His unruly dirty blond hair was jutting forward over his eyes, casting shadows.
Deonne would have said he was brooding, if she was in the habit of guessing about people’s moods, but she had learned long ago never to assume what people were thinking, even if their body language was telling her in twenty point font. There were professionals in her field that were expert at giving off all the right signals with absolute sincerity and not a single word could be relied upon. She was one of them.
“Justin,” she prompted again, when he didn’t move. “Talk to me, or it’s going to be a long, awkward night.”
He turned and she read reluctance in the slowness of his turn. “How do you do it? How do you mix with us so…recklessly?”
“I’ve been accused of a lot of things in my life, but reckless isn’t one of them.”
“Baiting Brenden to the point of giving him an embolism isn’t reckless?”
“He was making an error. I had to correct his impression of me.”
Justin pulled his hands out of his pockets and spread them. “There. That’s what I mean. You were the only human in a room of vampires that could have casually swiped your head from your body and finished the other half of their sentence without pause. Including me. Did it ever occur to you to be afraid?”
Astonishment rippled through her. “That’s what you’re wondering? Why I’m not afraid of you?”
“Among other things,” he replied. He still made no attempt to close the distance between them and Deonne was wary about trying to move toward him. Unlike most men, she was not always absolutely certain what was going on in Justin’s mind and right now was one of those moments when she was lost. “What other things?” she prompted, staying right where she was by the low, square chaise longue.
“You really aren’t afraid of us?”
Deonne gave the question fair thought. “No,” she decided. “Not anymore.”
He shook his head, studying her. “Maybe that’s why you were so impressive today.”
“I was?” She was pleased.
“You mixed with them so easily. Humans don’t, as a rule.”
“Them?”
“Us,” he amended. He pushed his hands back into his pockets. “You like them.”
Deonne shrugged, puzzled. “Well…yes. They’re all fascinating people and if you can ever get them to open up about their personal history, which is harder than shelling oysters, then they move beyond fascinating. It’s mesmerizing, listening to them. I caught Brenden ruminating once about a battle he’d been in and it was only afterwards I figured out he was talking about the war of the Spanish Succession in twelve-ninety-nine.” She took a careful breath. “You’re like that, too, but you’re worse than an oyster.”
Justin’s jaw rippled. “‘s that mean you like me, Rinaldi?” he asked gruffly.
Deonne’s heart began to slam against her ribs in painful, heavy thuds. “Only when you drop the shield and let me.”
For a moment she saw behind the shield. His grey eyes locked with hers and for one infinitesimal moment she saw something that might have been warmth or caring there. Then his gaze wrenched away from her and he turned his head to look out the window again. “You’re barmy.”
It took a moment for her to figure out what he meant, because it was such an unexpected reaction. “I’m crazy for liking you? Or for liking them?”
He licked his lips. “Vampires aren’t admirable. They’re not interesting. Just because we’ve lasted a long time doesn’t mean we should get accolades. It’s hard to die when you’re the meanest fucking son of a bitch in the jungle.” His eyes slid towards her and away again. “It’s not even natural selection. It’s cold, hard reality and it shouldn’t be applauded.”
Deonne caught her hand to her mouth in shock as she realized what he was really saying. “You don’t like vampires,” she breathed. “You don’t like your own nature. When Kieren asked you to check the area, you really were embarrassed about having attention drawn to your abilities like that.”
He rounded on her. “Why on earth do you want to become one of us, Deonne?” Suddenly, the shield behind his eyes was gone and the emotion she had sought to find was there for her to see, blazing like a neon sign in his eyes, his face, and his coiled, tight posture. “Why would you trade being human for this?” He spread his hands to either side.
Deonne cast about for an answer. For another answer. A more truthful one than any of the answers to this question she had given him so far. He had never understood this long term goal of hers and in gross and subtle ways had tried to talk her out of it since the first time they had made love. She had given him truthful answers, but never deep, core reasons because she wasn’t sure she could formulate the full reasons into coherent words herself.
Perhaps it was time to try.
Justin didn’t give her a chance to speak. He strode to where she stood, driven by the emotions pushing through him so suddenly. “Why do you need whatever mystical bullshit you think immortality might give you? You held an entire room of media in the palm of your hand this afternoon and tonight you toyed with Brenden, got him spitting mad, then backed him down, all by yourself. No one stepped in to protect you. No one helped you. You don’t need vampire strength. You’re a powerhouse all on your own.”
She looked him in the eye. “Is that why you kept your distance? You don’t like power?”
“No!” He took a step back, astonished. “Are you crazy?”
“You said I must be crazy if I liked you.”
He laughed in a way that told her the laugh was against his better judgment. He didn’t want to be put into a better mood. He wanted to be wounded or angry but her response had caught him by surprise.
Deonne found herself smiling, too.
The air shifted between them. The strong emotion that had pushed him across the room to confront her dissipated. Justin reached up and pulled the big silver clip out of her hair. “I stayed away, Rinaldi, because I didn’t much feel like letting every other joker in the agency know how I feel about you, and you were putting out such power today that if I’d got within a few feet, I probably wouldn’t have been able to help myself.”
