by Linda Howard
Chloe got up, restlessly pacing around the small space of her bedroom. If she stayed, were her parents any safer? No matter what Luca said, yes, if one of the vampires dragged her mother in front of her and offered to exchange her life for her mom’s, she’d do it. And if she stayed, would they perhaps concentrate more on catching her here, and not in locating any of her family members, who, thank God, lived hundreds of miles away? Could she be the rabbit on the racetrack, keeping them chasing after her instead of hunting her family?
Blood and sex. She could bear the idea of giving him her blood, and taking his, easier than she could think of having sex with him. Blood was just blood. Sex would mean too much. He’d gotten to her, not just because of the physical attraction but in ways she didn’t want to admit, and having sex with him would tear all her emotional defenses down.
And if she did, then what? He was a vampire; he wasn’t going to hang around after this uprising was over. What could interest him in her? He was God only knew how old, while she wasn’t even thirty yet; their experiences were, literally, aeons apart. She hadn’t been good at history in high school, while he’d lived it.
So he would move on, and she’d be left here, something inside her always longing for him, measuring the men she knew against him and they’d always come up short, because how could they not? They would be bonded, she and Luca. She would always yearn for him.
Did that mean he’d yearn for her, too, at least physically? She hadn’t missed how deeply reluctant he’d been to even offer bonding as a means of helping her through this. He said he’d bonded with a human woman once before; even if he’d done it for reasons other than love, such as now, evidently the link was very strong and ended only when the human died. It must be emotionally wrenching, to have such a deep connection and then to have it severed so abruptly, so finally.
She had never before had such a deep sense of transience. In comparison to his life, hers was on a par with a fruit fly, short and inconsequential.
She took a deep breath. It was time for brutal honesty. Yes, she wanted to have sex with him. No, even that was wrong. She wanted to make love with him, something that was very different, but that offer wasn’t even on the table. She was more fascinated by him, with him, than she’d ever been before in her life, but circumstances being what they were she could never have any kind of life with him. She felt cheated, she felt outraged and bitter and, dammit, fucking angry about the whole situation.
What were her options? Oh, yeah. Run and hide or bond. None of them guaranteed that she wouldn’t still be killed. Sorin and his band of merry followers would still be hunting her. Whatever life she seized now might be all she ever had.
So what else was new?
A strange sound caught her attention and she stopped her furious thoughts, her head cocked as she listened, identified the sound. It was running water … the shower. He was in the second bathroom, taking a shower.
He knew what her answer would be, she thought bitterly. He might not know all her reasons why, but he knew the end result. An angry tear streaked down her face as she got up and went into the master bedroom’s connecting bath to take her own shower.
When she was ready, she unlocked the bedroom door and stepped out. He was in the living room again, because she could hear the television channels flipping as he gave the remote a workout. She hadn’t gone to any effort to make herself look attractive, hadn’t put on any makeup, had simply dragged a brush through her hair. She was dressed, though, in a long-sleeved white blouse and a simple black skirt—not the stylish pencil skirts she wore to work, but something fuller, which better met her requirements.
She sucked in a steadying breath, then another. She could do this. Bracing her shoulders, she went into the living room.
He was dressed as before, but his long hair was still damp, and brushed straight back. The only light was from the flickering television, washing over the clear, cold lines of his face, highlighting here, leaving deep shadows there. Chloe stopped at the end of the couch and stared at him, seeing a sort of lethal menace in him she hadn’t noticed before. It wasn’t directed at her, it was no more and no less than a part of him, like his eyes, or the shape of his hands. The realization brought a sharp awareness that while she knew what he was, she didn’t know who he was, and she was still about to begin something with him that couldn’t be undone. There couldn’t be a breakup, or even a divorce. There was no new beginning. This was literally till death do us part, minus the marriage.
“I’m ready,” she said bluntly.
