you use your mouth for better things…”

Garrett chuckled beneath her. Kate could feel it and it slightly tickled. She lifted herself off of him and glanced down at his head between her legs. Garrett’s mouth was wet and shiny with her pleasure, and he licked around his lips to savor every drop. Meanwhile, down between his thighs, his cock was painfully hard and leaking. Garrett’s breath hitched as Kated stepped off the bed.

“Is this how you punish me for my misbehaving?” he said. “You’re gonna leave me here like this?”

Kate swiped the harness off the floor.

“I don’t let a broken window and open suitcase go to waste,” she said.

She stepped into the harness and pulled it up to her waist. She pulled the straps through the buckles and pulled tight to secure it. The leather strained wound her thighs, emphasizing the shape of her hips, and Garrett could have started drooling again. 

“You’re so beautiful…” he said. The word slipped from his lips as easily as the cigarette smoke. “How did it take me nearly three hundred years to find you…”

Kate spat on her new cock and rubbed it over.

“And it took me nearly a thousand years to find you,” she said. She tossed her gaze over to him. “I’m shocked you even lived long enough to become immortal.”

Garrett shot her a guilty as charged looked. No matter what Kate did to him, nothing seemed to phase him. Other men, other vampires, may have been turned off by her ruthlessness and cold demeanor. But Garrett only seemed excited with every sharp word and cruel gesture she gave to him.

Maybe that was what made him the perfect mate for her.

Kate returned to the bed. This time, she untied Garrett’s restraints, but only long enough to flip him over and stomach before tying them up again. With the jacket gone, he was still too clothed for her. She fisted her hand into his shirt, then ripped that off and left it on the floor with the remains of his pants. Boots, pants, underwear. She pulled away fabric like she was unwrapping a package of meat from the butcher until Garrett was bare as a marble statue.

If Garrett had a heartbeat, it would have been racing when she flipped him over. She was such a pretty, elegant thing, he forgot often just how strong she was. If he didn’t fight back, if he just let himself go limp, she could have thrown him around the room. The thought sent an excited pulse into his dick.

Kate clutched Garrett’s hips in her hands. Her long, manicured nail dug into his tender flesh and sent a shiver along his spin. Garrett had been with many lovers, even before his immortal life, but never once had he tried this with a woman before.

“No need to be gentle, my love,” he purred to her. “I’m a big man, I can handle—”

He gasped in a sharp breath as Kate brute-forced herself inside him. Pain and pleasure blossomed inside him at once and Garrett released a shuddering moan.

“Oh…” he said. “Oh….fuck.”

Kate swerved her hips and quick, rough movements. Garrett groaned in his pain as his hole was forced to stretch and open around her girth, with only her spit for lubricant. What was it about pain that was so exquisite when coming from a goddess?

“Fuck yes…” Garrett moaned. He fisted his hands into the bedsheet as she pounded him from behind. “So good…harder…harder…”

Kate watched Garrett squirm and beg beneath her. Every feeling she’d had that night for him came pouring through the movement of her hips. Her frustration and anger at him having run off to hunt humans. Her fear someone would see him in the act. The lust that coursed through her veins as she chased him over those rooftops. All of it seared into her thrusting him as she fucked him deeper into the bed.

She leaned down to press her chest to his back. She whispered breathlessly into his shoulder.

“You’re mine,” she hissed. “You don’t go anywhere without me…”

“Yours…” Garrett breathed. His mind was starting to slip, turning murky and rolling in his hollow skull. “I’m yours…”

Kate pressed her teeth to Garrett’s shoulder and bit down as she fucked him. Not hard enough to penetrate skin, but enough to leave black and blue behind. She bit alone his back until his pale skin blossomed with bruises and saliva. All the while Kate pushed her girth further and further inside him.

Garrett winced with each bite. Kate was a warrior at heart, the former bodyguard to a highborn mistress of ancient times. Even her lovemaking was laced with violence, and it nearly made Garrett crawl out of his skin with excitement every time.

