by Devyn Quinn
Her internal temperature ratcheted up a few more notches. “It’s all right. I want to.”
Averting his gaze, Iollan slowly shook his head. A sigh shuddered out. “I can’t. If I take you again, I won’t be able to let you go.”
Her heart twisted. “Me either.”
Iollan leaned back, putting some distance between them. “You should go.”
She looked up briefly puzzled. Was that it? Just get up and leave? Definitely not on her agenda. Her whole body yearned for the next sweet touch of his hands on her naked skin, his lips on hers.
Their gazes tangled, his avoiding, hers questioning. “Why?”
Fleeting wariness crossed his face. He glanced toward the windows, toward the night that beckoned him. “I have to feed,” he said slowly. “Soon.” His final word hammered.
The skin on her scalp crawled when he reminded her of that simple fact. No matter what she might feel for him, Iollan Drake was a vampire. Is, she corrected herself.
Callie pursed her lips, making a quick decision. She didn’t suppose donating a little of her blood would hurt her. Her skin heated as she remembered the previous withdrawals he’d made. She didn’t recall that she’d minded a bit. “You can take mine,” she started to offer.
He gazed at her, his eyes lighting with fresh desolation. He reached out, brushing her lips with the tips of his fingers. “Just walk away from this place, and don’t look back.”
Callie felt her heart lodge in her throat. Common sense told her to go, but too many emotions competed inside her. Not to mention that his immediate proximity continued to wreak havoc on her hormones. She blinked, fighting for control. “I’m not leaving.”
Iollan closed his eyes briefly. “It’s not safe for you to stay.” His admission failed to disguise the yearning in his voice.
Callie refused to accept that. Something inside tugged at her. Her attraction to Iollan Drake was one thing; she’d dismiss that as purely hormonal. But the seeming gentleness of his spirit collided with his image as cold-blooded killer.
A cold-blooded killer didn’t let a federal agent walk free.
She reached out, touching his arm. “I’m just trying to understand what’s going on.”
A shudder passed through him. Anguish shimmered across his face before a slow smile of regret tugged at his lips. He withdrew from her reach. “Sometimes I think there is no understanding.”
Seeing him so resigned and hopeless shook her to the core. Steeling herself against his withdrawal, her fingers curled into anxious fists. She gave him a beseeching look. “I’m willing to listen.”
“You should go.” Sliding off the bed, he walked toward the bay windows at the rear of the room. Unlatching one, he pushed it open. A breeze winnowed in, bringing with it the sounds and smells of the city at night. He leaned into the frame, head cocked as if listening to invisible voices.
Her concentration on him was so complete that Callie almost didn’t notice the shriveling and sinking of the bed beneath her weight. She glanced down, eyes catching the pale glimmering light of heatless flames. A strange gray film seethed around the edges of the walls. She saw flames licking at the furniture, smelled acrid smoke singeing her nostrils and lungs.
Mind reeling, she felt her feet scrape the floor. She stumbled, almost falling. The contortions around her continued, closer now, dizzying her with a whirlpool of intense action. Everything was beginning to melt and fade around her, withering and receding back to its original state.
The end came within seconds.
Darkness flowed around her like a thick boiling cloud, sapping the very marrow from her bones. She felt fear, an almost anguished longing for a place she’d never known as a whole. A minute more and it would be forever beyond her reach, forever beyond her touch. Once it was gone, once Iollan was gone, it would never come back.
Neither would he.
And then there was darkness, all around and all consuming.
Callie stood, lost in its center. Her head felt tight, like her skull was in a vise. She drew a shaky breath, lifting a hand to her forehead. For a moment the darkness thinned and she saw the windows, little more than gaping holes in the walls now. Iollan stood, a silhouette posed in shadows. He seemed ghostly, unreal.
She took a tentative step forward, trying not to trip. The debris was almost an obstacle course. More steps. Her nerves were taut, wanting to get out of this place. But she wasn’t leaving. Not willingly and, God forbid, not alone. She stopped, standing just behind him. She reached out. Her hand hovered, but didn’t touch.
