by Chloe Hart
After every date he escorted her back home—which happened to be his home, as well, since Celia was living under his roof now. He’d walk her to her bedroom door and kiss her goodnight before going to his own bed, where he’d lie awake for hours trying to ignore his raging hard-on.
But even though their dates tortured him with what he couldn’t have, they had been the best nights of his life.
They’d done a lot of human things. They’d gone out to dinner, and to the symphony, and to clubs to hear local bands. Some nights they just walked, holding hands like teenagers as they wandered through the streets of Boston.
And they talked. They talked over dinner, they talked in the clubs, and they talked as they walked along the Charles river and through the Boston Common and past the brownstones of the Back Bay. They talked for hours. And the more he learned about Celia, the deeper in love he fell.
He knew his own mind, but he didn’t believe Celia could know hers. She was so young, so damn young…
“It’s too soon,” he said firmly.
“You said we’d save the world first, and then talk about it. Well, in case you haven’t noticed, the world is saved. No thanks to me, but still.”
Evan shook his head. “It was thanks to you. This marriage arrangement with Jessica and the prince wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t warned everyone about the Dark Fae’s plans…and risked your own life to show Jessica the truth.”
Celia looked unhappy. “But that’s all I did. Jessica’s the one who really saved the world…and now she has to marry a stranger and go live in another dimension. I never wanted that. I still think my solution would have—”
“Your solution would never have been accepted. The Fae would never have agreed to destroy the absinthe and give up their powers. And you told me Jessica’s happy with the plan.”
“That’s what she said, but I think she might be lying. So does Liz.”
“Even if she is, it’s still her choice.”
“I know.” She took a quick breath. “And anyway, that wasn’t what I wanted to talk about. The point is that with the world effectively saved, there’s no reason for us to wait any longer. You wanted us to get to know each other better, and we’ve done that. We’ve been living together for a month. We’ve been on nine dates. And I’m in love with you.”
“You think you’re in love with me.”
“If you say that again I’m going to take out my spell book and turn you into something extremely unpleasant.”
“A newt? A toad?”
“Only if you’re lucky.”
He grinned at her as the waiter set down the crème caramel she’d ordered for dessert. “All right, then. Let’s say for the sake of argument that you are in love with me. It doesn’t follow that you have to bind yourself to me for the rest of your bloody life. Don’t you want to look around a bit? See what else is out there?”
She raised an eyebrow. “You want me to date other men?”
Just the idea made Evan’s eyes turn yellow, and he barely managed to keep his fangs in check.
Celia shook her head. “That’s what I thought. You don’t want me to see anyone else, but you won’t let me be with you, either.”
“You are with me. We’re together right now, aren’t we?”
“You know what I mean.” She pushed her dessert aside and rested her forearms on the table, leaning towards him again. “I want to sleep with you tonight.”
His nostrils flared and he clenched his jaw. He wouldn’t let himself vamp out in a human restaurant.
When he had himself under control, he spoke. “I want that too. You know I do. But we can’t risk it. I don’t think I could have sex with you and not bite you—and if I bite you I’ll claim you again. And then you’ll claim me, and that’ll be all she wrote. One moment of blind passion you’ll never be able to take back.”
“I won’t want to take it back. But—” she held up a hand to forestall him “—that wasn’t what I was talking about. I didn’t say I want to have sex with you tonight. I just want to sleep with you. My bed is starting to feel really lonely, Evan. I’ll sleep in flannel pajamas and a parka if you want, but I need to feel your arms around me.”
She laid her hand over his, and a sense of rightness settled over him—the feeling he only got when he and Celia were touching.
“All right,” he heard himself say, even though he knew it wouldn’t be easy to restrain himself if he held her in his arms. But he couldn’t deny her this when he wanted it so much, too.
And when she smiled at him like that, he couldn’t be sorry he’d caved in.
* * *
She couldn’t believe he’d caved in.
As they walked up the stairs that led to Evan’s apartment, Celia’s heart was pounding. She knew Evan could sense it, and she hoped he didn’t suspect any part of her plan for tonight.
But if he did, he wouldn’t have agreed to share a bed with her.
“Your room or mine?” he asked, when they’d reached the upstairs landing.
“Mine. I just need a few minutes to get ready.”
“Flannel pajamas, right?”
“If that’s what you want.”
She was wearing a black silk blouse over a pencil skirt tonight, an outfit deliberately chosen for its subtle sex appeal—as all of her date outfits had been. Evan gave her a long, slow look that went from her toes to the top of her head. Then he grinned. “It’s not what I want, but it’ll definitely be for the best. I’ll knock on your door in ten minutes, okay?”
“Okay.”
When Evan’s knock came, Celia was sitting cross-legged on her bed in her green and blue plaid pajamas. He was wearing sweatpants and a black tee shirt, which she supposed was the closest thing to pajamas he owned.
“Hi,” he said, hesitating in the doorway. He looked almost uncomfortable, and Celia felt a sudden qualm.
“You look like you’re in a dentist’s waiting room. If you…I mean…damn. If you don’t want to be here, Evan, I don’t want to force you.”
