by Mara Leigh
“Who are you running from?” he asks.
I lean back against the cushions. “Seems to me, I’m the one who needs answers. What are you?”
“You go first.”
The sexy vibe in the room turns off like a switch as we eye each other with an entirely different kind of interest.
His huge hands slide along the arms of his chair and then grip the leather, his fingers digging in deeply before relaxing. “You have no reason to be frightened,” he says. “I would never hurt you.”
“How do I know that?” My voice doesn’t come out as strong as I’d like. Suddenly I feel vulnerable, alone. And frightened. I hate that.
He runs his hand through his hair, the long parts on top still damp from the shower, then slowly shakes his head. “Best I can do is tell you the truth.”
“And what truth is that?” I’m in his basement, lured down here by lust and a false sense of safety. For all I know he’s about to kill me. Or worse. I am very familiar with worse.
“Let’s start with this,” he says softly. “How about I tell you what I know about you?”
I stiffen. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know that you’re frightened. I know someone’s chasing you. And I know what you are.”
Fear grips me like a straight jacket formed from silver, and I press back into the corner of the sofa. “Are you working for him?”
“For who? For whoever’s chasing you?” His expression is horrified. “No. I don’t even know who that is, except that it’s a vampire. A powerful one, if I had to guess. More powerful than that dandy who confronted you earlier.”
“Dandy?”
He shakes his head to dismiss my question. “How long have you been a vampire? Who turned you? Why aren’t you still under the protection of your Maker? Or a syndicate?”
I suck in a sharp breath. I suspected that he’d figured out my secret, but to hear all of it confirmed so bluntly… Rock has all the power at the moment and I hate that.
I straighten. “Your turn. You know what I am. What the hell are you, because you sure aren’t human.”
He draws a long breath, then leans forward in his chair, the leather and wood creaking under his weight. “You’re right. I’m not human.”
“Then what?”
“A giant.” He looks down. “Or part giant, I think.”
“You think?” I blink, waiting for him to say more. “A giant? Like Jack and the Beanstalk?” Sounds like bullshit.
“Giant is the only thing anyone’s ever called me. I never met my people. I already told you I never knew my parents.”
“You never knew them? Not at all?” I ran away from mine at an early age and with good reason, but I can’t imagine how lonely it would feel to not even know who either of my parents were. At least I knew my mom.
He folds his arms, almost hugging himself. “My first real memories are from when I lived and worked in a circus. That was the only life I knew—for decades. I don’t even have flashes from any life before that.”
“Decades?” I was wrong. He’s older than thirty.
“I was a main attraction in one of the biggest traveling freak shows to come out of Ireland.”
“I knew you were Irish.” I try to swallow a smug smile.
He shrugs. “Thing is, I don’t think I am Irish. I looked about ten when I joined the circus—so the others told me—and when I joined them I didn’t know a word of English—or Gaelic. My friends guessed I was from one of the Scandinavian countries but I didn’t speak any of those languages either.”
“You didn’t speak at all?”
“Oh, I spoke. Just not in a language anyone else could understand.”
“Wow.” I relax and turn, absorbing this as I lean back against the sofa’s arm and stretch one of my legs along its back. I take a small sip of whiskey.
“When was this?”
“Late eighteen hundreds.”
I choke on my whiskey, narrowing avoiding a spit take. “What? You’re, like, well over a hundred years old?”
One side of his mouth quirks up. “Yup. So you’d better learn to respect your elders, young lady.” He wags his finger, then the moment of joking vanishes from his expression as he leans forward. “At least I assume I’m your elder. How long ago were you turned? How did it happen?”
“Less than two years ago and…” And I have no idea how it happened. At least, not the transformation part.
“So recent. You’re so young…”
I frown. “I am not that young.”
“In vampire terms you are.” He closes his eyes for a moment. “And I…” He drags a whistling breath through his lips.
“What?”
“Knowing your age, I’m even more glad I…” His smile turns patronizing. “Wow.”
“Glad of what?” I straighten my back, coming out of my sofa slump.
“I’m fecking glad I didn’t let that kiss go any further.”
My cheeks heat as anger and disappointment swirl inside me. Reducing what happened between us to the word kiss seems insulting. And I don’t like him treating me like a child, his inferior.
“What makes you think I would have let it go any further? Maybe I was just luring you in so I could feed on you? Maybe I still plan to.”
He raises his palms toward me in surrender, but he’s still looking at me like I’m a child.
“I could do it, you know. I’m very strong.”
“I have no doubt.”
I stand, rising at a speed humans can’t detect, and leap onto the ottoman near his feet. “You don’t believe me.”
When he looks up at me, he tips his head to the side, exposing his vein. “Drink if you’re going to.”
His submission fuels my indignation. “I’m not hungry. Besides, giant blood smells rancid.”
His head straightens quickly, and hurt flashes in his eyes.
“Thanks for the whiskey.” I drop the empty glass and it smashes on the stone floor at the edge of the carpet. “I’m out of here.”
“That was Waterford,” he says as I cross the room.
“What?” I turn back.
“Waterford crystal. A long-ago discontinued pattern. Can’t be replaced.”
