by Rachel Lee
“Getting the idea?” he asked.
“What idea?”
“I could take you, make you and drink you nearly dry almost before you knew it.”
She lifted her head and looked at him. “I get it.”
“Good. Ready to run?”
“No.”
Damn, she was stubborn. Slowing himself down, he dragged his inky gaze over her body, enjoying her loveliness. Not perfect, but oh, so desirable, from the throbbing pulse in her throat, to just-right breasts, to hips that invited a man. Even a bit of tummy, which he found arousing despite the modern trend for women to be hollow there. To his way of thinking, no healthy woman should have a concave belly.
Legs that were nicely shaped, somehow managing to appear long despite her small size. Even the high arches of her feet seemed perfect to him, and he could easily imagine kissing her there, nibbling her there. Perhaps even biting her there.
Her nipples were large, and they hardened and pinkened under his perusal. He liked that. Smiling, he reached out and brushed his hand over one, watching the shiver course through her.
“Not fair,” she whispered, reaching for the buttons of his shirt.
He brushed her hands away, and stripped himself in another instant, so that he, too, stood nude before her. Let her see that in one important way he was still a man.
Her eyes widened, but all he saw was appreciation. He forced himself to remain perfectly still as she reached out and began to run her palms over him. Ah, heavens, it was so sweet, and so long since he had allowed any woman to touch him this way. So long.
Because it had been forever since he wanted a woman as anything more than a passing fancy. Because it had been forever since he had dared share himself for fear he might lose control.
With Terri he was sure he could maintain his control, primarily because she had managed to become more important to him than his own wants and needs.
Something like a warning went off in his head, but he ignored it. He needed her touches more than he had imagined. When she wrapped her warm hand around his staff, he nearly lost it.
But self-control, long practiced, came to his rescue. In a movement too fast for her to register, but that seemed almost slow motion to him, he swept her from her feet onto his bed and lay beside her.
She gasped, then giggled, surprising him. An instant later she had clasped his face in her hands and drew him close for another kiss. He very nearly inhaled her sweet breath from her lungs. God, it had been so long since he had allowed himself to want like this. To need like this.
He had to school himself to move slowly, to run his hands all over her at a speed she could enjoy. When she reciprocated he shuddered with a longing as intense as any he had ever felt. It had been too long since he had permitted a woman to make love to him in return. Control had a high price, and he’d long since schooled himself not to risk losing it at any cost.
But something had changed. Exactly what, he couldn’t say, except that somewhere deep within himself he knew he wouldn’t hurt Terri no matter what. He was sure of it.
So he relished her warm hands as they explored him, teasing him gently, then less so, as if she wanted her palms and fingers to memorize every inch of him.
He gave in to the desire to learn her the same way, enchanted as much by the warmth of her body as by its delicious curves and hollows. Warmth. God, he craved the warmth of a human being. It was the only warmth that could reach him anymore, raising hunger and desire to heights of near ecstasy.
“Do I feel too cold to you?” he asked, out of awareness of how warm she felt to him.
“No,” she whispered. “Oh, no. Cool, not cold. Not at all cold.” Then, a soft giggle. “I’m hot enough for both of us.”
He stole her breath in a kiss, then proceeded to nibble, just nibble, his way along her body, never breaking the skin, but soothing, if not salving, a need of his own. When he felt her response, a shudder ran through him, too.
He had tasted her blood. Having tasted it, the bond it created doubled his experience. He felt every trip of her heart as if it were his own. He smelled the rising scents of desire, almost seemed to feel the tingles running along her nerve endings as well as his. When he at last reached that exquisite bundle of nerves between her legs, he showed her that the faintest hint of pain could excite her even more.
Damn, he wanted to give in to his every need, but care for her prevented him. His heart thundered with hers. His breaths became gasps. His loins clenched with a hunger of their own, equal to his other hunger, the one he dared not give in to.
The sound of his name emerging from her lips on a moan almost crazed him. He couldn’t remember the last time he had wanted sex so badly. In his life, it had come to take second place to a darker need. Until now. Until this woman.
Rising over her, settling between her parted legs, he plunged into her. Her hot wet depths received him. He groaned and almost lost it.
But at the last second, he found a shred of control, grabbing a pillow and turning his head to the side. He bit into the pillow as he pumped again and again, rising ever higher on the tide of need, until he felt her shudder of completion.
Then he joined her, his teeth piercing a pillow, his body piercing hers.
Heaven could hardly offer more.
Chapter 12
“We can’t stay in a bunker!”
The sounds of the quarrel reached Jude as soon as he emerged from his vault. Terri had slipped out a few minutes earlier, after showering, and he had waited to take his own shower.
Dark things rode his shoulders now, and he couldn’t afford the inevitable distraction if he had showered with Terri. He had gone to places with her that he had not gone to with a woman in a long, long time, and even an immortal could get impatient to repeat such joys.
He walked through his office and stepped out into the outer office where the quarreling was going on between Chloe, Garner and evidently even Terri.
