William stopped short, staring at me long and hard. After a few seconds he sighed, almost wistfully, before running his hand over his face and down along his chin.
“You really are exquisite. You know that right?”
I shrugged. “I get by.”
“No really, when was the last time you looked at yourself? I mean, really, truly looked?”
“I don’t spend a lot of time gazing at myself in the mirror, if that’s what you’re asking. And while I’ve had my fair share of lovers—” he cocked an eye at this bold statement “—none have professed an undying love and devotion to my beauty.”
“You’ve been with the wrong men,” he answered, his words filled with an undercurrent of possessiveness. One he hadn’t earned and yet, paradoxically, sent shivers down my spine.
I shrugged again, a knowing smile on my lips. “Perhaps I have.”
We were treading on dangerous, sexually charged ground and we both knew it.
Dropping the sexy, coy attitude, I motioned to the sofa. “Anyway, enough about that. Come, sit. I have about a hundred questions running through my head and you promised to tell me what you could.”
William sat, but not next to me. Instead, he rigidly occupied the other end of the sofa; close enough that I could feel the weight of him but not so close as to prove a distraction. While I had settled myself in for an hours-long discussion, he sat stiffly, wooden.
“Where do you want me to begin?”
“Let’s start by you relaxing a bit. If we’re going to be here all night, there’s no point in you not getting comfortable.”
“I am comfortable. Or rather, I’m not uncomfortable. This doesn’t bother me.” He ran his hand in an up and down motion along his torso, meant to convey his erect stature.
“Well, it bothers me to look at you. I’d prefer not to converse with someone who looks as if they’re sitting down to an interrogation.”
William exhaled then leaned back into the plush cushions, turning his body just a fraction to face me. Bringing his leg up, he rested his forearm across his knee. The movement was so quick that had I not been staring at him, I wouldn’t have seen it happen. With him sitting there, looking like that, I wondered if maybe I didn’t like it better when he looked tense and uncomfortable. His sensual, laid back posture brought to mind all sorts of things I didn’t want to think about. An unsettled, anxious feeling took root in the pit of my stomach.
“Better?”
I swallowed and the sound seemed to fill the silence of the room. “Yes, much.”
“Happy to comply,” he answered, and I wondered if I was reading too much into his words or the tone of his voice. There’d been nothing provocative about them, but they had me thinking sexy thoughts all the same.
Inwardly pushing my lust aside, I asked, “By the way, how do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Go from looking like a statue one minute to a man without a care in the world the next.”
“Movement isn’t something I think all that much about. I could sit completely frozen for the entire day if I had to. A lot of the body language I’ve picked up over the years is more about keeping the people around me comfortable than myself.”
“So why this charade?” I asked, indicating the completely relaxed pose before me. “If it doesn’t matter one way or the other, why not just sit normally … instead of like that?” I asked, flapping my hand exasperatedly in his direction.
“Does this bother you too?”
I looked away, but not before seeing the same self-assured smirk I’d noticed the last time he’d teased me. Clearly he enjoyed our banter; which, come to think of it, so did I.
“It’s hard to concentrate when you look like that.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, come on! Surely you know the affect you have on people. Women, particularly.”
“You specifically?”
“Yes, alright. Me specifically. Like I said, I can’t think when you’re sitting there looking like … that … or when you’re looking at me like that. You know I want you. Why do you have to make this harder than it needs to be?”
He leaned forward and I scooted back, feeling like a mouse under his watchful feline grace.
“So why fight it?” he asked seductively, the timbre of his voice sending goosebumps down my body. “Like you said, you want me. And I want you to want me. More than you can possibly know.”
He moved again, too quickly for my eyes to process his intentions. In less than two heartbeats he was leaning over me, his right knee between my thighs, his hands resting on the arm of the couch behind my head. I felt trapped, physically and emotionally. William’s face gave away nothing of his thoughts but his stare did strange things to me, made me feel things no other man before had made me feel. It should have been uncomfortable but I welcomed it. While unnerving, I felt alive, my senses on full alert, body teeming with awareness.
