by Chloe Adler
Carter reached toward me and I leaned back instinctively, but his lightning reflexes snatched at my poultice amulet. "Looks like it's disintegrating." He held it up. The herbs inside were leaking, and his hand was tinged green.
I pulled it off and stared at it. There was no salvaging that. It would no longer work. I tossed it into the rain. Compost.
Leaning against the doorjamb the same way he had when I'd first met him, Carter tilted his head down. "You're going to invite me in?" he posed it as a question rather than a statement, yet he was all confidence and poise. His shoulder-length hair barely brushed the collar of his black T. He had that bad boy look down.
"Do you ride a motorcycle?"
He gave me a quizzical look. "Where did that come from?"
I shrugged. "Dunno, just wondering."
"I do." He smiled dangerously and my heart jumped. "Would you like a ride?"
"I've never been on a bike," I said. "I'm curious, but terrified."
"I'd love to pop your cherry." He grinned. His fang-filled smile spoke of mischief and danger.
"Oh." I blushed, reaching my hand up to cover my face. Beet red was not a good look for me.
"You're adorable when you're flustered," he said, leaning in toward me. Close enough that his warm breath tickled my cheek and the sound of his heart filled my ears.
Thu-thump, thu-thump. A vampire's heart beat at a slightly different rhythm than a human's. The beat itself was elongated, as if a vampire's heart had to push more blood through its arteries.
I turned my head away, not meeting his eyes. He stood, waiting patiently, not reaching for me. "Hey," he whispered softly. I barely heard him as a gust of wind blew down our street, bringing the fat raindrops in sideways, splattering my face.
I screamed and laughed, both of us jumping into the open door of the house.
Surprising myself, I tackled him as we fell through, pushing him roughly onto the floor with me on top. The smile on his face urged me on. His arms were open on either side of his body and he lay there, unmoving. Those smoldering eyes stared into mine, gold and green flecks wavering like an Edvard Munch painting. It was too much, I had to look away. I turned my head and willed my eyes downward to rest on the ornate sprawl of the Persian rug that lay below our tangle.
"Are you comfortable on top of me or do you want to move?" Carter's voice was thick and quiet.
"I'm going to kiss you now," I told him, leaning down to breathe him in first, then finding his mouth and sucking on his lips. Soft and delicious. Yielding. Open. I worked my tongue inside and kissed him hard, grinding my body on top of his. His arms never moved; he didn't reach for me at all.
When I broke the kiss, he was staring at me, eyes open, searching mine. "If you want me to touch you, you'll have to tell me. I would like nothing more than to make you feel good, but I won't do it without your complete consent."
"Do it," I whispered, licking my lips.
He groaned and moved his hands up to my waist, holding me there for a few seconds before caressing me gently in a circular motion. "Tell me what you want."
"I want you to be on top," I said without realizing what that might mean.
"What else?" he growled up at me, still stroking my waist and then moving down to my thighs.
"I want you to take charge but . . ."
"Anything."
"I don't want to have sex."
"Make love. I know. I don't want that right now either. I'd like to savor you. Can I work my magic?"
I nodded, biting my lip. His hands found my hair and he pulled me down to him, kissing me harder than I'd kissed him. His tongue pushed between my lips, licking and stroking my mouth. Melting down into him, I let him take the lead and roll me over. I was completely pliant, and in less time than it takes to melt wax for an encaustic, he was straddling me.
His hot mouth found my flushed skin, where he nuzzled his nose into the base of my neck.
He inhaled and let out a low moan, then his tongue flicked out to taste me.
"Has anyone told you that you taste like vanilla and strawberries?"
No one had ever tasted me before but that was the last thing I wanted him to know.
He nuzzled deeper, then kissed and licked, focusing on my neck. His mouth moved up the length of it, and the crawl of his tongue and teeth seemed to take an eternity to reach my ear. I savored the feelings. It was just like my masturbation fantasy but deeper, more visceral.
