A tear rolled down Sebastian’s cheek. “Then you’re damned, too.” He pushed himself off the wall and away from her. “Such a tangled knot. What romantic could possibly dream this one up?” He wiped his cheek with the heel of his hand, walked into his bedroom and shut the door very softly.
Chapter Fifteen
EVEN THOUGH SHE tried to dismiss Sebastian’s words as simply an understandable bitterness toward Nial, it still took Winter a good hour to fall asleep despite her tiredness because the dismissal didn’t work.
She could still feel Sebastian’s kiss. His heated body pressed up against hers. The silken length of his cock between them, nudging her belly, making her pussy ache to take him.
Finally, she dozed, but her dreams were shot through with imagery so disturbing, she woke after a few short hours, disoriented and groggy, until she saw Central Park through the window and heard the traffic and remembered.
She climbed out of bed and went in search of food, suddenly ravenous. Her biorhythms were all mixed up now and that was one thing she had no control over. She had to eat when her body demanded energy. It was an demand for external input that she couldn’t manufacture for herself.
At the bottom of the stairs, she paused, listening. Nial was speaking German. She knew enough to know he was speaking finance. Was he talking to Switzerland? Zurich? Banks? That would make sense at two in the morning.
She headed into the kitchen and opened the fridge, hoping Nial had human food in there. But it was virtually empty except for wine bottles. Next, she tried the cupboards and there she found a packet of cookies that hadn’t expired yet. She opened them and ate hungrily.
Nial emerged from the alcove made by the elevator shaft, where his desk and phone had to be. “There’s real food being delivered at five. I thought it would be here before you woke. I didn’t count on midnight pantry raids.”
“I couldn’t sleep,” she admitted.
His eyes narrowed. “I would have expected you to sleep like the dead after all the flying we’ve done.”
“I have things on my mind,” she said flatly.
“So do I, watching you move about in that negligee. French, is it?”
“Italian. And you’re changing the subject.”
His smile warmed. “Italian… You didn’t put it on just for me, did you?”
“And he sails right passed the redirection sign again.” Winter brushed the cookie crumbs off her hands. “Sometimes, Nial, talking to you is like herding cats.”
Nial picked up her hand. “Come here.” He pulled her around the counter and over to the big windows and turned her to face the view. He stood behind her and wrapped his arms around her. Like that, she could see his reflection in the glass if she wanted to.
“You’re not invisible,” she joked.
“But it makes a nice fantasy for the movies, doesn’t it? So when people see my reflection in a mirror, they know I can’t possibly be a vampire.”
“You mean…” She twisted a little to look at him. “All that stuff about daylight and garlic and crosses…vampires have been putting that out there all this time just so you can hide in plain sight?”
Nial nuzzled her neck, making her look out the window once more, as her neck straightened to give him access. “Winter, you of all people have to ask about something as simple as misdirection?”
“But you are immortal?”
“No.”
Fright tore through her. “But…”
“Immortals cannot die, Winter. We can. You can kill us in a small handful of ways. But outside of those ways, we live on, unchanging, for as long as time itself. It is immortality of a sort, but it comes at a price.”
Winter turned in his arms so that she could see his face. “What price?”
“Humans were never meant to live forever.” His voice was soft and the look in his eyes was haunted. “We pay the price for living virtually forever by watching those around us live and die. Enemies, cities, states, nations, civilizations. Loved ones.” Pain filled his eyes, then was gone. “And there’s nothing you can do about it, but make those people you love a vampire, too. And who would be mad enough to wish this curse upon their mortal enemy, let alone their most dearest love?”
“Curse?” Winter gripped his shirt. “But Nial, you have never once hinted that you believe this. Sebastian raves about vampires being cursed, but not you!”
“Sebastian never accepted this life.” Nial covered her hands with his. “I’ve had longer to come around to it.”
Winter shook him gently with her grip on his shirt. “And in the week you’ve known me, Nial, tell me how often you’ve been tempted to ask me to make you human again?”