“Garner,” Chloe said, “you don’t know what we’re up against here. Don’t be an idiot.”
Garner, who was pacing rather feverishly, threw up a hand. “So we stay locked in here surrounded by holy water and holy oil? What is that going to solve? We can’t let this thing keep doing this!”
“I agree,” Terri said. Her blue eyes seemed to snap. “We’re virtual prisoners here. This can’t go on. I’ve got to get back to work, for one thing.”
Jude stood in the doorway wondering what had brought this on. Last night Terri had been frightened, and today she wanted to follow a hare-brained Garner’s suggestions?
“Am I allowed to join the discussion?” he drawled, allowing just a hint of sarcasm to creep into his voice.
At once Terri looked at him, and he saw the faint pink stain on her cheeks. Damn, that called to him.
“Garner’s being an idiot again,” Chloe said. “He doesn’t even know what we’re dealing with here and he wants to charge off and go hunting for it. And Terri must have lost her mind to even suggest it. What did you do to her?”
“I didn’t do a damn thing.” At least nothing that she hadn’t wanted as much as he had. “Terri? I know what Garner’s thinking. He always wants to take the bull by the horns. But what are you thinking?”
“That this thing could outwait us forever. That there’s no way we can hunker down indefinitely. We have lives to lead. So we have to go after it, somehow.”
He folded his arms and leaned against the doorjamb looking at three people who had become so important in his existence. To his very core he knew he would protect them with his life, if he could call it that. Yet, protecting them did not include keeping them locked up forever.
The question was how to handle this. “If we separate we might become weaker,” he said. “But if we don’t, we may never
get rid of the threat.”
Chloe put her hands on her hips. “Not alone you don’t.”
“Absolutely not.” Terri sprang to her feet. “No way you’re going out there alone. If you go, I go. And don’t try to stop me.”
“You have absolutely no idea how easily I could stop you.”
She glared at him, and it pained him, but it was also the truth. Some things needed to be clear, including how implacable he could be when necessary. But apparently, he underestimated Terri.
“You may be able to stop me, but what’s the point, Jude? This thing needs a wedge to get at you or Creed. It’s come after me, it’s gone after Creed’s granddaughter. You can go out there and hunt all night every night and it won’t approach you. No, it’ll wait until it has a chance to get at someone you care about. So we might as well just go out there and face it. And since it’s been nosing around me for a while now, I’d make the best bait.”
He closed his eyes. The pain he felt at her words was both unanticipated and sharper than a dagger. “I can’t risk you,” he said.
“You won’t get it any other way. And I’m going to have to go out there, anyway. I have a job, remember? You’re not seriously proposing we live the rest of our lives, all of us, inside these walls?”
“I need to think. There has to be another way.”
“If you can come up with one, fine. But I’ve been doing a lot of thinking while you slept, and I can’t see any other way.”
Everyone remained still and silent for several seconds, then Chloe shocked them all by hurling a pencil across the room. Jude’s eyes snapped open.
“This stinks,” she said. “This reeks.” Then she jabbed a finger at Jude. “I told you you needed to teach us all. I told you.”
“Yes. You did.”
“You should have let me call Father Dan.”
“Maybe so. Maybe so.” Then he turned and went back into his office, determined to find a different solution from the one Terri was proposing. She didn’t know the risks. She couldn’t begin to understand the risks.
He suspected she was behind the mini revolution taking place out there. Chloe would never dream up such a scheme, and Garner, for all he always wanted to get involved, rarely came up with a new idea of his own that made any real sense.
No, Terri was the force behind this storm. And that was troubling indeed.
“Garner!”
The young man materialized instantly in the doorway.
“Come in and shut the door.”
Garner hastened to obey. “I swear it wasn’t my idea, man,” he said immediately. “But I think she’s right.”
“I know it wasn’t your idea.”
“Oh.” The young man looked relieved. Then, “How can you know it wasn’t my idea?”
“Trust me, you don’t want to know.”
“Oh.” Garner shifted, clearly unsure how to take that. “So what do you want me to do?”
“Do you smell it around her?”
Garner’s blond brows both lifted. “No way, man. If I did, I’d be all over it.”
“Pay attention. Keep sensing.”
“I can do that.”
Moments later, Jude sat alone again. Had he been mortal, he was sure he would have been sweating with fear.
When Jude didn’t emerge from his office for a while after sending Garner out, Terri decided to go face the lion in his lair. She couldn’t stand being on edge, couldn’t stand the thought he might be angry with her, could tolerate even less being away from him.
But they had to solve this somehow.
He looked up when she opened the door and stepped in. “Go away,” he growled. “I need to think.”
“Are you mad at me?”
“I said I needed to think!” He thundered the words, and it was all she could do not to quail. But she stood her ground, anyway. This was the vampire who had bitten a pillow last night rather than give in to his overwhelming desire to bite her. He didn’t frighten her anymore. Not at all.
