He lowered her to the sofa. This time there would be more than a heated sexual moment that came and went too quickly. This time they would be naked and he would be inside her, and… oh, my. His mouth was warm on her breasts, and vampires were not warm. They were dead and cold. Unless they’d just fed and he’d picked up something besides flowers while he was out. Simon wasn’t at all cold. In fact, his skin was hot, and she was almost certain she could hear the beat of his heart against her belly, where his chest rested as he sucked her nipple deep into his mouth. She wanted him at her neck again, but certainly didn’t complain. He would return there soon enough, she imagined.
He didn’t move back to her neck, not right away. Instead he unfastened her skirt and began to shimmy it down.
“Not so fast,” she said. “Not this time.”
“Trust me, this won’t be fast.”
She found comfort in those words, comfort from this man she’d suspected of being a vampire moments earlier. What silly thoughts, thoughts she easily dismissed as he kissed his way down her body, which was naked but for the gold cross she’d taken to wearing. He didn’t seem to mind that tiny piece of gold, which was yet another point in his favor.
It wasn’t the only point in his favor, not by a long shot. Simon Darrow had a fine, sensuous mouth that was determined to explore every inch of her body. Where she was ticklish, where she was sensitive, where she had never been kissed before, he tasted her. He even lifted her leg and kissed her behind one knee, introducing her to an unexpected burst of joy. She felt that surge of joy everywhere, and yes, if he’d touched her where she was wet for him she would’ve come. She would’ve screamed. Again.
It occurred to her, as Simon trailed that lovely mouth very slowly up her inner thigh, that he was still completely dressed. That was so wrong.
“Take off your clothes,” she whispered, her voice raspy and demanding.
He laughed lightly; his breath was warm against her skin. “Not yet.” He spread her thighs and touched her intimately with his tongue. He flicked that tongue, he teased her with light strokes and flickers, and then he moved in and rasped against her harder, fiercer. Claire came so hard she screamed and her back arched up off the couch. She grabbed Simon’s head and pulled him closer, and he didn’t fight her but pressed harder and deeper, slipping his tongue inside her as she shook.
And he still hadn’t bitten her, not once.
“You said it wouldn’t be fast,” she said breathlessly, delirious and sad, shaking and satisfied, needy and happy.
“It’s not over, Claire,” he promised as he crept up and over her body and finally, once again, placed his mouth at her throat and sucked against that sensitive skin. “Women are wondrous creatures who can come again and again and again in a very short period of time.”
“I’ve heard that’s true,” she said as she turned her head more to the side to allow him the greatest possible access. He nipped at her skin, but just a little. Naked, entirely vulnerable and recently satisfied, her mind began to work somewhat properly. What if she only imagined that Simon was warm and that his heart beat? That could be part of the spell he had cast on her. Why else would she be so, well, easy? Not that she was complaining. Far from it. In all the books she read vampires were sensuous creatures who wallowed in intense sexual encounters. She certainly felt as if she were wallowing at the moment.
She no longer thought Simon was a vampire. Not conclusively. There was one other test she could try tonight, just to be certain. The sun had already set, so she couldn’t study what happened to him in the daylight. Not for several more hours, at least. But there was a mirror in her bedroom, and if she could see his reflection in it she’d be satisfied.
Claire took Simon’s head in her hands and drew his wonderful mouth away from her neck. “You have to be at least six-foot-two, and this sofa isn’t more than five feet long.”
“I can manage.”
“I have a perfectly good bed.”
“Beds are boring and ordinary. Everyone has sex in a bed.” His eyebrows lifted slightly. “What about the kitchen counter? The balcony? The elevator?” He grinned quite wickedly.
“I know you prefer odd, but I really am boring and ordinary,” she said as she reached down to fiddle with and then unfasten his belt buckle. He strained the denim with his erection, and she couldn’t wait to have him in her hands, to touch him, to arouse him the way he’d aroused her. She gently forced him up and back, and placed her mouth on his neck. Yes, he was most definitely warm. His heart pounded. He shuddered, and she was glad.
