A Touch of Midnight

by Lara Adrian

  Dermaglyphs, he’d explained, along with the rest of what he’d told her.

  She traced one of the patterns over his firm pectoral with her fingertip and marveled at how its color deepened at her touch. She followed the graceful swell and dip of the glyph, watching it come to life and flood from tawny gold to dark jewel tones.

  “They’re beautiful,” she said, and heard his low rumble of approval deep in his chest as she teased more color into other places on his velvety skin. He had fascinated her from the moment she first met him under the Abbey murals at the library. But she was curious about him in a new way now. She wanted to know him better, wanted to know everything about her lover who was something much more than a man. “I could play with your dermaglyphs all day,” she admitted, unable to hide her wonder and delight. “I love how the colors change to wine and indigo when I touch them.”

  “Desire,” he rasped thickly. “That’s what those colors mean.”

  She glanced up and saw a growing hunger in his handsome face, heard it in his low, rough-edged voice. “Your eyes,” she said, noticing how the sparks had multiplied, now more of an amber glow, slowly swamping the blue of his irises. “When we made love earlier, I felt the heat of your gaze. I saw there was a fire coming to life in your eyes. This kind of fire. You hid it from me.”

  “I didn’t want to frighten you.” A flat, unabashed admission.

  “I’m not afraid now, Gideon. I want to know.” She reached out to him, cupped his rigid jaw in her palm. “I want to understand.”

  He stared at her for a long moment, then growled her name and covered her mouth in a long, slow kiss.

  Savannah melted into him, swept up in the heat and pleasure of his lips on hers. She hungered for a deeper taste, testing the seam of his mouth with her tongue. He didn’t give way to her at first, groaning as if to refuse her.

  She wouldn’t let him hide from her. Not now. Not again, not ever when they were together.

  She scooted to the edge of the chair and wrapped her hands around the back of his head, spearing her fingers into the silk of his short hair. She traced her tongue along his mouth, insistent, pressing her body to his.

  He gave up with a low curse and she pushed inside, thrilling to the feel of his hungered mouth. The sharp tips of his fangs scraped her tongue as she kissed him deeper. When she could hardly take it any longer, she drew back to look him full in the face.

  There was little left to confuse him with a mortal man. His eyes were blazing, fangs enormous and razor-sharp. His dermaglyphs were livid with dark color, churning like living things on his skin.

  He was magnificent.

  And she felt no fear as she drank in his full transformation.

  “Take me to bed, Gideon. Make love to me again, now, like this. I want to be with you just the way you are.”

  With an otherworldly snarl of agreement, he swept her roughly off the seat and into his strong arms.

  Then he rose and carried her into the bedroom as she’d commanded.

  ~ ~ ~

  Gideon had never seen anything lovelier than the look of pleasure on Savannah’s face as she climbed toward orgasm, her dark eyes locked on his gaze while she rode him in an unrushed, but slowly increasing, tempo.

  They’d left the bed sometime before morning had dawned outside the sealed-up townhouse. Now, they sat face to face in a tub of warm bathwater, Savannah straddling him, his cock buried deep inside her tight sheath, her breasts dancing in tantalizing motion in front of his thirsting eyes and hungry mouth. He couldn’t resist pulling one of the pert brown nipples between his teeth, rolling his tongue over the tight little peak and gently grazing the tip of his fangs along the supple curve of her flesh.

  She drew in a sharp, shivery breath when he closed his mouth down on her a bit harder, just enough to remind her what he was and to torment himself with the want he felt to take things further with her--to make her his in every way.

  Making love to her openly, without fear or concealment of his true nature, had been amazing. Mind-blowingly good. They had exhausted each other last night, sleeping for a short while in each other’s arms before waking more than once to kiss and caress and make love all over again.

  Gideon knew he should have broken away at some point to report in to the compound, but he hadn’t been able to find the will to leave the bed he’d shared with Savannah. The way things were going this morning, he might never make it back. Savannah rocked on him, their eyes locked, her face aglow with the amber light of his pleasured gaze.