Evan crossed the room in a few long strides and sat down beside her, taking both her hands in his. “Believe me when I tell you that’s not the problem. The problem is that I want to be here too much. I was just thinking about the last time I was in this room. Remember?”
Oh, yes, she remembered.
The first and only time she and Evan had made love. It had been the single most incredible night of her life, even though she’d believed while it was happening that it was a dream.
“I’d like to repeat that experience sometime when I haven’t taken absinthe,” she said, smiling into Evan’s mahogany brown eyes.
“Someday,” he said softly, smiling back. “But, sweetheart—if we want this night to work we’d better change the subject.”
“Let’s go to bed, then. To sleep, I mean,” she added quickly.
She got under the covers and held them up for Evan to crawl in beside her, but he shook his head.
“I’ll stay on this side,” he said, lying down on top of the blankets and pulling her towards him. “Is that all right?”
It would actually make her job a little easier. “Yes, that’s fine.”
She lay in the circle of his strong arms for several minutes, reveling in his closeness and the scent of him, and hoping he wasn’t picking up on her tension. She tried to make her breathing deep and even, like she really was falling asleep.
And then, when silence and stillness had settled around them like a cocoon, she moved.
His reflexes were much faster than hers, but she was counting on the element of surprise.
And it worked. It took only seconds to pull the first chain from its hiding place behind the headboard and lock the cuff around his wrist, and although she fumbled a little with the second one she got that locked, too, before Evan growled out, “What the fuck?”
She scooted down the bed a little, towards his feet, and met his glare with a grin. “Not too tight, I hope?”
“Celia—”
She n
o longer had the element of surprise, but she was counting on his reluctance to actually kick her in the face when she moved again, yanking up the chains at the foot of the bed and locking the cuffs around his ankles.
She’d actually done it. Celia knelt on the bed, between Evan’s knees, and looked with satisfaction at the four chains she’d attached to her bedposts, ending in iron cuffs around Evan’s wrists and ankles.
Evan took a deep breath and let it out, something he only did when he was agitated. “Do you mind telling me what the hell you’re doing?”
“Not at all,” she said sweetly. “I’m just making sure I have a captive audience when I make my case for completing the claiming ritual.”
His jaw tightened, and he jerked at the chain on his right wrist.
She shook her head. “I borrowed these from the club. They’re the ones designed for vampires. Not even you can break them.”
“God damn it, Celia.” His voice sounded tense, almost panicked. “You can’t force someone to accept a claim. That’s one of our most ancient laws.”
“I’m not going to force you,” she said, grasping the hem of her pajama top and pulling it off. “I’m just going to try really, really hard to persuade you.”
She tossed the top onto the floor and met Evan’s eyes. When his gaze slid down to her naked breasts, she felt her nipples pucker and harden.
“Fuck,” he whispered. “Celia, you can’t do this.”
“What about this?” she asked as she shimmied out of her bottoms and tossed them on the floor, too.
Then she rose up on her knees so he could see all of her, and very deliberately let her hand trail over her body and into the soft triangle between her legs.
“I’m wet for you,” she said softly.
“Christ.” His voice was a ragged whisper, and his gaze was riveted on her hand as she slid her fingers over her slick folds.
“Do you want a taste?”
His eyes shot up to meet hers, and she locked her gaze on his as she moved on her knees up the bed, straddling his hips but not coming close enough to touch his erection. She hovered over him, instead, dipping two fingers inside her wet heat and holding them up to his nose and mouth.
Evan closed his eyes, and for a second she thought he might turn his head away. But then he growled almost helplessly as he opened his mouth, and she slid her fingers inside.
She moaned at the feel of his cool tongue on her overheated skin.
“Evan…” she breathed, caught by the expression of tortured intensity on his face as he licked every drop of her essence from her fingers.
Then he did turn his head away, sharply. “Celia. We can’t do this. Please, love. We can’t.”
She looked down at him in frustration. “Why?”
“I’ve told you a hundred times. You’re too young. It’s too soon. You don’t know what you—”
“Bullshit.”
His eyes snapped back to her.
She crouched over him, her arms on either side of his shoulders and her face a foot from his. “I’m not letting you go until you tell me the real reason. I’m not too young, and it’s not too soon. Give me credit for not being a moron and tell me what’s really going on.”
“Celia…”
“Tell me.”
“I don’t deserve you!”
That was it. The real reason. She could tell by the sound of his voice and the expression on his face—equal parts anger and shame.
“I know you think you’re selfish, Evan. And I don’t agree.”
“Christ. It’s more than that.”
He moved restlessly beneath her, and she shifted so that she was kneeling beside him instead of straddling him.
“So tell me,” she said, her voice carefully neutral.
“Would you mind putting your clothes back on?” he asked irritably. “I can’t think straight with you like that.”
“Sure,” she said, hiding a smile. She pulled on her pajamas and sat back down on the bed beside him.
After a minute he spoke again. “I told you once how I was made into a vampire.”
She nodded. “You were shot down during the Battle of Britain, and your maker found you dying in a field.”
