Oh boy. “Em, it was David who overruled him.”
Em shrunk, her mouth simultaneously getting rounder and bigger. She hugged her knees, looking down. “David?”
“He just saw you as a human—nothing more.”
Emily slid her tongue between her lips, taking a breath that made her spine straighten. “Damn it.”
“What?”
“Damn David. I have a right to be mad. I want to be mad, but goddammit! I get that! I get why he didn’t help. It’s not fair. He always escapes me being mad at him.”
I laughed. “I know. He does it to me all the time.”
“God. Well, now I’m mad that I can’t be mad at him.”
Oh, I knew that feeling too well. “So, how does that feel?” I said. “To wake up and just suddenly not care about us anymore—to lose all human compassion?”
She smiled to herself. “It was… relieving.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Until I saw Mike.”
“And then what?”
“Then, I have never, ever been in so much pain in all my human years. Jason’s bite, breaking up with boys, none of it hurt anywhere near as much as falling in love in that one moment—losing yourself completely and then having it all ripped away when he… when he…”
“When he refused to acknowledge your existence.”
She nodded, hugging her knees tighter. “I know now what David’s gone through, loving you. You should feel what I go through loving you, and I don’t even love you in that way.”
I laughed, rolling my head back.
“So many things have been fitting together since I found out David’s a vampire,” Emily said. “I had barely any time as a human to process it but, I mean, all that weird behavior; the popping up unexpected thing, the knowing what I was thinking.” She shook her head, smiling. “Do you know how many times he answered thoughts I hadn’t said?”
“He did it to me, too,” I said, wide eyes emphasizing my frustration. “He told me he had to bite his tongue every time I’d have one of my, what he called, silly thoughts about not being good enough for him. He said he nearly picked me up and shook me so many times.” We both laughed.
“Yeah. You were pretty silly.” Emily took my hand and traced my new engagement ring with her thumb. “That boy loved you from the minute he saw you. There was never any doubts about it.”
“Do you still love Jason now? Now that you know about him?”
“No.” She shook her head with certainty. “I did. Even while I was with Mike that first night. But now I know what he did to you—what he’s capable of…”
“I feel sorry for him.” I flicked the safety chain on Emily’s sliver padlock bracelet.
“Really?” Her lip turned in disgust. “Why?”
“I don’t know. I can’t say it’s rational. But he saved me. He hurt me, yes, but I understand what the monster in him is, and that the part of him that’s truly Jason never wanted to do that.”
“Whoa, Ara,” Emily said. “How can you even say that?”
I rolled onto my back and tucked my hands behind my head. “He’s David’s brother. I feel for him. Kind of… as if he was David, too—an extension of him. I don’t know, it’s like we have a connection.”
“A connection?” she said, but her tone screamed really freakin’ worried here!
“Don’t worry, Em. I’m not about to go be his friend or anything. I just find it hard to hate him.”
“So you forgive him?”
“I wouldn’t go as far as to say forgive, but… understand?” I shrugged.
Emily’s eyes widened and she opened her mouth, her words stopping when Mike popped his head in the door. “Em, you coming for a late-night run?”
She leaned down and kissed my forehead, suddenly standing in front of me. “Congratulations, Ara. I hope I get to be a bridesmaid again.”
“Definitely.” I grinned.
19
“So you told her anyway.” David leaned on the doorframe, breaking my reverie. “Even though we agreed you wouldn’t.”
“Yes. And you knew I would. Eventually.”
“She hates me now.” He appeared on the bed where Emily had been a moment ago. “She won’t forgive me for making Jason leave her.”
“Wanna bet?” I raised a brow at him. “She’d forgive you if you were the one that turned her.”
“I know,” he said. “I just feel bad, that’s all.”
“Hindsight.” I shrugged. “Twenty-twenty.”
“Shame about that. Things would be easier if I could predict the future.”
“Things would be easier if I could read minds, but—” I didn’t have anything to add, leaving the but as an end to my statement.
