Chapter 9
Jonas heard the front door open and stilled. He prayed it was Abilene come home to talk. He had been in pieces since the moment she left. The door to their bedroom slowly opened. The relief he felt at seeing his beautiful wife standing there was indescribable.
“You came home,” he whispered from where he sat at the edge of the bed.
“I came home.” She stepped into the room and shut the door with a quiet snick. This was the closest they had been in months. The closed-off room suddenly felt like an island away from the rest of the world, away from the dreams, away from the pain, away from all the consequences.
“Abilene, I—”
She held up her hand to silence him. “Do not talk, Jonas. I have had enough talk. My mind has not stopped chattering since I left here. For once I would appreciate some silence.”
He shut his mouth and watched her, giving her the silence she requested. She undid her bonnet and placed it carefully on her dresser where it had sat every evening for the past sixty years. He could not imagine a life that did not include her belongings sprinkled throughout. He watched as she slowly undid her braids. Her small hands worked easily over her soft, brown hair, twisting and unraveling the strands into long, wavy locks that reached almost to the backs of her knees. That was his prize. No other male on this earth had ever seen his Abilene’s hair unadorned in all its glory the way he did. That was his privilege as her husband.
Once her hair hung loose, she pushed it behind her narrow shoulders and began working on the pins of her apron. Her hair protested the action and quickly fell back over her shoulder, veiling her beautiful face. It was too much hair for such a petite woman.
Although Abilene would be celebrating her seventy-ninth year this spring, she did not look a day over twenty-five. Her small five-foot-three frame was that of a young woman’s. After nursing four children, her breasts still remained firm and high. Her hips still swelled delicately from her narrow waist. Her legs were smooth and femininely muscled. And her face was its own work of art.
He loved the way her soft, brown eyes sparkled when she smiled up at him, the scent of her hair, the dimple she showed only when she smiled after he caused her to blush. He adored the fact that, after knowing her for well over seven decades, he could still make her blush. Abilene was as lovely and timid as she was the night he made her his bride. She had only ever known his lips, his touch, his body. She had given herself freely to him and loved him beyond measure. He did not deserve a female as good as she.
She turned to face him wearing only her shift. Memories of their wedding night, of that first time he had her, had him hardening, but he did not want to assume anything. Their relationship had moved from a peaceful affair to an unpredictable nightmare in the past few months. Had it really been months since he last touched her as a husband should? He suddenly felt starved for the taste of her skin.
She took a deep breath and slowly reached for the string at the neck of her slip. She pulled the thread, and he watched as the knot fell away and the garment opened and slid off of her body like a feather slides over a breeze. She stood before him in nothing but her cotton bottoms. Her pale, soft skin prickled from the chill in the air, causing her small, firm breasts to tighten and darken at the tips. Her tiny, little belly button rose and fell as she breathed. He could tell she was as nervous as she had been that first time sixty years ago.
“My beautiful wife,” he said, looking directly into her eyes.
“I am tired of sleeping alone, Jonas.”
He slowly nodded, wishing he could take away the last few months. He had handled things as best as he could see fit, yet looking back, it seemed to him he had handled everything abominably. His wife was a delicate woman. He should have seen to her sensitivities. He felt like a brute and the most undeserving husband in the world.
“Come to me, Abilene.”
She walked slowly to where he sat on the edge of the bed and waited for him to make the next move as she always did. She had always been his sweet, submissive wife. It was his duty to protect her and he had failed. He had hurt her. When he lifted his hands to her thin waist, his fingers were trembling.
He framed her hips, his thumbs rubbing softly over the flesh of her tummy where she had carried so many of his children. He leaned forward and pressed his forehead to the soft skin below her ribs and felt a tear trickle down his cheek. She was there with him, offering herself, yet that void between them remained, knifing their secured existence into two. He needed to be absolved before he could take her, needed her forgiveness for what he had done. If he had been able to live without her, he never would have asked her to be his wife. He should have left her alone. Yet there was still some selfish part of him that depended on her so deeply he could not say he would trade the last sixty years to save her this grief now.
“I am a terribly selfish male, Abilene.”
“No, Jonas. You are a man of worth. Anything you have ever done you have done out of love. Do not punish yourself for being a passionate male. For sixty years you have loved me fiercely as I doubt any other soul ever could. I am grateful that I had at least that. For even now I feel as if we are on borrowed time.”
He rested his cheek on her stomach and the touch of her hand along the back of his head was his undoing. His shoulders shook with the emotion he tried to contain. “I will never love another the way I love you, Abilene. Not in this lifetime or the next. It has always been you and will never be another.”
She stroked his hair and comforted him as he cried for them. For as sturdy and powerful as he was in all of his maleness, this tiny, little woman was his strength. He banded his arms around her hips and hugged her tightly to him, never wanting to let her go.
“Save your tears for another night, Jonas. Let us simply embrace this time we have without worrying about the consequences of the future.”
