Shattered Days (The Firsts Book 7)

by C. L. Quinn

  Her eyes traveled over his body, tight, heavily muscled, and compellingly sexy in spite of her decision to remain celibate through all of this healing process. The swell within her, at the apex of her womanhood, responded to her sexual attraction to him, a throbbing that made her squirm on the bench.

  Suddenly, Marc came back at her and dropped onto his knees in front of her, his eyes intense, trapping hers, and refused to let her go.

  “I’m not…” He stopped speaking, his arms stretched beside her, not touching. “I’m just…what I’m trying to tell you is that I have some problems. Things are kind of messed up in my head right now, and this isn’t helping. I need to figure out what’s going on so I can get back to normal.”

  Tamesine couldn’t help herself, her hands moved forward to curve against each side of his face once more, her thumbs sliding along his cheeks.

  “Oh, we are so far from normal, Marc. I can help you, though, if you want me to. I can make anything go away that is troubling you. You just need to tell me what’s wrong.”

  Marc’s fingers had moved closer to her, and now slid along her thighs, caressing her just as she was caressing him. The sensuality was overwhelming.

  Closing his eyes, Marc let himself feel the magic of her fingers on his skin, as his own fingers slid against her thighs, underneath the skirt she’d worn for work tonight. They kept moving, higher, higher, and he waited for her to stop him.

  She didn’t.

  When his fingertips reached the tops of her thighs, he curved his hands up over the front, and they met just where her legs did, in that deep V that led to an unimpeded heaven. She wore no underwear to stop him.

  He opened his eyes and looked into hers.

  Neither of them spoke, but when she laid her head back with her own eyes closed moments later, he couldn’t stop himself. His hands moved, almost as if they were ordered to, and slid between her legs, seeking the slit that brought him to the center of her sex.

  Shocked at his brazen actions, worried she would think him arrogant, he started to pull back when she moaned.

  “Oh, God, I’d forgotten how good that feels,” she said, on a long expulsion of breath.

  He lifted her up as he lowered his head and brought her to his mouth, but did not move the skirt, just let his warm breath dance on top of the fabric.

  “I could take this off,” he offered, his fingers still moving beneath.

  “I could let you. But we still have our problem. We still need to find out what had brought us together like this, and why.”

  He laid his head in her lap. “So. No sex?”

  Marc felt her fingers twist into his hair. “No. No sex. I don’t like it either, but we must travel a different path. Sex confuses things. It takes away everything else. It’s too overwhelming, and it should be, but not for us, not tonight. If I let you under this skirt, if I let you enter me, physically, I mean, we might never discover what we are meant to. We have to find out why destiny put us together in our dreams.”

  Although he did not continue into her, Marc still held her buttocks in his hands, his mouth too close to her. Tamesine knew she should push him away, but her body wouldn’t move. If he slid his fingers back to her center, he’d feel her moistness, and know how much she wanted him to continue, which wasn’t good. If he pushed it, if he touched her there, or put his mouth to her, she wasn’t sure she could pull away from him. Although they were essentially strangers, the dream-walking had made their new relationship already too familiar, an eroticism born of need.

  God. Suddenly she knew. Need. They both had such great emotional need. Hers was extraordinarily awful. Was his? Could this be why destiny put them on each other’s path?

  Tamesine pushed him back, and he let her without resistance. Her swollen clitoris throbbed, but when she smoothed her skirt over her legs, she crossed them, and let the motion press against her. That brief friction felt so good, she nearly pulled him beneath her and made that cock she could see pressed against his jeans, too swollen for the tight denim, do what it needed to do.

  “You’re an incredibly sexy woman. I apologize for my actions, but I think my body had a mind of its own,” Marc tried to explain, as he put some distance between him and the first woman in years that had inspired a hard-on.

  “I can see that.” Her eyes dropped to his crotch, and he shook his head.

