This chapter contains mature sexual content... and a lot of it.

Nurse Isla, Gives Good Bloodjobs

"Phoebe!" I burst into Greg's darkened office and screamed, throwing the keys I'd dug out of his pocket down the hall. "Phoebe, I need help!"

Greg moaned as I dragged him across the threshold. He couldn't walk on his own. Couldn't even stand. Boy did his best to help himself, even as he faded in out of consciousness against me, but my arms and back ached from having to haul his skinny ass the measly three blocks to his place (thank every ghoul in the Netherworld he lived so close). But I couldn't hold him any longer.

We collapsed face first together onto the floor. I kicked the door shut. My ruined pink Jimmy Choos thunked to the ground. My feet were cold and numb. Definitely popped a few blisters in our trek.

Which was, like, fucking nothing compared to what Greg had gone through.

"Hang in there, Greggy," I rasped. My eyes were wet. Snot bubbled out my nose. Did my best to ignore all that. I wasn't the one who was really hurt. "Please, please hang in there."

Phoebe materialized in the center of the room. A microsecond later, she screamed, leaping back in surprise. The lamp of Greg's desk trembled. After too long of a moment of hitting those high notes, her pretty face contorted in a mix of recognition and horror.

"Don't you two know how to use a safe word?"

"We were attacked!" I rolled Greg on to his back, swallowing my gag reflex. "Werewolves. He's not healing."

He wasn't. Fucking Kyle. The damage that ugly bastard'd done to Greg was grotesque and cruel. Poor vamp's clothes were tattered and bloody, practically hanging off him (real shame about that jacket), and his fingers were literally hanging off him. Despite the injuries, I didn't think it was his blood we were drenched in. It was too bright and red. It seeped onto me, staining my dress.

Greg's own blood was a mere trickle. Little spits, dark and thick, leaked from his mouth and the gash above his eyebrow. A dusting of it brushed his lip and twisted nostrils; his nose had been broken in at least two places. Scarring his throat was a ropey cord of burned skin and muscle where the silver chain had bit him. It was gruesome but dry, although a small smear of blood ran down the back of his neck too, stemming from the newly crushed bit of his skull just behind his right ear. The small crater was partially hidden in the tangled, tacky mess of his hair, but my hand slipped right into it as I attempted to rest his head against the sofa.

My fingers came away black, strands hair stuck under my nails.

He groaned again. I wasn't sure if he could speak. Wasn't sure if he was even conscious. His one eye fluttered open sporadically, a dull, sickly grayish blue peering out from behind a torn lid. The other was swollen shut. And I knew Greg didn't need to breathe but it was scary as all unicorn shit to feel that he just wasn't. Not a puff.

Kyle had really gone to town on Greg's abdomen too. I saw it. As we limped home, Greg croaked and cradled an arm around his stomach several times. Probably had some broken ribs under there. Maybe a punctured lung? Did a punctured lung even matter to vampire? Could he even have internal bleeding?

If he was human, Greg would've died a hundred times over in that alley. And it was all my fault.

Tits on a stick.

"He hasn't had a drink in at least a week. He's too dry!" Phoebe yelled at me.

"No shit!"

Phoebe kneeled. She reached out a hand to cup Greg's cheek, but it phased straight through him. He shivered. She grimaced. "Oh, this is bad. This is real bad."

A sharp, stabbing pain twisted in my gut. "Is he going to die?"

"He's already dead, this won't kill him again," Phoebe's chestnut waves bounced as she shook her head. "But he can't heal without blood either, not quickly at least. He if doesn't drink before sunrise, with these injuries, he's probably in for one doozy of a nap."

"A nap? The fuck does a nap mean?"

"Means he'll be comatose till his wounds fully heal. Which, you know, could take a while."

"What does a while mean?"

"I don't know!" she threw her hands up in surrender, a panicked warble in her voice. A whirl of loose papers on Greg's desk took flight and tornadoed briefly around us. "Few weeks? Couple of months? Hundred years? Till the next lunar eclipse, I don't know! Depends on how bad it is."

I mirrored Phoebe's movement and gingerly touched Greg's cheek. It was cold. He moaned and seemed to lean into my touch. That pain sliced its way up my throat. "It's bad."

