by Ines Johnson
Chapter 4
Cari
I started doing adrenaline adventures shortly after we buried my father. At first, the trips were low-risk enough. In fact, the experiences were therapy.
I wouldn't get behind the wheel of a car for weeks after the crash. A therapist suggested exposure therapy. For my first session, I went on a race track and had a professional race car driver take me around the circular track. By the time he pulled back into the pit, I was squirming in my seat and clutching at the seatbelt.
I returned later and had the hot race car driver drive me around the track at top speed. It was the speed that revved my engines. The knowledge that we could crash at any time--that was what made me come back to life. The moment he pressed the brake, I started to cool. By the time he cut the engine and loosened his seatbelt to try to make out, I was cold. I bought a Miata the next day.
Unfortunately, speed soon lost my interest. There is only so fast a car could go. Height became my new drug of choice. But even skydiving had begun losing that initial thrill. Once I land I go numb quicker and quicker.
Except now.
After my parachute and my spare fail, I close my eyes and await impact. Hitting the ground isn't as painful as I'd thought it would be. In fact, it feels only as if I’ve been tossed up in the air and caught. Caught by a strong set of arms.
Arms I wouldn’t mind snuggling into. Arms I wouldn’t mind hitting the brakes for. Arms that make me feel I’m still falling from the sky, but at the same time safe, secure, and warm.
I chance to open my eyes only to find I am being cradled in the arms of the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. The feel of his hands wrapped around me keeps my blood hot. Even though we aren't skin to skin, goosebumps are everywhere.
My fingertips feel singed inside my protective gloves. My nipples are tight points that could've cut through the layers. Is that his hand on my ass? Between my thighs, my core is hot even in the cool air of the night.
Even if it is his hand and not the harness on my ass there is nothing I can do. I am bound in my harness and the cords of the defunct chute. Yet somehow, I feel safe, content, and totally at peace at this moment of my demise.
Death has me in his clutches and there is nothing I can do about it. My adrenaline spikes higher. But there is no fear.
Fuck, I am truly messed up in the head.
"Am I dead?" I ask.
Death doesn’t answer. His gaze is locked on mine. But I can see his pupils are dilated and roving over my features. I feel as if a dangerous predator has me over a boiling pot of water. Or rather, is about to stretch me over a raging fire. And for some reason, I don’t seem to mind.
The way he’s looking at me, I’m ready to bare my soul to his light eyes. His hair is the color of midnight and falls just above his shoulders in gentle waves. He has one of those patrician noses of a Roman sculpture, but it looks as though his nose has been broken a few times. The imperfection just makes him look all the more perfect. If this is what the Grim Reaper looks like I bet more women would be jumping out of airplanes.
Realizing that I’m in the Grim Reaper’s clutches makes me realize another thing. There’s someone else I want more than the one who holds me in his arms. “Will you take me to see my father?"
"Where's your father?"
His voice is like syrup on honey mixed in sweet wine. I want to shiver, but my body doesn’t want to move a muscle inside his embrace.
“Wait?” I ask, the fear creeping back into me. ”Is this heaven or hell?"
Again, he doesn’t answer. There’s a quirk at the corner of his mouth. It could be considered a grin, but it’s there and gone in an instant.
"I suppose with what I did I probably ended up in hell,” I say. “But this looks like a vineyard."
"It is a vineyard."
"Are you the devil?"
His lips break wide. I get a flash of teeth, white, gleaming, sharp. “I have been called that in the past. This is the Serrano vineyard."
“Serrano? The Serranos bought the old Palmezzo Vineyard.”
“We did,” he nods.
“It’s a couple of miles over from my family’s vineyard.”
“Your family?”
“The Durands. I’m Carignan Durand.”
“Hello, Carignan Durand. I’m Hadrian Serrano.”
“Hadrian, that’s nice.” I smile as I use his first name and not his last.
He doesn’t look old enough to be a Mr. Serrano. I wonder if it’s his father that bought the vineyard. He did say family.