Twinges of guilt and embarrassment shoot through me. “So what? I’m a freaking vampire. I do what I want.” I head for the stairs, but he beats me there, blocking my escape route with his bulk. How did he move so quickly?
“Let me go.” Panic creeps into my bravado. Maybe his giant story wasn’t total bull.
Maybe I am captive here. Maybe he plans to eat me after he punishes me with that monstrous cock.
“You can’t leave,” he says.
A far too familiar switch flips inside me. I leap forward, clawing at him, trying to get past him and up the stairs. “Let me go. Let me go. Please. I can’t be a prisoner again. Let me go. Please.”
“Selina.” He holds me tightly, his arms like steel bands as he lets me rail against him, his hard body absorbing each blow. “It’s dawn. You can’t go outside.”
I continue to fight, but the reality of his words sinks in. Even if he does plan to torture me, to rape me, to kill me, I’m stuck here. I can’t leave. Not for the next fourteen hours or so, anyway. Spring at this latitude sucks for vampires.
As I relax in his arms, his hold turns gentler, and in spite of myself I start to sob. There are no tears, that’s the one bodily fluid that disappeared after my transition, but every other part of my body lets loose, the stress and adrenaline that built up through my months of captivity, for years before that, all release at once.
Rock strokes my back, absorbing my pain, and when I calm down, he carries me back to the sofa, setting me down in one corner and then claiming the other, keeping some distance between us.
He remains quiet, calm, letting me recover and not pushing or coddling me in any way. Looking into his eyes is too intense, so instead I focus on the slow rise and fall of his massive chest, wondering where he gets clothes
big enough to fit the wide expanse.
A giant. I’ve never heard of such a thing outside of fairy tales. If I feel alone, imagine how he feels if he’s never known another one of his kind, if he’s not even truly sure what he is.
I wipe under my eyes—an old human reflex. “When did you figure out that I was a vampire?”
His lips twitch. “The instant I pulled that rapist off you in the alley.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“If I had, would you have let me help you?”
I shake my head.
He shrugs as if this is all the explanation required and I suppose it is. I still don’t feel as safe as I did earlier.
I know it would be smart to be cautious, but I wish I could get back to how I felt earlier. I wish I could kiss him, feel his arms around me, again. But you can’t always get what you want. That’s the one thing I know to be true.
What I felt earlier with Rock—the safety, the connection between us—it was too good to be true.
He’s right that I can’t leave while it’s light, but sooner or later he’ll go up to his bar and as soon as it’s dark I’ll make my escape.
Chapter 8
Rock
Fighting my body’s urge to gather Selina into my arms, I press my back against the sofa, fearing I’ll break the strong oak it’s formed from.
Someone has hurt Selina, badly, and when I find him, I will crush him between my bare palms. I will grind his body into dust and sweep his remains into the sewer where it belongs.
“Who hurt you?” I ask softly. “Was it your Maker?”
She shakes her head.
I get another glass for her and pour us both more whiskey, leaving the bottle on the floor beside me.
“Sorry for breaking your glass,” she says softly.
“Apology accepted.”
“It was a childish reaction. I’m so embarrassed.”
“No need.”
She sips the whiskey, then runs her fingers through her tangled hair. “Is it okay if I take a shower?”
“Yes.” I shake my head. “Sorry. Of course. I should have offered. I don’t have any clothes that will fit you, but if you want something clean, help yourself to anything you can find. Bathroom’s through there.” I gesture toward my bedroom.
She smiles softly. “I figured that out.”
Damned vampire hearing. Did she hear me in the shower? Hear the shameful thing I did there? But stroking myself to climax was the only way I could remove the danger of my desire. Desire like I haven’t felt in nearly a hundred years.
I clear my throat. “There’s a fresh towel on the shelf and soap in the shower—I don’t have any fancy shampoo or anything.”
“That’s okay.” She sets her glass on the floor and pads across the room, turning back at the bedroom door. “After I get cleaned up, I’ll answer some of your questions. Okay?”
“Whenever you’re ready.”
She disappears into my bedroom and just the thought of her walking past my bed makes my pecker twitch and it threatens to stiffen again. Since I escaped the circus, the mere idea of my weaponized cock has been so revolting that every time I feel it tingle I’ve managed to stop it. Before tonight.
I haven’t been stiff like that for decades—nothing beyond a hint of hardness I could calm with my mind as soon as it started—but tonight there was no other solution but hard strokes to remove my shame.
As soon as I laid palm to rod in the shower I came quickly and violently. Even after I tamed the monster, it’s taken every ounce of concentration and control I possess to keep the damn thing from rearing its ugly head again—especially when I held her after her tantrum.
Selina is so frightened, and her attempt at bravery erupted as anger. I need to show her she can trust me. If she comes back from her shower to find my monster bulging against my jeans, it will not help set her at ease. I need to fight my brutish instincts and keep my cock tame. I thought the circus had cured my body of that affliction forever.
I shudder. I cannot, I will not let loose my sexual beast—never again—and especially not with Selina. Even if she has the ability to heal, unlike the other females I’ve ruined, I would tear her apart, and that would tear me apart.
