Claiming the Vampire
Page 10
“Proof?”
“She showed me Deirdre’s head.”
“Oh.”
“And so I went back home. But with Mary gone, I found I no longer had any desire to pursue my profession. I already had more wealth than I could use in a hundred lifetimes. I retired to my home in Wales, and let it be known that I was out of the assassin business. Until last month, when I received a phone call.”
He looked across the table at Jessica. There was a kind of peace between them right now—not trust exactly, but a tacit truce. She looked absorbed in the story he was telling, her expression thoughtful and a little frown between her brows.
That peace was about to end.
“The phone call was from a Fae. She told me that Mary hadn’t been killed ten years ago—that she’d been sold. Sold to the Dark Fae as a prisoner. When she crossed into the other dimension, the connection between us was severed. That’s why I couldn’t feel her anymore.”
Jessica’s eyes widened. Her hands were on the table, and he couldn’t stop himself from reaching for one of them. “That’s the reason I agreed to take out Celia. The Fae told me that if I did, she would restore my sister to me. If I didn’t, she’d ensure that Mary was killed. I would never…” he swallowed. “I would never have taken the job otherwise. But if there was even a chance that Mary was alive, I couldn’t abandon her. I couldn’t leave her in another world, a prisoner…” He stopped, shaking his head. “I’m sorry. I’m trying to justify myself to you, when I know there’s no justification you could accept.”
Jessica hadn’t pulled her hand away yet. “Celia told me she doesn’t think you would have gone through with it. Killing her.”
He smiled grimly. “Celia judges people by her own heart. Don’t believe that, Jessica. If I had no other choice, I would have killed her. But luckily for Celia it wasn’t necessary. After your engagement was announced, the threat Celia represented to the Fae way of life was neutralized. And I was told that my services were no longer needed. So I went to the Fae who hired me, and told her that I still expected my payment. My sister returned to me.”
Surely she would connect the dots now, realize who his client was. It was so bloody obvious…
“Hawk—you have to tell me who it was. Who hired you.”
She hadn’t made the connection. Her aquamarine eyes were wide and curious, undarkened by any hint of the truth.
“Jessica. I’m putting myself…and my sister…in your power. After I tell you, if you choose, you can go to that person and confront them, tell them I spoke to you…do anything you want. But if you do that, it’ll jeopardize my chances of getting my sister back.”
She frowned. “I get that, Hawk. And I’ll wait until your sister is safe before I do anything. But why…” she trailed off. Her eyes searched his, and his hand tightened on hers involuntarily.
“Why what?”
“Why are you telling me this? What advantage do you gain?”
A reasonable question to ask of someone like him.
“I don’t gain anything,” he said quietly. “I just thought it was important for you to know. For you to have all the information.”
“All the information?”
“Yes. Before you make any decisions that will change your life.”
She still didn’t suspect the truth, but there was a flicker of unease in her blue-green eyes.
“Hawk…who was it? Who hired you?”
He forced himself to let go of her hand. Then he spoke in a low voice, keeping his eyes on hers.
“It was your mother.”
Chapter Eight
Jessica heard the words, but they didn’t seem to mean anything. She felt like she’d been turned to stone. She was aware of time going by, of the sounds of the club around her, of Hawk’s black eyes watching her. There was compassion in them.
They’d been sitting here for a while now, while Hawk told her his story. It was obvious that he expected her to recoil from some of the things he told her, but she’d been going on missions with the Green Fae since she was fourteen. She’d seen bodies torn by shifters, drained by vampires, dismembered by demons. She had witnessed death and violence and she’d dealt out her share of both.
She could imagine herself doing as Hawk had done after he and his sister escaped from Hector. Going after him and anyone else who’d hurt them. As for what he’d done afterwards…well, she wouldn’t have become a hired assassin. But that was because she had something that Hawk didn’t have: a community. The Green Fae.
The only thing that had shocked her was Deirdre. She had truly believed what she’d told Hawk—that there were certain lines no Fae would cross.
Obviously she’d been wrong. But when he’d told her about Deirdre, he hadn’t looked amused or superior at her naiveté. He’d only looked sorry for her. Like he felt badly that he had to be the one to shatter her illusions.
He was looking at her like that right now. With compassion. There was a reason for that, something he’d just said. Something that seemed to be taking a long time to filter through her consciousness, the way words did in dreams sometimes.
It was your mother.
No.
“Jessica.”
She couldn’t move. She couldn’t think.
“Jessica,” he said again, more insistent now. She knew she was staring at him without moving, without blinking. Why couldn’t she think clearly? He’d said something…something…
It was your mother.
“No.” She’d said it out loud this time, because Hawk answered her.
“I’m sorry, Jess. But it’s true.”
He’d called her Jess. How strange. No one had ever called her that, even though she thought of herself as Jess sometimes, and had imagined what it might feel like to be called that. She remembered the first time she’d called Elizabeth Liz, after she’d insisted. A shortening of a person’s name felt like an endearment, somehow.
A sudden wave of nausea made her double over.
“Jess!”
