Zane’s Redemption

by Tina Folsom

  “Oh, God, Portia,” he groaned and threw his head back, his hands on her stilling for a moment. When she looked up at his face, she watched his fangs lengthen and the glow in his eyes intensify.

  A thrill of excitement shot through her at the knowledge that she could reduce this man to a creature who only lived for this moment of passion and desire.

  “I want you,” she whispered and felt her own fangs itch beneath her gums.

  His eyes flashed with lust, and his nostrils flared before he dropped his head back to her. But instead of kissing her lips or her neck, he moved lower and captured her breasts, a word bouncing against them that she wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly.

  Yet, it still echoed in her head: mine.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Mine.

  Zane would never give voice to it, yet the thought bounced around his head, forbidden and unattainable as it was. But just because he couldn’t act on it, it didn’t stop the wish from repeating again and again. Mine, mine, mine. Like a song on a loop it came around as regularly as seconds ticked away on a clock. With no means to tell his mind that he had no right to make her his, to claim her for himself, he did the only thing he could: he lavished her body with the passion that had been locked up inside him for so long.

  His lips locking around one taut nipple, he swiped his tongue over it and relished the breathless moan Portia released. She was more responsive than he’d expected a virgin to be. At the same time, her responses to him were pure and unaffected as only those of an inexperienced woman could be. He found that it appealed to him more than the artificial moans and grunts the prostitutes and sluts he frequented played for him.

  Every moan and sigh from Portia’s lips felt like a gift. And selfish as he was, he coaxed more of them out of her by sucking harder and working her other breast with his hand, squeezing and molding it in his palm. So firm, yet so soft, her body was a contradiction in terms.

  Unable to get enough of her, he sank down to the tile floor and pulled her with him, laying her down on the soft bathmat. His hands roamed her body, exploring unchartered territory.

  When he trailed kisses down her stomach, her head reared up. “Zane? What are you doing?”

  It wasn’t an admonishment, but a question colored in surprise and disbelief. He raised his lids and collided with her intense gaze, her green eyes glowing with lust. She had to know what was coming. Even as a virgin, she couldn’t be that ignorant.

  “I need to taste your pussy.”

  Her breath hitched, and his nostrils flared as the scent of her arousal intensified.

  “You don’t have to do that,” she whispered a weak protest, but her eyes said otherwise. She wanted his lips on her, his tongue inside her.

  “I have to.”

  Not a horde of vampire hunters chasing him with stakes could stop him now. Lowering his head, he moved his hands to her thighs and pushed them apart, opening her for his own pleasure.

  A triangle of dark curls greeted his approach, and the tantalizing smell of youth and purity beckoned him to move farther south. He sank his face between her spread thighs and inhaled, allowing her scent to engulf him. Everything else faded into the background. The cold tile floor was suddenly forgotten. And even the soft woofing of his dog in the next room subsided. The only things his senses were able to process were her scent and the feel of her silken flesh under his hands. Her soft, almost inaudible moans provided the background music to this enticing tableau of ripe and willing woman.

  Zane stroked his fingers up her thighs, allowing them to converge at the moist folds of her sex. As he brushed against the warm cleft, Portia jolted.

  “I’ll be gentle,” he heard himself reassure her. Gentle? Could he really be that? Could he be tender and careful with a woman as precious as her? Or would his desire for her unleash the beast in him?

  He wanted to pull back, to try to get himself under control so he wouldn’t hurt her, when her hands suddenly stroked over his skull, her fingernails softly grazing his skin. He lost his ability to move. A shudder went through him and right through his cock, making pre-cum ooze from the slit.

  Zane licked his tongue over her flesh, lapping up the juices that coated it. His entire body went rigid with his first taste of her innocence.

  Holy hell!

  He’d never tasted anything as delicious, and he’d eaten a lot of pussy in his life. This was nothing like he’d ever had. Her tangy flavor was rich and ripe, the texture of her flesh so soft and smooth, teasing his lips and tongue by making them tingle. His pulse raced, his heart pounding through his chest as if it wanted to jump out of his body and into hers.

  Portia was better than the best blood he’d ever drunk.

  Need to possess her charged through every single cell of his body.

  Mine, his mind screamed again, deafening him. Warring emotions battled in his heart, the need to have her on one side, and to protect her from himself on the other. In between those two forces, a third reared its head: the will to protect himself from falling for her, from giving his heart away only to have it crushed when she ran from him.

  Zane pushed away the thoughts, forcing himself only to live in the moment and take what she was willing to give him: her body, nothing else. He would have to content himself with it, even though he wanted more now. He would do his darnedest to tempt her to give him more. He’d already violated Scanguards’ ethics, and one-by-one was breaking every single rule he’d ever put in place for himself: never to get involved, never to care, and never to hope for love.

  It was all shot to hell now.

  All because of Portia and the way he reacted to her. Just like she reacted to him. Her body twisted beneath his mouth, her pelvis rocking against him, and her hands kept caressing his sensitive skull.

  For the first time in his vampire life he was grateful for the fact that he was bald. It had made his skin more sensitive to touch, and now acted as one of the most erogenous zones of his body besides the one now struggling to escape his pants.