Nial sighed. “Tempted? A hundred times.” He brushed her hair from her temple. “It is Pandora’s Box and Eve’s Apple all rolled into one, Winter. I just have to look at Sebastian to wonder what would be unleashed if you agreed to try to attempt the same feat with me.”
“You fear the outcomes,” she guessed.
“I am over five times older than Sebastian,” he pointed out. “Does that make a difference? There’s far too many unknowns. And would it tie you to yet another symbiosis, Winter?” He sighed. “But it is a sweet temptation, all the same.”
“You’ve forgotten one major factor,” Winter said.
“And that is?”
“I don’t think I could do it, Nial.”
“Why not? You would be giving me life.”
“And certain death,” she added. She bit her lip. “I already can’t bear the idea that Sebastian—” She stopped and started again. “Please don’t ask me unless you must, Nial. It will kill me to do it, but I will if you ask me because I know you have no other choice, that you must have this. But I’ll hate myself knowing that I’m handing you a d-death sentence.”
“Quis dulcis, shhh…” Nial gathered her up against him, his arms around her. She rested her head against his shoulder and unashamedly sought the comfort he offered. She slid her arms around his neck and his own tightened more.
Gradually, the need to cry tapered away to nothing and calm returned. She sighed.
“What has Sebastian been whispering in your ear?” Nial murmured.
“Why do you ask?” She lifted her head to look at him.
“I know you two spoke just before you went to bed. I heard you as I came back down the stairs.”
“You listened?” Horror washed through her.
He shook his head. “You’re entitled to privacy, Winter.”
“Like on the plane back to New York?”
“Ah…that’s what you spoke about, then.” Nial’s mouth lifted at the corners. “I wondered what was keeping you so sleep deprived.” He ran his fingertip over her face, tracing her nose and cheekbones and jaw. It was a strangely intimate and soft, erotic touch. “Did Sebastian play fair or did he dump an untimely confession on you just to add to your burdens?”
Winter flinched. “Are you toying with us, Nial?”
Nial shook his head. “I just know Sebastian better than he thinks I do. He’d like all this to be about him.”
“All what?”
“All the tension and angst he is inventing and discovering. Sebastian is a romantic at heart.” Nial’s fingers swept over her throat. “So he couldn’t resist teasing you with a true confession. No wonder you’ve been tossing and turning. Did he kiss you as well, Winter?”
She sucked in a breath, her arms sagging around his neck. “God damn it, Nial. You may as well have listened in.”
He shook his head again as he ran his fingers over her now exposed collarbones and upper chest. “Sebastian is the voyeur, not me. So…he kissed you. That explains the haunted look in your eyes when you first saw me just now. You have a conscience.” He picked up the satin tie between her breasts and tugged on it. “Does this unravel the entire negligee?” The tug untied the bow and the negligee slithered off her shoulders, down to the floor about her feet.
Winter reached for Nial’s belt buckle. “That�
��s a two-way game, you know.”
“I do,” he agreed. “But you’ve already won the race.” His kiss and his hand closing around her breast happened at the same instant, driving her to instant lust, instant heat.
Winter moaned into his mouth, working hard to strip him of his clothes quickly. Nial twisted his limbs and torso, helping her, until he was as naked as she, when he finally let go of her mouth.
His cock jutted up from between his thighs, thick and ready, below flat abs that dipped with the hint of six pack muscles. But it was his shoulders and thighs and taut trim hips and the tight ass that Winter had trouble looking away from.
Until she looked into his eyes.
He was watching her drool.
She shrugged. “We’ve been having sex half-clothed and in public nearly all along. This is the first time I’ve got to see you all for myself, in full view.”
He smiled. “It’s refreshing to see a woman openly aroused by the sight of a man. You as a gender tend to be so coy about it.”
“We’re getting better, generation by generation.”