“Yeah.” He shifted again, looking away from her. “What I didn’t tell you is that he offered me a choice.”
“You mean between dying and becoming a vampire?”
“No.”
He was quiet for a minute, and Celia forced herself to stay silent as well. He had to tell her this at his own pace. And it wasn’t like he was going anywhere. She could afford to be patient.
“I knew I was dying, when my maker came to me. I could feel the life draining out of my body, soaking into the earth. Death had its claws in me. And I didn’t want to die.”
Another silence. And still she stayed quiet, not moving, not speaking.
“When he came, I knew there was something different about him. I could feel his power. When he told me he was a vampire I believed him. When he said he could save my life I believed that, too. And then he said I had to choose. Me, or another bloke. There was a second plane shot down not far from mine, and the vampire said that pilot was dying, too. So he told me to choose. I could choose to save myself, to become immortal…or I could choose to die and let the other man have the gift.”
He smiled without humor. “I don’t have to tell you how I chose. And a man who could make that choice doesn’t deserve you, Celia.”
She knew if she’d showed sympathy or compassion he’d reject it. So she asked a question instead. “How would you choose now?”
He turned his head away. “I don’t know.”
“Bullshit,” she said for the second time that night.
He met her eyes again. “You think you know me, Celia, but—”
“I do know you. If you had to choose between my life and yours, what would you do?”
“I would choose yours. But that’s because I’m in love with you. It doesn’t mean I—”
“What if it was Liz? What if you had to choose between saving your life and saving hers?”
He swallowed. “I would save her. But that’s because she’s your best friend. I don’t—”
“And Jack? What if the choice was between your life and his?”
“I would choose his. But that’s because he helped me save your life that night. I owe him.”
Celia laid her hands on Evan’s shoulders. “And what if it was a stranger? A soldier you’d never met, dying in a field?”
His brown eyes were full of pain. “Celia, for God’s sake. Don’t make me do this.”
“What would you do, Evan?”
“I would save him! But it’s too late for that now. Don’t you see? I can’t go back. I can’t ever change what I did.”
“No, you can’t. But you’re not that terrified boy anymore. Why can’t you see the man you are now?” Her hands tightened on her shoulders. “I love you, Evan Grant. And I’m not a fool or a martyr. Do you think I would love a man who didn’t deserve it? If you don’t trust your own instincts, trust mine. Let go of the past and look at what’s right in front of you.”
There was a moment of utter stillness, as though the world had stopped on its axis. She glared down at him, and he stared back at her.
Then, suddenly, Evan’s eyes turned yellow and his fangs burst from his gums. He gave a snarl that made the hair stand up on the back of her neck, and he jerked so viciously on his handcuffs that the vampire-proof chains snapped.
Adrenaline shot through her, but she couldn’t move. In an instant he’d triggered the mechanism to release the cuffs from his wrists and ankles. A second later, she was on her back under him with her arms pinned against the pillow.
“Say it,” he growled.
Her heart was pounding so hard she thought she might crack a rib. Her pulse roared in her ears. She opened her mouth, but no words came out.
He gripped her so hard she felt muscle touch bone. “Do you want me?”
“Ye
s,” she gasped.
“Then claim me.”
“You’re mine,” she cried out, and a shudder passed through him.
“Oh God, Celia. And you’re mine.” His eyes went to her left wrist, which bore a faint white scar from his first bite.
She shook her head. “No. My throat.”
She arched her head back, her heart beating so furiously she wondered if her blood would gush into Evan’s mouth when he bit her.
But instead of the tumult of sensation she’d been braced for, the slice of his fangs made everything inside her go still, as if a cool draft of water were quenching a soul-deep thirst she hadn’t known existed.
And when he began to pull the blood from her vein she felt it everywhere.
She let out a sound she’d never made in her life—a low, keening cry. After a minute Evan stopped drinking and licked the marks he had made, and she could feel the wound closing as a pulse of pleasure made her fingers and toes tingle.
Evan braced his weight on his forearms and looked down at her. “You’ve done it now,” he said softly. “You’ve tied yourself to me for life.”
“It’s about time,” she said, wrapping her arms and legs around him. “But I’m not finished with you yet, Evan Grant. There’s something else I want.”
“What could that possibly be?” he murmured.
“I want to be on top.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Do you, now?”
She grinned at him. “I liked having you tied down and at my mercy.”
He framed her face in his hands and stroked his thumbs across her cheekbones. “I’ve been at your mercy from the moment you walked through my door. Do you want to chain me up again?”
She knew he was teasing her, but she shook her head. “I just want you to lie back and let me have my way with you.”
“I think I can manage that,” he said huskily.
* * *
Hours later, Celia was lying in the circle of Evan’s arms with her cheek pressed against his chest. He was playing with her hair, twining strands around his fingers.
“I feel like I can’t ever get enough of you,” she said softly. “I feel like…like I want to crawl inside your skin.”
She felt his chuckle vibrate through her. “That’s because we just claimed each other, love. I think that feeling will ease up after a while.”