He slowly stood, dwarfing her. She reached up to his collar and began to slowly undo his shirt. When she unlatched the last fasten, her small hands pressed the material apart and over his shoulders. As the shirt slowly whispered to the floor, she pressed a soft kiss over his heart.
He tucked her hair over her shoulders and slowly untied her bottoms. As the material slid over her hips and to the floor, she balanced herself by reaching for his hand as she stepped out of the garment. When she went to remove her hand, he held it tight. She looked at him, so beautiful, standing before him wearing nothing but the moonlight. She looked up to him with big eyes and the ache in his chest exploded into a million shards of glass. He never assumed that when others spoke of hearts breaking that there was actually a very real sensation of the soul being shattered.
Unable to wait another moment, he reached down and scooped his wife into his arms. As he placed her on their bed, he followed her down and kissed her deeply. Her body was soon trembling with passion. He removed his pants and returned to her body, anointing each and every space of flesh with his mouth, pouring his heart and soul into every caress.
Their bodies became one, rolling and intertwining, knotted so tightly together one would think nothing could ever separate them. “I love you, Jonas,” she cried as he entered her. “I will always love you, even when I should not. You are in my veins, written into my bones, the breath in my lungs.”
He pressed into her, knowing the agony her words caused showed clear on his face. His large, tanned hands cradled her small face as tears trickled back over her temples and into her hair. “No matter what comes of this, Abilene, I will never love another. God cannot change my feelings for you. You are the other half of my soul. You!”
Her head tilted back into the pillows as she gripped his shoulders. He entered her so deeply there was a point he thought she would never be able to escape him. He bathed in her scent as it filled the air around them. Mist glossed the windows of their bed, secreting them away all the more. He looked down at her face, never wanting to forget this moment, memorizing every feature of hers all over again. He kissed her eyes, the
sharp bones of her cheeks, her tiny ears, the corners of her mouth.
Her body tightened around his, refusing to let him go as much as he refused to let her escape him. He held her to him, barely moving inside of her yet still causing her muscles to clench and flutter time after time. When her energy depleted and her head fell back on a sigh, he lifted her and began to kiss her neck. She understood what he needed and seemed somehow rejuvenated by his request.
Without withdrawing from her, he lifted her to his lap and sifted his hands through her thick hair, tilting her head to his shoulder. He found her pulse just below her jaw and kissed his mark before sinking his teeth into her. Her body arched in his arms as if shocked back to life and he felt her fall into another climax. Within two tugs from her vein, she was crying out his name. He drank from her and cursed his body’s reaction for not recognizing her blood as his mate’s. He no longer drew the satisfaction from her vein as he once had. Not wanting to take too much or let on to his reaction, he closed the bite and gently kissed her trembling shoulder.
When her smaller teeth broke the skin over his own pulse, he, too, jolted. Threads of passion seemed to weave in and out of his nervous system and pull tighter than a bow. Within moments he, too, was climaxing, never knowing any greater feeling that providing for his mate. Abilene would always be his. There could never be another.
Chapter 10
“Thanks for coming over,” Larissa said as she opened the door to her apartment and let Vito in.
“Any time, babe. That’s what friends are for.”
“Has Steve said that I can come back yet?”
By the look on Vito’s face, she knew the answer was no. She wasn’t sure what had caused her boss to temporarily suspend her. She was afraid to even ask. After her last night there and being taken off guard by the bishop, she had left her work without even telling anyone. She had only been thinking about herself at that point, about her need to run. She had no idea what she did to Bishop King, but when he fell to the ground suddenly, she decided not to waste time and find out. She ran home to her apartment and locked the door. Hopefully she had lost him.
Perhaps it was for the best that she not go to work right now. The bishop knew where she worked, but he didn’t know where she lived. At the moment her apartment was the safest place she could be. The only issue she was having was her hunger. She was starving. She had tried to catch something to feed from in the trees the night before, but she was suddenly more afraid of the bunnies than they were of her. Every slight rustling of the leaves on the ground had her jumping and worrying that the bishop had found her.
She knew it wasn’t right, but she needed to feed. For some reason she was much hungrier than she usually was. That was why she had called Vito.
“Would you like something to drink? I have popcorn to go with our show, but I wasn’t sure how to cook it.” She held up the compact little bag filled with kernels and smelling deliciously like butter.
“I’ll take a beer if you got one.”
“Sure. I have a beer. I stopped the other day to buy some.” She loved being able to buy things at every corner without the added inconvenience of readying a horse or waiting for her overbearing husband’s permission. She opened the electric refrigerator and pulled one of the glass bottles from the handy little carrier the beers came in. “Here you go,” she said proudly as she handed her friend his beverage.
He frowned at the bottle in her hand, “What the hell is that, Larissa?”
She looked at the beer. “It’s a beer.” She hoped it was. She read the bottle again, hoping she didn’t accidentally buy a case of salad dressing or something. Alcohol content was written right there on the label. “What’s wrong with it? The guy at the counter said most women bought this kind.
“It’s a friggen’ wine cooler, Larissa. Peach no less! I’m not a girl. I’m a three-hundred-pound man. I can’t drink that shit.”