For the longest time, Iollan didn’t respond. When he did, it was to glance over his shoulder. His hand closed into a fist. “Now you see what I really am,” he said in a low voice. “Nothing more than shadow and ruin.”
“It all seems real to me. You seem real.”
He glanced over his shoulder again. His face, starkly austere in the pallid moonlight, brooded with a distant, inhuman calm. The night suited him. He looked more stunning than ever. “A minor manipulation in energy, just an illusion, nothing more. Come the day, I won’t even exist.”
Not impossible to guess why. “Daylight.”
He nodded. “The sun saps our energy. Daylight incapacitates us to an almost fatal degree.” A hollow tone haunted his words.
Two and two connected. Her heart missed a beat. “Energy you replace through blood.”
A painful hesitation. “We are psi-sangre.”
The term meant nothing to her. “I don’t understand.”
His laugh was low, intimate in its amusement. “We draw our strength and vitality from consuming blood energized by sexual energy. In return we try to give much pleasure.”
Callie stood motionless, lulled by the remembrance of his powerful hands on her body. Trying to block her reactions to his words would be futile. He was close enough to ignite any number of erotic fantasies, every one arriving with a clarity that made her cheeks flame and sent molten lava through her core. Even the dull ache in her head from having the splendor sucked away around her didn’t detract from the humming in the rest of her body.
“You did give me pleasure.” Goose bumps prickled over her. “A lot of pleasure.”
Slowly, Iollan turned. His gaze sought hers, somehow connecting through the dim light filtering in. “It’s strange not to belong anymore, to stand on the outside looking in. We keep to the shadows because we must to survive. But we also know human passions and human needs because that part of us never truly died when we crossed. We are still people with emotions, though many call us monsters.”
The low, intimate timbre of his voice made her legs tremble. Somehow she was able to remain standing. His words, spoken so simply and with such sincerity, almost made her cry. She wanted to soothe his pain and assuage her own need to touch him at the same time. He hovered like a moth at the window, seeming to know that physical contact would probably sink them both.
I should let him go.
She shook her head. She couldn’t.
Callie squeezed her eyes shut. The heart she’d thought mended ripped a little more. The tear was tiny, but telling. “I know what it’s like to stand on the outside. I’ve spent my whole life there.”
Her words seemed to draw him in.
Stepping away from his perch, he reached out and tenderly cupped her face. His fingers were cool against her too-hot skin. “Then you know why I can’t ask you to join me. I won’t condemn your beauty to the night alone.”
Relishing his touch, she pressed her hand to his. “I’d shun the light to have you just one more time.”
Iollan pulled her close, his forehead connecting with hers. A jolt of electricity went all the way to her toes.
“You and I are natural enemies,” he murmured. “I could kill you now and no one would be the wiser.”
His dark, serious voice drew her in with its power. She pressed her hands against his chest, fingers clutching his shirt to draw him closer. “You won’t,” she breathed. “You can’t.”
His hands circled her hips. “We attempt to do no harm. That has always been our way.” His warm breath brushed her cheeks, her lips. “I want you to know I didn’t choose to become a murderer.” He was grasping at a redemption she had no authority to offer.
Heart swelling painfully, she felt her pulse rocket. Feeling as if she’d tremble into tiny pieces if he didn’t kiss her soon, she shook her head. She didn’t want to know the details, didn’t need to. “Please, don’t tell me,” she breathed. “I don’t want to know.”
He pulled back a little.
Callie tightened her hold, pressing her body into his. Her breasts were against his chest, and her hips vibrated with delicious anticipation. He was tall, so tall her gaze barely grazed his shoulder. If he wanted to, he could pick her up and break her in half like a twig. She didn’t have to think long to know that as a nonhuman, he’d be stronger and faster.