  “Fuck,” he said softly. “So what do we do now? You don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve been able to…”

  He trailed off. How could he tell her he’d been functionally impotent since he’d returned from the Middle East? He couldn’t. The only thing he could think of that would be worse than seeing pity in someone’s eyes, would be a pity fuck.

  So he just glanced at her from the bar, where he’d retreated to, poured himself some bourbon, and just ended with, “Sorry.”

  “We find out why we’re connected. It won’t be hard. To do so, we would need a quiet, safe place. Would you come to my apartment tomorrow night after your shift?”

  “I don’t work tomorrow,” he told her, killing another shot glass of amber joy.

  “That’s better. I’m usually finished by midnight, home by 12:30. Meet me there at that time.”

  Tamesine stood, smoothing her skirt, and walked over to him. She picked up a cell phone lying on the edge of the bar.

  “Yours?”

  Marc nodded.

  After a few keystrokes, she gently slid it back where she’d found it.

  “There. You’ll come?”

  Fuck he wanted to grab her. She stood there, breathless, her nipples erect against a white linen shirt, breathing hard, and he had his first real erection in years.

  Nodding, he dropped his eyes. He didn’t see her leave, but he looked up when he heard the latch on the door click. She was gone.

  Killing the rest of the nearly empty bottle, he repeated himself.

  “Fuck.”

  SIX

  Her shift couldn’t end quickly enough.

  Every customer tonight annoyed her. And although she knew why, it didn’t make her any more patient with them.

  This, this job, right now, it didn’t matter. He did. Finding out what they must each discover, that mattered.

  The hours crawled. All Tamesine wanted to do was blow out of there, but she knew he wouldn’t be there until past midnight anyway. Why had she decided to wait until after work to meet him?

  “Oh, girl. Girl! This diet soda is flat,” a young girl with green hair called out to Tamesine.

  It took every ounce of her vampire skill to keep from compelling her to act like a chicken and cluck.

  “Aw, how’s my little vampire doing tonight?” Lamont asked, his voice soft and kind.

  Claude, halfway across the world, knew better, but his voice traveled through their connection answered pleasantly too, in spite of the fact that he was bored.

  He’d never let Lamont know that.

  So, Lamont’s henchman in California kept him updated.

  “She’s good. The same. We should pick her up soon, Mr. Lamont. I haven’t seen one other vampire near her, so she’ll be a piece of cake.”

  “The team is en route. She’s first blood, and as such, extraordinarily powerful, so even with the serum, I want a strong force. They will contact you as soon as they land at LAX. Bo Taggert heads the team. He will be in charge at that point. You are there strictly as a last resort. If things go wrong, you know your orders, which I expect you will follow strictly. Keep me apprised.”

  Claude ended the call, threw his cell onto the passenger seat, and watched it bounce. He’d thought that once he earned his promotion, he wouldn’t be in these positions anymore. He was an assassin. He’d worked with the SRS some years now, and while he was good at the job, he didn’t enjoy it. Well, there were moments when it was nice to finish someone he thought deserved it. And while he felt that vampires were nasty unnatural abominations and needed to be purged, they were really powerful. Truth be told, although he wouldn’t
ever admit it, they scared the shit out of him.

  This one, beyond-the-charts sexy, quiet, seemingly peaceful, scared him more than the massive males he’d seen. She was slender and small, female, and should be an easy capture, but Claude was certain she wouldn’t be. Call it instinct, or experience, but he knew this one was going to go down hard, and likely men would die. If it did, his orders had been exact and clear. He was to kill her, if possible. Once done, Lamont wanted the body packed in ice, the head packed in ice in a separate box, and returned to him in Switzerland immediately.

  Claude was sure that was exactly how this collision of forces would go. If the serum that the SRS had developed last year which could render a vampire unconscious for a period of time, didn’t work, then the fight would happen.