  He stroked her face and throat as she moved on him in a deeper, faster rhythm. The bathwater lapped around them noisily, the sound of their lovemaking wet and erotic. She started to come then, soft moans slipping through her parted lips.

  Gideon gripped her ass in a firmer hold and moved his pelvis in time with her undulations. His cock felt like hot steel inside the tight clutch of her body, pressure building to a fever pitch at the base of his spine. His fangs filled his mouth. His gums throbbed with the urge to taste the graceful column of Savannah’s neck as she threw her head back and cried out with her climax.

  Gideon followed her over the edge a moment later, his orgasm racking him in a full-body heave and a coarse shout of release. He shuddered inside her, wave after wave of scalding heat shooting out of him. He swore her name, prayer or curse, he didn’t know.

  She smiled as he filled her, her dark eyes drinking him in, even though he knew he must look savage and unearthly. She didn’t shrink away. Not his Savannah, not now.

  She slumped against him, limp and satiated. Gideon held her close, smoothing his hands along her back. Her breath was warm against the side of his neck, her lips soft and moist on the pulse point where she rested, making his carotid jump and pound in response.

  “I can’t get enough of you,” she murmured. “Are you working some kind of Breed mojo on me that makes me want you so bad?”

  He chuckled. “If only I had that kind of power. I’d never let you out of my bed. Or my bathtub.”

  “Or off the chair in the other room,” she added, a reminder of yet another location they’d made use of in the past few blissful hours.

  Gideon’s arousal woke anew at the thought, and he wondered how intense their lovemaking would be if they were mated, sharing a blood bond. One little bite and she would be his forever. Dangerous thinking. Something he wasn’t prepared to consider, no matter how much his body seemed to feel otherwise.

  “I can’t get enough of you, either,” he told her, pressing a kiss to her temple. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been with someone. I’ve had to remember all over again how it’s done. Although I can’t think of anything better than studying your body and learning all the ways to please you.”

  He felt her smile against him. “Well, you’re doing everything right.”

  “I’m a fast study.”

  Savannah laughed and nestled in closer, mostly on top of him in the cramped, Victorian-era tub. Her long leg was draped over him, her arms wrapped around his chest. Gideon stroked her arm. “For a long time, I’ve been putting all of my energy and focus into the Order’s missions. I’m definitely slacking there now. I’ll likely have hell to pay--and rightly so--when I report back about where I’ve been.”

  Savannah lifted her head, studying his face. “How long?”

  “How long since I’ve wanted anyone the way I want you?”

  She nodded.

  “Never,” he said. “You’re a first in that regard. I’ve had my share of liaisons. Thoughtless dalliances that meant nothing to me.”

  “How long since you’ve made love?” she pressed.

  “The last time?” He shrugged. “Eighteen or nineteen years, if I had to guess.” The span of her whole lifetime, which seemed somehow fitting to him now. “It wasn’t memorable, Savannah. None of them were, compared to this. Compared to you.”

  She grew quiet, tracing a glyph on his chest. “I’ve only been with one guy before--Danny Meeks, a boy from my hometown. H
igh school jock, varsity quarterback, homecoming king...the boy every girl in school dreamed of being with.”

  Gideon grunted, feeling a surge of bald possessiveness. He wanted to make a smartass comment about steakhead athletes with IQs smaller than his boot size, but he could sense Savannah holding back as she spoke.

  “What did he do to you?” he asked, his possessiveness darkening toward fury with his suspicion that the stupid boy-man had wounded her somehow.

  “I thought he really liked me. He had his pick of anyone he wanted in school, and he’d just broken up with the prettiest, most popular girl in my class. But there he was, pursuing me.” She sighed softly, still moving her finger along the curve of Gideon’s dermaglyphs, whose color was rising not in desire again, but anger for her pain. “We went on a few dates, and after several weeks, he started pressuring me to take things further with him. I was a virgin. I wanted to wait until I met the right one, you know?”

