by Evie Byrne
“Closer.” Helena said, shaping the word from a drawn out moan. “Closer.” She rolled. They separated. Settling on her back, she opened her arms to him and he slid into her furnace heat. So good. Closer. Yes. Heart to heart. Mouth to mouth. Closer.
“Closer,” she said again, plaintive. Insistent. Spurring him with tooth and claw.
Alex understood. No matter how tightly he held her, he wanted more. He needed to be inside her and wrapped around her, under her skin and in her head.
“I know. I know.” He kissed her over and over. “It’s okay.”
Only blood would join them the way they needed to be joined. When he thought about how many women he’d tapped in his life…and here was Helena under him, begging for it. How was he supposed to be restrained? Just how long was he supposed to wait? Roland and friggin’ Illysia could bite him.
What they had now had to be enough. And he was going to take all he could. He captured her clawing hands, pinned them over her head and began to take her in long, smooth strokes. Nothing, nothing, had ever felt so good.
Her face took on this particular stubborn look that he already knew and loved. Alex grinned as she ground her boot heels into his flanks.
“Yes,” she said. “Oh, yes. Oh God.”
Alex could feel it too, the warm run up to orgasm. They’d come together.
“It’s big,” she gasped. “So big.”
He knew she didn’t mean him. She meant the buildup. The tension. They moved together, their bodies slick with sweat. Helena watched him all the time, her eyes wide.
He’d never coasted so long on the crest of an orgasm. Was this how women came? He’d never been so happy and so miserable at the same time.
She went stiff under him, her hips rising off the bed. They were there. If she’d let go, he could too. But she didn’t. Seconds seemed minutes seemed hours while her beautiful face contorted in agony and her nails shredded his back.
“I can’t—Alex—please!”
Groaning in frustration she bit his neck. Instinct drove her, but she couldn’t get what she wanted. Alex could. Succumbing to temptation, he buried his face in her throat. Her pulse leapt under his mouth. Calling him.
Holy mother.
There was no resisting it. He broke her skin and came as her blood washed over his tongue. Semen spurting out, blood flowing in, a closed circuit. Her blood mixed with his saliva and changed it. Changed him. She entered his bloodstream and rocketed to his brain like a chemical maelstrom. The first hit almost knocked him out. While he reeled, her deep muscles squeezed him like a fist, clasping and unclasping as a convulsive orgasm rolled through her.
He was not sucking. Her blood leapt down his throat of its own accord. All she was, rushing to join him. Images of her life, vivid, flashing memories passed into him. Usually he blocked that information off when he was feeding, but he couldn’t with her. The storm passing through him left him wide open. This was the first, irrevocable step of bonding.
But the flow only went one direction: toward him. He clouded her mind so that she didn’t participate in the exchange, she didn’t even know he was biting her. If he couldn’t protect himself from his own recklessness, at least he could protect her.
In the aftermath, he licked and kissed the bite wound closed, overcome with tenderness for this near stranger in his arms. Helena stirred out of her torpor. He kissed her, savoring her sleepy flavor, and she returned the kiss, her lips soft and yielding, so different from moments before. Helena sated. Happy. His.
She smiled at him, heavy eyed and trusting. His heart split into pieces and refashioned itself around her.
“I hurt you.” Her voice was low and hoarse. With tentative fingers she touched a set of bite marks on his shoulder.
“It doesn’t matter.” He left her throat to kiss down the centerline of her stomach. Golden peach fuzz covered her belly. He loved that.
“And look at your back! I’m so sorry.”
He put his finger on her lips. “You won’t feel sorry for me tomorrow when you’re so sore you can barely walk.”
She smiled in her impish way. “True enough.” Then she frowned a little and touched her neck. “Did you bite me there at the end?”
“Yes. I didn’t mean to.”
Her nose wrinkled if she smiled wide enough. And it had freckles on it. How had he not seen those before?
“Bad boy. Is there a mark?”