We stand there in silence for a moment. The crickets chirp, singing their mating call as they search for companionship for the night. A coyote howls at the moon in search of a booty call. An owl hoots into the wind, calling for some action of its own. All sounds of life and not what one would expect to hear in Hell.
"So, I'm not dead?” I ask.
Chapter 5
Hadrian
I have a special talent. I can always identify someone who grew up on or worked for a vineyard. Even before I was turned. The smell of the vines seeps into their very pores. It was a different smell than a drunk’s or wine enthusiast’s smell. Those people only made contact with the berries. The others, the children of the vineyard, they had the sweet smell of berries, the tart taste of the vine, the pungent smell of the earth in their skin beneath their nails.
So she isn't a fallen angel. She is a human and one who has grown up or worked around here by the smell of her.
She’s slight. About fifty kilos or so. Her limbs are long and slender, like a gazelle. Her ass is a handful. I only know because that’s how she lands.
I had to jump into the air to catch her. I know wine better than physics, but I do know enough to know that at the speed she was falling her bones would’ve broken if she’d landed in my arms from a fall that high. Her eyes were closed on the fall and so she didn’t see that she was still in the air when I caught her.
Her shoulders are cradled inside my right forearm. Her ass right in the palm of my left hand. I fight the urge to squeeze, to test the plumpness of her flesh. Then I am surprised at my impulse. I’ve never groped anyone besides Domitia.
The fallen gazelle opens her eyes and I take in a breath. I see her perfectly in the dark; flushed pink cheeks, pert nose, and eyes a hazy color of cinnamon that reminds me of Chianti.
Her brows squish together as she tries to get a good look at me in the pale moonlight.
"So, I'm not dead?”
I don't answer her. I can't. My gaze is fastened on her lips. The bright, vibrant, pulsing red line where there is a split at the center.
The smell of her warm blood curls up into the space between us. It is a sweetness I haven't smelled in a long time. Adrenaline mixed with blood. Sweet blood.
It is an aphrodisiac to vampires. It was my drug of choice during the Inquisition. I’d bind my victims with rope. Toying with them, torturing them, keeping them on that tightrope between pain and pleasure until their blood was the perfect blend for my tastes. But never have I smelled anything like this. Sweet blood from a child of the vines.
She thinks she is dead. Makes sense. She fell from the sky. And now she’s in the clutches of a predator, one who hasn’t had a drink from the veins in a very, very long time.
I’m hungry. Not just in my veins. A tendril of something is stretching up inside of me, awaking after a long slumber. I’m not sure what it is? But I have felt it before.
I have a new possession in my hands. I want to hold onto it. I want to protect it. I want to own it. More than likely, I’m just hungry.
"I can't believe I'm still alive,” Carignan says.
She squirms in my arms. Reflexively my hands tighten on the delicious bundle. I don't need to hold her so tight. She couldn't get away if I set her down. She is bound in ropes. They crisscross her chest, her torso, and her long legs. A bondage present delivered from the heavens to a sadist.
My throat waters. My pants tighten. I nearly drop her at the
unfamiliar sensations. My dick hasn’t gotten hard in a century. No, not even in wet dreams.
The only person I dream of is Domitia. Anytime she appears in my dreams there is no pleasure. Only pain in her eyes when I fail to save her.
"Did I hurt you?" Carignan asks.
I want to laugh, to eat, and possibly fuck, all at the same time. Instead, I can only gape. She thought she'd hurt me? My life has been nothing but pain. This tiny human can’t even prick my skin much less harm me.
"God, I couldn't live with myself if I hurt another living soul."
Well, she is safe there. Technically, I am alive. There is a debate about whether or not I still have my soul.
"I'm fine," I say, needing to assure her for some reason. "I'm not the one who fell from the sky."
"My chute malfunctioned. And then my spare as well. All the odds are against that happening, you know. I should be dead."