Hawk surged to his feet and came around to her side of the booth. He got to her just before Liz and Celia and the other vampires did.
“What happened?” Liz asked sharply.
Jessica couldn’t speak, couldn’t answer. She was shuddering, her eyes squeezed shut like a child trying to shut out something unendurable.
She heard a ferocious growl, and her eyes snapped open. Hawk was standing between her and the others as if he were shielding her. His lips were drawn back from his fangs in an animal snarl, and his eyes gleamed yellow.
“Don’t crowd her,” he said, in a voice that made all the tiny hairs on her body lift.
Liz’s eyes widened. “Well,” she said, glancing at Evan. “I guess you were right.”
“I’m going to be sick,” Jessica said, and they all turned to her again. Hawk looked agonized, the expression oddly poignant on his demonic visage.
She stumbled to her feet and pushed past them all, and then she was running, running, towards the door and then through it, and then down the street in the cold night air.
An ancient Fae instinct took over, making her yearn for grass under her feet instead of asphalt. The city, which she had always loved, suddenly seemed hard and brittle and alien. She needed to connect with the earth, with things no man could make.
She let instinct lead her to a tree-filled park, dark and shadowed and deserted in the December chill. She almost sobbed with relief when she felt the ground beneath her, smelled the cool dry scent of fallen leaves and the fecund scent of moss-covered bark.
“Jess!”
It was Hawk, running behind her. She was fast, but so was he, and it only took him a moment to catch her.
“Jess, goddam it—”
And then the wind was knocked out of her as he tackled her, looping an arm around her waist and jerking her off her feet.
They went down, but Hawk had wrapped both arms around her to shield her from the fall, and he took the brunt of the impact on his forearms. Jess strug
gled like a wild animal, violent and frantic, but Hawk just held her, his arms like steel around her upper body and his powerful thighs trapping her legs against the ground. And all the while he was murmuring in her ear, his voice low and gentle and soothing.
She wasn’t sure exactly when she stopped thrashing. But at some point she became aware that she had gone still, that she was lying on a bed of pine needles and fallen leaves, and that Hawk was lying on top of her.
His scent was tantalizing—like resin, like musk, like the essence of nighttime itself. She was surrounded by that scent and by his body.
His arms were on either side of her, supporting most of his weight. Her breasts were flattened against his chest. He’d stopped whispering in her ear and his dark head rested against her shoulder. He was perfectly still, like her.
She found that if she focused on the way Hawk’s body made her feel she could push away the knowledge that her mother had hired an assassin to kill one of her own people.
If she could only lie here forever, cradled by mother earth at her back and Hawk’s strong body all around her.
She felt no need to move or think. Her mind was numb, and all she could do was feel.
From the time she was a little girl, she’d always hated anything that constricted her movement. She hated formal clothes, and she wouldn’t wear the armor some Green Fae did when they went into battle. Even on the coldest winter days, when most Fae wore coats to avoid attracting notice from humans, she went without. At night, even if she started out under a blanket or sheet, she usually kicked off the covers by the time morning came.
But her body wasn’t rebelling against the weight of Hawk on top of her. There was a rightness to it, like the visceral satisfaction of fitting two puzzle pieces together.
At first she was simply still, absorbing the feel and scent and weight of him. But gradually she became aware of a strange alchemy inside her.
All the stiffness and rigidity began to leach out of her body, softening her muscles and making her…pliant. She wanted to soften more. She wanted to open, even though she wasn’t sure what that meant. She wanted to arch her head back and expose her throat.
And then she felt something else. As that strange yearning whispered through her, Hawk’s body began to harden.
Waves of sensation rolled through her. The long, thick ridge of his erection felt like a secret, like a lodestone. Her stomach muscles began to tighten and release in a rhythmic surge.
She realized she was trying to open her legs. And as she pushed urgently against him Hawk shifted, releasing her lower body.
The relief was as intense as pleasure. She spread her legs wider than she needed to as Hawk settled between her thighs, and she almost moaned out loud as his erection pressed directly against the place that ached for him.
But she didn’t moan. She didn’t make a sound. She was afraid to do anything that might break the spell, because then they’d have to stop. And she didn’t want to stop.
Maybe Hawk felt the same way, because he didn’t make a sound either. But he began to move, subtly, pulling back ever so slightly and then pressing against her, over and over.
She’d never felt like this before. Never needed something so much. Her whole being seemed to be centered where their bodies were joined, the pressure and friction making her wet at the juncture of her thighs.
The wetness made her feel vulnerable, as though a veneer of civilization were being stripped away, leaving her raw and wild and aching.
Her body wanted to move in new ways, with new intentions. A kind of sinuousness was blossoming in her bones and she found herself arching her back, pressing her breasts against the wall of Hawk’s chest. And as she arched she pressed her feet against the ground so she could lift her hips, rubbing against the hardness that tantalized her.
The silence was finally broken as Hawk groaned. She froze for a second, afraid it was all over as he pulled back, supporting his weight on his arms as he looked down at her.