“No.” He tucked her hair behind her ear for her. “Your neck is perfect. Like a swan’s.”
She rolled her eyes.
“It is!”
Leaving the argument be, she raised herself up on her elbow, blinking a little. He bet she was dizzy. She glanced down his body and giggled.
“What?”
“Your jeans were around your ankles the whole time?”
He looked down. He’d hardly noticed, but it was true. His jeans were bunched up at the top of his boots. Not the most dignified look. Especially when other parts of him weren’t so dignified at the moment either. Where in the hell were the sheets when you needed them?
“When, may I ask, during that sexual tsunami did I have time to unlace my boots?”
Laughing some more, she crawled to the end of the bed and began to pluck at his boot laces. What a spectacular ass she had. Her high black boots were on still, too—they were all she was wearing—and he sure wasn’t going to complain about that.
Looking over her shoulder she said, “Alex, if you want to do me in a Bozo outfit, I’d be just fine with it.”
A couple of hours later he carried her into the living room slung over his shoulder. Helena was laughing so hard it hurt. He dumped her on the couch and started to build a fire in the fireplace.
They’d left the door to the balcony wide open and the house was freezing.
“Do you want some clothes? I have a spa robe that might fit you.”
The look he sent over his shoulder was smoldering. His poor, gnawed shoulder. “You saying I should cover my body?”
“Oh, no, heavens no.” It took a lot of log splitting to carve a body like his. All he needed was some sun. The man was Minnesota pale. “I just thought you might be cold.”
He shook his head.
“Or in danger of burning…something. Flying embers, you know.”
That made him smile. “I’m flammable, it’s true. But I still like playing with fire.”
What did that mean? But she forgot to ask when he said, imperiously, “You’re not wearing anything for the rest of the night, either.”
“Oh really?” She teased him, but she felt no urge to get dressed. Ordinarily she was a little shy about her body—it was not perfect. Unlike Mr. Abs by the fireplace, she made a habit of shirking the gym. And over Christmas she’d had a torrid affair with a tray of fudge and a wastebasket-sized canister of those little Dutch cookies. Now her jeans barely buttoned. But she could not fault her body when he looked at it like that.
Wearing boots helped too. He wouldn’t let her take them off. They were knee length, black and shiny. Though not stilettos by any means, walking around in them naked was an unexpected turn-on. “I’ll get us some wine.” She clip clopped into the kitchen. Scully was in there, in her basket, giving out attitude. “Get used to it, dog. I’ve got a sex life and you don’t.”
“Are you hungry?” she shouted, peering into her fridge. Peering into her fridge like a happy sex slave fucked within an inch of her life. Not her usual state when hanging on the fridge door.
She heard him cough, and then he shouted back, “No, thanks, I just ate…before I came. Before I came here. But don’t let that stop you.”
Oh, it wouldn’t. She was ravenous. Down went a slice of cold pizza while she considered her options. If he wasn’t eating, she couldn’t get too elaborate. In the end she decided to take in some pretzel sticks, a bowl of olives and a bowl of cashews, just in case he changed his mind. Imagining she was wearing an abbreviated apron and a lace cap, Helena piled all the dishes and the wine on a tray
and sashayed her naughty maid self back to the living room.
The fire burned high, higher than she would ever build it, and he was lying on his back in front of it, content as a lizard on a hot rock. He looked asleep. The fire turned him from pale to gold and set off every ridge and muscle in his lean body. What was he doing in her life? He couldn’t be real.
But maybe she’d just enjoy him until he turned into a pumpkin.
She took a wine stem in each hand and straddled his belly. That woke him and he brought himself up on one elbow. He took the wine glass and gave it a sniff and a thoughtful first sip, which the wine deserved. She’d opened a good bottle for him. Thankfully he didn’t make any pretentious remarks about it, but she knew he liked wine by the way he handled it. He watched her over the rim, his almost black eyes showing amber depths by firelight. Alexander Faustin of Brooklyn. Huh.
“Kiss me,” he whispered.
