Wild Nights

by Sharon Page

  “I don’t love her, Erin.” He shook his head; his hands rested over hers, stroking lovingly.

  “But she raised you and cared for you and—”

  She broke off as the moonlight vanished, leaving her feeling lost. Michael’s hands tightened over hers, giving her reassurance.

  “She didn’t care about me.” His voice was a whisper in the dark. “She purchased me. That was all I ever was to her. Bought property. She tutored me to be what she wanted. When I was a boy, I cried once over my mother, and Mrs. White beat me until I promised I never would shed a tear again.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Erin bent and kissed him gently on his lips. Her parents might have been distant, but at least they loved her in their own way. They had fired the nanny who put her in the closet. She couldn’t imagine how frightening it would be to have no one to turn to.

  “That is how I know I love you,” Michael whispered into her mouth, “when I’ve never known love. I’ve never had anyone touch me the way you do.” He moved back, gazed intensely at her, his eyes brilliantly silver.

  She felt her forehead crease in a frown. “I don’t understand this curse. You have to find your soul mate now, two hundred years after you became a Varkyre? What if … what if you had found someone to love before … what if your soul mate had existed a long time ago?”

  “I don’t have to wait until the last night to break the curse. I could have freed myself at any time, Erin, if I had found true love. But if I’d tried to break the curse and had failed, I would have burned up anyway. I never wanted to risk trying before. I didn’t believe I was loved.”

  She bit her lip. “That’s what I mean, Michael. Maybe you don’t love me. Maybe you want to believe you do because you’ve run out of time.”

  “I truly love you, Erin. I’ve never understood what love is, but I know now.” His lashes dipped to shroud his eyes. “I know I love you because you give the man inside me the strength to conquer the beast.”

  Her heart felt oddly swollen in her chest. Yes, she was falling in love….

  But she definitely needed more time.

  How could she commit to Michael by tomorrow night?

  6

  Michael was creative. They’d made love in every possible location in her apartment and were now back in bed.

  Sighing in blissful exhaustion, Erin reached down to ruffle his silky hair. He lay between her legs with his arms wrapped around her thighs while his tongue made lazy circles on her clit. She’d never felt so completely sated in her life, too tired to do anything but giggle and whisper, “I just can’t come anymore.”

  Michael obviously took her words as a challenge. He suddenly flicked his tongue, whipping her pussy, and as she screamed and gripped his head, he proved her wrong.

  When Erin next opened her eyes, she was snuggled against Michael’s chest, her lips pressed against the dark, sweaty curls.

  “What time is it?” she asked.

  “Almost dawn.” His large hand stroked her shoulder in a gesture both protective and tender.

  She’d never had a man touch her so reverently. Purring like a cat, she stretched. Her breasts rubbed along the ridges of his taut stomach. Her tummy pushed suggestively against his crotch.

  “Then you’ll sleep? You’re hungry, and I can see how you are becoming drained.”

  “Yeah, then I’ll sleep.”

  She fought to wake up, but his caresses lulled her back to drowsiness. “Can’t you sleep now?”

  “Not until dawn, love. I can’t sleep at night. Even if I am weak from wounds or lack of blood, I can’t rest.”

  “Wounds?”

  “We do get hunted.” He flashed her a wry smile.

  “I want to make love to you until you have to sleep,” she whispered, then bit her lip. She didn’t say what else she was thinking. She wanted to love him as much as possible today because by tomorrow he might be dead.

  And it would be her fault.

  Shaking off her tiredness, Erin sat up. Smiling wickedly, she cupped her breasts. Her nipples hardened as she pointed them at Michael’s face. As his brows lifted, he licked his lips in anticipation.

  Playfully she lifted her left breast and flicked her tongue at the swollen pink peak. She couldn’t reach, of course, but his hoarse groan told her he didn’t much care.

  She wriggled down his body until his soft cock rested between her breasts. Even flaccid, his member was remarkably long, and it belied the myth that a long cock didn’t grow much more when it hardened.

  Erin squeezed her breasts together, trapping the shaft between. Popping out from between her breasts, the head was huge, swollen, adorable.

