Rosy lips. Rosy, sweet, kissable lips. A long, beautiful neck. A throbbing pulse. He stopped himself there. “It’s not that big a deal.”
“Someone killed my uncle and is now threatening to kill my father,” she whispered, her breath warm on his face. “You’re putting yourself in danger by bringing us here. It is a big deal.” She lifted up on her toes, wrapping her arms around his neck, and kissed him softly. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Liam’s pulse was pounding in his ears. Every sense in his body was quivering with desire for her. If she kissed him again, he didn’t know if he could keep himself from responding. He took a stumbling step back. “I’ll get those pillows.”
Chapter 10
Liam had been prepared to face the Gaudet brothers.
What he had not been prepared for was the children. Or his own subsequent rage.
His dreams tonight were shaky and slightly out of focus, like a black-and-white home movie, filmed with a sixteen-millimeter camera. He saw the guard he’d killed lying at his feet and the blood that pooled in a dark puddle on the floor. He seemed no less dead, even in sepia tones. Liam stepped over the dead man, wiping his blade on his pant leg before slipping the knife back into his waistband.
He didn’t know where the brothers would be, but as he walked down the dark hallway with its ancient arched ceiling, he could have sworn he could smell their stench. Going on nothing but instinct, he sensed they were together, Anatolle and Donat, as he had hoped they might be. That would make things easier. For him. Unfortunately, his instinct was not taking him toward the center of the house, where there was a dining room, a library, parlors. His nose was leading him down another passageway, this one narrower and built at an incline. The air was cooler at the end of the hallway where he found a plank and iron arched door. Through the unlocked door was a staircase leading down. He was entering the bowels of the palace.
The closer he moved, step by step, to the Gaudet brothers, the more uneasy he grew. All of his senses were alive and hypersensitive. He could feel the hair rise on his arms and on the back of his neck. Somewhere, water dripped and he heard a faint human sound. For a moment he thought it might be one of the men’s voices, but when he halted at the bottom of the steps and listened, he realized it was not a man he heard, but a child. A soft sob. The clink of a chain.
The journey from the dead guard to the bottom of the steps had taken less than a couple of minutes, but now, in his nightmare, each step was drawn out painfully long until he was trembling with fear of what the next step would bring.
But he knew. Even though he had relived this moment again and again, day and night, nothing prepared him for what he saw in the nightmare when he stepped around the corner.
Children. Chained to the stone wall. Shackled. Naked. A boy, asleep on a pile of rags. A girl with big, bloodshot blue eyes blinking up at him. That night, the girl did not speak; she didn’t even move. But here, now, in his twisted dream, she cried out, putting out a hand, begging him to release her.
“I’ll be back for you,” he whispered in French, just as he had that night.
Instead of pulling away, she reached out to him. Her hands became claws and her blue eyes ran red with blood. Suddenly the dream went Technicolor. “Trop tard,” she accused. Too late.
Liam tried to pull away, tried to hush her for fear the brothers would hear them. Her claws tore at his neck and face, sinking into his flesh.
“I’m trying to help you,” he cried. “I’ll come back for you. I swear I will.”
But she didn’t seem to hear. She tore at his body, ripping his clothes, his skin, her blood mixing with his. And then he was surrounded by the children, clawing, biting. “Trop tard. Too late. Too late,” they cried.
“No! No! I’m sorry. I came as quickly as I could!”
The little one with the blue eyes sank her teeth into him and he cried out, as much in emotional pain as physical. “I’m sorry,” he said with a sob.
“Liam. Liam.”
He shook his head. They knew his name. They knew who he was. Even though he had set them free, they still came for him.
He felt her hand on his shoulder. “Liam!”
Liam’s eyes flew open and suddenly he wasn’t looking into the haunted eyes of little Marie Randulph any longer, but into Mai’s warm brown eyes. His bedroom was dark. She was sitting on his bed, her hands on his shoulders.
“You were having a nightmare,” she whispered, her face close to his.
