Can't Touch Me🌶️🌶️🌶️

‘December 16th, 2017’

‘Lumen’

Eve

As soon as we were back in the Pack House and I dropped the girls off in their bedrooms, I tore through the hall to Raphael’s room. His door was closed, but I swung it open with my mind.

I walked through the door. There he was, sitting at his desk, reading some document.

I was consumed by determination. I’d never seen what I had to do so clearly.

I was looking at him, but I wasn’t seeing him. I was seeing the step I had to take to get to my daughter.

It was as simple as that.

Killing Raphael would take me to Snow.

I threw my ring into the air, watching as it turned back into a scythe, and I strode over to him.

He looked over his shoulder, realizing he wasn’t alone, and when he saw me holding the blade, his eyes went wide.

“Eve! What the—”

I pointed the blade at his chest.

“Shut up,” I whispered, my hand starting to shake.

My determination was still there, but now I was seeing Raphael again, I was seeing the chocolate in his kind eyes, the wildness in his hair, the firmness in his jaw.

But it didn’t matter. ~I have to do it.~

If I didn’t do it, Snow would still be under Barron’s control. She would continue to be held captive God knows where.

Nobody else was looking for her. I was her only hope. I was her mother, for Christ’s sake!

~You need to do it, Eve. You need to.~

The end of the spear was touching him now. It was quivering against the fabric of his shirt.

He inhaled sharply, eyes moving away from the blade to look at me.

“Why?” he asked me, the pain in his voice clear.

“I have no choice.”

“Why?” he repeated.

I shook my head. I couldn’t formulate the words.

I couldn’t tell him about Snow because then I’d have to remind him of what he’d done to me, all those centuries ago.

“You can’t do it, Eve,” he said softly.

~Wait, what?~

~What did the asshole who I was holding a scythe against just say to me?~

“Excuse me?” I snapped.

“You can’t do it. You can’t kill me. I don’t know why you’re trying to, but you can’t. It’s impossible.”

“I don’t know if you’re aware, but you’re not the strongest person in this room,” I barked back at him. “You might be the Alpha of the Millennium, but I am just as powerful—”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” he cut me off. “I know you’re powerful, Eve. But it doesn’t matter how powerful you are. You can’t kill me.”

“Yes I can!” I thundered, digging my spear into his chest.

It moved through a few layers of his skin, drawing blood, but it wasn’t a deep wound by any means. He didn’t even react to it.

“That’s all you can do,” he said softly, like he felt bad for me.

I looked at my trembling hands. I’d never trembled when I was killing anyone else before. “Why?!” I demanded.

“You know, Eve.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about!” I tried to push the scythe farther into his chest cavity, farther into his heart, but it was like my hands wouldn’t let me.

My body wouldn’t cooperate with my mind.

“Do you remember that summer in Los Angeles? When I saw you on the street?”

“Now is ~not the time~ to rehash old memories.”

“Listen to me, Eve. Think back to that time.”

^July 3rd, 2003^

^Los Angeles^

Eve

I’d been in LA for a few days now, and let me tell you. I fucking hated it.

Everywhere I looked were stupid, rich, beautiful humans. Oh, and the occasional vampire. That was why I was here, of course.

American vampires seemed to populate one of two cities: New York on the East Coast or Los Angeles on the West Coast.

I was working on the latter now, fulfilling my duty to Llinos.

I was following a guy. I knew he was a vampire. I’d watched him kill a human, sucking her blood dry in a back alley.

It was good I’d seen him do that. I felt less bad about killing them when they were scum to begin with. Not that I felt bad that often, nowadays.

Anyway, I was following the guy, watching him walk along Sunset Boulevard, when I sensed someone else nearby.

Someone powerful.

I turned— and there he was. The ~he~ I hadn’t seen in centuries. But the one I’d thought about often.

Raphael Fernandez.

The man who had impregnated me and forgotten about me.

And the son of a bitch was across the street from me. Looking ~happy.~ Carefree, even.

My blood boiled.

He was arm in arm with a beautiful woman, a woman with breasts the size of pumpkins.

He dressed the part of an effortless Los Angeles bachelor, too. His bronzed skin was glowing against his crisp white dress shirt, unbuttoned to the top of his abs.