“Trust me, it’s not as fun as you’d think.” He folded his fingers into his lap, crossing his ankles at the foot of the bed.
“I think the bad is something I’d be willing to live with to have the good.”
We both smiled, but it withered from within us at the exact same time.
His ran his thumb down the tip of his nose, a human move he reserved for awkward situations. “What is it, Ara? What’s eating you?”
“You mean aside from the obvious?” I smirked at his teeth.
“Yes, aside from me, what’s eating you?”
I stared him down, my lips twitching with internal dialogue—dialogue he couldn’t hear. “Will I want to kill you when I’m Lilithian?”
“Hm.” His lips pursed. “So that’s what you two were talking about.”
I nodded.
“No. You won’t, Ara. It doesn’t work like that.”
“Then what are you worried about—why don’t you want me to be Lilithian?”
“It’s not that, sweetheart.”
“Then what is it?”
“It’s many things.” He sat tall and turned slightly to look at me. “I don’t want you to go through the pain of transformation. I don’t want you to struggle to find food. I don’t want you to feel the hunger, the lust for blood, and I don’t want your human innocence, your purity, to be destroyed because of me—a creature who has no real right to exist.”
I exhaled. “Does a lion have a right to live?”
“Huh?”
“Answer me. Do you not marvel at the lion, do you not awe the speed, agility, expertise of his attack? You’re no different, David. Humans are, for all intents and purposes, parasites. How long did you think it would be before we dropped a rank in the food chain?”
He smirked, obviously liking my direction.
“What you do,” I said, “what the lion does, what you are, doesn’t make you unworthy of existence. It’s horrible, but so is a dying antelope. You’re still good.”
His eyes slitted with interest. “You hate it when I think otherwise, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I love you.”
“And if you love me, then there must be something wrong with you.”
“I never said that.”
“No, but you’re justifying my existence so you suffer no guilt for loving me—being that your feelings, obviously, in some distorted way, condone my actions.”
I went to retaliate but bit my tongue. “Maybe. I’ve never really analyzed my emotional inner-workings. I’ll ask Vicki,” I said with a certain amount of enthusiasm.
David laughed. “I can just see that conversation unfolding. Rather amusing.”
I flopped down on the pillow beside him, my ear against his shoulder, hand curled into his, and we laid that way for a while, the house quiet around us with Emily and Mike off for a run. “Hey, David?”
“Yeah?”
“Since we’re getting married and, you know, we’re gonna be together for eternity, do you think…”
“Whoa!” His hand came up between us and he rolled quickly onto his side to face me, a huge smile lighting his eyes like a jade sun. “I know what you’re about to say.”
“You do?”
“Yes.” He blinked the sheepish, awkward kind of grin back. “You want to have sex.”
“Duh, but… for a reason.”
“Other than wanting to have sex?” The humor in his voice made me smile.
“Yeah, kinda. It was more that I wanted to feel what it’s like—while I’m still human.”
His face altered with understanding, showing visible signs of the carnal thoughts ticking through his mind. “Reeeally?”
“Yeah.” I nodded, suddenly a little breathless, knowing I’d broken one layer of the barrier.
“You know?” The secret smile curled around David’s lips. He slid a hand beside my face, cupping my jaw, his thumb stroking gentle circles over my ear. “I can hear your thoughts when you’re hot like this, Ara.”
My smile mimicked his. “Good.”
The poised vampire was knocked back for a second, revealing a more animalistic David. His breath quickened, his eyes lit with thoughts I offered him—thoughts I imagined too many times—enough to perfect them, as if they were a movie.
“Ara, just… just the thought of having you, I…”
“I don’t want this to be just thoughts anymore, David.”
“We’re getting married in a few weeks. Why not just wait ’til then?”
I heard his words, but the tone used in delivery had absolutely no resolution. I beamed. “Why wait? We’re here, in bed. I’m willing, you’re wanting.”
“Stop it.” He smiled, rolling onto his back.