William had touched me a few innocent times back at the hotel, but I only now realized his his hands had been warm. And then I remembered him moving back and forth between the fire and the sofa. In the car, he’d put his hand on my thigh, leaving a frigid patch of skin in its wake. Having felt William’s cold, steely palm against my clothed body, I knew part of the legends were true, but sitting here like this—held captive by his body and his eyes—I was conscious of a monumental heat flowing between us, a warmth born of intense mutual desire and the magic that was our connection.
“Don’t fight it.”
I couldn’t, so I didn’t. I gave in to what we both wanted so desperately—each other.
Chapter Seventeen
Olivia
I placed my hands on either side of Williams’s face, drawing him down so that our lips could meet. Feeling his icy breath flow over me in a frosty caress, I shivered in anticipation. Staring into the fathomless azure of William’s gaze, I willed him to see into the depths of my soul and accept me for the woman I was today, not the one I’d been in 1658, the one he’d loved with a deep and abiding passion that spanned centuries.
“I’m yours,” I told him. “Me, Olivia. Not Ceara. You can have all of me—heart, body, mind, and soul—but it has to be me you want, not her.”
So close and yet still too far apart, William eased himself down so that our bodies touched hip to chest. Nestling his face in the crook of my neck, I felt him place a tender kiss on my skin before he leaned back and captured my gaze.
I heard his voice in my head: “I honor you, Olivia. You are mine.”
My body quaked with a longing I’d never known. For him, for honor, for love and respect, and for the two of us—William and Olivia—and all that we could be.
A low, rumbling growl escaped his mouth and I gasped, startled by the fierce longing I heard echoed back at me in that fleeting sound. Staring into my eyes and deep within my soul, William stroked my face and neck with strong, icy hands, his eyes never once leaving me. He lowered his face to mine, slowly, and moaned before capturing my mouth in a wave of desire and yearning. When our tongues tangled, it felt like I’d finally found the piece of me that’d been missing.
At long last I was home.
I eased back from the highly intoxicating kiss, my glistening lips full and pulsing with an aching hunger for more.“Tell me,” I whispered. “Tell me you want me as much as I want you.”
“I’ve waited several lifetimes for you. You cannot know how badly I want you.”
He adjusted his position above me so that I felt the hardness and strength of his need nestled at the junction of my thighs. I arched my hips against him in response, in offering of a sweeter, more decadent fulfillment to come. My breath fast and heavy, I thrust my hands into his blue-black hair and none-too-gently pulled him in for a kiss that made him forget the gentleness of our previous one. Our lips fought for supremacy, tongues battled for dominance.
It was raw.
It was carnal.
It was exquisite.
Leaving my mouth beref
t of his sensual exploration, William kissed his way down my jaw to the racing pulse point in my neck where he licked, laved, and made me delirious with desire.
“Oh god, please,” I begged, rubbing up against him like a cat in heat, a frenzied writhing that created an even more wonderful—terrible—tension in my body. “I want you William.”
Looking into my eyes, he whispered seductively, “And so you shall have me.”
“Now, William. I want you now!” I all but screamed.
“Patience,” he intoned, kissing me deep again.
I growled in frustration and pulled him back for a stormy, passionate kiss. Indulging my fit of temper, he chuckled into my mouth as our tongues danced together. Wrapping his sweater in my hands, I yanked it over his head, exposing the trim, coiled muscles of his abdomen. In the low light of the room he was a god, his body strong, chiseled, and all-powerful. He sat up and straddled me. Pinned beneath him, I ran my hands up his stomach to his broad, muscled chest, eliciting a shiver of desire from the immortal man. As he watched my hands explore him, I undid the button on his trousers. His breathing labored, he grabbed my hand.
“No wait. It’s my turn.”
