by J. K. Coi
“Get away from me,” she said, her voice scratchy and hoarse.
“Max—” He followed her, hair sticking straight up, leaning over the side, his hand reaching for her.
“No,” she begged, warding him off with a shake of her head. “You have to get away from me, Baron. Get out of here. Hurry.”
“Baby, it’s okay. It will be okay.” He continued to come for her, sitting up and swinging his legs over the side of the bed now. He was dressed in long workout pants and a short-sleeved tee that molded to his upper body.
“It isn’t,” she insisted, shaking her head. This would never be okay. An image of the vampire rose in her mind, his cruel grin and long teeth, eyes glittering with evil malice. She shivered, remembering everything. That was her. She was the monster now. “It’s not okay. You don’t understand.”
She had to warn him. “Baron, please. You have to go. I…something happened to me last night—at least, I think it was last night. God, how long have I been out?” She shook her head. It was ringing and his scent was strong in her nostrils, his heartbeat pounding so loud she could hear it clearly in the space that separated them.
“I was attacked. On the road. A…a vampire. I know how it sounds, but…” Hell, it sounded ridiculous to her own ears, and she knew Baron wouldn’t believe her—how could he?—but she needed him to. If he believed, then he would run. He would run and not come back and then she couldn’t hurt him.
Her taste buds screamed, wanting something her brain couldn’t bear to acknowledge.
It was getting harder and harder to resist the impulse to pounce on him. Her mouth watered in anticipation of how he would taste. She closed her eyes tightly, willing her body under control. The feelings and urges waging war against her were so intense and overpowering that she practically drooled as she devoured the sight of him, while her stomach churned and her brain told her she was disgusting, sick.
God, if only it were a sickness.
“Max,” he called. She suddenly realized she’d been staring at his throat, watching the pulse point beating under his skin. “Max, it’s okay. I know what happened to you. I understand what you’re going through right now.”
She groaned, shaking her head. He couldn’t possibly know. If he knew, he would be revolted by her.
“Baron, don’t try to be understanding. You can’t possibly understand. Just go,” she whispered, her voice catching on an involuntary sob of hopelessness as she raised her knees to her chin and wrapped her arms tightly around her legs. “Please go. I can’t control it for much longer.”
Max clenched a fist over her stomach, pressing hard, willing the hunger to abate. But it wasn’t working. The room was so saturated with his scent she couldn’t escape it. Even the clothes she was wearing smelled like him. She groaned, realizing belatedly that it was because they were his clothes.
“Max, look at me.” His voice was hard and forceful. Demanding. Surprising.
Max had once taken great care to arrange all of her memories of Baron into a neat, inflexible package—a little box with a picture on the front of a gorgeous, but useless pretty boy that she very neatly stuck up on a high, dusty shelf in her mind. When he had entered military service, that picture had remained static, unchanged. She hadn’t wanted to think of him in any other way.
She hadn’t wanted to think of him in any way at all.
For a while, that worked. He’d only returned home on a very irregular basis, and they managed to avoid each other for the most part. They had come together only once, two years ago. But that encounter had been such a complete disaster, it hadn’t changed her opinion of him for the better, had in fact only made it worse.
After he disappeared for good, keeping those images available whenever his name came up in conversation was one of the ways Max convinced herself she was better off without him.
As Baron spoke, his voice reassuring and calm, the picture in her mind slowly started to shift.
Max remembered all the times Baron had tried to tell her what to do, how she had always laughed at him, but she couldn’t imagine doing that to this man. This powerful, sure man who seemed so capable and so much in control—or was it just her imagination because she was falling apart so completely?
Max looked into his eyes and opened her mouth. She meant to plead with him again to get out of there. Instead she groaned through another massive stomach cramp.
It was too much.
Too much.
Chapter Six
Max’s teeth felt like daggers in her mouth, long and sharp. Baron’s heartbeat roared in her ears like the unrelenting pattern of a tribal drum. She couldn’t help it, couldn’t hold back. She launched herself at him, and in one surprisingly agile leap found herself on top of him, forcing him back onto the bed.
Baron’s hands gripped her forearms, holding her above him. He was strong, very strong, but whether it was the hunger driving her, or some other physical consequence of her transformation into a monster, Max’s own strength seemed to have multiplied a thousand times.
“Max.” His voice was so calm. Even with her body holding him down and her mouth poised inches from his throat, he was unflappable. His tone and manner radiated complete control. “Max, don’t. Not like this. Don’t let it consume you. You can control it.”
“What?” She couldn’t concentrate. Couldn’t focus on anything but the pulse point throbbing steadily in Baron’s neck. The blood that was so close now, she could already taste it. Coppery, thick, she could imagine it flowing into her mouth and sliding down her throat.
Her mouth watered, although her gag reflex was working overtime too. She couldn’t decide whether to throw up or lick her lips.
Jesus, how could one part of her want something so badly, when every other part rebelled against it?
With a groan of disgust, she acknowledged that this wasn’t even the first time she had been pulled in opposite directions by her own body when it came to Baron.