He was taking his time, tasting me, then taking my earlobe between his teeth. I gasped. How could that feel so good? Was it him or was that an erogenous zone? I made a mental note to ask Burgundy, she would love that.
Warmth traveled down my thighs. From ear nibbling? The shiver his small gesture triggered was as deep and wide as the Grand Canyon.
"Carter," I sighed and placed my hand on his bicep. The skin was firm and thick under my fingers.
He stopped and looked down at me, a half smile curling up his chiseled features. There it was again, that five o'clock shadow. It hadn't been there a few hours earlier. Did he sprout hair faster than other vampires? Reaching up to it, I rubbed the palm of a hand against it, rough and so sexy. Like a cat in catnip, I pulled him down to my face, stroking his roughness against my cheek. The masculine sandpaper rushed blood to the surface of my skin, making everything even more sensitive.
"Chrys." His hand brushed against my cheek, so soft and delicate. With one finger he traced my jawline, sending tingles down my body. I shivered, but not from the cold, then pulled his face down again, covering his mouth with mine.
We made out for a long time and yet I could have stayed that way for even longer. Respectful, he didn't grind himself against me. His kisses were gentle, tender and sweet.
"Can I make you feel good?" he whispered into my ear. "Please."
I nodded. Every part of my skin was so sensitive, charged with the build-up only an orgasm would release. But I was embarrassed. Afraid. Yet I had done this to myself once already, right? And he'd basically been there, just not quite in person.
He placed the lightest kisses on my face, his hands moving down to my shoulders and then, very gently, my breasts.
I tried to pull away, suddenly shy. Had I not been lying down already, I certainly would have fallen. My body was overcome with shivers, and distant-sounding moans escaped my lips. I was embarrassed to make those noises but I couldn't help myself. My body was betraying me and I could no longer control it. As my hips lifted, I willed them down again.
Carter didn't seem to notice or maybe he did and was being a gentleman. His mouth moved lower but the amount of force he used on me remained the same. Light, featherlight. The kisses were tender and delicious. He worked his way back down my neck and over my décolletage, massaging my breasts with his large hands. The cleavage I had been sporting all night felt foreign, like the breasts constricted in the bodice didn't belong to me. He pushed them up and kissed the skin at the top of the mounds, forcing my breasts out of their confinement. I gasped, trying to turn and hide them but his mouth was on one of my nipples before I could escape.
Like the first time I had put paint to paper, I was lost. Falling. The world spun. My back arched as he reached his hand down between my legs and pushed up my leather skirt.
My breath hitched and I tried to buck away but I was really trying to buck into him.
"You are so beautiful," he whispered around my nipple.
Unable to speak, I let out a small sigh.
He pulled my panties aside and pushed his hand into my warmth.
I squeaked.
"So wet," he murmured.
Embarrassed, I pushed away in earnest this time. He thrust the heel of his hand onto my button and I groaned, thrusting back.
"Please let me taste you," he said and for a moment I didn't know what he was talking about. Then his head moved south and I squealed and bucked again. He kissed my thigh, and I shivered.
What was he doing? I couldn't let him kiss me there. Certainly that was not oka
y. I knew about oral sex, of course, but I'd never wanted anyone to do that to me.
And yet, something primal in me needed him to lick me there. Again, embarrassment washed over me. I couldn't let this happen. What if it was ugly down there, or worse?
He ran his fingers through the downy hair covering my mound, then pushed a finger inside. Clenching my muscles around it, I was about to pull away and stop the experience when air tickled me there, then a smooth wetness with the lightest of pressure. On my bud. What? Squirming, I tried to buck off his face but his vampire strength gripped me still. Looking down, I had a difficult time connecting his head between my legs with the light touches of what I realized was his tongue. Buried in my thighs? I knew what oral sex was, I just had no idea it felt this . . . good.
"What are you doing?" My body was shivering with tiny little tremors and my voice sounded whispery and high-pitched.
"Shh," he said against my mound. His breath focused on my tender folds as another wave of tremors shot through me, causing me to convulse.
"Carter," I moaned, trying to sit up and failing.