Then, he felt a light buzz where her hands gripped him. Hot, a light hint of pain. The chandelier started to flicker again.

“My love…” Garrett breathed. “Can you…can you do the thing where you—”

He didn’t have a chance to finish before Kate clasped a hand around his throat from behind. Immediately, he felt the buzz of electric current against his neck. It thrilled him, sending his nerves ablaze and he winced against the pain.

“My lightning in a bottle…” he sighed. He fisted the bedsheets with both hands. “...fuck me.”

The pain from her electric hand and the pleasure she pounded up his ass sent Garrett barreling towards the edge. His hips jerked into the mattress to stimulate his burning cock. Kate tightened her hand on his throat, sending the voltage into overdrive, as the pressure from the harness brought her a screeching climax.

Garrett melted underneath her. In a mess of grunts and whimpers until he was melting into the bed. Kate snatched up a fistful of his hair and pressed his face into the pillow. His sounds were muffled against the bed as he finished with a long, croaking groan.

Kate didn’t spot even when they were both done. She kept pounding into him, just for the sheer pleasure of watching him squirm and moan until he was limp as a ragdoll. Garrett’s brain felt like soup in his head. He would have been happy to lay there for the rest of the night, letting her use every hole in his body if she pleased.

Finally, Kate pulled out, undid the leather knots, and turned Garrett over onto his back. From here, she could see the small little burn marks her fingers had left on his pale throat. Just close enough to his beard to nearly single a few hairs. She took his face in her hand and forced him to look at her.

“I’m taking you back to Denali,” she said. “Tonight.”

Garrett gazed up at her, his eyes hazy and dazed with pleasure, and a self-satisfied grin crawled on his face.

Kate knew who the note was from as soon as she spotted it. A torn piece of notebook paper, likely from Dr. Cullen’s desk, folded into four uneven squares. It had been placed on the bed atop a fluffy brown duvet right where she’d see it.

Tomorrow, the Cullens and their makeshift battalion of vampires would be meeting the Volutri in the mountains. The Forks-based coven had generously opened their home to all of them. The Denali sisters had been given one of the guest rooms, with an Alaskan king bed (Kate wasn’t sure if the pun was intentional or not) that could fit all three of them.

Tanya and Irina were out for a walk with Dr. and Mrs. Cullen to discuss the plans for the next day. Kate stayed behind. Even as a warrior, she’d grown tired of battle plans. All of them had gone over them a thousand times, and Kate started to wonder if the others thought repeating the plans might somehow make the Volturi’s impending arrival disappear.

But that was tomorrow’s problem. Now, Kate’s mind went to something other than vampire politics. She swiped the note off the bed and unfolded it. The handwriting was surprisingly neat, the swirling kind one expected to come from a quill pen. 

The door on the third floor is open. Take a look if you’d like what’s inside.

There was no signature on the note. None was needed. She could recognize the writer without having ever seen his penmanship. A smirk crept onto Kate’s face as she read it over again.

Kate was not normally the type to get distracted during a crisis. A human life as a bodyguard and centuries protecting her family had sharpened her like a blade. But now, even with a Volturi threat creeping their way, she found herself with wandering thoughts all day.

She hadn’t noticed Garrett when she first came to the Cullen house. It wasn’t until she was helping Bella test her shield capacities that he’d spoken to her. He was a handsome thing, tall and lean with messy dark hair and a whiskery face. She noticed his eyes first, bright gold with the kind of devil-may-care demeanor that Kate recognized as men’s favorite deflection.

According to Dr. Cullen, he was a soldier in the American Revolutionary War, long before Kate and her sisters ever came to the country. He’d been traveling around the continent nomadically in the more than three hundred years since his turning.

Three hundred. It seemed like a puny number of years compared to Kate, who could still remember the days of ancient people. But Garrett carried himself like a man still in the bloom of his youth. And Kate had to admit, she found his teasing boyishness charming.