He searched her eyes for a long minute. “You’re afraid,” he said finally, his voice gruff. He started to pull away even further.
“No!” she cried out, wrapping her legs around his hips and clutching at his shoulders.
He went still. Jessica heard her own breath coming in short, quick pants, and felt the throbbing of her pulse at the vulnerable places of her body. Hawk’s eyes were black as night as he stared down at her, but she saw the glitter of fire in their depths.
“Jess,” he whispered. And then he brought his mouth down on hers.
His kiss wrapped her in dark velvet, thick and sweet and decadently rich. His tongue slid into her mouth and she opened to him eagerly. He explored her with rough hunger, tasting her thoroughly before pulling back so he could kiss her throat.
Once his lips touched her there she never wanted him to stop. He dragged his mouth across her throat again and again, every sweep of his lips making her quiver. His tongue found the beat of her pulse, and her body twisted in sudden excitement.
The bristles on his jaw abraded her skin, and she hoped it left a mark. She wanted him to leave her raw.
And then he stopped, suddenly, and she felt a shudder go through his body. She opened her eyes and saw that his were closed.
His lips peeled back and she saw his fangs. The sight did something to her, something so primal she almost howled out loud. But Hawk’s expression was tortured, and she knew he was trying desperately to control himself.
The only sound was the thundering of her heart and the rough cadence of her breath. She reached out a trembling hand and touched the tip of a finger to one of his fangs, and his eyes flew open.
She looped an arm around his neck and tried to pull him down towards her. When he stayed rigid, unmoving, she used the leverage to pull herself up. Then she touched her tongue to his teeth, sensing with a thrill of excitement that his incisors were sharper and more deadly than any arrow she’d ever made.
And still Hawk didn’t move. She let her tongue trail over his fangs, tasting him delicately, carefully, knowing instinctively that if she drew her own blood it would unleash something they weren’t ready for. And then she pulled herself closer, and fitted her mouth to his.
She felt his growl as much as she heard it, and then he was easing her back down to the ground, his hands framing her face with desperate gentleness, his thumbs stroking her cheeks as their tongues tangled together. And his fangs retracted.
After a minute his hands moved from her face to her neck, and he searched out the tender places behind her ears and at her pulse points and below her collar bones. His hands slid down her torso, his thumbs brushing the sides of her breasts.
One of his hands went lower, to her hip, and then slid beneath her to cup her bottom.
She gasped. He was using his powerful hand to lift her against him, to press their bodies even closer together. Her lower body was suspended an inch or two above the ground as he ground his erection against her, and the feeling of helplessness was more arousing than anything she’d ever felt. Her thighs felt hollow as she writhed against him, and he growled against her mouth before he broke their kiss and released her body, letting her down to the ground again.
She didn’t have time to miss the closeness. Because as he shifted his weight to settle beside her, his hand went to the fly of her jeans.
She stopped breathing. Her heart beat frantically against her ribs. But then he stopped, and met her eyes.
“Has anyone ever touched you here?”
She didn’t think she could speak, so she just shook her head. Heat bloomed through her body as she shivered with anticipation.
“Jess, I…don’t want to hurt you. Or scare you.”
He wouldn’t. But she couldn’t say the words, couldn’t tell him how much she wanted this. She just stared at him helplessly, willing him to understand what she was feeling.
He leaned closer, his eyes on hers. “Jess, if this is okay…just nod. Can you do that for me?”
Yes. Yes.
Then he leaned down to give her a quick, hard kiss. And she felt his fingers open the top button of her jeans.
Her stomach muscles tensed with excitement, and Hawk broke the kiss to look down at her again. “Still okay?” he asked roughly.
Another nod reassured him, and then he wasn’t looking at her face anymore. Both of them were watching his hand as he lowered her zipper and slid his hand inside, over the thin cotton of her panties.
A small whimper escaped her at the press of his cool fingers against her hot skin, even with the layer of material between them. He stroked her softly, shaping the cotton to the folds of her body. His fingers continued to caress as his thumb settled higher, at the place she’d touched herself a few times when she was younger, trying to bring herself to that mysterious thing called orgasm. She’d given up after a few failed attempts, deciding that sexuality was overrated.
How could he know her body so much better than she did? How could he touch her with so much intimate knowledge? He circled the nub of sensation until she moaned, and then zeroed in quick and hard until she was writhing against his hand.
Something was building inside her, a coiling tension that made her shameless.
“Please,” she heard herself gasp as a flood of moisture soaked her panties.
He felt it, too. “Christ, Jess…I have to…” And then his fingers were sliding under her panties, right against her bare skin, and she was so slick and wet that the friction was like silk on silk.
“Fuck,” he whispered, trailing the tip of his middle finger along the seam of her body until she felt her flesh part in helpless surrender, felt a breath of coolness on her most vulnerable places as Hawk traced her there, over and over, his touch drawing more and more honey from her until it felt like she was liquefying into luxurious sensation.
But it wasn’t enough. She needed. She needed so powerfully that her body surged against Hawk’s hand until with a rough growl he plunged one finger deep inside her.