He didn’t need to say anything more. I dragged my sweater off, revealing a black lace bra that gave way to alabaster skin flushed pink with passion. William ran his fingers over the exposed flesh of my jutting breasts, sending shivers over my skin. Despite his cold touch, I felt warm, my skin branded where his fingers explored … down the center of my torso, stopping just short of the waistband of my jeans, and back up again to trace circles around my achingly erect nipple. He pulled the lace down and took the tight, dusty rose tip between his strong, capable fingers, gently squeezing and rolling it, sending a jolt of liquid desire to my core. Between punctuated gasps of breath, I screamed out in agony and ecstasy.
“Now, please,” I begged again.
“No.”
“You’re torturing me.” I could hear the pleading in my voice but I didn’t care. I closed my eyes and turned my head, trying to ignore the hot, fiery ache of my nipples and the moisture pooling between my legs. “Please, I can’t take it anymore. I’m falling apart.”
I’d never been so aroused, filled with such need and longing, and he hadn’t even touched me yet. Not really.
“Look at me,” William demanded, his voiced laced with command.
When I opened my eyes, I gasped. Earlier I’d thought William a god, bathed in the flicker of firelight, but now looked every inch the fallen angel. Gone was any trace of the human facade he wore for our benefit. The planes of his face were held in rigid repose, his body completely and utterly motionless, no rising and falling of his chest to indicate breathing, not a twitch of the eye or nervous gesture. He was a marble statue come to life. But the biggest difference was the change to his eyes. Those radiant, cerulean orbs glowed with an inner brilliance that made them even more resplendent. He was terrifying and he was beautiful and I ached with the knowledge he would soon be mine.
When he showed me enough to make any sane woman run and hide but I’d given up my sanity the moment I’d gotten into his car. As William bared his fangs, I tried not to react but I knew he could hear my heart thundering in my chest.
“Ah, so that’s what it takes to get a reaction out of you?” He canted his head and studied me.
“I didn’t say anything,” I protested, knowing full well he was attuned to my body’s most minute change.
“You didn’t have to,” he answered, stroking the pulse point in my neck. “Your body gives you away.”
“I’m not afraid. I know I should be, but I’m not.”
“No, you’re not afraid and I’m glad of it. You shouldn’t be. I told you before, I’m in control. But I wanted to show you what it is you’re getting yourself into. For all it appears to the contrary, I am not a man. I am a monster.” An afterthought, he added, “but I try not to be one if it can be helped.”
He was giving me every reason to get up, put my clothes back on, and high tail it out of there. He was trying to scare me, test me, see what would make me break.
I scooted up and narrowed my eyes at him. “I know what you’re trying to do and I’ve already told you, I’m yours for however long you want me.” His eyes flashed with fire. “I know what you are and I want more; I want to know all of you. So if you want me too, quit trying to give me an out. I’m not going anywhere, but I’m beginning to think you unconsciously want me gone—to give you an out. Tell me to go and I’m gone, but if not, shut up and fuck me.”
I threw my arms around his neck and pulled him to me for a quick, violent kiss. He hesitated at first, but then captured my mouth with a hungry intensity of his own, his tongue urgently thrusting between my parted lips. I pulled away on a gasp almost as quickly as I’d started things.
“Now William. Enough play, make me yours.”
He growled in agreement and undid the button of my jeans, tearing the denim in his haste. As he peeled the denim from my body, his eyes stayed locked with mine, willing me to see and understand what he felt, how this affected him too. If I wasn’t already having trouble getting oxygen into my lungs, I would have said the look on his face could have taken my breath away. His features belied a mixture of unequivocal lust paired equally with an exquisite tenderness. The longing I saw there echoed my own and it shattered my heart.
I watched ravenously as William stood and removed his clothes. Standing in the flickering lights of the fire, he beckoned me to join him. As I drew near, he reached out, took my hand, and pulled me in for another soul-shattering kiss. Our mouths melded, he scooped me up into powerful arms and laid me down on a thick rug so that the flames of the fire danced off my creamy, flushed skin.