  She rubbed the dewy valley of her cleavage along his length. “Do you remember the e-mail you sent two Fridays ago?”

  He swelled and straightened before her eyes, and she let out a whistle of appreciation that made him laugh. She marveled at his responsiveness. He’d had more erections in one night than she could count.

  “I thought I had a damn good imagination,” he said. He hissed as she grasped his cock and drew circles around her nipples with the wet head. “I could never have invented anything as hot as this.”

  When she pulled the weeping eye of his prick open more and pressed her nipple to it as though trying to put it inside, he widened his eyes. The silver depths were erotically charged, shooting sparks of lust at her.

  This he obviously liked.

  Ooh, this erection wasn’t going to last long, she vowed.

  He lay with his head propped on his folded arms and let her rub her cleavage rhythmically along him. But, in minutes, he grasped her breasts, pulling roughly on her nipples as he pumped his cock between them.

  “Touch yourself,” he ground out.

  She didn’t need further encouragement. A few expert strokes of her clit with two fingers sent her to heaven.

  “Yes,” he hissed. And he joined her in the unbelievable moment. He shuddered with his intense climax, eyes shut, hips bucking to send his come spraying over her breasts. Instead of tensing over the entire messy experience, as she normally would, Erin gloried in his wild shooting orgasm, testament to the pleasure she’d given him. She slid her hands up to join his on her breasts.

  As his moaning and groaning died away, he rasped, “I love you, Erin.”

  Her hands froze on her wet and sticky breasts. She’d never asked how they declared their love or what they must say to break the curse. But she couldn’t say “I love you” back. She wasn’t certain yet. Wasn’t ready. He needed her to love him, needed her love to be true…. “Michael, I—”

  He pressed two fingers to her lips, silencing her. “Erin, no. Don’t say anything.”

  Tears suddenly welled in her eyes. She wasn’t a woman who operated on faith. Now, or a mere few hours from now, she wouldn’t be able to say she loved him and be sure.

  Was it going to be enough to say the words when she wasn’t sure? The thought of losing him brought a lump to her throat, an ache to her heart, a wash of agony through her body. Was that enough to free him? How much love did the curse require?

  How could anyone be certain their love was true until they’d spent a lifetime together? Had kids, built a future, shared both joys and sorrows?

  If there was some all-powerful being out there who could judge love, Erin wished she—since it had to be a woman—would give a hint.

  Michael woke tangled in Erin’s sheets. He opened his eyes to shadows. Erin had kept the blinds down.

  He felt … haunted. Dreams—nightmares—had pursued him in his sleep. Hell, given the weird images flitting through his brain in the last—he checked the clock—four hours, he was damned glad he hadn’t had a nightmare for two centuries.

  Instead of falling into his normal deep sleep, his rest had been light, fractured. Yesterday lust had kept him wakeful, and sex with Erin had kept his intense hunger in abeyance. Now it cramped his body.

  Michael heard the ringing of Erin’s phone, knew that sound had woken him. The phone
stopped. He concentrated to hear her voice.

  She didn’t sound happy.

  “I’m taking a couple of days off for myself, Matt. Personal time. It’s no big deal, considering I haven’t had a vacation in about three years. Megan Phillips is okay, and everything else is under control. I realize it is kind of sudden—”

  As Michael sat up, his head swam. Damn, he felt mortal already. Weak and powerless. Groggily he got out of bed, assessing the damage. His limbs felt like lead, his throat was parched, his head pounded.

  He paused at the closed bedroom door, memories of the night flooding him. Very pleasant memories, immediately dispersed by the one he could kick himself for.

  I love you, Erin.

  He’d said those words as he came. What had he been thinking?

  He had just exploded all over her lovely breasts and hadn’t been thinking at all. At least he’d had the presence of mind, the instant he heard her hesitate, to stop her from answering.

  He hadn’t told her everything. Once he declared his love at orgasm, at his moment of vulnerability, he’d begun the process of reversing the curse. If Erin had answered … if Erin had said “I love you” and her love wasn’t true, he might be charred ashes by now.