  Nervously, Claude slipped his gun out of the holster. He did that a lot lately, palming his semi-auto, sliding the magazine out, checking the cartridges, and snapping it back in. He was almost OCD about it. A bad habit, he knew, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. It just meant it was time for him to retire from his gun-for-hire history. He hoped like fuck this would be the last one.

  On a positive note, she would be a nice final kill. His last job would be one of the most powerful creatures on earth. Yeah, that sounded nice.

  “Goodnight, Tam.”

  Tamesine looked up, startled to see Frank within a few inches. “Oh, Frank, yeah. Goodnight. I’m afraid I was distracted, I didn’t see you there.”

  “Hot date?”

  Did she flush? Although there wasn’t any reason to, Tamesine knew she’d flushed. All she could think about right now was that Marc was going to be coming to her home, and that they would merge, spiritually, and find out why they were visiting each other’s nights.

  “Uh, no. Just distracted by…things. Have a good night, Frank.”

  He nodded, but she was already moving out the door. She didn’t see him, standing there, watching her go.

  But across the street, a shadow buried in the hollow between two business buildings, did.

  Marc took a few extra minutes to decide what he should wear tonight. Should he make an attempt to dress nicely? Or just wear the same old casual clothes he might throw on around his own place? When he caught his image in a mirror near his closet door, he winced.

  “Shit!” he said out loud to the idiot standing in front of the closet looking at the few shirts hanging haphazardly on wire hangers. It wasn’t like this was a date. And he certainly didn’t want to look like he’d dressed for one.

  So, he put on a simple unadorned tee shirt, jeans, and biker boots that he almost always wore, comfortable, if a little scuffed. He’d showered, of course, and noticed he smelled a little flowery. Damn, he needed to pay more attention to the kind of shower soap he bought.

  After a last glance in his mirror, he tried to smooth his hair, but it was newly shampooed, and fluffy, so it stood up a little too wildly and nothing he could do would convince it to relax.

  “Great,” he mumbled out loud as he picked up his keys. “I look like an anime figure.”

  Starting his bike, he paused. He was nervous, which rarely happened. If he was honest, he would admit, it wasn’t just nerves or fear. He found he was overly anxious to see her again.

  “Putz! This is not a date! You are so not going to get laid!” His reasonable self told the man who apparently hadn’t gotten the memo that this was anything but a normal night. For all he knew, she was a serial killer. The situation was weird enough. Yet he knew nothing would stop him from going to meet her.

  Tamesine had left the door to her apartment ajar so he could come right in. Standing in the kitchen, dressed casually, she opened a bottle of wine she’d procured from a shop downtown. It was a bottle of Petrus, an expensive wine and one of Tamesine’s favorites.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the door move, and her guest entered.

  Tucking his head down while his eyes adjusted to the new light level, he scanned the room. She watched him as he found her in the small kitchenette, her own eyes locked on him. He paused and just watched her for a few moments, then turned, closed the door, sighed, and turned back to her.

  “Hi,” he said, brusquely, and walked towards her silently. When he reached the opening to the little area that held just a tiny stove and fridge, a few cabinets and a small island, he leaned against the door.

  “Uh, I don’t know what to expect here tonight,” he finally said.

  Tamesine nodded. “I’m not sure either, so we’ll discover it together. Don’t be afraid.”

  “I’m not afraid, but I’m not one hundred percent sure why I came. I don’t believe in this kind of hoo-doo.”

  “You will.”

  He smiled suddenly. “Now I’m scared,” he said, easily, and pushed away from the door jamb. Sinking his hands into his pockets, he entered the kitchen area.

  Holy hell, he was wearing the holey jeans he had on in that second dream!

  Tamesine felt the full force of his charm. The smile lit up a face that she had already accepted was outstandingly handsome, especially for a human. His scent assaulted her with the proximity, not the sweet smell of soap, but the scent his body put out, masculine, and sensual. His long tousled hair made her want to grab it again, and pull his head down to bury her tongue in his mouth, something she would not be doing tonight. She would have to forbid herself from fulfilling that urge. This was a spiritual merge, and could not be physical.