Panting, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He was cold and clammy and shaking all over. “A nightmare,” he whispered, embarrassed to have her see him like this. Relieved to have someone there. Someone real to touch.
He was so fucking lonely.
“You okay?” she asked, her eyes filled with concern.
“I’m okay,” he said with a sigh when he could find his voice. “I woke you. I’m sorry.”
She stroked his bare arm, unembarrassed by his nakedness. “Don’t be sorry.”
She was leaning over him, so close he could feel her breath on his mouth. Liam wasn’t sure what happened next. Did he lift his head from his pillow? Did she lower hers? But suddenly his mouth was on hers, hard and hungry. Desperate for life when all around him was death.
Maybe there was something inside her that felt the same way.
One second she was hovering over him, her soft lips on his. The next moment, he was on top of her, stretching out his legs, covering her with his naked body, pushing her into the thin mattress. She was wearing nothing but an old T-shirt and a pair of panties and he felt her bare thighs hot against his. He thrust his tongue into her mouth, needing to possess her, she needing to be possessed.
Their mouths twisted hungrily. She tasted clean, sweet, of summer berries and hope. He thrust his hand up under her T-shirt to cup one dainty, round breast. Her skin was soft and silky.
She moaned.
I shouldn’t be doing this. I can’t do this. It was forbidden. It was wrong for a hundred reasons.
But his groin was already throbbing, his need hard against her leg.
Liam caught both her hands and pinned them to the bed over her head. She struggled, but with him, not against him. He kissed her mouth, her chin, her throat, lingering over her beating pulse. Her blood was hot and pulsing, just under the surface of her skin.
He felt the vibration of his fangs . . . the need. But he resisted. Dragging his mouth along her hot flesh, he kissed her breast through the thin fabric of her shirt, wetting it as he teased her nipple with his tongue.
She struggled for a second, trying to pull one hand away, and he took a deep breath. If she said no, he could not do this. He would not.
He released her hand, shifting his weight, prepared to set her free. Run, he thought. Run, while you have the chance.
But to his surprise, she wasn’t trying to get away from him. When he let go of her hand, all she did was grab the hem of her shirt and yank it, baring her sweet, small, round breasts to him. He needed no further invitation.
Liam grabbed the T-shirt and pulled it over her head. He covered her nipple with his mouth, licking, sucking. She moaned, moving her hips against his.
A part of him, the deepest part of him, wanted her blood, but another part of him wanted . . . needed this human act, to touch and be touched . . . more than the blood.
He slid his hand over her flat belly that had never known a child, to the waistband of her panties, and she parted her legs. He slipped his hand beneath the fabric and she was warm and wet and ready for him. “Liam,” she whispered in his ear.
He shoved down the panties; she slipped out of them, kicking them to the floor, as eager as he was to feel flesh to flesh.
He raised his body over her and looked into her eyes. They were open, gazing into his. She looked lost. Found. “Mai,” he whispered. And despite his urgent need, he kissed her tenderly on the lips, his trembling against hers.
He didn’t deserve this. He had no right.
With one hand, he guided his way deep into her. She raised her hips, cried out, and for a moment he feared he was too big for her. She was so tiny, so delicate. . . . But she began to move against him, and he realized it was not a cry of pain, but surprise, then pleasure.
He thrust deeper.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him closer. He felt her heels dig into his calves as she cradled his body with hers. Heart pounding, pulse pumping, he thrust into her again and again.
Generally, he was a controlled lover. He prided himself in the time he could take to please his partner. He could bring a woman to orgasm, human or otherwise, again and again. But he had no control left tonight. He moved faster, harder.
Mai’s soft moans became louder, higher pitched. Another thrust and she cried out so loudly that she covered her mouth with her hand. That was his cue normally to slow down, give the woman a moment, but Liam was too far gone. He fell against her, only two. . . three more strokes and he felt the contraction of his muscles and the final, explosive release. He came with a groan and fell against her. She clung to him, both of them hot and sweaty and satiated.