"Yeah, it's bad. Last time it was three months. That was decades ago. I still had a pulse. And it wasn't," she swept her arm up and down, gesturing to the length of his broken body, "this bad."

Last time? "Fuck."

Greg couldn't go kaput on me for three months. Or longer. He just couldn't. What if Kyle and his wolves came back for me? Or the Magistrate? Shit, shit, fuck, shit. He couldn't be out of commission for that long. I needed him. I still needed his help to find Lily. I needed him to be—shit I just needed him. I couldn't be alone for that long. I was too scared.

A small, throaty sob escaped me.

Sorry, Nazira. Really, I am.

"I got you, Greg. You're going to be okay, you stupid prick. Promise."

I wrestled out of my coat. The inner sleeve clung to the cut on my left arm. Stung a bit as I peeled it off. Wasn't a terrible wound, as far as slicing into myself to draw necrotic power straight from the well of my veins was concerned. I'd had worse. And the scar this slash would leave was going to be worth it.

I scratched at the clotted cut with the points of my fingernail. The thin gash reopened. My blood bubbled up, warm and smoky, in a rush. I even winced this time.

Greg's good eye shot open. Nostrils flared. I think. Couldn't quite tell. But the way his pupil dilated, the sudden twist of his lips and the appearance of his remaining fang poking out meant he'd noticed my offering.

He turned his clenched jaw away from me.

"Stop that, dumbass," I said, shifting slightly to prop us both against the couch, holding my arm under his chin. "Here. Please. Drink a little."

Greg wrapped his injured hand around my bleeding arm – even like this, he was seemingly mindful not to let the stumps of his severed fingers touch my blood. A little knot of nausea bobbed in me.

"You didn't," he coughed, his voice was so weak and low and sad. "You didn't want—"

"I want you to stay awake! Listen, I'm sorry I joked about you getting punched in the face at work a lot, alright, but you didn't have to go and prove me right! Let me help you, you stupid, gorgeous, stupid control freak."

Even Phoebe exhaled heavily when Greg kept his jaw wired shut.

Stubborn idiot. I grabbed him by the chin and jerked his head to face me. Our eyes met. Dying light flickered in his baby blue.

"For fuck's sake, Greg, what am I supposed to do while you're in a coma for months?" my voice broke. Rivulets of hot blood streaked down my arm the same way hot tears streamed down my cheeks. "I need you. I'm as good as dog chow now. So just suck it up and suck on me already."

Nobody moved. Blood just dribbled down my arm. Tickled the heel of my hand. Spiraled down my fingertips. Inched slow and steadily closer to his chin.

He watched the rivulet flow, following the path of veins in my wrist.

And then he surrendered.

With an almost tortured moan Greg tenderly lowered his mouth to the inside of my wrist. I seized up. Stiffened on instinct. But he didn't bite, not at first. His cool tongue trailed a path up my arm. Heat pooled low in my belly.

Those hot fudge sundae sweet mmms escaped him again as that tongue finally found my bleeding cut and swished across the wound.

I twitched. His tongue stung as it invaded my cut. Greg didn't seem to notice. His grip on my arm tightened. Formerly soft and hesitant fingers were an iron vice on my elbow. His whole fingers. Or rather, healing. The skin reforming around his joints tickled as he squeezed me. He made a low, menacing sound that my made goosebumps break out up and down my arms.

Greg's single fang pierced me hard and fast. Like a viper. Right in my already open wound. Wiggling. Burrowing. Worming its way in deeper under my skin. Ripping me further open. Another burst of blood rushed up to flood his mouth.

I gasped.

Tried to pull away. Pure reflex. But Greg snaked his other arm around my waist and anchored me against his firm body.

He was wrong.

This didn't feel good. It hurt. It throbbed and ached. I wanted to look at him, to watch him come back to himself but I couldn't. His head was bowed and the angle at which he held me pressed my face into his shoulder.

Time melted away. My muscles relaxed. He drank from me, sucking deep pulls of blood from my arm as we sat side by side. A slight, tingling dizziness crept into my brain. Made me woozy for a moment. Little black spots danced in my peripheral vision.

The dent in the back of Greg's head popping back out into its normal shape didn't help that wooziness. Gross.

His slurping didn't slow.