He’d made the grave mistake of underestimating her powers. A mistake she quickly corrected when she brushed her finger against the man’s palm and sent him shock down to his knees. Most men would have been angry at her. Most men had been angry at her for her. But he just lifted his gold eyes to her like she was some sort of miracle.

“You are an amazing woman,” he had said.

From that moment, Garrett had not left her head. And clearly, he had not left hers.

~

Garrett had started to worry the note had been lost—or worse, she had crumbled it up and thrown it away—when he heard the door knob turn. Relief and excitement flushed his body as a blonde head appeared through the door crack. Between her fingers was his note.

He gave her a grin as she sauntered inside.

“Were you expecting one of my sisters?” Kate asked.

“I had forgotten you had sisters,” Garrett said. 

Kate slipped inside and the door fell closed behind her. Her gold eyes assessed the bedroom. It was modest compared to the others of the house, but still offered an impeccable view of the forest and mountains with its wall of floor to ceiling windows.

“Cozy,” she said.

“The Cullens were kind enough to offer me my own room,” Garrett said.

“Was it a kindness to you, or to whoever would have the misfortune of sharing one with you?”

Garrett chuckled. She just walked into the room and already she was insulting him.

“Is there a reason you left me this?” Kate flicked the note from her pocket between two fingers.

A rhetorical question. Kate was smart and perceptive enough to know exactly why Garrett would discreetly request her to visit his bedroom, if their tête-à-tête. But there was one other thing Garrett wanted as well.

“I…” he said, standing up from his chair by the window. “...want a second try.”

Kate crossed her arms and lifted a bemused eyebrow.

“A second try at what?”

“Your powers,” Garrett said as he sauntered closer. “I wasn’t ready earlier this afternoon.”

“This afternoon? You mean when I shocked you to your knees in front of everyone.”

Rubbing it in his face, eh? Oh, she was a mean one. Garrett gave her an impish grin.

“I’ll admit, you threw me off guard,” he said. “But I think with a bit more mental preparation, I could withstand one of your little bolts of lightning.”

Garrett turned around a moment to shed his long leather coat off his shoulders and toss it on the chair. Then, he turned back to Kate and rolled up his sleeves.

“Go on,” he said. He lifted one forearm up to her. “Give me a little shock.”

Kate let out an amused sound.

“Mrs. Cullen told me you were a former soldier," she said. She shrugged. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that a man who willingly put himself in a war would be a masochist.”

“And she told me you were a former bodyguard to a highborn lady,” Garrett said. “So I would assume with all the defensive fighting you must have a bit of a sadistic streak in you.” 

He moved a little closer, his arm presented vertically with his hand fisted. Thick, dark hair on pale skin.

“Go on,” he dared her. “I know you want to.”

Kate did want to. Both because few things brought her more pleasure than bringing cocky men to their knees, but also because Garrett had been oddly adorable the first time she touched a finger to his hand. The words “you’re an amazing woman” had been shivering across her skin all day.

So, Kate lifted a single finger. Immediately, it started to glow and sparkle as she directed her electricity down her hand.

“Ready?” she asked him.

“Yes,” he said.

“Enough mental preparation?” 

“Yes, do it.”

Slowly, Kate dropped her finger down on Garrett’s arm. Her fingertip pressed down on the coarse brown hair. In fairness, Garrett did resist longer than he had the first time. But after a few seconds, he let out a wince of pain and crumbled back down to his knees.

“Beat your own record,” Kate said. She leaned down to look at him. “But still not quite.”

Garrett gripped his hair against the pain. Kate had slightly burned the hairs on his arm, leaving a peculiar scent in the air. But he lifted his eyes back up to her with that same grin as before.

“Your whole body does that?” he asked.

“It has for a long time,” Kate answered. “Be lucky I didn’t shake your hand when we met.”