“Ah, then you do like strong women,” she replied, as his hand dropped to the fastener at the neck of her jacket.
“I prefer petite brunettes who stay at home with their knitting,” he growled as he slid the tip of his finger down the length of the zapper, reversing the polarity. The jacket eased open under his finger and he looked at her. “It’s not keyed to your prints? Anyone would think you were expecting someone else to remove your clothing.”
“I brought this barely an hour before the meeting. I didn’t have time to get my prints registered.” She frowned. “And how did you know this was a customizable fastener?”
His hand slid under the jacket opening. “You wouldn’t wear anything less than high class.”
“Compliments aside – oooh.” She drew in a sharp, gasping breath as his big square hand circled under her breast, stealing almost all of her attention.
“I know about security fasteners and couture because you’re rubbing off on me, Rinaldi. It works both ways, you know.” He was standing close enough now that she could feel the breath he needed to speak brushing her cheek.
His strong fingers were stroking the side of her breast, under the jacket. They lightly drew across the mound, staying clear of her nipple, and it was as arousing as hell. Deonne fought the impulse to turn a few degrees to bring her nipple into direct contact with his fingers, even though she longed for him to touch the aching tip.
“Speechless, hmm?” he teased.
She reached out and flicked open his trousers with a twist of her fingers. As they slid down his hips, she pushed her hand inside, under the hem of his shirt, and found the crease at the top of his thigh. She began to stroke along the angled line from his hip bone, fluttering ever closer toward his groin and the now-rigid pole of his cock.
He hissed.
“It w
orks both ways, you know,” she told him.
Just as she was about to curl her fingers around his cock, he stopped her by grabbing her wrist.
She met his eyes.
“Take your clothes off,” he told her, holding her wrist in a vice-like grip that she had got used to. Vampires had uncharted strength, but Justin had never, ever used more than human-scale abilities around her. Now she knew he probably limited himself to that restricted movement for everyone.
“You first,” she told him.
Justin smiled. “Okay.” He kept his grip on her wrist and used his free hand to strip her of her jacket, only transferring his grip to her other wrist to let the jacket drop to the floor.
“I meant—” she began.
“I know,” he said shortly and kissed her.
The kiss was delicious. It had been weeks and there had been so few kisses anyway. Justin seemed to ration out his kisses and she had discovered that kissing Justin Kelly was one of life’s pure pleasures. It always felt like he was giving the kiss everything he had to give – all his attention and time and energy, and she would come up for air panting, her body tingling, her mind reeling with the impact.
He tasted heavenly. Deonne could kiss him for hours.
But this time, her body wasn’t going to let the kiss linger for hours. Her whole body pulsed in response and where her breasts brushed up gently against his shirt, white fire spread out from the tips.
Deonne gasped as her skirt slithered down her hips. Justin had loosened the fastening as he kissed her. The silk puddled around her shoes.
“No undergarments. You’re sure you weren’t expecting to be seduced, Rinaldi?” he murmured, his lips brushing her cheekbone.
“Seduced, no. Fucked by you, yes.”
He smiled. “Well, then…” He lifted her, his hands around her waist, and carried her backwards two steps, then lay her across the chaise longue. It was soft under her back, but that was the only impression she absorbed before Justin’s lips closed over her nipple, and his teeth clamped around the tip and tugged.
She clutched at his head as the fiery sensations blitzed her mind and body, drugging her. “Oh,” she breathed.
He lifted her knees, giving her legs support, for they extended over the side of the longue, and as he moved his mouth to her other breast, he pushed his cock into her pussy in one deep, hard thrust.
Deonne cried out at the unexpectedness of the possession and the sheer satisfaction at having him inside her. It was good, in a fundamental way. She began to shake as her orgasm bloomed.
“Oh hell, Justin,” she gasped, trying to warn him.
He lifted his head from her breast. His smile was broad and self-satisfied. He thrust into her harder and faster and his hand dropped to her pussy. The strong thumb dipped between her cleft and nudged up against her clit. “If you come, I’ll just make you come again,” he told her. “But you’ll scream as well.”
Deonne gave herself up to the pleasure. She was naked except for her shoes, while Justin was still fully dressed and fucking her on the sofa in front of a panorama window that she had only Kieran’s assurance the world outside could not see through.
She didn’t care. She needed to come. She wanted to feel the hard contraction of her pussy around his cock as her body tightened in the delicious spasm. There was nothing better.
Justin had taught her that.
Her orgasm lifted her back off the cushion and snapped her taut while time spun out endlessly.
As soon as she relaxed, Justin withdrew and picked her up in his arms. “Now, I’m going to finish you off properly,” he told her, carrying her over to the squared-off archway she had spotted earlier, that clearly led deeper into the apartment.
Deonne wrapped her arms around his neck. “Promise?”