  The physical desires would try to interfere anyway, she knew, as she glanced at the crotch of his pants and noticed it was unusually tight. He was responding, too, to the sensuality of this meeting.

  “Here,” she said, handing him a glass of wine. “Relaxation is essential to the process. This is one of my favorite wines. Please, I think you should have a glass or two. It will help.”

  He scanned the glass, then raised his gaze to rest on her as he noticed her rapid breath, her breasts lifting with each draw beneath a thin white top that left too much to his imagination and not enough. He upended the wine glass and chugged the contents, then held it out to her.

  “Fill ‘er up, ma’am. I aim to please.”

  Surprised when he just sipped the next glass of wine, Tamesine led him over to a place she’d cleared, the few pieces of furniture pushed back against the wall.

  “Get comfortable. We’re sitting on the floor.”

  Marc shrugged, and sat down, cross-legged, on the thin carpet. Tamesine did the same, across from him, their knees nearly touching. Her eyes went to the well-displayed crotch of his pants where his erection was clearly apparent.

  He smiled again, his eyes dropping too, then back up to hers. “Sorry. In the interest of full disclosure, you’re sexy as hell and I haven’t, uh, had sex in quite some time, so I may not be able to control that tonight. Just ignore it.”

  Returning the smile, Tamesine tilted her head. “Okay. Then I’ll tell you that the same is true for me. I’m struggling, too, so we both just have to remain strong. This is an inward journey, and we can’t have any distractions or detours. Agreed?”

  Even though Marc nodded, he hoped that they would get this finished quickly, because this hard-on was insistent, and while he could take care of it himself, he was thrilled that finally, finally, the damn organ responded again the way it should. It had been so long that the only thing on his mind right now was finding a warm woman to bury himself in, if this beautiful woman who’d inspired him wasn’t interested.

  No, no, no, do this thing the way she wants you to. This seems to matter to her and it should matter to you.

  “Take my hands.”

  Marc hesitated. Touching her was what he wanted more than anything right now, and this simple motion of touching her, even if only holding hands, seemed a bad idea.

  “Trust me,” she said, and leaned forward to take his hands in hers. He didn’t resist.

  “Relax. We are going to take a journey together, and I warn you, it’s going to be intimate. More than anything yo
u’ve ever experienced in your life. You must understand this. I will enter your mind, and I will know you better than you would want anyone to. I will see your life, your present, your past, things you would want to conceal from anyone, I’ll see them. It’s our only method to figure out why we’re here together, if there’s a reason.”

  “I’ll see you as well, right?”

  Tamesine shook her head. He wouldn’t know that, as first blood vampire, she could control this spiritual merge, that she could protect him from knowing what she was, that she would shield his mind from access to hers.

  “No, Marc. But I think I can successfully discover our connection through you. It will be painless, but you might find it intrusive. I’m sorry if that’s so. Everyone has secrets they don’t want anyone else to know.”

  He did. There were a lot of moments, secrets, in Marc’s life he had never shared with anyone, and he certainly didn’t want someone looking around in his memories. He tried to pull his hands away from Tamesine.

  But she held on. “It’s the only way we find peace. I promise you, I won’t judge, and I won’t ever let anyone know what I see.”

  “Yeah, I don’t know if I believe this hokum about entering my mind, but I’m not okay with this.”

  Tamesine couldn’t let him back out now. This was just too important. So she used her ability, she “impressed” him. It was a method just short of compulsion, where she would have completely controlled his behavior. A vampire could affect a human’s emotions by pushing an impression of calmness, trust, sensuality, even euphoria, onto them. She pushed a little of all those emotions, and Marc stopped trying to pull his hands away.

  His eyes glazed over, and his head dropped a little. “Okay, sure, why not? Just…” He paused and sighed with relief. “Just try not to stay too long. It’s a mess in there.”