I pace, trying to make a plan.
As I was trailing her through the streets tonight, I sensed another presence following her. But every time I tried to spot my fellow stalker, he vanished.
But I feel sure it was a vampire, and a male one, and it’s clear that Selina needs help beyond what I’m qualified to provide. She doesn’t even seem to fully understand what she is or all she can do.
Malcolm could help, but he can’t travel in daylight and besides, I want her to trust me before introducing my powerful vampire friend. What if he wants another mate?
Rehearsing all the questions burning inside me and considering the least threatening way to ask them, I pace toward the stairs for what has to be the fortieth time since she left the room.
When I turn back around she’s there, standing at the door to my bedroom, her lilac hair curling in damp tendrils over the shoulders of one of my T-shirts that hangs nearly to her shins. The sleeves are rolled up but the shoulder line rests close to her elbows.
As she passes by my art nouveau glass lamp, her face catches its light and her skin glows even more iridescent than the lamp’s mother-of-pearl shade.
Selina is so beautiful. Objectively beautiful. And subjectively too. She’s my absolute definition of beauty, especially now all the traces of makeup are gone.
And it’s not just her beauty; she’s beyond sexy, the most intoxicating combination of strength and fragility I’ve witnessed in my lifetime.
As she slowly advances, I run my hand over the stubble on my chin, watching her chest rise and fall with the force of her long slow breaths. Exhales I can imagine caressing my skin, my lips, my…
My lower body contracts as I expel a hard breath. Have I ever experienced desire so strong? This potent combination of sexual attraction and connection? This overwhelming desire to protect her, to possess her, to have her possess me?
I shake my head. I haven’t felt desire like this since I was very young—if ever. I haven’t allowed it.
For decades I convinced myself that I could shut down any hint of desire and hold my sex drive at bay, that I could intentionally shut down that part of me, but what I felt when I kissed her, what I’m feeling at this moment, exposes the notion of my self control as a fecking joke.
If we ever start kissing again… We cannot.
“I borrowed a shirt.” She tugs down on the hem and the peaks of her breasts press against the fabric.
“I see that.”
“Hope that’s okay.”
A smile grows from inside me. “It’s perfect.”
She lets the hem go, and all the air rushes out of my chest.
Strolling toward me, she scans everything she passes and drinks in my home in a way that fills me with pride, then she reclaims her spot in the corner of the sofa and picks up her discarded whiskey.
“Feel better?” I grab my glass and sit at the sofa’s other end, turning slightly toward her.
Twisting to lean back and stretch her legs between us, she nods. “Much. Thank you. I couldn’t wait to wash every trace of his…”
“Whose blood was it?” I ask after waiting a few moments for her to finish her sentence. I have so many questions that I have no idea where I should start.
Her eyes fill with fear and then hatred. But neither seems directed at me. She casts her gaze down.
“You can trust me, Selina. Let me help. Please. I can’t explain it, but I want to help you more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my entire life.” And I mean it. I want her to be safe and happy. “What happened to you?”
“It’s a long story.” Her face fills with pain.
I want to hold her, but it’s too risky. Besides, I should give her space, let her come to me if she needs comfort as badly as I’m desperate
to give it.
“Why don’t we start with when you were turned,” I say softly.
Drawing a long breath, she shrugs. “There’s not much to tell about that.”
I tip my head toward her, raising my eyebrows a little.
“I got attacked in an alley.” She laughs sharply. “Just like tonight. You’d think I’d have learned to stay out of alleys by now, right?”
I raise my glass toward her, hoping she’ll continue.
“It was the same day I dyed my hair purple.” She twirls a lock of damp hair around her finger.
“That’s why it stuck.”
She leans forward over her perfect legs and rests her hands on her shins. “Is that why it stayed purple?” She shakes her head. “But I got my nails done that day, too, and the polish was gone in weeks.” She wiggles her tiny fingers.
“Nail polish doesn’t penetrate the cells. Hair dye does. But only if you dye it before you turn. If you dyed it now, it would only last a couple of days, at best.”
Her eyes narrow. “You know an awful lot about vampires.”
“And if I might say so, you don’t. Why didn’t your Maker teach you? Why aren’t you still under his protection?”
“Hers.”
My eyes widen with surprise. Beautiful young thing like Selina, I just assumed her Maker was male. But then again, sex isn’t usually the reason vampires make babies. They make them as allies, to gain power. But then why desert her?
Selina drains the rest of her whiskey. “You haven’t explained how you know so much about vampires.”
I lift the bottle to pour her more, but she holds her glass back. “There’s no point in trying to get me drunk, you know.”
I chuckle. “I know. But you seem to appreciate a good whiskey.”
“It’s delicious.” She licks the taste off her upper lip. “But that’s got to be pricey. I don’t want to waste it.”
“Lots more where this came from. I own a bar, remember?” I reach the bottle toward her and she lets me fill her glass before I top up my own.
“And don’t think you can distract me with this magical elixir.” She looks at me through the amber-liquid-filled crystal. “You still haven’t answered my question. Why do you know so much about vampires?”
