amusing.
I shall manage to travel under my own power, thank you.
” With a dramatic whirl of his black cloak he vanished into the
darkness.
Eric closed Tamara’s door, circled the car and got in beside her.
For a long moment he simply looked at her, drinking in the familiar
beauty of her face.
Her eyes moved over his in like manner, as if she, too, had craved the
sight of him.
He dragged his gaze away, and searched the car’s panel.
“It’s been a while,” he told her, frowning.
“But I assume you still need a key.”
Her smile sent warmth surging through him.
She glanced around, and pointed into the rear seat.
“It was in my purse.”
He glanced where she pointed and spotted her handbag, spilling over the
back seat.
He leaned over, located the keys and returned to the correct
position.
It took him a moment to locate the switch.
The last time he’d driven a car the switch had been on the dashboard,
not the side of the steering wheel.
He inserted the key, turned it on and jerked at the mechanical hum the
car emitted.
She laughed aloud, the sound like music to him.
He felt some of her tension leaving her with that laughter.
“How long has it been?”
she asked him, amusement in her voice.
Smiling, he looked at her.
“I don’t recall, exactly. But fear not, I am a quick study. Now
then…”
His feet did a little tap dance on the floorboard.
“Where’s the clutch?”
“It’s automatic.”
She slid across the seat, closer to him, and pointed to the pedals on
the floor.
“There is the brake and that’s the accelerator. Now hold your foot on
the brake.”
He slipped an arm around her shoulders and drew her closer to his
side.
He pressed his foot onto the pedal she indicated.
She put her finger on the indicator.
“Look.
Park, Reverse, Neutral, Drive.
Put it in Drive.
” He did, smelling her hair, then jerking his head around when the car
began to move.
He eased it onto the street and moved it slowly until he got a feel for
the thing.
Soon he maneuvered the car easily, finding the correct ramp and
bringing them onto the highway.
“You said you could never lie to me,” she said softly, settling close
to him.
“Is it true?”
“I could attempt to lie to you, but if I did, and you paid attention,
you would know.
” He tightened his arms on her shoulders. ” But I’d never have reason
to lie to you, Tamara.
” She nodded.
“I don’t want to go right home. Could we stop somewhere? Talk for a
while?”
CHAPTER NINE Ohe didn’t need to tell him that the first thing she had
to do was to wash the memory of the vile man’s touch away from her
body.
It amazed her that he could read her so well, but he did.
He took her to his home, parking the Cadillac within the fence, and
around a bend in the driveway, so it couldn’t be seen from the
highway.
He then suggested she call Daniel with a plausible explanation for her
lateness.
She told Daniel that she and Hilary were heading to a nightclub after
dinner, and that she didn’t know how late she’d be.
He grumbled, but didn’t throw too much of a fit.
She had to give him credit.
He was trying.
When she replaced the receiver of the telephone, Eric reentered the
living room, carrying a tray with a bottle of brandy and a
delicate-looking long-stemmed bubble glass.
She eyed it, unconsciously rubbing one palm over her breast where the
pig had touched her.
“His filth can’t touch you, Tamara. You’re too pure to be sullied by
one so vile.”
She realized what she’d been doing and drew her hand away.
“I feel dirty… contaminated.”
“I know.
It is a normal reaction, from what I understand.
Would you feel less so if you bathed?
” She closed her eyes.
“God, yes. I want to scrub myself raw every place he” — “I sensed as
much. I drew a bath for you while you spoke to St. Claire.”
Her eyes opened then.
“You did?
” He lowered the tray, poured the glass half-full of brandy and brought
it to her.
One arm around her shoulders, he led her down a long, high-ceilinged
corridor, and through a door.
The room glowed with amber light from the oil lamps, and the tall,
elegant candles that burned on every inch of available space.
A claw-footed, ivory-toned tub brimmed with bubbly, steaming water.
He took the brandy from her unresisting hand and set the glass on a
stand near the tub.
He picked up what looked like a remote control from the same spot,
thumbed a button, and soft music wafted into the room, as soothing as
the steam that rose from the water, or the halo glows of light around
the myriad of tiny flames.
She leaned over the tub, touched an iridescent bubble and felt the
spatters on her wrist when it popped.
His hand touched her shoulder and she turned, staring up at him in
wonder.
“I can’t believe you did all this.”
“I want to comfort you, Tamara. I want to erase the horror that
touched you tonight. I want to replace it with tenderness. I cherish
you. Do you know that?”
She felt a lump in her throat.