“Oh.” She pouted and lowered her arm holding out the beer, nay, wine cooler.
“Oh, Christ, give it to me. I don’t want to hurt your feelings. Thank you for the beer.”
He cracked open the cap and the bottle hissed as a fine wisp of cool mist drifted from the neck of the bottle like a puff of smoke. She watched anxiously as he took a sip. “How is it?”
He pulled the bottle away from his lips and read the label. He shrugged and said, “It’s actually not that bad, a little sweet, but good.”
Larissa gave a pleased clap. “Oh, good! Now,” she said, holding up the envelope of kernels. “Do you have any idea how to cook this?”
He laughed. “You don’t know how to make popcorn?”
“Not this kind. I was going to try to cook it on the stove, but I couldn’t figure out how to open the bag.”
“No, no, no. You don’t open it. That’s the point. You just pop it in the microwave.” He walked over to the glass cabinet and opened it. “Why do you have sugar and flour in your microwave?”
“I thought it was just a fancy cabinet.”
He shook his head and chuckled. “Man, whatever farm you came from, it sure was primitive. No, sweetie, this is a microwave. You cook in it.”
“Where’s the burner?”
“No burner, microwaves, sort of like the radio waves that carry music. It’s a form of electromagnetic energy that transfers heat to the moisture in foods and that moisture cooks the food from the inside out.”
“Wow, you’re really smart, Vito. I don’t understand anything you just said.”
“Not smart, just good at science. I watch a lot of Discovery. Anyway, you don’t need to understand how it works. You just need to know how to work it. Here, watch.” He placed the bag in the microwave and shut the door. “See this button with the picture? That’s for popcorn. All you gotta do is hit that.” He hit the button and the machine began to buzz. Larissa jumped back and he again laughed at her.
“Come on, let’s watch this movie,” he said as he turned and pulled the DVD she bought off of the counter. “What did you get?”
“Something called Twilight. I thought it looked interesting.”
“Wow, battin’ a thousand tonight, Laris.”
“What? No good? It’s about vampires.”
“I’m familiar with it. I’m just not a big sci-fi guy. No biggie. Where’s your DVD player?” She pointed to the box holding the machine she had purchased last week. “Not hooked up. Awesome.”
About an hour later Larissa had discovered several things. She had learned that while hooking up a DVD player was simple, programming a television was not. She also learned that microwave popcorn was possibly the best-tasting food on the planet. And finally, she had learned that not only did mortals enjoy cinema about vampires, they also believed in werewolves. She did not think there was such a thing as werewolves.
“This is such bullshit. Like if there were really vampires they would go back to high school,” Vito commented as he bit into a fistful of popcorn.
Larissa had enjoyed school. Unfortunately, like most Amish girls, she had only attended classes until her fourteenth birthday, but she dreamed of someday attending college. The fact that her upbringing had limited her from such opportunities made her sad. “I never went to high school. I think it would be fun.”
“You never went to high school?”
“Nope. I was only a scholar between the age of six and fourteen. After that I had to take on household duties like the rest of the females on the farm.”
“I swear you time traveled here,” he said and it was her turn to laugh.
“Would you like another beer?”
“Sure, why not. I sense I’m already halfway to earning some Girl Scout badges. Bring me another peach fuzzy whatever the fuck you call ’em.”
“Fuzzy Navels,” she supplied. As she returned to the couch and handed him a new bottle, she sat down closer to him. Vito reminded her of a big, fuzzy grizzly bear. He was all gruff and growls on the outside, but once he let you close enough, he was nothing but a big softy. “Why
don’t you take off your shoes?”
A little while later Larissa was curled up under Vito’s arm as he finished the last Fuzzy Navel. Although he said he would not enjoy the movie, Larissa could sense his emotions and knew that he was enjoying it very much. She however had watched little more than Vito’s pulse in the past hour. Unconsciously she nuzzled her nose along his throat.
“Larissa?”
“Yes,” she answered, breathing the scent of his blood pumping under his skin.
“Uh, what are you doing?”
“Hmm?”
“What do you think you’re doing?”
She shut her eyes and scooted closer. “Just getting comfortable.”
“Um, I didn’t know we…did that.”
“Did what?”
“You know…we’re friends.”
“Do you not like what I’m doing?”
“Oh, no, I like it. It’s just…uh, I’m not really sure what you’re expecting here.”
“Shhh, just relax. I will make it nice for you.” She ran her lips over his pulse, which was now fluttering much faster than normal.
“Screw it,” Vito said just as he caught her off guard by turning and moving on top of her. His lips found hers, sending her eyes open wide. Although he was a big man, she was an immortal and he was no match for her. Yet she was so shocked by what he was doing, she could not seem to push him off. She squeaked beneath him and he settled more on top of her, wedging his thigh between her legs. He mistook her muffled panicked cry as enthusiasm. “I know,” he said as his tongue forced its way into her mouth.
Calling for a Miracle [The Order of Vampyres 2] (Siren Publishing Classic) Page 11