Then, as if to mess with him, she offered him a hand to help him off the floor. Garrett eyed her hand suspiciously, then took it as he lifted him off his knees. His skin was soft and smooth when it wasn’t electrocuting him. And as she causally wiped her hands on her pants, he just looked at her. Garrett was younger compared to the other vampires who’d been summoned to Forks. But even in his comparatively short immortal life, he hadn’t come across a woman quite like Kate of Denali. 

“Now that that’s done,” Kate said. “Tell me why you really invited me up here.”

Garrett’s eyes widened and he pressed hand to his chest in mock-offense.

“Kate, you wound me,” he said. “You think I would have some ulterior motive in asking to see you?”

“Yes, because I have known countless men over the century, and I know that you never invite a woman alone just to burn your hair off.”

She gave Garrett a bemused but pointed look. Garrett had been hoping to talk his way into Kate a little, but it seemed like Kate was not the kind of woman with patience for that sort of thing.

“They do call you and your sisters the succubi, don’t they?” he said. “You’ve killed every man you’ve been with haven’t you?”

“Not all of them.” A light crossed her eyes. “But enough of them. It’s a habit I like to think I’ve left behind.”

Garrett imagined the scene in his head. Kate, halfdressed in bed with a naked man before her, his neck torn open and his blood dripping from her teeth and chin. Garrett would be a liar if he said just the image of it didn’t make him tingle.

“What about you?” Kate asked. She took a step closer to him, and Garrett had a feeling in his face that may have been blushing back when he had blood in his body. “Are you the kind of man I could accurately call an incubus?”

Garrett let out a slightly flustered laugh.

“I…don’t think I’m as…experienced as you,” he said. “I’ve spent my immortal life more preoccupied with war than women.”

“I find that hard to believe.” Kate’s eyes flicked up and down him, like she could remove his clothes with a look alone. “I’ve seen whores with more subtlety than you.”

Straightforward. Bold. As if this woman couldn’t be any better.

“Well…maybe I’m just young and don’t know any better,” he said. “I was turned in 1780.”

Kate smirked.

“One thousand A.D.,” she said.

Garrett’s eyes glinted.

“Well,” he said. “I do have a preference for older women.”

“Older women? Does that sort of thing even matter when you live forever?”

“Perhaps not. But…do you mind if it matters to me?”

He flashed her a knowing grin. Kate felt her smirk twitching into a grin. Most of the men she’d known throughout her life were not quite this…coquettish. Most human men she brought to bed wanted her to be the plaything. They were rude, brutish. It made devouring them after sex much easier.

But it had been a long time since Kate had pulled another vampire into bed. And even after thousands of years, she’d never met one quite like Garrett. With his clothes that feel form his body with ease, with his messy hair waiting for fingers, with the fuck-me gleam in his golden eyes.

Garrett seemed to sense her thoughts. He leaned a little closer to her until his lips were near her ears.

“I could be just a night for you, if you want,” he whispered. “I can be one of those men you take for the night. And you can send me away in the morning.”

Kate felt a velvet tingle run down her ear to her back. She’d been planning to get some rest tonight. Prepare for the Volturi tomorrow. 

“You want to get into bed with a girl who could kill you with her whole body?” she asked.

It was a quip, but a part of her meant it. All her lovers knew nothing of her electric powers, or even of her vampirism. But she had no secrets for Garrett, the first suitor of hers to know exactly who she was. But the younger vampire simply smiled at her.

“What better way to end an immortal life?” he asked.

Kate held his eyes for a long moment. There was a non-zero chance that she or Garrett or any of the others may not survive their encounter with the Volturi. Garrett himself must have understood this. So he invited her tonight, offering himself to her while they both still had a chance.

She sauntered over to his bed, turned around, and took a seat on the edge.

“If it’s an attempt at seduction you want,” she said. She crossed one elegant leg over the other. She leaned back on her hands and licked her gaze over him. “Then take off your clothes.”

Those words alone could have brought Garrett back down to his knees as if she’d shocked him again. He smirked, stepped closer until he was right in front of her, then reached for the top button of his shirt, and slowly unplucked his way down. Kate watched as dark fabric gave way to stony, hirsute flesh. He smirked as he let his shirt fall from his shoulders onto the carpet behind him. The moonlight from the window traced the outline of his lean but strong body, and Kate’s eyes traced every line.