“You’re neither boring nor ordinary,” he said. “You just haven’t discovered that for yourself yet. I see it, even if you don’t.”
Claire knew the truth about herself. She was nothing if not pragmatic. She was average-looking, and her hair was an ordinary dark blond that rarely did what she wanted it to do. She was usually between ten and fifteen pounds overweight, and there was a variety of clothes in three different sizes in her closet. Fat clothes, everyday clothes, and a handful of very nice I have a dream clothes.
She was a failure where men were concerned. More rightly, they had always failed her, which was why she now satisfied herself with reading on weekends instead of dating or painting her toenails and shaving her legs for some man who in the end…
But now was not the time for that old tirade. A very handsome man who was hard for her had promised her again and again. And maybe another again. She’d lost count. If she could just prove to herself decisively that he wasn’t a vampire, he might be the perfect man. At least for a while. No man was perfect forever.
“But you want the bed anyway, don’t you,” Simon whispered.
“Yes.”
“Fine.” Unsnapped and unzipped, still more dressed than not, Simon left the couch. He offered her his hand and she took it. He pulled her up and headed for the bedroom. It wasn’t as if he had to search. The apartment was laid out just like his own, in a mirror image.
Speaking of mirrors…
She led Simon toward the bed, and when they were in the center of the small room she stopped and turned to face the mirror above her dresser. There he was, gorgeous and black-clad and somehow animalistic. He definitely had a wild magnetism. She was so happy to see him there, reflected in all his human glory, that she smiled… until she realized that she was there, too, in all her fifteen-pounds-overweight glory.
“Yikes.” She turned away and headed very quickly for the bed and the safety of a coverlet she could hide beneath. She jumped into the bed and pulled the lilac comforter across the plumpest part of her exposed body.
Simon followed her at a slower pace, laughing. Not at her, at least, she didn’t think so. When he peeled back the comforter that she’d grabbed to protect herself from his gaze, his smile disappeared and his eyes narrowed. “Don’t hide. You’re gorgeous.”
Claire knew she was anything but, but she didn’t argue. At this moment, so turned on he was probably not seeing straight, Simon believed it to be true. That was enough for her. At the moment she didn’t even care if he was a vampire or not. He’d brought her flowers and thought she was gorgeous and made her come so hard her head was still spinning. Nothing else mattered.
He quickly shed his clothes, and she was not disappointed by the body he revealed. Lean and perfectly sculpted, he had a runner’s body. And an impressive erection she couldn’t look away from. If he was shy at all, she’d never seen any evidence of that shyness. If he had a single second thought or an ounce of hesitation, he hid it well.
Even if it was their first time together, there would be no awkwardness, no uncomfortable moments where she wondered what he expected of her or they bumped foreheads. No, this was an extraordinary night, and Claire felt as if she were caught in a wonderful dream, as Simon joined her in the bed.
The sensation of his bare body against hers was breathtaking, and when he kissed her on the mouth she held his head in her hands and gave the kiss all she had, because she could give him no less. Ins
tinctively she wrapped her legs around him, pulling him close, pulling him toward what she craved.
“Oh!” She twitched and pulled away slightly. “I’m such an idiot! Do you have protection? A condom?” Anything?
“I can’t have children, and I carry no disease.” The words were pragmatic. Simply spoken.
“Why should I take your word about that?” she asked, certain that many a woman had been fooled by similar promises.
“I will never lie to you, Claire.”
She shivered to the bone. Those were important words, and he spoke them as if they were absolute truth. Of course, she wasn’t sure any man was capable of never lying. Still, the expression in his eyes was one of honesty as well as passion. Maybe she was a fool, but she believed him.
Yesterday she’d been stalking him down the hallway, convinced he was a vampire. Tonight he was in her bed, and she didn’t care what he was.
