Protection (Book #1)

Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten
I stood in the room trying to make sense of what I was looking at. It looked like my bedroom, but at the same time, it didn't. I could clearly make out the bed when I looked at it, an iron bed frame painted white but the sheets were a dark red. I was certain it hadn't been that color before I'd fallen asleep. When I looked around the rest of the room, it became too blurry to see.
I stumbled towards the door and saw a figure standing in my path. "Ben?"
The shadowy, blurred figure didn't respond, and a seam of fear ran through my body. The smell of Ben's blood was so thick in the air it felt like it was choking me.
"Ben?" I whispered, sounding smaller.
A familiar, melodic laugh peeled the skin off my bones as the man in the doorway stepped nearer.
"What did you do to him? Did you hurt him?"
Dion refused to speak to me, so I filled the silence myself.
"I'm going to kill you! Where is he? Where is Ben? Is he okay?" I lunged forward but he wrapped his arms around me.

I opened my eyes, looking up at Ben.
"Are you okay? That was some dream you had."
I blinked a few times to make sure he was really there. "It was a nightmare."
"You were pretty angry at me."
"I thought you died. I wasn't fighting you. I was fighting... Dragos."
"How far did you get?"
"Nowhere. You caught me in real life. You stopped the dream. I don't think I would have made it if it had been real. I withdraw my previous arguments."
He smiled. "Good morning to you, too."

He took me down to the basement and said he wanted to watch me hit the punching bag. I thought I did fairly well, but the grim look on his face said otherwise. After that, he had me lift weights to see what kind of strength I had. That time I was able to impress him, but I was sure he was still stronger than me.
"Will you freak out if I show the guns to you?"
I weighed my feelings on that for a few moments. "Can we save that for another day?" Guns themselves didn't scare me, but the violence and finality of a bullet terrified me.
"Of course." He exited before me, as he always did, and I knew it wasn't impolite, but that he was just keeping me safe. He was paranoid about me all the time.
"I'm going to shower, okay?"
He kissed me. "Okay. I'm going to get a little more practice in."