Resting on my elbows, I was aware of the visual I presented, my bounty on full display. I raised an eyebrow, inviting him to join me. William ran his fingers softly up and down my torso, sending sparks down my spine and up again. I waited for him to make the next move, but he kept caressing me, almost absentmindedly.
“I never imagined,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion. “You’re perfect. Everything about you, Olivia, is perfection. I’ve waited so long for you.” His gaze roamed my body, starting at my eyes and down along my long, lithe limbs.
Every second seemed like an eternity as he continued his sensuous, silky strokes; his cool fingers a fascinating sensation against the heat of the fire a foot away. Reaching the cleft between my thighs, he ran his fingers over my silken folds, a gentle back and forth that drove me mad. I whimpered and nudged my hips closer as his finger neared the apex of my womanhood. He tore his gaze from hands that teased my willing flesh, trailing them up my body until our eyes locked once again. Gently but deliberately he pushed one icy finger into my slick, wet heat before retreating, and then coming back for more. My back arched and I cried out as he entered me with two of his long, nimble fingers.
Moaning, I begged for more, ached to have all of him inside of me.
“A chuisle, a chroí. Mo shíorghrá,” he whispered before planting a soft kiss above my heart. “I am yours.”
I placed my hand over his unbeating heart and repeated the vow. “I am yours.”
William buried himself deep inside of me in one powerful, driving thrust, a fiery brand to seal our vow. As he joined his body to mine, I was overcome with a deep and abiding sense that he was who I’d spend my final days with. The man I wanted by my side for all of eternity. One lifetime would never be enough. With each driving thrust, I took all of him into me—mind, body, and soul. Frantic with need, I gave myself to him wholly, arching to meet each possessive thrust. Moving under him in perfect tempo with the driving rhythm he set, our bodies moved as one in perfect harmony. My body was wracked with tiny spasms, one after another, building to a crescendo of extraordinary light that left me blind and breathless. As ripples of ecstasy flowed through my soul, I cried out in abandon as another wave of pulsating pleasure brought me to another dizzying climax.
Wi
lliam plundered my mouth as he plundered my body, making love to both as his tongue matched each thrust. His tempo increased and he rode me harder, his cadence and the force of his thrust increased. Giving in to all these warring sensations, I let myself fall … let everything about him, about this experience, how I felt, take over. When I opened my eyes, I could see he held back from what really wanted. He tried to hide his fangs from me, but they couldn’t be ignored.
I gave him permission and still he hesitated.
“YES!” I screamed; begged of him.
He drove into me with one last thrust and his body shuddered above me as he cried out my name. On a roar, he emptied himself into me and dropped his head to my neck. “You. Are. Mine,” he grunted as he plunged his fangs into my neck.
I expected mind blowing pain, but the dizzying feel of his mouth pulling at my blood erased that first, initial sting Seized by a rush of sensation so intense it couldn’t be contained, I came apart in one final, shattering release.
Chapter Eighteen
Olivia
For the first time in a long while, I didn’t have nightmares. Instead I dreamed of the life William and I had together when I’d been Olivia, the love we’d shared. I stirred when William untangled himself from my naked body to take his leave of me before sunrise. When I woke later that morning—stretching my body in greeting to the dawning of a new day, a new life— I was laid out on the couch, covered by the Macauley plaid. The sun high in the sky, I still had several hours to go before I’d get to see William again. With a satisfied smirk, I thought how much I was looking forward to it.
Sitting up, I winced at the tenderness in my neck, touching my fingertips to the small puncture wounds where William had fed from me the night before. When I’d imagined us together, I couldn’t have known it would come to this, but I couldn’t regret my decision to let him drink from me. It had brought closer than just making love to one another as it had shown him how much I trusted him. With my life.
Resurrection_Part One of the Macauley Vampire Trilogy Page 11