He understood that she liked his attentions at her neck, and while he didn’t neglect the rest of her body he spent many wonderful moments there. Claire touched the hard curves and planes of his body, and discovered that he was particularly sensitive just below the belly button, especially if she touched him there with the tip of her tongue. As she had suspected, there was no awkwardness, no hesitation.
Her curtains were open, so moonlight lit Simon’s face as he spread her thighs and guided himself into her. Making love with him was like dancing with a lifelong partner, like waltzing without conscious thought—and maybe an inch or two above the dance floor. She didn’t think at all with him inside her, not about vampires, not about being odd or boring, not about mirrors or crosses or garlic. There was just his body and hers and the way they came together.
It did cross her mind once, briefly, that the water on the stove was probably boiling by now, but it was a thought that didn’t last long.
Simon looked at her face, he held her eyes with his as he rocked above and inside her, pushing deeper and deeper with each thrust. The way he looked at her… he saw her, truly saw her in a way no one else ever had. He knew her. He wanted her.
He held himself deep, and for a half second it seemed that his dark eyes were touched with streaks of red. Flashes of fire lit the depths. Claire came again, and with Simon inside her it was more powerful than before, more important. More complete. Her body convulsed around his, and he came, too. They were so incredibly connected, so very much together, that she wondered why she’d ever been satisfied with anything less.
And to top it all off, like the cherry on top of a hot fudge sundae, he drifted down and kissed her neck.
Claire’s job was undeniably tedious, and on Wednesday her mind was elsewhere as she mindlessly entered data into her computer. She yawned a time or two, and fielded the questions from her coworkers who were sequestered in nearby cubicles. Do you feel OK? Are you coming down with something? You look like you didn’t get enough sleep last night. What happened? You’re a little pale, someone said.
She finally decided to tell them that a noisy neighbor had kept her up half the night. That was close enough to the truth, though to be honest she was much noisier than Simon.
Maybe if she’d felt closer to any one of them she might’ve said more, but while they were friendly coworkers they weren’t exactly friends. Most of her good friends were now married and had kids, so she didn’t see any of them on a regular basis, not like in the old days. Oh, they got together and had lunch now and then, but the talk always turned to potty training and which kid had learned the alphabet at the earliest age and which schools in the area were the most acceptable. None of them lived close by; they’d all located in areas outside the city, where the streets were quiet and the schools stellar.
There were occasional weekend barbecues or infrequent and horrific blind dates that made conversations about three-year-olds seem scintillating. No, her friends had changed, and so had she. Claire didn’t feel like she could call even them to share what had happened.
Besides, what had happened with Simon last night had felt so very, very personal. More intimate than sex, more important than the laughing and the touching and the orgasms.
This morning was still a blur. Simon had given her a fabulous kiss that had led to more, and then he’d gone home—a conveniently short trip. Claire had been left with no time to get ready for work. She’d showered quickly and blindly grabbed clothes from the closet. The long blue skirt and blouse were comfortable. If the blues didn’t exactly match and she’d forgotten to put in earrings, well, if anyone noticed the lack was excused because she hadn’t gotten much sleep.
She’d never gotten around to putting on those sexy shoes that made her legs look good. Maybe tonight—if there was a tonight.
More than once during the day she’d remembered that moment when it had seemed she saw fire in Simon’s eyes. She hadn’t been herself at the time, and there was a red neon light across the street. Maybe his head had been in just the right position at that moment to catch a glare. That had to be it.
There were logical explanations for all the clues that had led her to believe he was a vampire. The dirt might’ve some from a potted plant, even though Simon didn’t have any living plants—or fake ones, for that matter—in his apartment. Someone might’ve been passing by with a plant and stumbled as they were walking past his door. The howl might’ve been an overly excited Fluffy or—considering some of the sounds she’d made last night—a very happy woman somewhere on the third floor. The hypnotizing eyes… Simon just had great eyes, and that was enough of an explanation to suit her.