  Gideon caressed her arm, letting her talk, while inside he knew where this was heading and he didn’t like it.

  “Finally, I gave in,” she said. “We had sex, and it was awful. It hurt. He was clumsy and rough.”

  Gideon growled. He didn’t want to imagine her with another man, let alone one who would be so careless with her.

  “We dated for a couple of months afterward,” she went on. “Danny never treated me any better. He just took what he wanted from me. After a while, I started hearing rumors that he had been calling his old girlfriend again. That he was only with me to make her jealous. They got back together, and I didn’t even know about it until I saw them making out at one of his games. He never cared about me at all. He pretended to be one thing with me, but the whole time we were together, he was only using me to get something he really wanted.”

  “Bastard,” Gideon snarled. He was pulsing with fury, wanting nothing better than to teach the little asshole a lesson. Throttle the human son of a bitch for hurting her. “Savannah, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” She shook her head where it rested against his chest. “I learned from it. It made me more careful. More protective of myself, of my heart. And then you came along...”

  She looked up into his eyes. “I’ve never imagined I could feel all the things I feel with you, Gideon. I never understood how lost I’ve felt--all my life--until I found you. I think it must’ve been fate that brought us together at the library a few nights ago.”

  A pang of guilt stabbed him at the mention of how they’d first met. Only he knew it hadn’t been fate at all that sent him to her that night. He’d first sought her out as a warrior on a private mission to gather intel on the sword and whoever had it now.

  That mission had soon changed, once he came to know Savannah. Once he came to care about her so swiftly, so deeply. He should have come clean about their initial meeting before now. He should have done it right then--would have--but before he could summon the first word, she covered his mouth in a tender kiss.

  It was all he could do not to end her sweet kiss and blurt out the other damning words that were on the tip of his tongue: Be with me. Bond with me. Let me be your mate.

  But it wasn’t fair to ask so much of her, not when she was just entering his world and he still had unfinished business to attend.

  He still had hidden enemies to eliminate. And he wouldn’t assume for one moment that killing the Rogue who’d accosted her at South Station removed the whole of the threat that was stalking Savannah.

  Recalling that encounter made him go tense and sober. She must have felt the change in him, for Savannah drew back from him now. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “Last night, at the bus terminal,” he said. “Did you notice anyone following you? Watching you, before or after you arrived? I don’t mean the Rogue that cornered you, but someone else. Someone who might have been aware that it was happening.”

  “No. Why?” Apprehension flickered in her searching gaze. “Do you think the Rogue was with others? Do you think I was targeted somehow?”

  “I think it’s a very real possibility, Savannah. I’m not willing to assume otherwise.” Gideon didn’t want to alarm her unnecessarily, but she also had to understand how dangerous the situation could be for her outside. “I think the Rogue was sent to find you for someone else.”

  More than likely, sent to silence her, a thought that made his blood go icy in his veins.

  Savannah stared at him. “Because of what happened to Rachel and Professor Keaton? You mean, you think the one who attacked them is now after me? Why?”

  “The sword, Savannah. What else did you see when you touched it?”

  She shook her head. “I told you. I saw the Rogues who killed those two little boys. And I saw you, striking someone with the blade. You killed someone with it.”

  Gideon gave a grim nod. “In a duel, many years ago, yes. I killed the Breed male who made the sword. His name was Hugh Faulkner, a Gen One Breed and the best sword maker in London at the time. He was also a prick and a bastard, a deviant who took his pleasure in bloodshed. Particularly when it came to human women.”

  “What happened?”

  “One night in London, Faulkner showed up at a Cheapside tavern with a human female under his arm. She was in bad shape, pale and unresponsive, nearly bled out.” Gideon couldn’t curb the disgust in his tone. There were laws among his race meant to protect humans from the worst abuses of Breed power, but there were also individuals among their kind like Faulkner, those who regarded themselves above any law.