  With his tongue, he explored her beautiful pussy, nipped, sucked and licked this way, then that. When he stroked upwards and connected with her clit, she let out a breathless cry.

  “So sensitive,” he mumbled against the fully engorged bundle of nerves.

  But Zane gave her no reprieve. He wanted to taste her passion, her lust, and her desire. He needed to feel her come apart in his mouth, to know that he could give her something that she would remember, a feeling she would never forget and always associate with him.

  While sex had always been a power play for him, never to be confused with affection or love, as Portia writhed beneath him in obvious ecstasy, he felt his heart soften, the wall around it crack. Not wanting to examine the implications of this, he doubled his efforts and pulled her clit between his lips, pressing them together.

  Her moan was followed by a shudder. Wave after wave crashed against his lips as her orgasm broke.

  His own release was only prevented by the tightness of his jeans and the zipper that dug painfully into his aroused flesh. Had he been naked, he would have spilled his seed onto the tile floor.

  Zane groaned and kept licking over her clit, igniting her once more. Then he lifted his head and looked at her face. Her eyes were closed, her lips parted, showing the tips of her fangs, and her chest heaved. He’d never seen a more beautiful sight in his long life.

  “Next time you come, I’ll be inside you.”

  Her eyes flew open, and she pinned him. “Now.”

  Her breathless word did something unfamiliar to his facial muscles. They twisted, his lips pulling up into a curve, parting as they did so. He brought a hand to his face to see what was happening to him and realized to his surprise that he was smiling.

  He hadn’t smiled in over six decades.

  ***

  Languid pleasure made her body feel boneless. Portia had masturbated a few times before, and while it had made her feel good, it couldn't compare to what Zane’s hands and mouth
had done to her. She felt weightless.

  When she opened her eyes, she looked at Zane’s smiling face. He looked so different now, younger and so much happier than she’d ever seen him.

  Zane rose from between her thighs, thighs she’d so willingly spread for him only thinking of her own pleasure. With fluid grace, he pulled her into his arms, cradling her against his naked chest, still wearing his shirt and pants, and carried her into the bedroom.

  She pressed her head into the crook of his neck and slid her lips against his skin, kissing him. She sensed him tilt his head to allow her closer access. Sighing her approval, she brushed her fangs against his neck, sensing the pulsing vein beneath that screamed for her to tear his skin so she could drink.

  Zane growled. “Careful, Portia, if you bite me, you might be getting deeper into this than you want to.”

  She met his eyes and noticed a strange glint there. Was he rejecting her, regretting what he’d just done? She averted her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  When he lowered her onto the bed, she scooted away from him, his rejection stinging. She cursed her inexperience. If she’d been with a vampire before, maybe she would know more about the etiquette around biting. As it was, all she had to go by was her instinct, and it told her that she wanted his blood just as much as she wanted his cock inside her.

  Zane’s hand tipped her chin up, making her face his scrutinizing look. “Don’t get me wrong. I’d be honored if you drank my blood.”

  Her heart jumped. “But then why—”

  “Taking another vampire’s blood creates a connection …”

  She knew all about blood bonds, her mother had explained it to her. “But if you don’t bite me at the same time, it won’t create a blood bond.”

  “That’s not what I was talking about. Even without that, there’ll be a closer connection than if we were simply sexual partners.”

  She frowned. Sexual partners, how clinical that sounded. “I see.” All he wanted was what she’d asked him in the first place: to help her lose her virginity. Nothing more, nothing less.

  “You don’t.”

  Zane shrugged his shirt off and dropped it to the floor. Then he stretched out his right arm, revealing the inside of his forearm. With the finger of his other hand, he pointed to the tattoo that marred his skin.

  Portia’s eyes followed the direction, and her pulse skidded to a full stop. There, on his skin, six numbers were imprinted. It took her less than a second to realize what they were. She knew their significance from somewhere—from reading, or some class she'd taken, or maybe one of the many TV documentaries she'd perused. In any case, she knew that Zane had survived a Nazi concentration camp.

  “This is what I am, Portia. I did unspeakable things to survive. You don’t want my blood, believe me. I’m an animal.”

  Stunned at his self-hate, she stopped breathing.

  “I’m a dirty Jew, Portia. Is that really what you want?”

  He hated himself for being a Jew? She shook her head, unable to comprehend how he could have these feelings about himself. When he pulled away and lowered his lids, she realized he’d misunderstood her movement as an answer to his question.

  “No!” she cried out and reached for his hand, pulling his arm closer to her. “Whoever said that of you is wrong.” How long had they repeated those words to him that he now believed them himself? What had they done to him to make him think he was dirty because of his heritage?

  But Zane had already shut down again, his smile wiped off his face, his mask of indifference firmly in place.

  “I want you.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t want your pity or your political correctness.”

  “It’s neither.” Damn it, why was he so stubborn?

  Unconcerned with her nudity, she nudged to the edge of the bed and turned her head to his forearm once more. She brought it to her mouth and pressed a kiss onto the first number.