“Maybe you’re not just a succubi,” Garrett said. “Maybe you’re a goddess. And I should be worshiping you.”

He stepped closer to her, then lowered down to his knees in front of her. Kate smirked, and took his chin between her fingers.

“Then worship,” she said.

Garrett’s eyes glinted, and he let her pull him into a kiss. Kate was as cold as she looked and he sighed into the icy kiss. He leaned closer to her, pressing his chest against hers and shifting between her legs. Kate clasped her thighs around his torso and grazed her nails down his neck to his back. He was a good kisser. Hungry and eager to please.

Kate allowed a small pulse of electricity to buzz from her palm and up her fingers. Just a little, enough to make Garrett moan against her mouth. She smooth her hands up his back, glowing like handprints up his skin, until he was almost too dazed to kiss.

“Are you trying to mark me up?” he mumbled into her lips.

“I don’t know,” Kate said. “Do you want me to?”

Garrett made an amused sound in his throat. Kate could have written her name with her finger on her back, branding him like an animal. He pictured walking out of the bedroom where everyone could see it. The thought made him shiver with pleasure.

He pressed a hand to her knee and smoothed up her thigh to her waist. He found the button on her pants, then the zipper, then slipped down the front and under her underwear. He felt around through the lace until he found her lips, then split them open with his fingers.

Kate’s breath hitched. She tightened her fist in Garrett’s hair as he massaged inside her, pushing deeper in and rubbing right on her clit. Shocks of pleasure rushed up her body and she arched her back. Garrett clasped her lower back to keep her from falling away from him. He kissed along her neck, almost tempted to sink his teeth into her. But he knew if he tried, she’d send him flying out the third story window. All the more tempting.

Kate sighed at his whiskery lips brushing her neck. Garrett smirked against her throat as he continued to work his fingers between her thighs.

“Let me show you what my hands can do,” he purred into her neck.

He quickened his pace, pressing faster and harder between her folds. She was tightening around his fingers and gushing wet on him. Kate’s breath hitched again, her chest rising and falling with each breath. Garrett clasped her tight to him as he curled his fingertips around her tender clit.

But before Kate could finish on his hand, she yanked Garrett’s head by his hair. With her other hand she grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him out.

“No,” she said. Her face pressed against his as she held him by his hair. Her breath was quick against his lips. “Not…not like that…

Garrett froze where he kneeled. Kate moved his hand out from her between her legs, out from the black leather. His fingers were shiny with her pleasure, dripping down to his palm and the back of his hand. Kate’s eyes flicked up to Garrett’s face.

“I want it…here,” she said.

She moved Garrett’s fingers close to his face. Garrett didn’t need any instructions. He smirked, holding Kate’s gaze, as she pushed his soaked fingers to his lips. He opened wide for her to push his index and middle fingers onto his tongue and he closed his lips around his knuckles. Just the taste of her sent his nerves and thoughts spiraling. 

Garrett moaned as Kate moved his fingers in and out of his lips. She guided him by his wrist and his tongue curled around them. Her fluids dripped along his tongue, cold and savory. It wasn’t enough. He wanted to lick her raw. He needed her fingers deeper in his hair.

Garrett clasped a hand on Kate’s and pulled his fingers from his mouth. A long strand of saliva threaded the tip of his middle finger to his lower lip. He pushed his lips back to her neck then slowly, painfully slowly, kissed down her body. Kate sighed through the shiver that ran down her spine. She watched the top of his burgundy hair as he kissed down between her breasts, over her stomach, until he was down to her waist

“If my hands aren’t enough for you,” he said. “Perhaps what I can do with my mouth will impress you more.”

Kate huffed humorously. 

“Impress me more than your incessant talking?”