  He’d seen love over two hundred years, had seen other Varkyres regain their souls. Erin’s very doubts told him that her love would be powerful and strong, the passion of a lifetime. Michael knew Erin would give nothing less once she committed her heart. But did she have to recognize her feelings for the curse to vanish? Did she have to accept that she loved him—believe in the words?

  That he didn’t know. All he knew was they must join in the most erotic sex imaginable and declare their love together at climax. If their love was true, the curse would be broken.

  Damn, he should talk to Cymon. The snotty vampire elder knew everything, especially his folklore.

  Shaking off his tiredness, Michael staggered to the kitchen doorway. Erin stood with her back to him, arguing with Matt. Michael knew he was weak—normally he would hear the other man’s responses to Erin. Today he couldn’t.

  She slung one arm over her chest in a defensive gesture. She was also dressed, breathtakingly lovely in a soft, pale green, silk tank top and matching short skirt. His cock propelled upright at the sight of her hem skimming over her shapely legs as she paced around her kitchen.

  She paused, then complained into the phone, “No, I am not freaked over Dave Phillips. I’m fine. This has to do with my private life—” She broke off, listened for a while. Finally she laughed—the light, joyous sound Michael loved. “Argh, you are worse than family!” she cried and hung up the phone. She cocked her head and spun around. Surprise widened her dazzling emerald eyes. “You’re up?”

  In more ways than one, and she could see that for herself. He stood proud and naked as her heated gaze slid over him.

  “Your employee?” he asked.

  Grimacing adorably, she nodded.

  “He’s worried about you.” He laughed at her frown. “You are a well-loved woman, Erin Kennedy.”

  That comment seemed to astonish her. “I suppose so—despite the fact that I’ve totally disappointed my parents. And my employees are great—happy, content, and there’s no hideous office politics.”

  He couldn’t believe her family could ever consider her a disappointment, and he told her so. “You are a successful, strong, beautiful woman.”

  Again the cute grimace. “But not a lawyer. My parents can’t deal with the fact that I preferred to be a PI and have my own firm. My father is a divorce lawyer, famous for ensuring that men don’t get carved a new one in the settlement. My mother insists on complaining about my father to me and telling me stuff I really don’t want to hear. But I understand why, and I want to be there for her. Strangely she hopes I will at least marry a lawyer. And here I am, dating a vampire.” Her smile faded suddenly, and sadness touched her eyes. “Do you really have no one who cares about you, Michael?”

  After two hundred years, why did the answer to that question hurt so much? He was a human’s worst nightmare. He prowled the streets to slake his bloodlust—he was not the kind of creature to worry about touchy-feely things like friends.

  “Elder vampires,” he answered. “Not that they care about us, but they have to ensure that Varkyres are kept under control. And other Varkyres—comrades of a sort …” Not friends. Fellow hunters. Sharing the common bond of being damned. Not the sort of people you’d sit down with to share coffee and hugs.

  His heart wrenched as Erin’s moist lower lip trembled. She crossed to him in one floating, graceful step, arching on her toes with her arms outstretched.

  He almost moved to step out of her embrace, knowing what she would learn, but he wanted to hold her.

  Erin gasped as her arms slid around Michael’s narrow waist, and her skin touched his cold flesh. “You’re like a block of ice.” Panic shot through her. “It’s because you need blood, isn’t it? Just sleeping is not enough.”

  “I suppose. I’ve never gone without before.”

  The full implication hit Erin cold. Every night for two hundred years, he had hunted, he had drunk someone’s blood. “Could you feed from me? Just a little, I mean.”

  He considered her question, staring deeply into her eyes as though searching her soul. She tried to look confident, even as her heart thudded, and she put her hand nervously to her throat. Was she certain she could do this?

  Finally he nodded. “Thank you, sweetheart. I wouldn’t have to take much.”

  She read the appreciation, the depth of his thanks in his face, even as his glimmering, mirrorlike eyes hid his emotions. Shutting her eyes, she tilted her head back and waited to feel his mouth on her throat. Would he touch her with his lips as though kissing or just plunge in his fangs? Her shoulders cramped with tension.