She leaned forward and gave him a glancing kiss, then another deeper and another. Their tongues circled around each other and the kiss tasted of wine. Alex had a kiss she could drown in. Her nipples brushed over his chest, sending sparks through her.
“Scoot up,” he said, putting his glass down. He brought her hips level with his face. His tongue insinuated itself deep into her folds, and she nearly snapped the wine glass in two. Just where’d he get that tongue?
He paused to take a mouthful of wine, a mischievous look in his eye. Leaning forward, he pursed his lips and jetted a spray of wine into her navel. The carpet! she thought, while the wine coursed down her belly and gathered in her cleft. Soda water might get it out.
Alex made a humming noise of approval, licked the wine off her thighs and then cupped her bottom in his hands, guiding her and restraining her while he lapped her in long, soothing strokes. Oh, screw the carpet.
“It’s a big Zinfandel,” he mumbled, pausing between words to work his magic, “with notes of blackberry…and chocolate…and a surprising hint of pussy.”
The phone rang.
They ignored it. Lacey’s voice came on the machine. “Lena? Are you there? Hello? Pick up. Pick up! Helena MacAllister, if you don’t pick up, I’m going to freak out. I’m going to think stalker creep has you tied up.”
Alex chuckled, sending a delicious vibration through her. “The tying up comes later.”
“I’m coming over there. Swear to God.”
That got Helena’s attention. She crawled to the phone. “Lace? Sorry, I was sleeping.”
Her friend began to chatter about something that she could not understand, a TV show, something. Alex had crawled up behind her and was nibbling the backs of her thighs. The man bit her as much as he kissed her, and definitely didn’t mind if she went feral on him. It was such a relief to just let go, to not think about every move she made in bed. She stifled a hiss at a particularly sharp bite and then melted under the soothing lick that followed. Another bite followed, higher on her thigh, white hot pain—but good somehow. Real good. Was she a masochist? But no, she liked to bite. Was she a sadist?
Maybe she and Alex were just a little twisted.
“Oh!” she blurted at the third hard bite. Alex chuckled again. “Oh! Wow! Wow, I’m so tired. Lace, I’ll call you tomorrow.” The phone fell out of her hand.
“I’ve never had so many orgasms in one day. Not even the day my vibrator, Mr. Stubby, arrived in the mail.”
Alex laughed and pulled her closer. They lay spooned in front of the fire. He kept his nose buried in her straight, silky hair, trying not to snuffle her like a pug. She just smelled so damn good. “I’m flattered. I think.”
“Oh definitely. Man triumphs over machine. If we get married, Mr. Stubby might have to be sent into retirement. A nice place in Florida somewhere.”
If we get married. Joking. That was a good sign.
She twisted around to look at him, going serious all of a sudden. “Is this how you always have sex?”
“How’s that?”
“Like a crazed, bloodthirsty rabbit.”
He cupped one of her breasts, just to watch her eyes lose focus. “I’ve been crazed and I’m always bloodthirsty, but I’ve never wanted another rabbit like I want you.”
That made her smile, and that moment, that was all he wanted in the world. “I feel free with you, Alex, like nothing is off limits and nothing can go wrong.”
“That’s what you call trust, darling.”
“Guess so.” She sat up. Something changed. She’d withdrawn. “Are you sure you don’t want something to eat? We can send out for something better than pretzel sticks.”
Here it was, the start of the difficulties. Complications that would only mount until she knew the truth. How was he even going to begin to explain? “I’m not hungry. But you are. Please, eat. I want you to eat. I’ll sit with you.”
“That would be too weird. How can you not be hungry? Men are always hungry.”
“If we’re getting married, you’ll have to know about my eccentricities. One is that I don’t eat much. Once a day is all.”
“Why?”
“It’s just how I am.” He slipped an olive in her mouth to stop her questions. Then a cashew. Then a pretzel.
“What else?” She held the pretzel between her teeth like a cigar.
“Well, I have a fetish for oral sex. You’ll have to submit to my tongue regularly.”