My fingers tighten around her. The hell is death taking anything else from me.
Not that she is mine.
So why am I not putting her down?
She gazes up at me; lost and vulnerable. This time I feel a definite twitch in my loins.
My fangs stab at my gums. I am suddenly thirsty. Even though I raided our stash of bagged blood earlier.
"You're trapped," I say.
Carignan looks down, noticing the harness and the ropes twining her arms and legs. She doesn’t fight her captivity. Her body relaxes as though she’s safe.
She is not.
"You're bleeding,” I say. “I’m taking you inside."
The real question is will I allow her back out.
Chapter 6
Cari
Would this be the next rush I'd chase? Getting kidnapped by hot men who prowl vineyards in the night waiting for crazy chicks to fall from the sky? If so, it’s not the worst way to spend a Friday night.
He’s carrying me through the vineyards. I should tell him that I can walk. I’m not hurt. Once again, not a scratch on me as death ignores my knocking.
But I don’t tell Hadrian that. I don’t ask to be put down. Because since I’ve been in his arms I haven’t stopped feeling.
Sensations are running all over my body, even though I’m still strapped into the harness and the cords of the defunct parachute crisscross my arms and legs. So I keep quiet as he holds me close and walks towards the grand house that sits at the entrance to the vineyard.
"Tell me," Hadrian says. "Why would a human being jump out of a perfectly good airplane?"
I almost open my mouth and tell him the truth. That it is the only way I can feel anything. But I don't want him to think I am crazy… Crazier.
"I wanted to see the vineyard at night from up high.”
It was a crazy idea to begin with. To try and recapture what it was like when I was a girl and my dad would lift me onto his shoulders and walk through our vineyard. But I’m full of nothing but crazy ideas these days.
Hadrian walks into an opened back door. The room is not a foyer. It’s not a den. It’s a bedroom. When he turns on the light, I get the sense it’s his bedroom.
There are no pictures on the walls. In fact, the room is pretty sparse. There’s only an oakwood chest next to a walk in closet. There are no curtains, just blackout blinds that don’t let in a hint of the moonlight we just stepped out of. The main feature in the room is a queen-sized bed fit for a king with a blood-red comforter and black silk pillows. The bed is made, I note.
"There are ladders," he says. "There are rooftops."
I stare at him in confusion. We are face to face since he still hasn’t put me down. I know that when he finally does he’ll have at least a foot on me. I hope that moment is far in the future. I like the air up here.
“To see the vineyard from up high,” he says.
Oh. Right. We’re back on my crazy.
Hadrian sits me down on his massive bed. My breath catches and my lips part as he crowds over me. His gaze slips to my lips and I see his nostrils flare.
Does he want to kiss me?
He could kiss me.
He could do anything he wants to me in my current predicament, bound as I am.
There is a tearing sound. At first, I think it’s my breasts popping out of my shirt because my nipples are hard enough to cut through glass. But it's not my drill bits. He’s breaking the ropes from the chute with his bare hands.
One by one they snap. That should not be possible. But neither should his game-winning catch of my body, either.
I gaze into his eyes. I can see them clearly now. They are the pale green of a white grape, the most common variety. But his are the seedless kind. I can’t see his pupils now that we are in artificial light. Looking into his fathomless depths I feel like I’m falling.
"I think I might be invincible," I say.
I don’t mean to say that. I’ve never told anyone my suspicions of being unbreakable.
Hadrian pulls the straps on my shoulders free. But he holds me in place with his gaze. My body is free, but I feel pinned. His fingertips brushing down my forearms are my new harness and I’ve never felt more secure.
"I should have died from that fall," I say.
"True."
"But here I am."
"You assume you're not in danger with me?"
I notice the accent now. Most of his responses have been monosyllabic. The cultured sound of his full sentence of words roll over me like honey.
I know I am in danger from that tilt of his lips. From the sparkle in his clear, green eyes. It’s hypnotic.