He kissed her cheek, her earlobe. He had not drawn a single drop of her blood and was as shocked by that thought as she would have been if he had.
Liam shifted his weight, moving to her side, against the wall. He feared he was too heavy on her; his bed was so narrow that he had to lift her in his arms so that she lay partially on top of him. He let his head fall back on the pillow and he closed his eyes, still breathing hard.
“Wow,” she panted after a second. “I didn’t see that coming when I walked in here.”
He smiled in the darkness. “Me neither.”
She snuggled up against him, laying her cheek against his shoulder. “Now don’t I feel like the perfect little hussy?”
He chuckled. “Actually, I think I saw it coming the second you walked into my shop that day. You did, too.”
“Yeah, but I could have at least let you come to me. Then I wouldn’t look like quite the brazen ho that I apparently am.”
He stroked her bare buttocks, enjoying the feel of her skin beneath his fingertips. It was so soft. So . . . feminine. “I’m not saying I might not have tried it. I’m not sure there is room in there for me, you, your dad, and the Prince of Dogs.”
She laughed with him, her voice soft, warm. She was all his life was not. “I still feel like a hussy.”
“Don’t.” He kissed her temple.
She sighed and lay quiet for so long that he thought maybe she was drifting off to sleep. Then she spoke. “You have them often? Nightmares?”
“Too often,” he answered, not entirely comfortable saying so. Assassins weren’t supposed to have nightmares.
“After my mom left, my dad said mine were bad. Even in college, I still had them. I always dreamed of running after her in this vast, scary darkness, but never catching up.”
She was quiet again, obviously giving him the opportunity to share what his nightmares were about. He didn’t. Sharing a bed was one thing, but sharing his deepest thoughts, that was something entirely different.
They lay there for another twenty minutes in silence. Liam relaxed for the first time in months, maybe years, and began to drift off. He was almost asleep when she sat up. “I better get out of here before I fall asleep.”
By the light of the moon coming through the curtainless window, she found her T-shirt and panties. She left his room carrying them, giving one glorious glance of her tight, round buttocks as she went through the door.
“’Night,” she murmured.
“Good night.” And he slept a dreamless sleep at last.
As the sunlight coming through the window hit Mai’s face, she couldn’t decide if she felt gloriously alive or mortified by what had happened last night. She stretched beneath the blanket and yawned. Maybe a little of both? She smiled to herself.
That was the best orgasm she’d ever had in her life, with or without the assistance of a man.
She felt her cheeks grow warm just at the thought of it. Something else grew warm and she groaned, her thoughts heading back in the direction of mortification again. Was she out of her mind, crawling into a stranger’s bed like that?
But she hadn’t lied to Liam when she said she hadn’t gone to his room to seduce him. She really hadn’t. She’d never made the first move with a man in her life! She’d only gone because she couldn’t stand the thought of someone else being so terrified. His cries had awakened her from a deep sleep and brought tears to her eyes. She had known he was suffering; she had seen it in his eyes even after she woke him.
Then he had kissed her. Or had she kissed him?
Slut. Ho. Hussy. She was obviously all those things.
But it had been so good.
Mai heard her father stir and glanced over at the other bed. He lay on his stomach with his dog tucked under his arm, only Prince’s little head sticking out from beneath the blanket. Corrato’s hair was so white and thin on his pillow. When had he gotten so old? And what was she going to do about this mess they were in? How was any of this even possible? This kind of thing didn’t happen to ordinary people like her. How was she going to protect him when she didn’t even know who or what she was protecting him from or why?
God, why hadn’t she pushed Uncle Donato harder? Why hadn’t she demanded answers when she had the chance? She had known. She had known on some level that Donato Ricci was not the man he wanted her to think he was. A part of her had known, even as a child, that he was dangerous.
Then she had let him into her home. She had allowed him to put her life and her father’s at risk. She wished she had the skinny old man here right now, with his breath smelling of limoncello. She would demand the truth or she would put his skinny ass on the curb and let the Weasel have him. Again.