His words were so poignant they made her eyes burn.
“I won’t lose control. I couldn’t unleash my passions on you after
what you’ve experienced tonight. I only want to pamper you, to show
you…”
He closed his eyes, lifted her hand to his lips.
He kissed her knuckles, one by one, then opened his eyes and turned her
hand over and pressed his lips to her palm.
She gave her consent, without parting her lips.
He heard it, it seemed.
He gently removed her tattered blouse, and set it aside.
He reached around her, unhooked her bra in the back and then drew the
straps down over her shoulders.
Her right breast was bruised, and she felt the marks of the other man’s
fingers would never go away completely.
“The marks are only skin-deep, and they will fade.”
He pushed her still-damp jeans down, lifted his hands and she held
them, to balance while she stepped out of them.
She J removed the panties herself.
She didn’t want him to lookt down at her body.
She still felt dirty, despite his words.
He I kept his gaze magnetized to hers, holding her hands as she ;
lifted one foot, then the other into the bubbly water.
She sank slowly down, leaning back against the cool porcelain ; and
closing her eyes.
She felt the touch of the chill glass in her palm and she closed her
hand on it.
“Sip,” Eric instructed.
�
��Relax. Let the tension ebb. Hear Wolf gang’s genius.”
She tasted the brandy, not opening her eyes.
“Mmm.
This is wonderful.
” “Cognac,” he replied.
She heard the trickle of water, then felt a warm cloth moving over her
throat, and around ; to the back of her neck.
; She frowned, still keeping her eyes closed.
“There used to be a legend about vampires and running water….”
She heard his low chuckle.
The cloth left her skin to plunge into the water.
He squeezed it out, lathered it with soap and returned to his gentle
cleansing—of her soul, it seemed.
“Completely false.”
He moved slowly over her chest, washing her breasts as her heartbeat
quickened.
But he didn’t touch her in passion, only in comfort.
“And so is the one about the garlic, or wolfsbane. And, as you already
know, the crucifix.”
“But sunlight…”
j
“Yes, sunlight is my enemy.
It is one of the things I try to work out in my laboratory.
The how of it, and the why.
What I might do to change it.
” He sighed, and lathered her stomach and abdomen. ” I can’t tell you
how much I miss the sun.
” His hand, covered by the wet cloth, moved over her rib cage beneath
the water, and down her side.
“The wooden stake?”
“It isn’t the stake that would do me in. Any sharp object could, if
used properly. A vampire is almost like a sufferer of hemophilia. We
could bleed to death quite easily.”
He ran the cloth between her legs all too briefly, and then moved on
to rhythmically massage her thighs.
“Why do we have this mental link?”
She took another long, slow drink of the cognac and opened her eyes to
watch his face as he answered.
“I will try to begin to explain it to you. You see, not just any human
can become a vampire. There are, in fact, very few who could be
transformed, all of whom have two common traits.”
He moved to her calf, kneading the back of it as he soaped it for
her.
“One is the bloodline. It traces back to a common ancestor, but I
suspect it goes back much farther, even, than that.”
“Who?”
He captured one of her feet in both his soapy hands and lifted it from
the water to rub and caress and massage it until the foot and his hands
were invisible beneath a mound of suds.
“Prince Vlad the Impaler… better known as” — “Dracula,” she
breathed, awestruck.
“Exactly. The other trait” — he rubbed her big toe between his thumb
and forefinger “—is in the blood itself.
There is an antigen called Belladonna.
” She sat up fast.
“But I have the Belladonna antigen.”
He turned his face toward her, his gaze momentarily locking onto her
breasts, jiggling with the sudden movement just above the water’s
surface, bubbles clinging, sliding slowly down.
He licked his lips.
“Yes, and you have the ancestor, as well. Such humans with both traits
are rare. We call them the Chosen. Always there is a mental link
between us and them, though in most cases the humans are unaware of
it.
We know if they are in danger, and we do our best to protect them.
The incident in Paris was not the first time Roland had saved my life,
you see.
” He forced his head to turn away again, she noticed, and he went to
work, with his magic hands and fingers, on her other foot. ” That is
where our link began.
It became much stronger, and that | part of it you must remember on
your own.
” | She lowered herself into the water again. She believed | him. She
no longer doubted what he’d told her. The sensation of being able to
see what was in his mind was awesome to her, but very real. She knew,
for instance, that it would do her no good to insist he tell her more
of their past and this link. He wouldn’t. For her sake, he
wouldn’t.