“True.” He trod toward her, the muscles moving under his flesh in sleek unison, making her heart leap. “But you are not the only one who paused to salivate, Winter.” He picked her up and carried her over to the big, thick area rug in front of the unused fireplace and knelt on it before placing her down gently on the velvet pile. “Tell me when you get sleepy,” he warned.
The question barely formed in her mind before he kissed her, thrusting his tongue into her mouth, a hand on her breast and the other between her thighs, sliding up to her cleft with a soft swoop across the delicate skin of her inner thigh, making her arch and moan and her legs to spread open, inviting his invasion.
He kissed his way down to her breast and sucked the tip into his mouth, biting the nipple with his teeth.
Winter fought the natural desire to close her eyes and let the passion have her. She wanted to take all the pleasure she could from watch Nial’s face and hands and body move and strive and work above her or against her as well.
He braced himself on his arms, so that only his hips and his heavy and silky genitals were resting against her. “Open for me,” he breathed. His eyes seemed very blue in that dim light as he looked down at her. “Let me feel you around me.”
She opened herself up, trembling with anticipation. Her clit pounded as his cock brushed against it.
Nial eased himself into her a slow inch at a time, and no other part of his body touched her. Winter wriggled on the rug, all her focus on the sensations set off by Nial’s cock thrusting with controlled mastery inside her.
By the time he was fully lodged inside her, Winter was nearly hyperventilating. She clawed at his arms, at the bunched muscles there. “Faster,” she begged.
“No,” he growled, his voice low. His eyes seemed to glitter as he watched her. With the same controlled speed he withdrew and impaled her again, watching her writhe and come apart at the seams as the pressure built up around what his cock was doing to her.
On the fourth stroke Winter arched back on the rug, her fingers clawing at the soft pile, gasping. “Please, Nial,” she begged.
“No.” His voice was hoarse. From the effort to control himself or lust, it didn’t matter. But she knew he wouldn’t break. He would watch her shatter first.
On the seventh stroke, she could feel her pussy pulsing and her clit with it. Her hips thrust, jerking, as Nial pushed slowly into her again. She gave a broken cry.
“Yes,” he crooned, one hand caressing her breast. “That’s it, Winter. Come for me. I can feel how close you are.”
On the next murderously slow thrust, she climaxed with a guttural scream that she had never heard herself make in her life. Her orgasm was wrenched from deep in her belly, lifting her from the rug until only her hips remained. But Nial’s arm was around her back, supporting her as the waves of the climax rushed through her.
He lowered her back onto the soft rug and sat back, his stiff cock sliding out of her.
“No fair,” she said breathlessly.
“Oh, I’ll get my turn,” he assured her.
“You will,” she agreed and forced herself onto her hands and knees despite her shaky limbs. She crawled closer to him and pushed on Nial’s shoulder so that he was sitting on his heels, nudged his knees far apart, and tossed her hair back over her shoulder.
He began to smile. “Just watching you crawl to me naked on your hands and knees with that wicked grin and mischief in your eyes is reward enough.”
“Shall I stop?” she suggested, cupping his testicles and stroking the underside.
His chest lifted as he drew in a quick breath. “I’d rather you didn’t.”
Winter nodded. “Thought so.” She kissed him then trailed her mouth down his chest to his stomach, feeling his muscles clench in reaction, and across the abdomen to the pelvis, carefully skirting his cock. She settled down between his thighs and licked and sucked each sac in turn, feeling and hearing Nial’s tension and hissing response each time. Then she nibbled and licked her way up the shaft of his cock, tasting her own juices along the way. The head throbbed as her lips drew closer and Nial gave a soft moan.
Winter closed her mouth over the entire head, drawing it deeper, deeper and deeper into her.
Nial clutched at her hair, gasping.
She finally relented, withdrawing and letting her teeth bump gently over the glans, and her tongue to stroke the seam as she sucked.
Then she began a steady in and out stroking rhythm with her lips and tongue while she stroked the base of his shaft and testicles with her hands.