“Are you?” He wasn’t being sarcastic; he even sounded concerned. He turned off the television and got to his feet. The room was dark now, but enough light still spilled from her open bedroom door that she could see him as he abruptly loomed over her, so close she could feel his breath.
She didn’t answer.
“Chloe …” He said her name softly, little more than a breath of sound, and gently he stroked his hand down her arm, from elbow to wrist. “Don’t be afraid,” he murmured, the sound rich and deep. “I won’t hurt you. I’ll take your blood first, then give you my blood. I won’t drink much, and I won’t let you take too much.”
“What would happen if I did?”
“You would become a vampire.”
“How much is too much?”
She could feel his sigh, one that felt laden with sadness. “It varies from human to human, vampire to vampire. The size of the human, the strength and power of the vampire … it all factors in. Bonding takes place with the exchange of a certain amount of blood during sex. A human is turned to vampire at whatever point the vampire blood overwhelms the human blood.”
She considered all that, for just a moment. She was what she thought of as normal size, though on the slim side because she had to keep her blood pressure down, due to the aneurysm. Was he a strong and powerful vampire? She thought he must be, not just because of the two battles he’d fought in her behalf—and evidently won—but because of that indefinable something she could sense in him, that frisson of power that leaked off him like electricity humming along a power line. “Is sex necessary for that, too? Or just for bonding?”
“Just for bonding. Otherwise, sex is optional.”
“Optional,” she muttered, and didn’t voice her wish that it was optional in this case, too. “All right, let’s get it over with.”
She turned and led the way back to her bedroom. She had already prepared by taking an old blanket from the top of the closet and spreading it over the bed, because she didn’t want to ruin her sheets. Wasn’t that a cheerful thought? She’d like to have a cheerful thought right about now, instead of being filled with this angry bleakness.
As he entered the room behind her he turned off the light and she said, “No. Turn the light back on.”
He paused a moment, then flipped the switch so light flooded the room again. Her jaw set, Chloe reached up under her skirt and slipped her underwear down, stepped out of the circle of cotton. “Just do it and get it over with,” she said. “No undressing. No kissing. No pretending. There’s nothing loving or romantic about this, it’s just sex. Sex and blood.” She could do this if she kept it on a purely physical level, and somehow it seemed important that she not be naked with him, that their only point of connection was genital, except for the biting part. She didn’t want his arms around her, she didn’t want anything except for this to be over.
The overhead light threw deep hollows under his pale eyes as he studied her in silence. She didn’t know what he saw, but finally he said, “Lie down.”
She hoped he couldn’t tell how she was trembling inside. She didn’t want him to see all the anger dammed inside her, or how hard she was fighting to keep all of this at a distance so she could still function. She didn’t meet his gaze as she sat on the edge of the bed, removed her shoes, then stretched out full length. Self-consciously she smoothed her skirt down, even though he would very shortly, of necessity, pull it back up.
Luca stood beside t
he bed, looking down at her. She very determinedly kept her gaze fixed on the overhead light, but she heard him unzip his pants, then he put one knee on the bed and the light was blocked out as he lowered himself on top of her.
Despite all her efforts at compartmentalizing this, even through the layers of their clothing, the heat of his body was shocking. It seeped through cloth, skin, warmed her despite her need for cold. The weight of him on her was male, solid, both crushing and enveloping. The scent of him, hot and clean with soap, underlain with something sharp and wild, filled her head with every breath. She couldn’t not breathe, so it was there, inescapable, already inside her body even though he hadn’t yet—
He pulled up her skirt, sliding his hands up both her legs and taking the skirt up as they went. Her hands, straight down by her sides, grabbed the old blanket and clenched. His knees went between her legs, moving her thighs apart, and he settled on her.
Chloe heard her own breathing, far too fast, almost panting as she tried to stay on top of the bitter tide of resentment, so she wouldn’t drown in it. Luca’s breathing was still calm. She could have hated him for that.