“No way.” I lay alongside him, the heat in my body forcing me to touch him—no longer satiated by nearness. “I’ve got you now. I can feel you caving. One push and you’re all mine.”
“Such a brave girl.” He cupped my hand tightly, stopping my touch. “What if I don’t want to do this?”
I laughed, a little unsure. “I know you do.”
“But I don’t, Ara.” He rolled away and stood up, leaving me to fall down the gaping vortex back into the real world.
“Right.” I bit my lip, about to cry. “Okay then.”
When he looked back, his face softened. “Aw, Ara. I’m sorry.”
I sniffled, lifting my gaze to meet his. “Why do you always make excuses not to have me? I mean, is there something you don’t like about me, as in, maybe it’s gross to sleep with a human?”
“Ara, don’t say such things.”
“Then I’ll just sit here in my own world and think them, shall I?” I said, and though I tried to hide the quiver of sadness in my voice, it slipped past, sending a shimmery glaze into David’s eyes.
“My love. I don’t want that. I don’t want you to think that way and, to be honest, sweetheart, I am craving your skin. Don’t you know how desperately I want to make love to you?”
“Then why won’t you?”
“Because I’ve never done anything in my life the right way. I just wanted to do this one thing.”
“But that’s not fair to me. I don’t see sex the way you do. I don’t care if it’s before or after marriage. I just want you, and I want you to want me.”
“I do want you,” he said, his brow against mine, agony filling his fingertips.
I pushed them off my face. “Coulda fooled me.”
“Ara, please.” He turned to face me as I stood and leaned against the wall.
I shook my head, folding my arms. “I don’t get it. I’m not asking you to give up your life or murder people. It’s just sex, David. That’s it. Sex.”
David sat on the edge of the bed and pressed his palms together, breathing into them.
“David. We’re not in the nineteen hundreds. Grow up!” The heat of lust dissipated from everywhere below my belt, turning into humiliation as it left. I turned to storm out of the room, but a hand caught mine.
“Don’t go. Please.”
“Why not?”
“Because I…” He let his words out in a hard breath. “I want to do this. You just… you don’t understand.”
I stepped into him, tilting my head up to look into his eyes. “Then make me understand.”
He gently grabbed my arm, his fingers binding, and stared at it. “I’m hungry.”
“What? No, you’re not. You went hunting with Emily last night.”
He shook his head. “No. I went, but I didn’t eat.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“So, go eat now. I’ll wait.”
“You want me to kill someone and then come home and make love to you?”
I winced. “Ur, yeah, that is a bit gross, I suppose.”
Even he nodded.
“Hm. Guess I’ve been hanging out with vampires too long,” I added.
He nodded again, his eyes widening for a second.
“Sorry,” I said.
“Don’t be sorry.”
“Sorry.”
“Ara?”
“Sorry.” I laughed. “I mean… argh! Stop it.”
The lovely sound of his gentle laugh mingled with his orange-chocolate breath, fading with the absence of human blood in his veins, making the powdery cloud of soap stronger. And without words, he expressed his desires, the air changing around us. It felt as if our hips were swinging—like a dance—but we stood so still. Both of us frozen with anticipation.
“Ara?”
“Yes.”
“You’re right.”
“I am?”
His fingers crept under my shirt and over my ribs, finding the clasp of my bra. “Yes. We love each other”—he toyed with it—“we want each other. There’s no reason to deny what we both need.”
Bingo! Inner Me jumped for joy, but Outer Me suddenly freaked. What now?
Slowly, stiffly, my hand floated up over his chest and cupped the back of his neck, a cool, exposed feeling of freedom making me draw a quick lungful of air as he unclasped my bra.
“So soft,” he whispered, his breath hot and shaky against my brow.
I traced the top of his spine with my thumb from his hairline down to his collar, nervously, repeatedly, softly, then rigidly, becoming faster as his hands lifted my shirt over my stomach, revealing my ribs, my shoulder blades and finally, as I lifted my arms, everything else. The only thing left there was David’s lingering stare. I tucked my elbows into my waist to cover myself, taking a small step back from him.