One of his hands slid into her hair. Claiming a mass of her thick locks, he gently tugged her head back. “Tomorrow, you’ll belong to them. And tomorrow I would have to kill you.”
Body held captive by his powerful hands, she gasped at the sheer primitive male power he exuded. Her whole body trembled and she completely forgot she was supposed to be afraid. “I don’t want to think about tomorrow.” A wedge of air stuck in her throat, forcing her voice to hoarseness. “I want you tonight.”
Silence.
She sensed the hesitation in him.
“I never wanted to hurt you,” he murmured.
“I know.”
“It won’t happen again.” He traced his lips over her cheek to her mouth. “I’ll die first.”
His mouth sealed his words with a kiss. His palm anchored her head as his mouth gave her the connection they both so desperately sought. They came together, at first tentatively, then with more force as passion flooded through them. Long and hot, yet also sweet and warm. Through the vibrations passing between them, Callie felt his hunger and yearning.
She wanted him like crazy. Even up against the wall in a burned-out building would do. She didn’t care. “I need you,” she whispered into his mouth, almost frantic to feel him inside her.
“I need you, too. Desperately.”
Her fingers tangled in his thick hair, pulling him toward her neck. “More than blood?” she breathed.
He groaned against the soft pulse in her throat. “More than my life.”
Pushing her jacket off, he tugged her T-shirt out of her jeans, lifting it up over her breasts. The fabric of her bra did little to conceal her swollen nipples, aching for the slow sweet torment of a male mouth. Heat pooled between her thighs, cream wetting the crotch of her panties.
With a smooth, confident move he pushed her sports bra up halfway over her breasts so her nipples were exposed, protruding prominently from the binding of tight material around her body. “I’ve missed these.” He lowered his mouth to taste her, exploring one tight peak with his eager tongue.
The gesture obliterated all sanity in Callie’s head. He suckled gently, then harder until ripples of pleasure left her breathless and quivering.
She reveled in the sensation he ignited in her body. “Feels wonderful.” Her breath rasped softly but urgently over her tender lips.
He tweaked one rosy tip. “I know what you crave.” He kissed her again, his mouth lingering over her lips, tongue caressing their soft outline. “Tell me you missed my cock.”
She smiled. “I missed your cock.”
“Good.” He plundered her mouth, ravishing her lips until they were swollen from his licks and suckling. Pleasure, undiluted and pure, coursed through her.
Her hands explored the durable ridges of his body, finding him, rubbing him through his tight jeans. The soft moan of pleasure he gave drowned out all the little voices in her head, voices that cautioned her to stop, put her hands on his chest and push him away.
She couldn’t.
The alarm in the back of her mind went blissfully silent. Everything came to a standstill. They exchanged a silent, intimate look. How this might end, what would come of it, she didn’t care. There were no yesterdays, no tomorrows, no grief. Now was the only time that mattered, the heat of the moment.
She raked her lip with her bottom teeth as she unbuttoned his shirt. Her hands shook with nerves. Her only awareness was the intense pleasure of sliding her hands over his bare chest. His hands were on her hips, holding her against his erection. She felt the tension in his fingers as he gripped her, and then he was caressing her, tracing her narrow waist, cupping her breasts.
He surrounded each nipple with five adept fingers, teasing them expertly. The fire of lust lit his penetrating gaze. “I can’t stand the thought of another man’s hands on your body.”
Callie moaned as his fingers and thumbs came together, the dusky tips locked between them. “Even though you shared me with your brothers.”
“They had their taste, but no more.” He squeezed the stiff nubs. Darts shot through her, striking crucial nerve endings. Need overcame reason. All her defenses crashed down around her feet. “I won’t share you again.” He started kissing down her neck, lazily running his tongue against her skin.
Callie reveled in the feel of his lips on her anxious skin. Her breath caught in her throat, but she didn’t care. She needed him more than she needed oxygen, more than she needed life itself.