He reached down, lowered his pants, freed himself. He was touching her now, his warm hand brushing against her bared flesh as he positioned his penis at her opening and gently began pushing. Suddenly she couldn’t bear it any longer and squeezed her eyes shut. She hadn’t said no touching, because obviously there had to be touching, but she—Oh God. Oh God oh God oh God. She dug her heels into the blanket and clenched her teeth against the pain. This wasn’t going to work. She was too dry, she should have thought of that, especially being fresh from the shower.
The pressure between her legs eased as he drew back. Without a word he slid down, cradled her hips in his hands, and lifted her to his mouth.
She couldn’t stop the low sound that hummed in her throat, but she tried to control the warm rush of pleasure as his tongue stroked and probed, moistening and softening her resisting flesh. Her thighs quivered, relaxed, tightened, did it again. She could feel their subtle movements, like butterfly wings around his head, and there was nothing she could do to stop it, not when he was alternating slow licks of her clitoris with deep kisses that penetrated her body so very gently, as if he knew she hovered on the edge of a dark cliff and he was trying to coax her back.
Tears seeped beneath her lashes. Chloe refused to give in to them, refused to even acknowledge them. “Do it,” she said harshly.
He flowed back up her body and this time her body was moist, open; with a heavy surge his penis slid in, thick and hard and deep. Her flesh reverberated with shock; one moment she was wholly herself, and the next she was penetrated, stretched to the fine edge of pain, seared from within by his heat. He pulled back, slid home, did it again and again until she was moist enough that each withdrawal didn’t pull her body with him, until her flesh settled into the instinctive lift to meet each thrust.
It felt too good when she didn’t want to feel anything at all. The only way she could remain whole was if she gave him nothing, gave herself nothing. The danger was that he would take too long, that despite herself the pleasure would build and build until she couldn’t resist it any longer, that she would break, and give him … everything. In a way she sensed even if she didn’t completely understand it, she needed to hold herself apart.
The long seconds wore on, became minutes, and still he kept up the same slow, steady push and drag. Under other circumstances, she would have reveled in his control, in the drawn-out play of delight. Not now. Now she could feel the pull of temptation, the need to just give in and let the flood of pleasure sweep through her. She didn’t want to feel any pleasure, she just wanted this done. Could he resist the offer of blood? He was going to take it anyway, but he was putting it off, in his way resisting the end just as she was. Which was the crescendo for him, orgasm or blood? Or were they so combined he couldn’t separate them? If she gave him blood, would that trigger his orgasm?
Deliberately she turned her head to the side, arched it back so her neck was exposed. He made a harsh growling sound, and inside her his penis seemed to grow and harden even more. But his rhythm didn’t falter, and though she could hear the rasp of his breathing now he didn’t go for her neck, didn’t let the call of blood break his concentration.
She whimpered, and knotted her fists in the blanket. No. She wouldn’t give him that, wouldn’t let herself … she couldn’t. She simply couldn’t. He had to hurry. There was a throbbing deep inside now, building and growing stronger as her inner muscles began to clench at his penis with every inward thrust, as if every cell in her body wanted to hold him there. She couldn’t put it off much longer—
“Take my blood.” The words were a command, panted, tight with strain. “Taste me. Drink me.” She relaxed one of her hands, cramped from being fisted for so long, and stroked the side of her neck. Could he smell the blood coursing through her veins? She lifted her hand, touched to his lips the fingers that had just stroked her neck, tempting him.
His long hair hung around his face, shadowing it from the bright light overhead, but she saw the hot glow that turned his pale eyes darker, almost blue. He caught her hand, held it, lightly traced his tongue over her fingertips—then he laced his fingers through hers, bore her hand down until it rested beside her head, and shifted his weight forward. His rhythm changed, the strokes coming harder, faster, shorter, until there was no let-up between the waves of sensation, until she could feel the break coming and she screamed wordlessly at him, her mind saying no, no, no but her body ignoring that pitiful resistance. Then everything crested at once, wave after wave of intense pleasure shuddering through her until her vision blurred and everything around her faded away, until there was only this, his body in and around hers, all that she was given over to the moment.