Garrett smirked, then leaned down to cup his hand under her boot. He lifted it up onto his knee then began untying the knots of it. It came off smoothly, then he set her foot aside and did the same to the other. Small, dainty feet, like Cinderella.

Kate removed her belt and let it clang to the floor before unzipping her pants. Garrett hooked his thumbs into the belt loops, then slowly peeled them down. Black leather gave way to long pale flesh, and Garrett nearly got distracted pulling the whole thing off Kate’s ankles.

Kate noticed him staring, and tilted up his chin to her.

“Careful,” she said. “You look like you might start drooling.”

If Garrett had a heartbeat, it would be a drum in his chest. He gave Kate a look that reminded her of an eager dog who’d been offered a treat.

“What if I do?” he asked.

Kate held his chin on her fingers and leaned close to him.

“Then you’ll leave a mess someone has to clean up,” she said.

She grinned, then pressed her lips to his. Garrett groaned hungrily and pushed himself up to meet her mouth. Kate pulled him closer so his torso was between her thighs. She paused the kiss just long enough to cross her arms over her stomach and pull her sweater over her head. A black bra against snowy skin.

“You said you wanted to worship,” she said. She took his face in one hand. The back of his hair within. “So, get to it.”

Garrett smiled in her hand. She released him so he could reach up to her waist, curled the seams of her lacy black underwear, and pulled those down. Her wet smell hit his nose and his mouth began to water.

“Fuck me…” he mumbled.

Garrett placed his hands on Kate’s legs and pressed a whiskery kiss just by her knee, then slowly kissed and licked down her inner thigh. It took the breath out of Kate. Her back arched and a deep moan crawled up her throat. Her head tipped up to the ceiling and her eyes fluttered shut up. His long, velvet tongue brushed along the inner legs before he planted a thick, wet kiss.

She snatched her hand into his hair and tugged him to her waist.

“Enough teasing,” she said breathlessly. “Now.”

Garrett grinned at her impatience, and the searing pain in his head where her fingernail dug into his scalp. He moved his mouth up to where his fingers were. He pressed a kiss there, then pushed his tongue inside. 

Kate’s fingers immediately tightened in his hair. Her hips twitched a little as Garrett slowly worked his tongue inside. He wasn’t just full of talk. What he could do with his fingers he could do even better with his tongue. She wanted to snap her legs tight around his head, but Garrett clasped his hands on her thighs to keep her open.

“Fuck my mouth…” he mumbled into her flesh. “Make me all yours…”

What he could only taste on his fingers now dripped onto his tongue. He curled his long, velvety tongue inside her, until he felt Kate tightened around his mouth. Her sighs turned to loud moans, and Garrett had to push her legs open to keep her from clamping around his head. Stan didn’t want it to end. He could have spent the entire night on his knees listening to the sweet  sounds of her pleasure. But then Kate gave his shaggy hair a hard pull, and he knew she was getting impatient. He licked his tongue up her pussy, then sucked directly on her clit.

Kate sucked in a breath as if she’d been struck, her nails digging into the younger vampire’s scalp. She fucked his mouth, her hips bucking, until every drop of her had gushed into his lips. Even once she was done, Garrett kept going, greedily licking up every bit of her he could get, just to savor her a little longer. Kate  had to push his head away to make him stop.

Garrett’s lips were wet and dripping with her pleasure. Kate wiped her thumb along his bottom lip.

“You’re a messy eater,” she said.

Garrett grinned and licked his lips.

“You’re a generous meal,” he said.

Kate pressed hand to his face as she caught her breath. Garrett held her eyes as he nuzzled into her palm. Then, her eyes dropped down between his legs. His boxers were tented at the front, with a little wet spot on the front.

“I’ve taken what I want from you,” Kate said. She brushed her thumb along his whiskery cheek, and she swore she heard a purr in Garrett’s throat. “Maybe I should just leave you here alone.”

Garrett’s shoulders slowly rose and fell with each breath. He collapsed a hand over Kate’s to push her against his cheek.