* * * * *
Her second climax took another fifty minutes, as Justin teased and stroked and petted her into a sweaty, desperate pillar of trembling flesh, as she clung to the latticework headboard. His naked body drove into hers with controlled fury, coaxing her climax from her inch by inch, and all the while he gazed into her eyes, watching her, taking her measure, learning more about her in the few minutes he studied her than she would ever learn about him even if she had the hundreds of years he had already walked the earth.
Deonne did cry out as she came, but there was a taint to her pleasure she couldn’t put a complete shape to. It sat uneasily in the back of her mind, bothering her.
Chapter Eight
Stockholm, Sweden, 2264 A.D.: It took a while for Deonne to come around and even when she was awake it took her a moment to recognize the quiet electronic signal coming from the phone on the nightstand next to her borrowed bed. She turned on the light and examined the phone’s controls, then hit the button that looked like it might be the answer button. It was glowing green, a universal “go” signal.
The signal stopped and was replaced by the soft background noise of sound being carried by air signals. “Hello?” she tried.
“Ms. Rinaldi, it’s Kieren. I have a visitor in the foyer, who wants to speak to you.”
“Me?” She sat up straighter and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She saw that the other side of the bed was empty and mentally shrugged. Once she was asleep Justin rarely stayed with her, although he often returned to the bed before she woke. “Everyone who knows I’m in Stockholm just spoke to me at the agency this afternoon.”
“You were seen on a global netcast,” Kieren reminded her. “Your father left for Sweden as soon as he saw you, he says.”
Your father. Deonne clutched the edges of the bed, her gut churning hot and her breath shortening in a way that made her feel sick. She fought to control the reaction. “My father is here? That’s who you have in the lobby?”
“He says he is your father,” Kieren replied cautiously. “He has genetic markers…he looks like you. If you would turn on your screen you could identify him.”
No, thank you. She held back her first instinctive response. He’d come out from Switzerland on the first available semi-ballistic? There would be another in an hour or so. He could go right back.
Instead, she picked out the icon for the viewscreen on the pad and pressed it. A two inch by three inch color image of Kieren appeared on the pad. He gave her a small smile and the image shifted. A man moved into view. Silver hair that was once quite blond like hers, blue eyes that were also fading like his hair, but still sharp with intelligence. The face had fine lines, but the jaw was still defined. Christopher Wren Rinaldi may have failed to raise the necessary funds for DNA rejuvenation, but he saw no need to stint himself on every orthodox therapy available that would help him keep his youth and vitality.
Deonne sighed. “Hello, Father. You’d better come up.”
* * * * *
Deonne got dressed and put her hair up in a simple knot in the few minutes it took for Kieren to escort her father to the door of the apartment.
In those few minutes she also figured out that Justin wasn’t in the apartment. It was empty and silent. He had left while she was sleeping. Kieren would know where he was because that was his job. She made a mental note to ask him in a moment when her father would not overhear.
The door chimed as she was staring at her reflection, considering whether she should bother with makeup or not. The door alarm decided her. It was nearly four in the morning. She had honored her father enough by getting dressed. At this hour he was expecting far too much if he really thought she should have a full application of beauty products as well.
She applied instant lip color, sealed it and called it done. Then she went to answer the door.
Kieren had sent the door’s security code to her personal reader, so she didn’t have to ask him through the door for the code. She tapped out the sequence and heard the tumblers drop heavily. It was a reassuring sound.
Kieren nodded as she opened the door. “Sorry to wake you, Ms. Rinaldi. He was insistent.”
“That’s alright. I’m getti
ng used to vampires being up at any hour. Where is he?”
Kieren stepped back. “A second identification, if you don’t mind?” He looked to his left. “If you’ll step toward the door, sir?”
“I assure you, I’m quite harmless.” Her father’s rich, educated tenor filled the hallway. Then Christopher Rinaldi himself stepped into view and turned to face her. “Good evening, Deonne. Please tell this man I’m who I say I am so we can get this silly nonsense over with?”
Deonne’s gut tightened. It was just like her father to insist he be treated differently from everyone else. He’d always sought for recognition, preferably adulation. Being handled like a stranger and a mild threat, too, would offend his finely tuned instincts regarding rank and privilege.
So she raised a brow. “You barged in here at the crack of dawn. What did you expect? A champagne cocktail welcome?”
“In Sweden? Do they even have a decent champagne here?” He looked at Kieren. “May I enter? I would like to kiss my daughter hello and warm up the welcome I’ve received so far.”
“Father,” Deonne snapped. “Kieren is doing his job and you’re not making it any easier with snide comments like that.”
Christopher smiled dryly at Kieren. “My apologies. It has been a long night so far.”
Kieran’s blue eyes were expressionless, but his square jaw was very stiff as he gave a short nod. He looked at Deonne. “Should I wait here,” he asked, “or the foyer?”
Deonne kept her own expression just as neutral as Kieran’s, but she wanted to hug him. He had read enough into her short conversation with her father, that he was offering to hover in the corridor and escort her father off the premises in short order…if she wanted him to.
“I should be fine, thank you, Kieren,” she told him. “Please make yourself comfortable for whatever is left of the night.”
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