“Baby, I can give you what you need, but you have to stay in control. If you don’t, you’re going to hurt me or hurt yourself, and neither of us wants that. You’re strong and I trust you. You can do it.” His voice was soothing, slow, coaching her. “Go ahead, sweetheart. Drink.”
His deep, sure voice was so familiar, it penetrated to the part of her that was maybe still human. The part that would rather die than do this to another person, especially to him. To Baron.
Drink.
She looked down at herself, at her hands closed tightly over his shoulders, holding him down.
She abruptly sat up and back, horror at what she was about to do bringing tears to her eyes. “Oh, no. Baron, I’m so sorry.”
“No, it’s fine. I know you need this.” He reached for her, brushing some of her hair back from her face. She had to fight not to flinch away from him.
“I can’t do it. I can’t drink blood. Not yours or anyone else’s.” Shaking her head, she put a hand to her mouth. “I should be dead. Oh God, why didn’t he just kill me?” Her mind was fracturing again. She could feel the two sides of herself—monster and human—battling it out. Who was going to win was still up in the air. “I don’t know how to make it all stop. Please, Baron. You have to get out of here. Why aren’t you running away?”
Baron sat up and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her onto his lap and guiding her face into the crook of his neck. She struggled, trying to push him away, but he held fast. “Max, baby, it’s okay,” he crooned to her in a soft voice, like he would speak to a small, frightened child. His hand stroked a path over her hair and down her back in an attempt to soothe her trembling body. “I know what you need, and I want you to drink from me. Take my blood with the full knowledge that I’m offering it to you of my own free will.”
How could he know? How was that possible?
How could it be that his words seemed to free her? Where before it was all she could do to fight the hunger, the pain and the need, with those simple words, her body—her entire being—sighed in rel
ief. The hunger was still there, still making her teeth throb and her bones ache, but some of the urgency abated.
Who was this man?
Where was the Baron who had slept with her, then left the day of his own mother’s funeral, the man who’d deserted his brother when Jackson had desperately needed him, the man who hadn’t sent a word to either Max or Jackson in over two years, and had been distant even before then?
The Baron who’d had no problem letting them believe he might even be dead and the man sitting with her here and now—holding her gently and stroking her back, offering her comfort—weren’t the same person. This Baron could not have been so callous and self-centered.
Unless she just wasn’t giving him enough credit for his improved acting skills.
Max lifted her head and sought his gaze. Who was this man whose eyes glittered with tears, as if he shared her pain? It was true. He did. Somehow, she knew he was hurting just as much as she did. He felt a boatload of guilt and shame. She didn’t know how she knew that, and she couldn’t understand why. Yes, there were things he should feel guilt over, but this situation at least, wasn’t his fault, just a drastic result of her own stupidity.
Max felt off balance. Something wasn’t right.
She realized part of that feeling came from the look in his eyes. Even filled with sympathetic understanding, they seemed like twin gems, not warm amber, but cold, liquid crystal. Odd. She could have sworn Baron’s eyes were the same color as Jackson’s, a bright sky-blue. How, after so many years, had she never known they were really this clear, silvery color?
It didn’t help, was just one more thing to throw her further off balance.
Who was this man who held her in his arms and calmly offered to feed her with his own blood to quench her hunger? Why hadn’t he run from her in terror or showed any surprise at her crazed, incoherent claims?
And why did she get the impression that none of this seemed to faze him?
Baron leaned in close and brushed his lips against her mouth. Not even a real kiss—it was light and sweet, not what she would have expected from him. Actually, she hadn’t thought to feel his mouth on hers ever again, and if asked, Max would have said that she didn’t want it.
“Do it, Max,” he urged. Turning his face to the side, he bared his neck to her in blatant invitation.
How could she do this?
How could she not?
She didn’t have the strength to withstand the insistent demand of the hunger anymore.
With a low moan, she descended to his neck.
Still trying to fight the hunger, to delay the inevitable, she ran her tongue over his skin. She savored the salty male taste of him, felt the steady pounding of his pulse at her mouth. But then he groaned and tightened his arms around her, forcing a more intimate embrace, forcing Max to recognize just how much the old Baron had really changed.
His body was rock solid against hers, from the defined biceps twitching under her fingertips, the muscled thighs that acted not so much as a cushion for her thighs, but a concrete slab, to the hard length that stretched his loose-fitting workout pants and pressed into her belly.
She moved closer, pressing her aching breasts against the hard wall of his chest. Her nipples tightened and a little shock of pleasure shot through her to the wet core between her thighs.
Oh.
Oh, no.
She couldn’t want that now. Not with him. It was too embarrassing. But her traitorous body didn’t seem to care. It wanted. It desired. It hungered.
The intensity of her reactions threw her off balance, and she couldn’t deny the persistent demands of her body any longer.
She struck hard. It was instinctive, primal, and Baron jerked beneath her.
Now it was she who held him. She was in control. Powerful. Strong. Not a victim. Never again.