Nial’s hands clenched in her hair and his hips lifted an inch or so as his excitement built. She could feel the head of his cock swelling with pre-cum and his growing orgasm and hear the change in his breathing.
“Winter,” he breathed harshly.
She reached between his thighs, further back, and delicately probed his anus with the tip of her finger. She didn’t use pressure, for she had no oil. Just enough to put pressure on the prostate.
Nial jerked and cried out with the same sort of hard, guttural cry she had made, but his was deeper. Harsher. His cock spasmed and cum hit the back of her throat in short, sharp spurts.
Winter licked Nial clean and sat up. She smiled when she saw that he was breathing hard, his body depleted of oxygen and compensating with a very human reaction.
“That smile,” he growled. “Do you know what it does to me?”
She shook her head.
Nial leaned forward and picked her up around the waist, just high enough to turn her and put her on her hands and knees. Winter barely had time to be surprised before his hands slid back to her hips and his cock pushed inside her. It was no slow insertion this time. She was slick, more than aroused and ready to receive him and Nial thrust deep into her like a sword is returned to the sheath. Quick and hard.
Winter cried out at the sudden possession.
“That is what you do to me,” Nial muttered. His hand brushed her hair out of the way and curled over her shoulder, lifting her up onto her knees. His hands cupped her breasts and he pulled and played with the nipples and stroked the flesh, making her rub herself up against his chest, her pussy clenching around him.
His lips moved against her shoulder. “Right now, right at this moment, I don’t feel cursed at all, Winter.”
She reached back to slide her hand through his hair. “Nial…”
“Look at us,” he murmured and turned his head to look at the window.
She shifted her gaze slightly to the right and saw what Nial did. For a moment, because of the distortion of the glass reflection, she saw strangers. The impression she got from the image she saw was overwhelming passion. It bloomed and pulsed from both of them like an aura. Then she saw Nial. He was locked against her, ready to explode with…everything, her mind whispered.
The stimulus she got from that surprising glimpse made her gasp and arch back. “Oh, god!”
she moaned. She grasped Nial’s hand and brought it to her clitoris. It was too late. Her climax was blooming deep in her. She gasped as his fingers pressed up against the tiny organ.
“You see what I see,” Nial murmured, his teeth brushing her neck. Then he bit her.
There was the tiniest sharp pain, then her climax seemed to explode through her system like it was on steroids. It doubled, tripled, and re-energized itself, setting off chains of pleasure fireworks in nerve bundles and centres throughout her body that normally stayed quiescent.
Winter could feel her throat straining, her whole body stretching hard and taut as the climax claimed her attention. Until finally it let her be and she grew aware of the room once more, Nial’s arms, his cock inside her body, his chest against her back and how bright it seemed all at once.
She blinked. Nial was licking her neck and it stung a bit.
“You bit me,” she said hoarsely.
“I also drank some of your blood,” he said. “Just a small amount. It’s a sexual thing. It makes your climax more powerful, because there’s an aphrodisiac in my bite.” He kissed her neck. “You taste wonderful, by the way.”
“That’s what happened?” She shook her head a little. “I wish I could return the favor.”
Nial chuckled. “You have already.”
That was not the last time Nial reached for her that night and Winter finally understood his warning about letting him know when she was sleepy. He was indefatigable—literally.
Winter felt no inclination to sleep and couldn’t seem to get enough of Nial. Every time they climaxed she thought that perhaps this time she would be able to let him go, but would find herself reaching for him again. She kept adjusting her body, making it adapt and heal to cope with the petty abuses of great sex.
At one point Nial lifted her onto the wide leather sofa, so that she was on her knees facing the back of it. He patted her ass. “There’s one place I haven’t taken you yet.”
Winter looked over her shoulder at him. “I haven’t…I don’t…I mean…”
Nial raised a brow. “Really?”
“I’ve tried,” she admitted. “The idea is—well, it’s appealing.”
Blood Knot Page 15
