He grinned at her and his fangs glistened in the overhead light. “Ah, I see that light in your eyes. Stubborn, aren’t you? I like that in a woman. Makes the chase more interesting. And, I was hoping you wouldn’t tell me where to find Grayson. Good for you. Loyal and all that. Works out nice for me. I’ll have you now and when I’m finished…when you wake…you’ll tell me where he is. And we’ll end him together before we…celebrate.”
“I don’t think so.”
He laughed, delighted. “You think you can stop me?”
“Probably not.” She stabbed him, shoving the bread knife deep into his side, and used that moment of surprise to bolt from the room.
She got as far as the living room before he grabbed her hair and yanked her back. Pain exploded inside her head and battled with the fear that ripped her breath from her lungs.
“Stupid bitch. Did you really think a knife would do you any good?” He gave her a furious shake, and looked down at the shirt he wore. “You ruined it. And though knives can’t kill me, they hurt like hell. So I’m thinking you’ll pay for that, too.”
“Let her go.”
Everything in Tessa went calm and still. Despite the pain still raging inside her. Despite the terror closing her throat. She heard Grayson’s voice and felt safe.
Keeping a tight grip on her hair, Michael the vampire turned slowly around to face the man standing in the open passageway beside the bookcase. Michael laughed. “A secret room? How cool is that?”
He sounded so young, Tessa thought wildly. Young and excited…and so deadly.
“You came here for me. Let the woman go.”
“Why should I?” Michael pulled her close and, keeping one eye on Grayson, lowered his head to lick at the blood still seeping from her neck. “I think I’ll have her. Once I’m finished with you, of course.”
Grayson looked into Tessa’s eyes and saw not only fear, but also a steady calm. Damned if he wasn’t proud of her. He could taste her terror staining the air, but instead of weeping and wailing, she was doing all she could to hold herself together. And judging by the bloody tear on Michael’s shirt, she’d done some damage, as well.
The voices had wakened him and as soon as he’d realized who was in the house with Tessa, he’d felt a fury he hadn’t experienced in a century or more. To know she was in danger—because of him—was something he couldn’t tolerate. Now, there was only once choice. To end Michael before Tessa was hurt any further.
“This wasn’t necessary,” Grayson said, walking slowly closer.
“Sure it was.” Michael backed up, laughing, dragging Tessa with him. “If you’re not with us, you’re against us. And that gives the king too much power.”
“I’m not with him, either,” Grayson pointed out.
“A rogue vampire’s nobody’s idea of a good thing, either, Gray,” Michael said easily. “You gotta take a stand. Our side or theirs.”
The snowy light from outside fell in gray strips across the room. Lamplight puddled in golden circles and the hiss and snap of the fire in the hearth sounded like the curses of chained beasts.
One fist clenched at his side, Grayson kept his gaze locked with Michael’s, and the chair rung he held tightly in the other hand hidden behind his leg. “If I have to choose, then I’ll go with the king. He was elected after all.”
“Yeah?” Michael laughed again. Boyishly. Charmingly. “We want a recount.”
“Too late.” When he was close enough, Grayson moved in a blur of speed. Lifting his right hand, he sent the chair rung hurtling toward Michael’s chest. It struck home before the too young vampire had even felt the impact.
A split second later, the smiling boy with the demon’s heart was dust.
Tessa dropped bonelessly to the floor and just sat there, stunned and shocked and shaking. Grayson was beside her in a heartbeat, running his hands up and down her arms, tilting her head to one side to see the puncture marks on her neck. Her blood, thick and red, pooled on her skin. He ripped the sleeve of his shirt, folded up the material and held it to her neck.
“Little bastard.” The words were tight and fierce, though his hands on her skin were gentle.
“Scared me,” she admitted. Leaning forward, she leaned her head against his chest. She blew out a long breath and took another before speaking again. “He turned on me so fast, I guess I wasn’t really prepared. Glad you showed up when you did.”
He checked her wound, satisfied that the bleeding had stopped, then wrapped his arms around her and held on, knowing instinctively she needed comfort. And that at least, he could give her. She sighed against him and he leaned back, against the wall, drawing her with him until she was curled into his side.
“More will come, won’t they?” she asked, her voice quiet, hesitant.
“Probably.”
She tipped her head back and he looked down into those deep blue eyes that haunted his sleep, tormented his dreams, made him wish for things he shouldn’t have.
“Will you stay with me?”
“Yes. Until I can get this straightened out…be sure you’re safe again. I’ll stay.”
“I’m glad of that.”
He smoothed her hair back from her face. “You shouldn’t be.”
“You won’t hurt me.”
“If we go on from here, I’m bound to.”
She caught his hand and he felt her warmth slide through him like a blessing. The feel of her in his arms was so right and so wrong all at once. He wanted from her things he couldn’t have. Things he hadn’t wanted for more than a century. Things he’d thought he was long since over.
There was a long, thick line dividing them. The line between life and death. That should have been enough to keep him from her.
But staring down into those dreamy eyes that watched him with stillness and trust, he knew nothing could stop him from having her. Hunger reared up inside him. Desire. A craving that caught him at the base of the throat and squeezed.