No, she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t because she always felt sorry for the old, the weak, the infirm. Whatever Uncle Donato had done as a young man, he had still been a feeble old man by the time he came to live with them. His memory had been hazy, the simple task of tying his shoes sometimes confusing, and he had begun repeating himself a lot. He had not been healthy physically or mentally.
Her father rolled over, opened his eyes, blinked, and gazed around the room. He focused on the slender crucifix on the wall, the room’s only ornamentation. “We in a monastery?”
“Nope.” She smiled. “Liam’s apartment. We left Suzy’s and came here last night.” She slipped out of bed and pulled on a pair of sweatpants over her underwear. She needed a shower; she could still smell Liam on her skin. But that would have to wait. “Remember driving here last night?”
“Yes, I remember,” he snapped. “It was a joke.” He opened his arms and Prince wiggled free and hopped to the floor.
“I’ll take him out.” She stepped into sneakers, grabbed a sweatshirt off the top of her suitcase, and went to the door. “Come on, Prince. Outside.”
“I want coffee,” Corrato announced, slowly swinging his spindly legs over the edge of the bed. He was wearing a pair of blue flannel pajamas that were so old they were thin at the knees and elbows. Every time she ran them through the wash, she contemplated tossing them in the trash. But he loved those pajamas as much as she hated them, so she kept washing them and he kept wearing them. “And my newspaper. You think they’ve got coffee and a paper in this monastery?”
She grabbed her wallet out of her bag, slung over the single chair in the room. “I’ll get coffee, Babbo. Just don’t insult Liam by calling his house a monastery.”
“What?” Corrato called after her as she went down the hall. “You think he hasn’t noticed?”
Liam woke feeling heavy with guilt. The room was bright and he dressed quickly in the same jeans and T-shirt he’d worn the day before. He’d overslept. He found Mai, Corrato, and the rat dog in the kitchen. Corrato was doing a crossword puzzle in the morning paper.
“A small European fish, five-letter word, ending in T,” Corrato read alo
ud.
“Hey,” Mai called when Liam walked into the kitchen. “We helped ourselves to breakfast. Dad likes Rice Krispies. I hope that’s okay.” She was wearing a sweatshirt, sweatpants, and sneakers. Her cheeks were rosy, as if she’d been outside. Or was embarrassed.
He debated whether he should kiss her good morning. Some women expected that after you slept with them.
“Sprat,” Corrato announced.
Liam decided no on the good-morning kiss. Maybe she didn’t want her father to know about last night. Liam sure as hell didn’t. “Not much here to eat. Sorry. I haven’t gotten around to getting to the store. Busy, you know, sorting things in the shop.” It sounded lame. He sounded lame. What could a pretty, smart human woman see in a loser vampire like him? It was a good thing he’d enjoyed last night, because he knew it wasn’t going to happen again. If she had any brains, she’d go now.
“I went across the street and got bagels and coffee. There’s a cup there for you.” She wrinkled her nose. He thought it was the cutest nose he’d ever seen.
“Not very friendly over there, are they?” she asked.
He shrugged and got a carton of OJ out of the fridge. He didn’t do caffeine. He was jumpy enough without it. “They’re okay. We, um, just don’t have a lot of visitors this time of year. Things kind of shut down.”
“Royal fur, six letters, ending in E,” Corrato read aloud.
The dog seemed to be the only one listening.
Corrato hesitated. “Ermine.” He scribbled the word.
“I thought I’d run to the store later, get a few things my dad likes. I thought I could make dinner for us tonight. If that’s okay.” She looked at Liam hesitantly.
So, apparently she was staying, at least until dinner. He took a drink of juice from the carton, then thought better of it and went to the cupboard. All he could find in the way of a glass was a plastic cup from the local minimart. He poured half a cup. “Sure. Dinner would be nice.”
She leaned against the counter and sipped coffee from a paper cup. “Your kitchen is beautiful. A little sparse, but beautiful.”
Ravenous Page 9