  “Few of the Breed males in the establishment would consider rising up against a Gen One, especially one as nasty as Faulkner. But I couldn’t abide what he had done to the woman. Words were exchanged. The next thing I knew, Faulkner and I were outside in the darkness, engaged in a contest to the death over the fate of the woman.” Gideon recalled it as if the confrontation had just happened yesterday, not some three-hundred years in the past. “I had earned some renown for my skill with a sword, more so than Faulkner, as it turned out. He lost his blade almost immediately and stumbled. It was a fatal misstep. I could’ve taken his head then and there, but in an act of mercy--stupidity, in hindsight--I stayed my hand.”

  “He cheated?” Savannah guessed.

  Gideon gave a vague nod. “The minute I turned to walk away and retrieve his fallen blade, Faulkner began to rise up to come at me. I realized my mistake at once. I recovered quickly--and before Faulkner could get to his feet, I rounded back on him and cleaved him in half with his own damned sword.”

  Savannah sucked in a soft breath. “That’s what I saw. You, killing him with the sword I touched.”

  “I won the contest and sent the human woman away to be looked after until she was well again,” Gideon replied. “As for Faulkner’s sword, I wish I’d left it where it lay that night, next to his corpse.”

  Understanding dawned in Savannah’s tender eyes. “The twin boys I saw playing with the sword before they were attacked in the stable by Rogues...”

  “My brothers,” he confirmed. “Simon and Roderick.”

  “Gideon,” she whispered solemnly. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “A long time ago,” he said.

  “But you still feel it. Don’t you?”

  He released a heavy sigh. “I was to blame for not protecting them. Our parents were dead. The boys were my responsibility. Several weeks after the confrontation with Faulkner, I was out carousing in the city. Simon and Roddy were young, not even ten years old, but old enough to hunt on their own as Breed youths. I took it for granted that they’d be safe enough on their own for a few hours that night.”

  Savannah reached over and pulled his fisted hand up to her lips, kissed the tightly clenched knuckles with sweet compassion. He relaxed his fingers to twine them with hers. “My brothers were the reason I came to Boston. I joined the Order t hunt Rogues, after killing the three who murdered the boys, as well as dozens more for good measure.”

  “Hundreds more,” Savannah reminded him
.

  He grunted. “I thought killing Rogues would make the guilt about my brothers lessen, but it hasn’t.”

  “How long have you been trying to make it better, Gideon?”

  He exhaled a low oath. “Simon and Roddy were killed three centuries ago.”

  She lifted her head up and stared at him. Gaped at him. “Exactly how old are you?”

  “Three-hundred and seventy-two,” he drawled. “Give or take a few months.”

  “Oh, my God.” She dropped her head back down on his chest and laughed. Then laughed again. “I thought Rachel was nuts for lusting after Professor Keaton, and he was only in his forties. I’m falling in love with a total relic.”

  Gideon stilled. “Falling in love?”

  “Yes,” she replied quietly, but without hesitation. She glanced up at him. One slender black brow arched wryly. “Don’t tell me that’s all it takes to scare a three-hundred and seventy-two-year-old vampire.”

  “No,” he said, but he did feel a sudden wariness.

  Not because of her sweet confession; he would come back to that tempting pronouncement another time.

  Right now, his warrior instincts were buzzing with cold alarm. He sat up in the tub, frowning.

  “Keaton,” he said flatly. “When is he due out of the hospital?”

  “He is out,” Savannah replied. “I saw him yesterday on campus. He looked awful, but he said he’d made a full recovery and the hospital released him earlier than expected. He was acting kind of odd--”

  Gideon tensed. “Odd in what way?”

  “I don’t know. Weird. Creepy. And he lied to me when I asked him about the attack.”

  “Tell me.”

  She shrugged. “He told me he saw who killed Rachel and attacked him that night. Keaton said it was a vagrant, but the glimpse I got from Rachel’s bracelet showed me a man in a very expensive suit. A man with amber eyes and fangs.”

  “Holy shit.” Why he didn’t see it before, Gideon had no idea. The attacker killed Savannah’s roommate, but left the professor alive. That was no accident. “What else did Keaton say to you?”