She reached up, cupped his cheek with her palm and steered his face down to hers. Cursing himself, knowing that he had no right to touch her, Grayson took what he needed anyway.
His mouth closed over hers and the demon within the man howled.
Chapter 8
T he taste of her was more than Grayson had expected and far more than he deserved.
He wasn’t gentle. Wasn’t slow or kind or thoughtful. He surrendered to his own thundering need and she responded in kind. She didn’t pull back, suddenly thinking better of the whole thing. Instead, she strained against him, pressed her breasts against his chest, and he felt the hard buds of her nipples like twin brands.
Her heartbeat thundered and her hands grabbed at him, his hair, his back, fingers curling into his shoulders as she held onto him and gave him everything she had. He was drowning in her. Feelings he’d buried rose up within him. All for her. All for the woman who looked at him as if he were a man. Those deep blue eyes tore at him, making him more and less than he was.
And Grayson needed her beyond anything he’d ever known. He blessed whatever Fates had sent him here, to the place where he’d died—to allow him to feel as if he lived again. Later, he knew, even as his body raged, there would be a price to pay. He would have to leave her and these exquisite feelings behind. To go back to the shadows and leave her in the light. But for now, this moment, she was his.
Terror slid into desire and heated together until Tessa’s blood ran like a river of lava. She’d known from the moment she first saw Grayson Stone that they would, eventually, come to this.
His mouth on hers, his cold hands sweeping up under her shirt to stroke her skin, sending shivers through her body, filling all of the empty, frightened corners inside her. She tasted his need and fed it with her own. His tongue plunged into her mouth and tangled with hers.
Tessa arched into him, groaning tightly from the back of her throat. There was so much. So much more than she’d ever experienced. So much more to still feel. To still enjoy.
He mad
e quick work of her clothing and in only moments, she was lying on the rug naked. Outside, the wind screamed like a beast clamoring at the windows. At the hearth, the fire leapt and spat. But the world could have disappeared and she wouldn’t have noticed.
She saw only him.
She stared up into dark eyes that sparked with the same kind of hunger racing inside her. She wanted his hands on her. Wanted him inside her, deep, so deep they would be somehow forever connected.
“Now, Grayson. Come to me now.” She reached for him, both arms open in welcome.
He stripped so quickly his movements were a blur, and then he was there, sliding over her, covering her body with his. His skin was cool and yet, she imagined a kind of warmth in him. A warmth that reached for her despite their differences.
He kissed her. Her mouth, her cheeks, her jaw, her throat. He licked the spot where the vampire had bitten her, and instantly sparkles of fire, of pleasure, rose up within her, flashing through her bloodstream.
She sighed and held his head there, to that now so sensitive spot. “Again. Do that again.”
He did, then scraped his teeth gently over her skin and she wanted him to bite her. To take away the fear of what had been done to her by giving her the sensual pleasure of knowing he drank from her. Knowing that he was taking into himself everything she was.
Her hands moved through his thick, silky hair while his hands caressed her breasts, thumbing her nipples until she felt the tingling response down to the soles of her feet. She was alive for him in a way she’d never been before. Every cell in her body was alight with sensation and as she stared up at the darkened wood beams overhead, she saw everything in a misty blur. She couldn’t focus on anything beyond the feel of him atop her. The strokes of his hands, the feel of his mouth, still nibbling at her throat.
She twisted beneath him, her core hot and needy. She arched her hips in invitation as he lifted his head and looked down at her. Positioning himself between her legs, the tip of him just pressed against her heat, teasing, promising. And Tessa reached down between their bodies to stroke his hard, solid length.
He hissed in a breath he didn’t need, but his gaze never left hers. Leaning in to her, he shook his hair back from his face and whispered, “This is a mistake, Tessa. You can still stop it. I’ll walk away. For your own sake…tell me to walk away.”
Tessa felt the power of her gender and knew the secrets that had been handed down from Eve to all those who had come after her. She saw his need for her flashing in his eyes and knew that one word from her and he would step back. He would go from her and what lay between them would dissolve into an unfulfilled memory.
Just as she knew she could never let that happen. Her hand fisted on him, squeezing, creating a pressure that made his jaw muscles twitch and his eyes slide shut on a sigh of pure pleasure.
“This is no mistake,” she said, lifting her hips again, rubbing the tip of him against her heat. “This is meant to be. Now come to me, Grayson. Fill me.”
“God help you then, because I can’t.” The words were a strained, taut murmur of surrender. She released him and he moved, sliding into her, spearing her with his length until he was buried so deeply inside her, Tessa would have sworn he was touching her heart.
He moved again and again, his rhythm increasing, his thrusts hard and fierce. Her heart leaped into a frantic beat as even her skin felt electrified by his touch. She went with him, matching his pace, caught up in the rush to completion. She wanted it all.
Sensation poured over her in a thick wave and her vision blurred until all she could see were his eyes. Dark, deep, fathomless, swallowing her.
He bent his head to hers, took her mouth with his, their tongues meeting, tasting. Her breath exploded from her lungs as she struggled with the tangle of raw feelings churning within. Her body lit up as she rode the crest of pleasure. She felt her insides coil tight, tighter. She ran her hands up and down his back, spread her thighs wider, hooked her legs around his hips and drew him even deeper inside.