The almost painful tension was beginning to ease, the pleasure ebbing, when he made a deep, hoarse sound and began shuddering in his own release. Long seconds later he hung over her, braced on his powerful arms, his head down as he sucked air in and out, and Chloe tried desperately to gather her scattered senses.
He hadn’t bitten her. He hadn’t taken any blood.
She was the biggest fool living.
She slapped his face as hard as she could, so hard that her palm stung. “You bastard!” she shrieked, so furious that her throat constricted and the words were half-stifled. “Was all of that a line of bullshit so you could have sex?” She slapped him again, shoved violently at his shoulders. “Get off me. Get out!”
As infuriated as she was, she saw it, saw the way his pupils contracted. He snarled, the sound as feral as an animal’s. There was a flash of fang, and he struck.
It was like being body-slammed, such a complete assault on her senses that she was dazed, mind and body. There was pain, sharp pain in her neck, but it was somehow distant. What wasn’t distant was the heat that engulfed her, an instant fever burning along every cell. He drank, long and deep, then he lifted his head and thrust and she began coming again, arching beneath him. When she finally relaxed he held her down and drank some more, sounds of pleasure rumbling in his throat.
Blur. Everything was a blur. He leaned over her, tore his own wrist open with those sharp white fangs, held the open wound to her mouth. “Drink,” he said, the single word a growl of sound. She did, and the world spun around her. Lightning ran through her flesh, her mind, her soul. Her entire body convulsed, another orgasm, and he was thrusting hard and fast, he was coming, too.
Again. Again. Blood and sex. Sex and blood. She wanted to take more, she wanted to give more. She faded to black, but when she resurfaced she was naked and so was he, and he was at her neck again. She clung to him, unable to bear even an inch of separation. The orgasms didn’t seem to stop, the next one rolling in on top of the other, and he was feeding her more of his blood. She drank, deeply. Through it all he fucked her, endlessly, taking her body and giving her his—and lightning struck again.
CHAPTER
SI
XTEEN
Chloe came slowly awake, pulling herself from the undertow of combined exhaustion and sexual satiation. Luca leaned on his elbow and watched her, more anxious than he was willing to admit, at least to her. He couldn’t see any bruises or marks on her; the bite wounds had mostly healed, of course, and the blood she’d taken from him would quickly erase any other marks. To anyone else’s eyes, she would look completely untouched.
But his eyes weren’t anyone else’s. She was his, in a way that went far deeper than any sense of sexual possession. There wasn’t any way to separate sex from the bond, it was a part of the whole. She was his, he was hers. And if he didn’t wipe the worry from his thoughts, she’d pick up on it.
He would never be able to stop worrying about her, though, until the instant of her death. A sharp pang went through his own heart at the thought of that inevitable day. He would lose her; this plucky, valiant little soul would vanish from his life, and a part of his own soul would be forever bereft at her absence. All humans died, eventually, and unless they died very young they all knew that day would come, but he imagined for most of them death was nothing more than an abstract theory until it was actually upon them. Chloe, though, with her aneurysm, had lived every day knowing it might be her last, and still she had carried on as if everything was normal. She had looked at death, shrugged, and done her laundry.
She was everything he admired the most, and understood the least, about humans.
He’d liked her, before. Wanted her, before. But then she’d told him about the aneurysm, and something had hit him low and hard in the gut, touched him in a way he’d never been touched before, that a being as inherently frail as all humans were, and this one even more so, could be so damn courageous. When he had suddenly been afraid—he, Luca Ambrus, afraid—that she would refuse to bond with him, he’d known what had happened. He didn’t like it, but neither did he hide from it. They were bonded now. For the privilege of knowing her, having her, for the relatively few and precious days of her life, he would pay a steep price—and gladly.