Damn it. Was this what Nazira meant? That a vampire would kill me? That the one guy I trusted in this whole damn town would be the one to do me in? After all that? Kinky, sure, but we hadn't even banged it out first. How disappointing.

I twitched as his second fang joined the first with a sharp chomp.

Yikes. Maybe he needed to rein that in a bit. I wasn't fixing to go comatose tonight either.

"Take it easy," I gave my arm a tentative push against his chest with my free hand. "Hey. Darling—"

Greg unlatched his mouth from my flesh, gasping fiercely, gulping for air like a drowning man in the ocean. Once again he dragged that tongue across my wound. My skin tightened. Just a pinch. The pulse of blood from my cut slowed to a trickle, though I could tell that it wasn't completely closed, and dropped my arm like it had burned him.

His lips trailed their way up from my wound and found themselves hovering inches from my face.

"Isla," he whispered in my ear. My heartbeat hammered in my throat. My exposed throat. My neck just laid out for him on the guillotine of his collarbone. "Look at me. You okay?"

I lifted my head off his shoulder.

The swelling around his had gone down a bit. It wasn't perfect, not yet. But it faded with visible speed. His nose had at least shifted back into place. The gash above his eye was still open, but smaller. His pretty, perfect, intensely glowing eyes stared down at me, wide and pleading. He bit into his lip with two long, perfectly whole, blood-soaked fangs.

He was healing. He was going to be okay.

Greg was going to be okay.

Oh, thank all that is dead and unholy for that.

"Yeah, I'm fucking perfect," my voice was small and hoarse. "I fixed you."

I took his hand. Wove my fingers between his. I wanted to touch him. To feel his smooth skin again. The busted bones clicked back into place right under my own palm.

Greg nodded. "Fixing. Yeah. Thank you."

"What ever," cleared my throat, "what ever will you do to repay me?"

"Oh, I could, ah, waive your fee—"

For heck's sake.

"You're a liar."

He flinched like I'd staked him.

"That hurt. You said you'd make me feel so, so good, remember?" I couldn't keep the playfulness from my voice. "Maybe, as repayment, we could, I don't know, have a do over? Try it again, from the top, and this time with more melting ice cream?"

He quirked a brow. "That line doesn't feel a bit predatory to you? You just saved my fangs, you know I'll do anything to repay that."

"And you're calling me the predator?"

"Okay, you know what," said Phoebe, shifting from foot to foot just over Greg's shoulder. Oh, son of a witch she was still here! I'd completely lost track of her. Oops. "Seems like you got things under control from here, so, ah, if you need me, I will be in whatever room you aren't. Okay... buh-bye."

She was gone.

And then back again in the same moment. "I'd say use protection, but if you're wondering, he's shooting blanks and has been STD free since literally forever. If he's teething too hard, just yell for me, I'll ring the phone to snap him out of it. Have fun kids."

I bit back a laugh as she popped out of existence again.

Greg hadn't even noticed she was there to begin with.

"What's so funny?"

"Phoebe was uh, worried about you," I snorted. "Gave me a full report on your last prostate exam. Low sperm count, but clean bill of health overall."

The faintest pink blush bloomed on his cheeks. "Phoebe."

"She's gone now!"

"Good," he smiled. "I prefer a private tasting room."

"This is a tasting room now? You absolute dork."

"Didn't you just say you wanted a bit more melting ice cream?"

His voice was thick and silky. Alluring. In the back of my mind, it conjured dark images of our bodies tangled together amongst cool sheets, like his question held a promise just underneath it, in a tone my ears couldn't hear but the rest of my body sure got the message.

A palpable energy, hungry and predatory, radiated off Greg. A cat on the hunt, coiled with anxious nerves and ready to pounce. He was nearly shaking. My blood had revitalized him. In every way. His playful eyes. The tempting smirk.

His desire for me was the most evident and straining in his jeans as it had even been.

My own body ached with such a ferocious longing a flurry of barely coherent words raced off my tongue: "Those are—I, um—we're mixing metaphors, but yes. Now? Really? Yes. Yes, please. Do I really taste like wine? Yes."

In a blink, my back was flush against the couch, and he'd straddled me. Guess he could use that leg again. He didn't rest any weight on me though, instead almost mirroring our position in the alley, but this time resting on his knees with my legs between them.