And she knew, right now, the effort it was costing him not to jerk her
roughly into his arms and to kiss her until her head swam with
desire.
He held himself in rigid check, knowing the terror she’d felt
tonight.
For her sake, he held back.
He loved her.
His love was like a soft, warm blanket, enveloping her and protecting
her from the world.
Nothing could touch her with this feeling around her.
It was heaven to be loved so much.
Cherished, as he’d told her.
The emotions touched her almost physically.
Their warmth was palpable.
“Roll over,” he said, his voice very deep and soft in the tiny room.
She did, folding her arms on the tub’s rim to make a pillow for her
head.
His powerful hands worked the soapy cloth over her back and
shoulders.
He massaged and caressed and washed her all at once, and his every
touch was pure ecstasy.
God, she wondered.
What would it be like to make love to him?
He shuddered.
She felt his hands tremble with it.
He heard her thoughts.
With her face averted she found the courage to speak them aloud.
“Why do you always… hold back?”
His sigh was not quite steady.
“This is not the wisest subject to discuss with you naked, wet and
plied with brandy.”
He kneaded her buttocks with soapy hands, but removed them soon.
She rolled over, studying his face in the candlelight.
“Do you want me?”
His jaw twitched as he studied her,
“More than I want to draw another breath.”
“Then why” — “Hush.”
The command was bitten out.
He rose from his crouching position beside the tub and pulled a
blanket-sized towel from a rack.
He held it wide open and waited.
“It is for your own good, Tamara,” he told her.
Tamara got up, stepped out of the bath and onto the thick rug beside
the tub.
His towel-draped arms closed around her, then moved away, leaving the
towel behind.
“I’ll leave you to dress” — “You didn’t leave me to undress,” she
snapped.
She wasn’t certain what made her angrier—the knowledge that she wanted
him or the fact that he refused to oblige her.
“Your blouse is ruined.”
He nodded toward the stand where he’d placed her clothes after she’d
discarded them.
“There is one of my shirts for you to wear.”
He turned from her and strode out of the room.
“For my own good,” she fumed after he left her.
She reached down into the bubbly water and jerked the stopper out.
“Why is everything I hate always supposedly for my own good?
It’s like / don’t know what’s good for me and what isn’t.
” She roughly adjusted the towel under her arms, and tucked the corners
in to hold it there.
She knew what was good for her.
&n
bsp; She was an adult, not a child.
She wanted him, whatever he was.
And he wanted her, dammit.
All of this honorable restraint bull was making her crazy.
The only time she felt right anymore was when he held her, when he
kissed her.
Tonight.
tonight more than ever she needed that feeling of rightness, of
belonging.
She moved very slowly through the door, down the hallway and back into
the living room.
Eric’s back was to her.
He knelt in front of the fireplace, feeding sticks into it.
She made no sound as she moved barefoot over the parquet floor, onto
the colorful Oriental rug, but he knew she approached.
She felt it.
She stopped when she stood right behind him, and she placed her damp
hands on his shoulders.
He’d removed his jacket when they’d arrived here, and rolled his shirt
sleeves up when he’d bathed her.
His arms, bare to the elbows and taut with tense muscles, stilled at
her touch.
Slowly he rose.
He turned, and when he looked down at her, his eyes seemed almost pain
filled.
“You are not making this easy.
” His white shirt’s top two buttons were open.
She touched the expanse of his chest visible there.
“Make love to me, Eric.”
So hoarsely she wouldn’t have known his voice, he answered.
“Don’t you know that I would if I could?”
“Then tell me why. Make me understand” — “I’m not human! What more
do you need to know?”
“Everything!”
She curled her hand around his neck, her fingers moving through the
short, curling hairs at his nape, then playing at the queue.
“You want to love me, Eric. I feel it every time you look at me. And
don’t start telling me what’s best for me. I’m a grown woman. I know
what I want, and I want you.”
His eyes moved jerkily over her face.
She felt his restraint, and her bravado deserted her.
She began to tremble with emotion, and she went all but limp against
him.
Eric’s arms came around her.
His hands stroked her shoulders above the towel, and the damp ends of
her hair.
“Oh, Eric, I was so afraid. I’ve never been so afraid in my life. He
held my face down in the snow—I couldn’t breathe—and he—was on
me—his—his hands” — “It’s over now,” he soothed.
“No one will hurt you again.”
‘ “But I see him.
In my mind I see him, and I can still-smell—God, he stank!
At Twilight Page 15