That was when he must’ve sensed my gaze. Because he turned, and our eyes locked.

Immediately, every single cell in my body erupted in flames. Not literal flames, but flames that filled me with desire. With need.

In an instant I had transformed. I could no longer control my thoughts, could no longer control my body.

The space between my legs was so hot and so wet.

It needed to be stimulated. Now.

The rest of my body was on pins and needles, every inch of me tingling, needing to be touched.

But more than all that, I felt something that I hadn’t felt since I was a maid in Lord Maynard’s manor. I felt my heart.

~Fuck.~

I realized that I hadn’t taken my eyes off of Raphael, and he hadn’t taken his eyes off of me.

We were locked in some sort of trance, the street between us, and I knew that he was experiencing the exact same thing that I was.

I couldn’t explain it. I couldn’t explain the physical reaction or the racing of my thoughts. All I knew was that the man I hated most... my body yearned for him.

My heart demanded him. But my mind still wanted nothing to do with him.

So as hard as it was, I ripped my eyes away. And I ran.

^December sixteenth, two thousand seventeen^

^Lumen^

Eve

“Well?” Raphael asked, looking at me expectantly.

“What?” I snapped, my scythe still against his chest.

“Do you remember?”

“I remember seeing you across the street.”

“What did you feel?”

I looked at his face, and immediately all the same feelings came back. My skin tingled, my sex exploded with heat, and my heart began beating stronger. For him.

Our eyes were locked on each other again, just like they’d been fourteen years ago.

The thing I had tried to suppress, the thing that I’d known deep in my core but refused to believe, it found its way to the surface. And it came like a slap in the face, causing me to stumble backwards.

The scythe fell to the floor as I reached for the wall to steady myself.

Raphael had been right.

I couldn’t kill him.

Not because I wasn’t strong enough. Not because my powers weren’t up to par or because I was too emotional, too overcome with guilt.

~No.~ None of that.

It was because Raphael Fernandez wasn’t just the man who’d taken my innocence and abandoned me all those centuries ago.

He wasn’t just the man responsible for impregnating me, for sealing my fate as a childless mother.

No, Raphael was something else.

I knew it from my heart, how it was beating out of control. From the goosebumps that had popped up all over my body. And from the heat in my core that threatened to explode, raging every bit as intensely as my anger.

Raphael… he was my mate.

As soon as he saw the realization wash over my face, he walked toward me. Blood was slowly seeping through his white T-shirt, but he ignored it.

He grabbed my face and kissed me. Hard.

As he pressed into me, I could feel the warmth of his blood rubbing against my chest. He was pinning my hands above my head now. And I was letting him.

He pulled away for a moment, and we both looked down at the cut on his chest.

He yanked his T-shirt over his head, and I gasped as I watched the wound start to heal before my eyes.

I’d never seen anyone heal so quickly before. Even my healing time was slower than that. But little by little, his skin threaded back together until the cut was gone.

That was when he started kissing me again.

Now there was really no gentleness left. We were both on the same page, and we both knew the same thing.

That I had tried to kill him. And that I couldn’t.

Because no one could kill their mate.

Not even the Devil.

Not even me.

Raphael kept kissing me, pressing into me, and I could feel him getting harder. Much harder.

Then he was biting my lips, drawing blood of my own, and I wasn’t stopping him. After all the carnage I’d caused today, it was good to feel someone else take control.

Someone else causing the bloodshed.

But then Raphael was moving down my body. He was biting my ear, my neck. His teeth were scraping against my mark, and it drove me crazy.

Desire burned deep inside my sex, and all my frustrations were momentarily blinded by my need.

My need to have him. To have every inch of him.

He was tearing my shirt off then my pants. The buttons flew off, but neither of us cared.

Then he was lowering himself, crouching in front of my sex.

He was kissing over my panties, using his tongue to make me cry out.

He growled in response, tearing the thin silky fabric from my hips. And then he drove his tongue back into me.

All the way into me this time.

I shut my eyes in pleasure, moaning louder than I ever had before. In fact, it was more of a scream. Because this was a different type of fucking.

This was primal.

Carnal.

And I needed every second of it.