Greg cupped my chin in both hands and lowered his mouth to mine. His kiss was soft and gentle and sparked another flare of heat between my thighs. Our lips melted together in a delicious sizzle.

This was it. We were kissing. Again. Finally. At last. The kiss was slow and cautious. Testing. But sweet. After several seconds of chastely brushing our lips together, when it became clear that no other life-threatening disaster or vomit comet was rocketing our way, we attacked each other. Messy and ravenous.

He deepened the kiss with a growl. Lips and teeth smashed together, desperate to quench our building thirsts. I swept my tongue into his mouth. He tensed when I found his fangs and swirled myself around them.

The coppery taste of my blood lingered on his teeth. Jarring at first, but not altogether unpleasant.

When I threaded my fingers through Greg's hair, he moaned into my mouth, rewarding me with a nip on my lower lip, followed by the heavy press of his tongue dragging over the same spot. His own shameless, fervent, selfish need to devour my kisses literally smothered me till my chest burned from lack of air.

I nudged his shoulders. He released me. Even chuckled as I gasped for breath through swollen, tender lips, muttering a very sweet "sorry," as he trailed feather light kisses down my neck.

And then he bit me again. Sank his fangs, sharp and fast, into my pulsing neck. My back arched. At first, the same pinch of pain as before zinged through me. But it retreated quickly. His cool lips came down around my skin, kissing me tenderly as he took the first deep, leisurely sip from my jugular. It sent pleasant tingles fizzing all the way through my body.

The needy heat between my legs intensified so sharply I bucked my hips up to meet his. A keening sound echoed around the dark room. Took me several minutes to realize it was coming from me.

Greg fingers slipped beneath my dress and bra to cup my tit like they belonged there. Catching the firm peak of my nipple between his fingers, he ground himself against my pelvis.

"Oh," I rubbed my thigh against the growing bulge inside of his jeans. "We meet at last."

Big, bad, scary bloodsucking vampire literally did a spit take on my blood against my own neck. His laugh sprayed my collarbone with red spittle. "I'm so sorry," he gurgled, covering me in more wet kisses and doing that thing with his tongue again that slowed the bleeding from my other cut.

"I'm not," I said, catching his ear between my teeth and clawing at his fly like a stray cat in heat. I won the battle against the imprisoning fabric, rewarding us both when I dove into his waistband and wrapped my fingers around his hard length.

His breath finally returned to him in shuddering gasps.

"Stand up."

I pouted, giving him a slow stroke. He stiffened, hips twitching, and seemed to visibly fight the urge to give in and allow me to lead him across the finish line just like that.

Greg cleared his throat. "Be good girl and get up so I can rip this dress off you. Please?"

Alrighty, well, when he put it like that.

I scrambled to stand. Greg guided me. His firm arm wrapped snuggly around my waist as he spoiled me with kisses over my neck and lips and chest. To my great disappointment, he didn't actually rip the dress off. Damn. Instead, he pressed me tightly against his chest and carefully pulled the zipper down, snaking his opposite hand inside and gliding all the way down my back and the curve of my ass when the dress eventually puddled around my feet.

Giving my ass a little squeeze, Greg stepped back. He stared me up and down. Drinking the sight of my black bra and panties and garter holding up my stockings more deeply than he'd been drinking my blood. His glowing eyes sent shivers dancing up and down my spine. But the way his fang caught his lip as he smirked, like he was so satisfied by the gift he'd just unwrapped, filled me with a wild need.

"My turn," I panted.

I grabbed his already ruined shirt and tore it open. Buttons popped and flew off into the far corners of the room. We both laughed – Greg even growled a little – as I finished frantically undressing him, determined to have him naked.

Dang. Phoebe wasn't playing me. He was gorgeous and hard and smooth and hot. A rush wetness slicked my panties in anticipation of taking of all him inside me. Of how deep he'd fill me. Of good it feel to ride him into oblivion.

"Sit," he said, tracing the outline of my breasts in my bra.

I mewled and reached to wrap my fingers around him again instead.

Greg caught me by the wrist. "Ah ah, you can be a good, patient girl for me, can't you, darling?"

I whimpered. "Why?"