Somehow her clothes melted away, leaving her deliciously naked to his skimming hands. His clothes, too, vanished, revealing the length of his magnificent male body, all solid planes and eager flesh. He was inflexible, thick and throbbing with need.
He pressed her back into darkness, as cool and soft as silk. Looking up at him, she saw his eyes glowing with an unearthly splendor. His hands drifted over her body, touching, exploring, going lower until he found the hot, slick junction between her thighs. His fingers rubbed her clit before he slid between her creamy folds, stroking back and forth until she ached for total completion.
Swaying as if in a trance, her vision blurred. From a faraway distance, she imagined she heard a low rhythmic chanting. The flow of blood through her veins sounded strongly in her ears, a muffled throbbing seeming to entwine with the mystical words of an ancient race filling the air.
For a moment she felt as though she were rising, expanding toward the ceiling above her head, passing through it to touch far-flung moons. Her soul fluttered in an invisible breeze, a wraith of energy shimmering. Stars glimmered around her, a million candles flickering in an endless eternity where time and space ceased to exist.
Suddenly, her senses shifted and light and sound seemed to fuse, twisting and contorting into an indescribable blending of her pulse and the hot darkness of the vampire’s heart.
His for the taking.
Basking in the glow of his dazzling gaze, she felt like a goddess, the holy mother of all that was beautiful, lush, and fertile.
Iollan’s mouth covered hers even as his cock pressed for entry between her spread thighs. She opened wider, angling her hips to encourage his entry. Her moans increased in demand and urgency.
He didn’t disappoint, gliding deep inside with a solid thrust. His cock stretched every inch until there was no more to offer. Their bodies melded into one, fitting together perfectly. They were one, at last.
Her breath came quick and shallow. “God, that’s perfect.” Her fingers dug deeper into his shoulders as he plunged and plundered. They moved together, her hips rocking in response to the press of his. The feel of his body skewering hers was heaven.
Iollan’s eyes glowed like an ocean under moonlight. “We’re close, love.” He raised her hips, pulled her slightly up, then impaled her again. “Don’t fight it. Just let it come.”
Callie’s fingernails scratched up and down his bare back as he ground his hips almost savagely against hers. Her sex grew slicker with every thrust.
Hunger was his master now.
She didn’t see the change in his face, the emergence of his fangs to know what was going to happen
next. She just accepted it the way she would accept the pain he’d inflict. With joy and welcome. She wanted him, wanted the pain. That was enough.
Callie cried out as his teeth tore into her skin. Her body shuddered deliciously, even as warm blood trickled down her neck. She sucked in a breath on a soft moan of pleasure and her body bucked beneath his. She climaxed. Hard, so hard, yet barely aware it had happened.
Callie’s eyes slowly opened and focused on his face. Iollan’s luminous gaze locked with hers. Slowly, oh so slowly, he leaned forward and they came together. He covered her mouth with his. She tasted her blood still clinging to his lips. The taste wasn’t unpleasant, but rich and feral.
A growl broke from her throat. “I want more.”
16
Callie awoke to darkness, a blank void of nothingness. She knew she was awake, felt the press of a blindfold across her eyes. She opened her eyes, staring into the blankness. A hint of light filtered through the material.
Get that thing off my eyes.
Nothing. Her arms wouldn’t answer her commands to move. Something held her hands immobile. Instinctively she tried to jerk into a sitting position. The resulting explosion of pain sent her straight back down. A sluggish groan rose to her ears, feeble and without objective, extended by the wheeze emanating from her mouth. She couldn’t control her limbs, couldn’t rise to her feet.
Callie writhed, her wrists twisting against soft restraints. She flexed her fingers. Ouch! Something poked the back of her hand, sending a painful jolt shooting up her arm. The skin on her scalp crawled.
Invisible claws clutched at her, threatening to yank her back into the chasm of unconsciousness. She resisted, fighting to remain aware. As usual her memory seemed to be one big jigsaw puzzle, one scattered all over the floor. At this point there seemed little hope of finding all the pertinent pieces.