  “Portia, stop …”

  His protest died when she kissed the second number, then the third. By the fourth Zane was moaning softly, and when she kissed the fifth and then the last one, his other arm had come around her and his fingers combed through her hair.

  “To me you’re beautiful, honorable, and strong. You’re the first person I’ve ever wanted to bite. But if you don’t want me to …”

  Portia let her words hang there, giving him a chance to make a decision.

  “You’ve never bitten anybody?”

  “I was raised on bottled blood.”

  The news appeared to surprise him. She watched how his eyes changed, how he seemingly fought an invisible enemy. A few tense moments passed, before Zane suddenly pulled her into his embrace and buried his face in her hair.

  “When we make love, when I push through your hymen, I want you to sink your fangs into me and take as much blood as you want.”

  “What if I can’t stop?” The way his blood smelled, she wasn’t sure she could withdraw in time.

  “It would be a very sweet death.”

  She pulled back and glared at him, only to realize that he was smiling. “How can you make a joke like that?”

  “Who said it was a joke?”

  “You have a very dark sense of humor, do you know that?” Because this had to be a joke.

  “There are a lot of things about me that are dark, baby girl. And for your sake, I hope you’ll never see them.”

  Before she could answer, his mouth was back on hers, drowning out any protest on that subject.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Zane deepened his kiss at the same time as he worked himself out of his jeans. Thanks to Portia’s enthusiastic help, he was naked a few moments later. Finally, he pressed her back into the mattress and covered her body with his.

  Even though history had taught the world about the atrocities the Nazi’s had committed, and that the Jews weren’t the only ones who’d been marked for elimination, he’d never been able to shake the words they’d used to break him: dirty Jew. A deep-rooted belief that he deserved to be the vermin they’d turned him into at Buchenwald remained, as did the conviction that he’d never be able to cleanse himself of the acts of brutality he’d committed in the years after it.

  He could have easily hidden his tattoo from her for a while longer, but something had urged him to point it out to her, eager to see her reaction. He hadn’t expected her to be so kind. However, when Portia had kissed the numbers that had once identified him as a prisoner, he’d felt the chains around his heart loosen. If an innocent like Portia could see past the mark that daily reminded him of his past, then maybe there was hope after all. Hope that one day he’d be free from pain and the need for revenge.

  Free to love.

  He banned the thought from his mind, and instead brought his attention back to Portia’s enticing body. He was one lucky son of a bitch that she’d gotten it into her head to have him be her first. Knowing that something like this would never happen to him again, he didn’t want to rush the moment. And the fact that she would take his blood while he was deep inside her, made the whole prospect so much sweeter.

  Her lips tasted of surrender, and her hands that now roamed freely over his naked torso, spoke their own language, one of desire and passion, of eagerness and curiosity.

  He severed his lips from hers and gazed into her face. Her cheeks flamed, and her breath came in shallow pants.

  “We’ll take it slowly,” he assured her.

  To his surprise, Portia shook her head. “I don’t want slow. I don’t want you to hold back.”

  “But you’re a—”

  She pressed her finger to his lips, silencing him. “I’m a hybrid. You can’t break me. Please.”

  Zane stroked his knuckles over her cheek. “What do you want from me, baby girl?”

  “Treat me like a woman you’re passionate about. Pretend you can’t control your desire. It doesn’t matter that it’s not real. Just make me feel it.”

  Zane searched her eyes. “Pretend?” He
leaned his forehead against hers. “I can’t pretend.”

  There was a disappointed sigh, and it almost made him smile.

  “I don’t have to pretend.” He brushed his lips over her eyes and kissed them. “You see, Portia …”

  He took her wrists and pinned them on each side of her head. Her heartbeat instantly kicked up but she didn’t give him any resistance.

  “… what I want is you panting when I thrust into you, and screaming for more, begging me to fuck you harder. Can you pretend for me?”

  Portia’s eyes lit up, sending a bolt of heat through him. “What if I don’t need to pretend?”

  Zane let a low growl of approval emerge from his chest. “Even if I hurt you?”

  “You can’t hurt me.”

  He closed his eyes for a second. There were so many ways he could hurt her, despite her being a near indestructible hybrid. “So you want real. You want sex without restraints, without holding back?”

  “Yes.”

  Without another word, he nudged his thigh between hers, spreading her. The scent of her arousal intensified, filling his bedroom. His cock brushed against her inner thigh, relishing the heat from her body.

  Releasing her wrists, he cradled her closer and centered himself above her core. When he drew his hips back, his cock slid into the space between her thighs, stroking against her damp center. The brief contact almost undid him.

  Slowly, he probed at her entrance, the tip of his swollen cock pressing between her outer lips, feeling the membrane guarding her virginity.

  “God, you’re tight,” he whispered at her ear.

  “Do it,” she urged and caressed his neck with her lips.

  Zane tilted his head, anticipating what would happen next.

  Portia’s pelvis pushed against him. Without a thought, he plunged forward, pushing through the hymen that represented the final barrier to her treasure, seating himself.

  In the same instant, Portia’s fangs sank into his neck, piercing his skin. When she drew on his vein, intense pleasure speared through him, equaling the pleasure he felt being lodged deep inside her exquisitely tight pussy.