Max’s palm cradled his head to her as her mouth opened over his throat and her teeth punctured his vein.
The first drop of his blood on her tongue shattered her, and she groaned as the pleasure flooded all of her senses. Taste. Smell. Touch—all overwhelmed by sensation.
She started to draw on his vein, taking his life’s blood into her mouth, into her body, and they moaned together in matching expressions of pleasure. The sane part of her was disgusted with herself, but another part of her—a primitive, dangerous part—felt natural, excited, uninhibited…and totally turned on.
Max was mortified by the strong sexual reaction she was having to Baron’s closeness and blamed it on the intimacy of their position and the uniqueness of the situation. Any other explanation simply wasn’t acceptable and, God willing, she would never have to examine her reactions to this moment in time, to this situation, to this man.
* * * * *
Baron hadn’t known that it would feel like this.
Nothing he’d read had suggested that there would be a sexual component of any kind to the act of giving and taking blood—and you’d think someone would have found that part interesting enough to mention. All the cheap B movies he’d watched as a teenager had liked to connect vampires with sex, but Baron had never once considered that Hollywood might actually be using the truth to sell films. Go figure.
He’d gone from worry and fear when Max remained unconscious for so long, to wanting to reassure her and comfort her when she’d finally awoken, to being desperate to have her beneath him and bury himself inside of her as soon as he’d heard the husky sound of her voice.
Now, with her body pressed close and her teeth in his neck pulling on his vein, his cock surged to throbbing, aching life, demanding similar attention.
Slowly and carefully, so as not to startle her, Baron leaned back, pulling her with him so he lay full length on the bed with her body blanketing him. She moaned against his throat, her breasts, hips and thighs snug against him. He ran his hands up and down her arms, needing to touch her while her mouth pulled on his neck. The sensation of having her feed from him, of the sexy, soft sounds of her sucking, was like nothing he’d ever experienced before. Intimate. Sexy.
But then, Max had always been sexy. Too sexy for his peace of mind.
He’d had to give her up.
Maybe that was why he went through women like single-ply bathroom tissue. Because he knew that he could have had it all, but let it slip from his fingers. All the other women were simply not worth the effort. He didn’t want to get to know them, so he didn’t. He didn’t care about any of them, so it made no difference which one he used to slake his lust.
But now, for the first time in years, Baron felt alive again, more than alive—filled with energy, with focus. He had a purpose. This was something that only he could do.
As an Immortal, he was a good fighter, but he was new to the game and there were others whose skill far surpassed his own. It was a simple fact. If he were gone, no one would really miss him. In fact, the prophecy ensured there would be another to fill his place before his corpse had even cooled.
As a human, he had been a good soldier, but even that was lost to him now.
He definitely hadn’t been a good brother, as Jackson would no doubt attest if he ever saw Baron again.
But right at this moment he was the only man for this job, there was nowhere else he could be but here with Maxine.
His hands continued to wander. He wanted to know her, to rediscover all of the dips and curves that his body had missed since they’d been apart. What had changed. What had remained the same. It was a bad idea, but with her mouth on him and his lifeblood pouring into her, he just couldn’t find the strength to heed any of the old arguments.
She was his.
Even if they never saw each other again after this moment, Max would be a part of him forever. If he were honest, she had been even before this earth-shattering event had brought them back together.
How long it had been since she’d started to drink? Moments only, though it seemed like eons of blissful union between them, and he hadn’t even gotten her naked, hadn’t yet slid his fin
gers inside of her like he wanted to do.
Shit, he had to stop thinking like that.
This wasn’t about sex. He refused to jump all over the first excuse to jump on her. Max already hated him enough, and when this was over, she would leave. She should leave.
She wasn’t really his, could never be, and Baron wasn’t going to be getting her naked, except maybe in his dreams. There were reasons why it was so, why it had to be that way, and those reasons hadn’t changed, even though so many other things had.
Still, for just this moment…he raised a knee so her pelvis was cradled between his thighs, curled his fingers into the supple flesh of her ass. When she whimpered and rolled her hips in closer, his cock surged against his thin cotton pants, and he dropped his head back against the headboard with a low groan, the action improving her access to his vein.
In this moment Baron would simply let himself feel, and deal with the consequences later.
Max gasped against his neck and Baron felt the gentle tugging on his throat ease. She pushed her hands against his chest to move off him. He tightened his hold on her, wanting to keep her close, beg her to take more, but knew it was a bad idea. He wasn’t dizzy or weak from the lost blood and thought she probably could have used more, but he wanted her to feel like she was the one with the control. He wanted her to know that the hunger didn’t control her, and that even he didn’t control her. So he let her pull away.
He watched her lick her bottom lip of the light sheen of blood. “Feel better?” he asked. “Do you still have any pain?”
She shook her head, two fingers touching her mouth. “I can’t believe I—”
“Don’t be sorry.” He smiled, reaching for her hand and pulling it to his lips, placing small kisses on the pads of her fingers. “None of this was your fault.”