His warm, wet mouth covered my sex and I almost shot straight to the ceiling. Hands were on my hips while his mouth explored my soul. My body betrayed my control, moving in rhythm with him. His fingers grazed my excruciatingly tender nipple in a surge of ecstasy.
I wriggled, distracted by the sounds coming from below. He moaned and the vibration circled me, penetrating outward. No wonder Sadie was a sex maniac.
Carter backed off and blew on me, causing tingles and shivers. He looked up at me and smiled, licking his lips.
"You taste divine," he said as my face heated up. "I could eat you all night."
He looked back down at my sex spread open before him, and just as I was about to snap my legs shut, he pressed a finger back inside. I arched up and into him without control. He added another.
His mouth returned to licking and sucking while his finger pulsed in and out of my gate.
"Oh, Carter." The words tumbled out as my head thrashed from side to side.
He moaned against me again and without warning I exploded. The rush was enormous. A previously unexpressed primitive presence I gushed so powerfully, it the pleasure briefly swallowed my identity. Tension. Release. The swell carried me to an unknown corner of my own psyche, expanding my boundaries. It was more intense than anything I had ever known.
Carter moved his body up and draped it over mine while still cupping my sex with one hand as the pulsing continued.
He stroked my hair with his other hand, all the while maintaining eye contact. I wanted to look away but his intensity mesmerized me.
"Oh, Chrys . . . you are amazing," he whispered, planting a soft kiss on my lips and then trailing his mouth down my jawline and neck, kissing and nipping lightly.
As he nuzzled into me and wrapped his big arms around me, I sighed and let go, maybe for the first time in my life. I had finally allowed myself to lose control. To be so vulnerable with another person. It felt both amazing and terrifying at the same time.
I sat up, startled. I couldn't remember where I was. Looking around, I took in my now-familiar living room as my eyes adjusted to the dim light of the moon filtering through the window. The rain had stopped. Carter's warm body was next to mine, his arm spread out as though I'd been lying in its crook. I looked at him in the pale light, my heart fluttering in my chest. We were both fully clothed, minus my underwear. My skirt was back in place. He must have adjusted it for me. A gentleman vampire? Why not? In sleep, his face was soft and unlined.
I wanted to lean down and kiss him but should I? Could I? My emotions were at war, like I was the easel, not the canvas. I could see the paintbrush reaching to claim its surface, but I was numb to the actual brush stroke.
I was embarrassed about what we had done, what I had let him do to me, yet I'd liked it. So much. Wasn't that wrong? I settled for leaning back into him and snuggling into the crook of his arm. He stirred, rolled toward me and put his other arm around me, holding me there. Cradling me. One hand found my hair, and the soft petting began.
"Chrys, Chrys, Chrys," he whispered. "Chrysothemis."
My heart jumped. "How do you . . ." He'd said my full name before too, I vaguely remembered.
"Shh." He kept petting my hair and leaned over to place small, light kisses on my face. My eyes, my temples, my brows.
"Who are you?" I asked him, not really expecting an answer.
He sat up, blinking sleepy eyes. "Carter," he said, concern lacing his voice.
I pulled him back down. "No, silly." I laughed.
He laughed too, deep and musical.
"I mean, what's your story? I know you haven't always lived in the Edge. What brought you here?"
Carter propped himself up on one shoulder. Those intense eyes bored into me. He blinked once, twice, and then took in a sharp breath followed by an even sharper sigh.
Needing to give him space to speak, I rolled onto my side to face him and waited.
"It's my younger brother," he began.
I nodded encouragingly.
"He moved in with Alistair when he was only two. My mother . . ." He trailed off, rapidly blinking his eyes, and shook his head before proceeding. "My mother couldn't take care of him and I wasn't quite old enough."
"How old are you?" I asked, worry creasing my face.
"Twenty-three. You?"
"You're too young for me. I'm twenty-five," I teased, not holding back the smile that was so effortless and yet foreign. Maybe I wasn't such a dour woman, like my mother. Maybe I just hadn't been given the opportunity to grow before now.