I walked into the bedroom after my shower, feeling refreshed.
Ben smiled at me. "Wes called. He said Cata really liked the cake. He wanted me to tell you that he really enjoyed your company."
"How long have you been friends with him?" I walked around and relaxed on the bed beside him.
"Oh jeez. We met when I was in high school. I did a job-shadow with him when I was like sixteen. I think we've been friends since then. After I graduated I did a sort of internship with him, and he convinced the company to hire me and we became partners. So, we've been friends for eight years." He met my eyes with a smirk. "The same amount of time you've been Zuri, so maybe I was meant for your case."
I laughed. "You're one of those people?"
"One of what people?"
"One of those people who believe that everything is preset and predetermined. You believe in fate."
"I have to have something to hold onto."
I giggled. "That's such a human notion. I haven't lived much longer than you have, but I've seen the way that one person's actions can affect a larger group. You study massacres! How can you possibly believe everything happens for a reason?"
"Those people are broken anyway. They don't fit the mold. Most people-"
"Did you just refer to them as 'broken'? So they should just be discarded? All of them?"
"Someone who shoots twenty school-age people, yes."
"No, that's not what I meant. The people you're studying, the things you're looking at... People with mental illnesses or developmental issues, are they broken?"
"No, Dee, you're taking it out of context. How did we go from massacres to people with developmental issues?"
"The reason you know I'm in danger is because you keep track of psychologists' reports. It's only logical that I assume that's a major source of information for you."
He sighed. "You'd be better off to talk to Wes about this stuff. He's much better at this argument than I am. I want to just enjoy my evening."
I smiled. "Sorry."
He kissed my forehead. "That's okay. I like that you ask me tough questions. It means you're actually interested in me. You aren't afraid to push me a little. I promise I can take it."
"So, I have yet another confession to make."
He laughed. "Let me hear it!"
"My memory seems to have failed me slightly. How much did I drink? I don't remember anything after downing your glass of scotch."
"When did that happen?"
"After I drank from Cata I took your glass and drank it, then... nothing."
He shrugged. "I don't really remember. I think that was all you drank." He was too tense.
"You're lying, but for the sake of not arguing, I'm not going to ask anymore. I'm sure there's a good reason. How do you feel now?"
"I feel much better. Would you like to have a taste?" He tilted his chin up so I would have easy access to his throat.
I lazily rolled over onto his hips and pushed his shirt up. I flicked my tongue around his nipple and smiled up at him, resting my chin against his chest. "Your heartbeat sounds so beautiful. You scare me so much."
"Why now?" Exasperation was creeping into his voice.
"Have you ever seen the way a child squeezes something tightly that they find cute?"
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"When we perceive something as cute or adorable, our brain tells us to be aggressive towards it."
"I thought you were upset that I'm sexy."
"You are cute, and sexy, and handsome."
"And scary, apparently."
"You are everything."
"I just wanted you to bite me."
I grazed my teeth down the center of his torso and he shivered, goosebumps appearing on his skin.
"Jesus. This is unfair."
"I need a return on my investment."
"Investment of what?"
"Oxytocin. Where did you put the shirt I ripped?"
"It's on top of my duffle bag, why?"
I rushed to grab it and returned to my position. Carefully, i used it to cover his eyes and tied the sleeves behind his head.
"You are very exciting, Delilah. I am very happy that I got your case, whether by fate or by-"
I silenced him with kisses. I put my hand on his chest, pushing him gently down into the bed. "Stay here." I was much faster in the kitchen and living room than I would have expected I could be. My body was performing much better than I had expected, since my last feeding had come from a bag.
When I returned, he was groaning, twisting around with anticipation. I giggled, and he reached out his hand to me. I took his hand and climbed into the bed. "So you're excited, not scared at all?"
"Well, I am now."
I leaned down and kissed him. "Focus on excited." I pulled my shirt off and pulled his hands up to my bra.
"Mmm. I can do that."
I trailed the sleeve of my shirt across his chest in a feather touch that elicited a groan. I dropped my shirt to the side of the bed, and he tentatively pulled his hands back. "You do whatever you want with your hands, besides touching your eyes or what I'm doing to you."
He smirked. "Alright. I like this!"
"Open your mouth and keep it open," i demanded. I drank a bit of the liquor straight from the bottle and it burned to keep in my mouth for long, so when I kissed him, I let some of it dribble into his mouth and then swallowed the rest quickly. "You can close your mouth now."
"That was good."
"You are talkative as hell!"
"Am I supposed to be quiet?" he whispered.
I laughed. "No. You don't have to be. It's just funny." I rocked my hips against him a few times and he groaned loudly, digging his fingers into my thighs. "That should keep you quiet for a few minutes."
"I just want to know what's next," he mumbled hushedly. "I can't wait."
I tried to be graceful when I shook the can, but it was a full-body movement, and it stirred him up more than I had intended. I sprayed it down his chest and stomach in three straight lines, starting at his collarbones and stopping at his jeans.
"Is... is that whipped cream?"
I licked the first line off starting at the top and taking my time getting to the bottom of his belly. He squirmed and moaned. "Yes."
"I knew you got that for a reason!"
I laughed. "Would you like a taste of it?"
He nodded, so I guided his hand to the can and went back to cleaning up the mess I'd made on his skin. "Won't this make you sick? Oh fuck... That feels good."
I sat up when I finished the second trail of whipped cream. "No. It's such a little bit that it won't affect me. Take a deep breath. This next one will be tough to handle. I'm going to take it very slow."
"Dee, I don't know how much more I can take."
"You better hold on. That's all I can say."
"Are you going to bite me?"
"Let me worry about that."
"Oh God... You're going to be the death of me."
"Stop talking." How he was so oblivious to his own words was beyond my understanding, but I tried to ignore it. 'the death of me'. Yeah probably. "Are you ready?"
He nodded.

I bit into his shoulder and he stilled instantly, shouting loudly until his voice quieted into short, staccato breaths.
When his breathing returned to normal and his heart seemed to be able to keep up with its workload and the sweat was no longer pouring from his body, he mumbled, "That orgasm changed my life. I learned a lot from you tonight."
I smiled. "Maybe I can learn a lot from you tomorrow about how to protect myself."
"I'm not sure I'll be able to move tomorrow. Humans take a little time to recover from wonderful acts like this."
"How much time? I'd like to continue teaching."
He flopped back on the bed. "I'm going to die."
I growled, rolling over to meet him so that our noses touched and his eyes turned into one. "Stop saying that. You don't understand what that implies. I don't like it."
"You aren't dead, so if you're saying that my conversation about changing relates to those comments, then you're one hundred percent wrong."
"I'm too tired to argue about this at this time. I reserve the right to bring it up at any point in the future and retry your case."
"No! There will be no double jeopardy in this relationship. Argue right now or drop it."
"It's going to come up again, whether either of us like it."
"I know. That's something we can talk about later. Right now we can focus on training for you to protect yourself, and... this."
"When Wesley called, where was this strange Dragos woman reporting from?"
"That's another thing that was really odd. She or he- whoever- was right where the reports started in August. They asked a couple people from the Baya station there to look into it, but I doubt they will. For the past year they've been on the move every single week, never repeating a place. This time, they went back. It has Wesley on edge. I'm wondering if maybe they gave up and went home."
Every time I blinked it seemed to take longer to get my eyes back open. I yawned. "I'm going to sleep. I love you."
"I love you too, Dee, mind-bender extraordinaire."
"I only hope you can be satisfied, because sometimes things aren't always quite that good."
He kissed my cheek. "I'll be fine."

~~
I'm getting close to finishing this one up and I'm so excited to be able to move on to the next 5... 6 however many books I have planned to follow. :)