“Don’t,” he said, pulling my hands gently away.
“Then don’t stare.”
“Why not?”
My skin tingled all over, nerves and desire filing me up with that pleasant heat again.
“I see?” he said, nodding. “You don’t want me to suddenly see something I don’t like.”
My lip rolled between my teeth. “Maybe.”
The vampire stepped into me, reaching toward my jeans. “The only way that’s possible is if it wasn’t you standing before me.”
I closed my eyes, fighting the sudden rush of thoughts the loose button on my jeans evoked, seeing all the places he’d go in just a second.
“Shh.” He hooked his finger under my chin and tilted my face upward. I opened my eyes to the black pupils of the vampire. “You’ll be fine, Ara.”
“But I don’t actually know how to, I mean, or what to—”
His lip pulled sharply on one corner, eyes sparkling. “It’s okay. I do.”
I nodded, crossing my arms over my bare chest.
David took my wrist and pulled me a step closer. “I’ll take care of you, okay?”
“I know,” I said into his skin, my breath coming back hot, mixed with an almost sickly-sweet scent. “I’m not worried about that.”
“You’re worried I’ll think you’re silly for not being a sexpert.”
I looked up at him, my brow folding with a smile. “Sexpert?”
He laughed. “Ara, you’re a virgin. I think that’s actually very sexy.”
“Considering you’ve avoided my virginity like it’s a plague, I doubt that.”
“I haven’t avoided it, my love.” He looked down at my b
are hip. “I just haven’t told you how many times I’ve dreamed of owning it.”
I couldn’t help but smile, my mouth sitting open a bit like a love-struck teen.
“Are you ready now?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“No more doubts,” he ordered sweetly.
“No more doubts,” I confirmed, and with that, he slowly untangled his hands from my hair and slid them down my back, guiding his own descent to his knees, the heat in my body rushing like liquid to meet him face-to-face at the apex of my thighs.
“This has always been forbidden to me.” His cool, skillful fingertips traced a line for his lips to follow, winding from my navel to my ribs and down the midline of my lace undies. “It’s hard to imagine I’ll be inside you soon, as I’ve only ever imagined.”
My skin tightened all over my body, shifting in circles around my elbows, of all places, stopping the air at exit from my lungs. It was no use. I’d wanted this for so long I couldn’t breathe anymore.
The bedroom light went out then, and I didn’t notice David step away, but I knew he must have flicked it out. The darkness gave me courage and allowed me to take a breath.
Kneeling before me, David slid his hands around my waist between fabric and skin, then slowly pushed my jeans down, underwear and all. As my pants reached my ankles, he leaned down to help me out of them, his breath brushing the nakedness between my thighs as I lifted each leg.
I saw him rocket slightly forward with a pulse of obvious desire, his eyes closing, and I wanted him to do what I knew was on his mind. I could see him looking at me, see his hands tremble as he had the same ideas. I wanted him to kiss me there, wanted it so badly my knees tightened.
Instead, I slipped my fingers through the collar of his shirt. He stood in front of me then, his clothes scratchy against my completely bare skin.
“I can do that faster, if you like,” he said, watching my shaking fingers fumble with his buttons.
“No. I want to do it like this.”
“Okay.” He grinned, and as the last button came undone and the fabric parted, he rolled his shoulders back and dropped the shirt to the floor, his arms flexing as he freed his wrists from the sleeves and came back to wrap me in them, skin on skin.
At some point, the playlist on my iPhone had progressed from John Mayer to Jeff Buckley, the haunting call of his melody adding only a surreal kind of charge to the room—making everything ghostly, as if we were in some ultra-hot film—nothing actually real. But David’s beautifully built body and the trueness of his touch split the illusion, bringing me back breathless. I either needed to fall down or start crying.
Dark Secrets Box Set Page 109