  “The bite won’t hurt, Erin, love. I will be very gentle.” She heard his voice, soft, deep, and hypnotic near her ear. A shiver fled down the back of her neck.

  “Will it be like when you bit Dave Phillips, the man in the parking garage?” She opened her eyes to assess his expression.

  “No, it will not be like that. I was driven by rage then. But with you, Erin, because you are my soul mate, I could never hurt you.”

  She read honesty, an intense seriousness. Her hand strayed to her throat again. What had she done? She’d almost passed out at her last blood test. “And you definitely can stop?”

  “Yes.”

  She smothered a cry of shock as Michael touched … not her throat … but her breasts. With his hands. Lovingly, with slow, spiraling caresses. Even through her silky tank top, her nipples puckered at the iciness of his fingertips.

  Her eyes opened wide. “Do you want to bite my breast?”

  He winked. “The offer’s tempting—I’ve never drunk from a breast.”

  “Where does it hurt the least?”

  “Your neck, for that is the quickest. The artery here.” His finger coasted up her tingling skin, tracing a line.

  She inhaled his scent, male and erotic, and it flooded her like a drug. Her fear receded, replaced by arousal, by wet, hot need.

  His lips parted, and at the sight of his fangs sliding out over his lips, she caught her breath. Her breasts tightened, her pussy throbbed. “Are you going to do it now?”

  “Not yet.” Scooping under her bottom, he lifted her and carried her to the living room. He set her down carefully on her feet. “Take your clothes off for me.” Pure hunger radiated from his quicksilver eyes as he issued his command, and desire tore through her, exploding between her legs.

  She spun, presenting her ass to him. Wriggling it, she slowly unzipped her skirt.

  She was no exotic dancer and had absolutely no clue how to dance sexy, but she gave it her best shot.

  She only hoped he wasn’t smothering laughter.

  Keeping her legs tight together, she jutted her rear to the side as she slid her skirt down.

  Michael let out a low whistle as
she caressed her bare ass. Apparently she was doing it right.

  Hooking her thumbs into her panties, she peeled them down. They caught on her heel, and she almost fell over.

  She turned, expecting he would be grinning at her clumsiness.

  Instead he was breathing hard, massaging his leaking fluid over the head of his cock.

  She could not wait any longer. She tossed her tank top. His hypnotic eyes held her as she unclasped her bra and shrugged the straps off her shoulders. Her pale mounds jiggled with her movement.

  “Beautiful.” His velvety voice ached with sensual approval. “Come here.”

  Erin breathed in his scent, even more sexual, more alluring. She knelt on the couch, and he rose quickly, covering her from behind. He clamped one large hand on her breast, the other between her thighs. His thick finger pressed between her nether lips, sawing back and forth.

  “Are you ready, Erin?”

  “Yes.”

  He picked her up gently, laid her on the couch on her back. Erin arched up, brushing aside her hair to expose her neck. A tremor shivered through her every nerve ending. A wet fire raged between her thighs. The same fevered excitement controlled him, she knew, as she opened her legs to let his heavy erection slide between. She ached to complete the dance of predator and prey.

  God help her, she wanted to get bitten.

  Michael pierced her—with his cock, sliding it deep into her soaking passage with one animal thrust as his teeth grazed her neck. He didn’t bite, but the blended sensations—the pure bliss of being cleaved apart by his cock and the yearning for his bite—brought a scream from deep in her throat. A cry that morphed into a growl. She’d never growled for sex before him.

  And what he gave her made her roar.

  He gripped her bottom to clamp her against him, to take his onslaught as her sofa banged hard against the floor. Each thrust teased her swollen, tender clit. She was so slick, so molten, she took his pounding and begged for more.

  A take-no-prisoners climax ripped through her. In the fiery solar flare that consumed her, he sank his teeth in. Pain and pleasure merged; she gripped his head to push his teeth deeper. The throbbing of her blood flowing into him was intensified a dozen times in her pussy as it clenched around him. She never wanted to release him.