"You make me feel warm," I admit.
OMG. How do I turn this thing called my mouth off? It just keeps going. Telling this stranger all of my secrets.
"I jumped out of that perfectly good airplane to feel warm,” I say.
"I'm given to believe it's cold up there in the sky,” Hadrian says. “Though I’ve never stepped out for a walk there, myself.”
I can’t place his accent. Not quite Spanish. He doesn’t roll his R’s. Italian, maybe? He has that rumble in the back of his throat with consonants. Definitely somewhere in Europe.
“Why are you cold?” he asks.
"My dad died," I say. "In a car accident. I was with him in the passenger seat. I survived without a single scratch. But now I'm numb. The only time I feel anything is when my life is in danger. So I've been doing adrenaline adventures. It makes me feel alive, warm. And then, when the danger is over, it all goes away."
There is no judgment in his eyes. He simply listens like he has all the time in the world. I like the way his gaze holds mine. For the first time in a year, it’s as though someone actually hears me.
“Do you feel cold now?" he asks.
"No. I don’t. I still feel warm. In my hands. My toes. My chest. In my…"
I bite my tongue. There is no way I’m gonna tell him that I am warm between my thighs. Hadrian smiles as though he knows where my mind just went.
"I feel warm everywhere," I settle on. "Why is that?"
"Perhaps your life is still in danger," he says.
“You won't hurt me."
His gaze slips then. I feel like he’s cut me loose. I blink rapidly a few times, trying to catch my bearings as the world comes back into focus. He is still all I see.
His green gaze is on my lips. His hand reaches towards me. He presses his thumb across my lip.
Quick as a snake after an apple, my tongue strikes out. I meet the salt of his flesh but also taste the metallic tint of my blood on my lip.
Chapter 7
Hadrian
I’ve met my fair share of masochists over the centuries. Most masochists, and sadists for that matter, aren’t born this way. We don’t come out of the womb and get a rise at that first smack on the ass. But the proclivity does exist in every living creature.
It’s that fight or flight impulse that kicks on when the prey senses danger. That rush of adrenaline that floods our system. For some, it’s the rush and not the danger or the pain that t
hey seek. Still, they have to go through the danger and the pain to get to that hit.
Domitia was a master at turning on that switch. For decades, I watched her break down brutes and build up weaklings. When she was done with them, they all craved her nails at their throats, her heel in their back, her fangs in their hearts.
Carignan, the little gazelle in my snare isn’t exactly weak. There is a strength to her, but it’s buried deep. I can see it, right there behind the sadness in her eyes. Within her lies steel, a formidable spirit that would shine bright if she let it out.
I want to break her. I want to watch her face contort from the precipice of pain, only to dive into the abyss of ecstasy. I want to hear her scream from a high pitch that then reaches a low register of pleasure. I want to make her body twitch away from a cane or blade--no, a strap--only to inch closer when my tight knots loosen.
I want… her.
I back away from Carignan, breaking the trance I put her in. She blinks rapidly, trying to find her bearings. I do the same.
I have never wanted any woman but Domitia. Not even when I was a pubescent young man watching the grape pickers fornicate in my father’s vineyard. I never lusted after one of the village girls. I always knew that something more awaited me.
That something, that someone, is not this daredevil damsel. Not a human with a death wish, because that’s certainly what Carignan Durand’s adventures will get her. Especially this latest venture of sitting before a starved vampire while the sweet scent of arousal wafts from between her thighs.
I could have her pussy stripped and bared in under a second. I doubt I’d need to compel her to do it. She wants it. Just as she wanted to tell me all her dark secrets.
Yes, she’d spill that honey right onto my fangs if I asked.
I wouldn't. I won’t. I am just… amused that I can still get it up. Decades of nothing and now her.
The blood on her lip has dried. It’s still warmer and fresher than what I drank from the bag earlier. I should clean that wound for her. She hasn’t seemed to notice that she has split her lip. It’s the least I can do.