“You wouldn’t do that, would you?” he said. “Even the queen of the Alaskan clan wouldn’t be that cold, would she?”

Kate smirked.

“Perhaps,” she said.

Then, with quick and impressive strength, Kate grabbed Garrett around the neck, hoisted him up to the air, then threw him back onto the bed. He landed on his back with a yelp and Kate was on top of him before he could resist.

“But I will have you as I see fit,” she said.

Garrett’s startled look was replaced with a giddy chuckle. Kate curled her fingers into the front of his underwear, then in one swift motion tore the whole thing off. Garrett was hard and aching for her, and Kate took him in her hand, which sent a shudder up his body.

“Best stay quiet,” she said as she hovered up above him. “Wouldn’t want the whole house to hear you, would we?”

Kate shifted her hips as she lowered herself down on him. Garrett’s eyes fluttered shut and his head thudded back against the headboard.

“Shit…” he breathed.

Her pussy had a steel grip around his cock. Kate began swerving her hip and Garrett was done for. His body went limp as she fucked him deep into the bed, the structure creaking under their weights and the force of her movements. He reached a hand up under the pillow and gripped it in his fist.

“God damn…” he said between his panting breaths. “...you’re an incredible woman…”

Kate licked then bit down on her lower lip. She pressed her hands down on Garrett;s throat and squeezed, but he didn’t mind. His scalp still stung her sharp nails, but he welcomed it. Something about pain became exquisite when it came from the hands of a beautiful woman.

Especially when those hands could…

Kate’s hands began to glow a bluish white. Garrett whimpered as an electric spark began to buzz on his neck. A sweet, exhilarating shock.

“Yes…” he moaned. “Fuck, more…”

Kate grinned wickedly between her labored breaths. She pressed her hands to her shoulders and shocked him with the force of a defibrillator. The sting of it only sent Garrett into overdrive. He gripped his hands on Kate’s hips.

“My lightning in a bottle…” he breathed. “Fuck me…”

Kate leaned down and took a sharp bite at his Adam’s apple. Garrett croaked in pain, tipping his head back, eyes fluttering shut. She bit and sucked at his neck as if he had any blood to give her. God, if only he did. If only he were a helpless human man. He would have gladly let her drink him dry.

Kate pulled her teeth away and clasped her sparkling hands around Garrett’s throat. She squeezed until Garrett could only muster a few stifled whimpers. His cock pushed right against her cold sweet spot. She growled with hungry and fucked him harder, deeper, taking everything she could from him. Garrett lay there and let her ravish, savoring every sting she could lash.

An intense orgasm crawled up Kate’s body and she tipped her head back, hair falling down her back. She tightened her grip on Garrett’s throat, pushing him down into the mattress, as it ripped through her like a lightning strike. His hands gripped her hips to keep her upright on top of him with each viscous fuck.

Garrett had been holding himself back. He wanted to watch Kate come before he allowed himself to finish, and now, feeling her icy, wet walls tighten around his cock, he couldn’t resist anymore. He croaked against her hands as he came right after her. His body shook and burned and nothing existed but her body on top of his.

Eventually, Kate’s hands loosened from her husband’s throat. Her chest rose and fell from each labored breath. She felt numb, completely emptied, and she slumped down on Garrett's chest. Her husband hooked an around her, threading his finger through her hair and pressed a kiss to her head.

Somewhere downstairs there was noise from others. The Cullens, maybe another one of their guests. But in that room, the whole house may as well be quiet and empty. Garrett’s fingers disappeared into Kate’s golden hair.

“If the Volturi gets too close to you,” he said. “I’ll stand between you and them.”

Kate smirked and rolled her eyes.

“How chivalrous,” she said.

“I mean it.”

“I’m sure you do.”

The moonlight spilled into the room across the bed, across two pearly pale bodies. Kate's mind rolled through all the lovers she had over the centuries. Almost too many to count. Yet she couldn’t recall one she hadn’t either eaten after sex or kicked out just as quickly.