There was so much. And still she wanted more. She wanted that most intimate of touches from him. Crazy. It was crazy. She knew that as a still rational corner of her mind whimpered, but she was beyond rational. Beyond logic. Trapped in a web of heat and desire that muddied her brain and demanded that she experience what only he could give her. With one hand, she steered his face to her neck. To the spot where the vampire had bitten her, terrified her.
Grayson’s mouth worked her skin…his tongue, the tips of his fangs scraped her flesh and she shivered, holding him to her. She felt him stiffen.
“No,” he whispered, his lips moving on her skin even as he held himself still inside her body. “I won’t. I won’t do that to you.”
Turning her head, struggling for air, Tessa looked at him and whispered, “I want you to. I want you to take away that memory of what happened before and give me a new one. I want to give you what you need.”
His features went to stone. “I don’t drink humans. Haven’t in more years than I can count.”
“Drink me, Grayson. Just once. Just now. Drink me.”
“Is that what this is about?” His gaze held hers and she felt him withdraw even though his body was still locked within hers. “Sleeping with a vampire?”
“No,” she said, smiling. Her hand cupped his cheek. “It’s you. I know you won’t hurt me. I know you can’t hurt me. And I want to feel you take me inside even as I take you.”
He watched her, considering, thinking for what could have been forever, but was probably only moments. And then he drove his hips hard, thrusting deep. She groaned, tipped her head back, and her throat was laid bare to him.
Bare and beckoning.
“Grayson, take me.”
She looked up at him, then guided his head back to her neck. Back to the spot that still seemed to burn from the bite of the vampire who’d wanted to kill her. “Take me, Grayson. Give me a memory to replace the one I have.”
She felt him yield to her. Felt his acquiescence. And an instant later, his fangs pierced her flesh and her body went up in flames.
Ecstasy.
An instant of pain followed by the most exquisite delight she’d ever known. He drank from her, his mouth working at her flesh even as his body continued to buck into hers. Tessa’s mind whirled with a dizzying blur of thoughts and images. They were one now, joined in blood and body, and the feeling was more intense than anything she’d ever known. He filled her. Heart. Mind. Body.
And Tessa cried out his name when her core exploded into a frenzy of incredible sensations.
A moment later, he closed the tiny wounds at her throat and climaxed himself, emptying everything he was into her.
Later, when Tessa thought she could move without shattering, she rolled to one side and curled into him. His arms came around her, his chin rested on top of her head.
“We’ve made things more complicated,” he said and she heard his voice rumble from his chest.
“Yes.” She tipped her head back so she could look at him. “More complicated, but I don’t care.”
He smiled briefly…more a twist of his lips than anything else and it was gone almost before she could enjoy it. “You will.”
“Then I’ll worry about it then.” Sitting up, she looked at him and lifted one hand to shove her tangled brown curls back from her face. “I told you about the last five years of my life. How I spent most of my time scared…too afraid to stand still. So afraid of losing my life that I didn’t really live my life.”
“Yes.”
“I’m done with that,” Tessa said and felt a heavy weight lift off her heart. “I’m going to make decisions that feel right for me and not second-guess them. Today…a vampire almost killed me in my own kitchen.”
He reached for her and stroked one hand down her bare arm. “That was my fault. I brought the danger here.”
She covered his hand with hers and smiled. “That’s not my point. I survived it. I fought back. And when it was ove
r, I had the most incredible sex of my life with the vampire who saved me.”
That too brief smile creased his face again. “Incredible?”
Tessa laughed and God, it felt good. “Figures that’s the word you’d focus on.”
“No. I’m focused on you.” He sat up then and cupped her face in his palms. His gaze moved over her features, as if cataloguing everything about her in his memory.
Tessa’s heart turned over as she realized that even now, in this lovely, glowing period after they’d shared so much, Grayson was, in his own way, preparing her for goodbye.
“You are…unexpected,” he said, his eyes as dark as the night. “I didn’t plan to take you. To be taken. But I cannot regret it now that it’s happened.”
She lifted her hands to cover his. “I regret nothing, Grayson. I don’t want you to, either.”
“One day, perhaps I will. But not today.” Shifting, moving with a blur of speed, he snatched her up, drew her across his lap and held her cradled against his chest. Staring down into her eyes, he said, “What you are calls to me. Who you are stirs something inside me.”
“I’m glad.” Tessa had never felt anything like this before. This bond between them was electric. All-encompassing. And she felt as though she could stare up into his eyes for the rest of her life.
“You are the incredible one here, Tessa Franklin.” His voice was like black silk. “I thank you for making me feel—however briefly—like a man again. But never forget,” he warned. “I may look like a man, but I am not one. I am a vampire. And there can be nothing lasting between us.”
Chapter 9
T he taste of her still filled him two days later and the cravings for her hadn’t eased. Grayson dreamed of her during the long daylight hours when he was trapped in that secret room. And the times when she came to him there, he lost himself in her, greedily taking what she offered, knowing that soon he would have to leave her. For her sake.
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