“No,” she answered sharply. “You listen to me, Jude Messenger. We’re all in this mess now. You can’t just come hide in here and make decisions for all of us.”
“None of you truly understands what we’re up against. Damn it, Terri, I need time and space to figure this out.”
“I’ve got a pretty good idea what we’re up against. Enough to know that thing is going to use me against you, whether today, tomorrow or next month.”
“I know.” His tone was heavy, and the eyes that stared back at her were black as night. “Do you think I don’t realize that? I fell right into its trap. I not only wanted you, but I came to care for you. Too much!”
She gasped. “Jude…”
“It’s been almost two hundred years since the last time my gut twisted in terror. And now it’s twisting because of you. You’re bait, and I’m well into the trap.”
She felt her color drain, and she sagged into the chair beside the door. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. She felt light-headed, and more distressed that she could have imagined possible. She had brought him to this. “I don’t want you to live in terror. I’ll just leave. Ignore whatever happens to me.”
“Damn it, Terri! Damn it all to bloody hell. You don’t get it. I’m not terrified for myself. I care damn all what happens to me. It’s you I’m worried about. You’re the reason my insides are twisting in terror. And this terror is worse that any I ever knew in battle. I can’t let anything happen to you.”
“Oh.” Now she felt excessively small. She gazed down at her twisting hands, wondering what she could possibly say that would ease his concern even the slightest.
“Oh,” he said bitterly, “it baited the trap beautifully. It must have sensed my reaction to your scent and then sent those thugs after you so that I would have to come to your aid. Otherwise, I’d have walked away.”
She bit her lip and closed her eyes, absorbing the blows as they came.
“I knew you were dangerous,” he said. “I just didn’t know how you’d be dangerous. I thought all I had to worry about was losing my control with you. Then I thought I couldn’t maintain it, anyway, because damn it, I wanted you so much, and every time I sent you away you came back and I wanted you even more. You were the lure and I didn’t even know it.”
Terri’s heart squeezed painfully, and the air seemed to have become too thick to draw into her lungs. “So,” she finally asked, when she could get a breath, “I’m just a lure?”
“To that thing, yes. But not to me. Not now. No, you’re much more to me than that. Which is what it wanted. It went after Creed through his granddaughter, but we kept Creed from hunting it alone. Maybe it thought that if Creed asked for my help we’d go out there and do something stupid. I don’t know. But I do know that it’s achieved its goal. It has a wedge to use on me now. A huge one. And now you, that very wedge, want to walk out of here and take it head-on? I don’t think so, Terri.”
“But…”
“Don’t give me any buts. If that thing possesses you, it could decide to hold you long enough to kill you. It wouldn’t take long for it to sap you.”
“But you can exorcise it!”
“What if I can’t? I’ve never dealt with this sort of demon before. If I get it out of you, that doesn’t necessarily make it gone, the way it is with weaker demons. This one can just keep hopping around and come back for another strike. But I am sure as hell not going to risk letting it kill you.”
“If it…it tries to kill me, you can turn me, right?”
He swore savagely.
Terri felt her insides go weak. “Jude?”
“If I drink from you when you’re possessed, it will get exactly what it wants. Me.”
“Oh.” Her usually clear mind was n
ow running in crazy circles, trying to make any kind of sense out of this and failing.
“That is why, job or no job, you’re not leaving this office until I figure out something. Because we’re in a box, Terri. It will get one of us if we don’t know exactly what we’re doing.”
“But I fought it off once before. I drove it away. Maybe it can’t possess me. Maybe I can still fight it off.”
“At this point, fighting it off will be only a temporary solution. Regardless, you’re assuming that what troubled you in your childhood was the same thing. We can’t know that. The only thing your childhood experience tells me is that in some way, some demon thought you might be susceptible. Clearly you weren’t. To that demon.”
“I get it.” She shook her head. “Jude, I’m not stupid. Really.”
“You’re the furthest thing from stupid imaginable. But you’re new to this world. Naive.”
“Obviously.” She twisted her fingers together, then forced them to relax. “I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you because of me.”
“Then be patient. Please. There’s something at the back of my mind, rattling around. I can’t quite get to it. Something I heard or read long ago. I don’t know. It might be useless regardless. But I need time and space to think, and I can’t do that if I’m worrying about you darting out the door.”
“I won’t.”
“Good.”
She hesitated, then asked, “How do you turn someone? Just by drinking from them?”
“No. Of course not. But I have to drink enough of your blood that it becomes thoroughly mixed with mine. Bring you almost to death, actually. Then I feed you myself, returning to you our mixed blood. I don’t know how it works. I just know that only by passing our sufficiently mixed blood back to you can I be sure you’ll resurrect.”
“If you did that to me now that thing couldn’t possess me.”
“Terri!”
She saw the horror on his face and couldn’t say she was surprised. She knew what he thought of his kind of existence. But it was the only way out she could think of. “If it comes to that…”