"I've always liked older women." His voice softened as he chuckled at my attempt at humor.
I didn't want to force him to talk about something so obviously uncomfortable, but I wanted to know more. My hand snaked out to touch him but I pulled it back. "So you were fifteen?"
Nodding, he rolled off his shoulder and onto his back, looking up at the ceiling. I let out a long sigh and touched his arm, running my fingers along his absolutely perfect bicep.
"I was a very immature fifteen, otherwise maybe . . ." He rolled toward me, pushing his hair from his eyes. "Anyway, the point is that about a year ago, when Julian turned nine, Alistair pissed off a sorcerer, who put a curse on him."
"On Alistair?"
"No, on Julian."
"What?"
He nodded, moving his arm under his head for support.
"But why would anyone hurt a child for something a man did?"
"Hurt the child, hurt the guardian I guess."
I suddenly understood the haunted took I had glimpsed in Alistair's eyes and the strangeness of Carter's home life with his grandfather.
"What kind of curse?" I asked.
"He cannot mature or grow past the age he was when he was cursed."
"You mean he remains a nine-year-old vampire?"
Carter nodded. "It's horrible. We had to take him out of school and he lost his friends. No one wants to be friends with someone cursed."
"Oh, Carter, I'm so sorry."
He looked wretched. There were lines in his face and dark shadows under his eyes.
"Is there anything that can be done?" I asked. "Talk to the sorcerer? Break the spell somehow?"
"Some witches can break it," he said, his eyes darting away.
"What kind of witch?"
"We aren't sure exactly. We have several theories. One is that a very strong witch gorged on vampire blood could break the spell."
"What?" I shook my head, not believing him. "I've never heard of that as a cure for anything. No one can drink vampire blood and live."
"Well, that's a problem isn't it?"
"And the other theories?"
"All having to do with blood." His jaw clenched. "None of them are really viable, and all are speculative." He wouldn't meet my eye.
"What about the sorcerer?"
Carter shook his head. "He disappeared. Happened right after he cursed
Julian. I assume he would have been kicked out of the Edge anyway."
"Well, yeah, the Council doesn't allow curses, but first he would have been forced to reverse it."
"Probably why he left," Carter mumbled, anger flashing across his face. "Anyway, that's why I came back, to help Alistair with Julian and to be there for him."
I sat up and folded my arms across my chest. "That really stinks. I'm going to do some research and see if there's anything I can do to help."
Carter reached out and pulled me to him. "I didn't tell you my problems so that you would fix them."
I felt so connected to him after our shared intimacy. I couldn't explain it. "I want to help," I said as he pulled me in closer and started kissing the top of my head.
"I don't deserve you," he mumbled into my hair.
The next afternoon, I stood outside The V Club, rubbing my arms in the light jacket I wore.
Jared appeared in the doorway, walking quickly over to me.
"You look freezing," he said as he covered my body with his. I was so cold, I welcomed it without hesitation.
"I am." I laughed to ease the tension inside my chest. My teeth started chattering.
"This is the coldest December we've had in years." He bent and kissed my cheek. My instinct was to pull back but his warmth was so welcome.
"You look confused, but you sounded distraught on the phone. What's wrong?" Concern laced his flawless features, those topaz eyes filled with empathy. The warmest butterscotch eyes I'd ever seen.
I leaned into him and he held me tightly, protectively. Like a big brother. One hand massaged my upper arm and I instantly relaxed. Even I’d heard whisperings of Jared’s healing touch.
"It's Carter," I said.
"Do I have to kill him already?" Jared asked, making me giggle.
"He's in trouble. Well, his family is, and I think maybe I can help."
"You mean Julian?"
I nodded. "You know?"
Jared tilted my chin up. I let him. Then he shook his head. A shadow passed over his features, darkening them. The sun had ducked behind a cloud. I shivered.
"There's nothing anyone can do for him. Even the most powerful witch, and that would be Sadie, can't remove another witch's curse."