“I don’t know how I’ll bear it.”
“I’m also a nocturnal creature.”
“That’s okay. I’m a night owl too.” A few heartbeats passed between them, then she said, “Is that it?”
Now? She was relaxed, open, receptive. On the surface. But underneath she was still judging him. Looking for something. What was it? He kissed her hand. “I can’t reveal my secrets all at once. I’ll lose my mysterious appeal.”
“You have mysterious appeal to spare, Mr. Faustin.”
Her eyes glimmered in the firelight, calling up his desire again. The taste of her blood was etched in cells, the need for it an addiction. When she’d begged him for release, he’d laid down his bets. There was no retreat now. Please let her understand.
“There’s no great mystery to my appeal, darling.” He rolled over her and slid his erection along her thigh.
“Oh no you don’t, buster. I’m done for.”
“But you want it.” The scent of her arousal made his nostrils flare. He nuzzled her throat, longing to bite her again, but couldn’t. He’d taken enough already for a day.
“Of course I want it. But I’m all worn out.”
“You don’t have to do a thing. This is dessert sex.”
“Dessert sex?”
“Sweet, creamy, smooth, completely unnecessary, so totally decadent.”
With a sigh she opened her legs, saying, “I may never walk again,” and he slid in easily. They fit together so well now. They kissed lazily and whispered nonsense while he moved gently within her soft embrace.
Her heat warmed him more than the fire ever could. She touched his cheek and searched his eyes. Could she see the ways his eyes were different from a human’s? Probably not. But maybe she knew he was holding back something. He kissed her and tried to explain without words that he did not hold back what was most important.
Afterward she took him by the hand and brought him back to her bed. “Now we sleep.”
Instead of sleeping, he held her and watched the clock, running through different imaginary conversations with her, watching the moon set through her wispy curtains. Helena’s limbs were twined around his, her breath a steady lullaby. She trusted him enough to sleep in front of him.
With a sigh, he kissed the top of her head and was grateful for that much. He’d seen inside her, just a barrage of sense impressions and flashing images, but enough to know how hard it was for her to trust anyone. The more he fed on her, the more he’d learn about her, and if she drank him, he’d open himself and let her see his stories too. Bonded couples knew their partners better than themselves. The bond was beautifully i
ntimate, his parents said, but dangerous, because power came with that knowledge. The power to destroy the other with a well-placed word or a malicious thought.
Helena was hurting. She’d lost her parents, she’d told him that, and now he’d seen them and felt their loss along with her. It was a gouge in her soul. He couldn’t imagine losing his parents, both of them at once, unexpectedly. And she didn’t even have siblings to turn to.
Mikhail and Gregor will be your brothers now. You will never be alone again. And then there was that asshole. That enormous, Nordic prick. Her last man. Alex didn’t know details, but he knew enough. This man had made her feel bad, made her doubt herself. He wanted to rip the bastard’s head off, jam it down the bleeding stub of his neck, stuff his body in a dumpster and roll it into the Hudson. A few more feedings and I’ll know where you live, Jeff.
Alex wished he was human, just so he could fall asleep with Helena, wake up and have breakfast with her. And after breakfast, he would spend the rest of his life making sure no one ever hurt her again.
The clock read 4:00. Dawn was closing in, but he could not bring himself to leave her warm bed. Instead he stroked her hair and listened to her heartbeat—three beats for every one of his—and imagined their lives weaving together. She was strong, and she had a lot of love in her. That he also knew. Maybe even enough love to take on a vampire.
That night he’d explain everything to her. It would be okay.
At five, he could no longer play it cool. Instead he was playing chicken. Sunrise was at 6:09.
Chapter Three
Helena woke with an empty space beside her. Alex dressed at the bedside, illuminated by nothing more than the glowing blue face of the alarm clock. Drugged with sleep and sex, she could barely speak, much less lift her head off the pillow. “Wus up?”
“Sleep. I have to be back to the hotel.”