So she didn’t tell anyone that she’d suspected her neighbor of being a vampire, or that she’d decided she was wrong and last night they’d eaten spaghetti in her kitchen—both of them starving from marvelously vigorous and unrestrained sex—she wearing nothing but her bathrobe, he in nothing but those incredibly sexy black jeans. She didn’t tell them that for the first time in a very long time, she was happy. Tired, but happy.
Happy as she was, she tried not to get her hopes too high. She’d been burned before, after all. A man who wanted a woman in bed might say or do anything to get her there, and then… then there were phone calls that never came, an old girlfriend who just happened to make an appearance, or that horrible “It’s not you, it’s me.” For all she knew she’d get home and find out that her neighbor had moved during the day just to get away from her, or else he’d have a wife who’d show up out of nowhere, or else—worst of all—he’d ignore her and pretend that nothing had happened.
Claire was thinking about Simon so intently her fingers quit moving across the keyboard. She simply stared at the screen, imagining the worst. The worst, at this moment, had nothing to do with vampires.
She jumped when the phone on her desk rang, and answered it quickly with a too-curt, “Claire Murphy.”
“Hello, Claire Murphy.”
She smiled. No one else had a voice like that. No one else could make her shudder simply by saying her name. “Hi, Simon.”
“What are you doing?”
“Working.” Trying to, anyway. Her heart lurched. “How did you get this number?”
“I asked the building manager where you worked, and then I used all my detective skills to thumb through a phone book.”
Would he go to so much trouble just to inform her over the phone that it wasn’t going to work? That he was already tired of her? That he was married?
“What time do you get off work?” he asked, and when he did the connection faltered a little. Apparently he was calling from his cell phone.
“Four-thirty.”
“That’s too long. Ever leave work early?”
“Sometimes.”
“Leave now,” he said, his voice low and commanding and sexy as hell. “Right now.”
Claire’s heart fluttered. “I really shouldn’t…”
“To hell with shouldn’t. I need you.”
Her mouth went dry, while between her legs she was anything but. “I suppose I can take half
a sick day.”
“Do it.”
With that, he ended the call. No “See you later,” no “Bye, now,” no “I can’t wait.” Just a command and a click and a dial tone.
Claire closed down her computer program and picked up her purse. Her hands were trembling, and she couldn’t wait to get home. Usually on pretty days she walked home, and on less than pretty days she took the bus. Maybe today she’d grab a taxi. It would get her home quicker than walking or a bus. She informed her boss that she was going home, and since she’d been yawning and droopy-eyed all day he didn’t give her the third degree. In fact, he told her that she looked a little flushed and should stay home until she was sure she didn’t have anything contagious.
Claire agreed and headed for the elevator with a decidedly un-sick spring in her step. Simon needed her. All the way down to the ground floor she had one thought in her mind. Please don’t let him be a vampire or a jerk. Let him be just a guy. Maybe even the guy.
Less than a minute later she stepped off the elevator intent on grabbing a taxi and quickly making her way home, but she hadn’t taken two steps before a hand fell on her shoulder. She almost screamed she was so startled, but when she spun around she smiled widely and her heart… her heart did something odd and unexpected.
“I told you I couldn’t wait,” Simon said. He took her hand and they headed for the front door. “I can’t get you out of my head,” he mumbled, and he didn’t sound entirely happy about the fact.
“I thought about you today, a time or two,” Claire said, hefting her purse on her shoulder and picking up the pace. Simon’s steps were longer than hers.
“I went to bed after you left for work, and I woke up thinking about you,” he said.
“Only good thoughts, I hope.”
“What do you think?” He looked at her, and his step instantly altered. For her, he took shorter, slower steps.
At that moment Claire realized that her life had changed. In a matter of hours, everything had changed. She realized that she had found the perfect man. She realized that if Simon was a vampire… she didn’t care. Not that she could tell him any of that. Not yet.
Moonlight Becomes You: a short story Page 3
