At Twilight

by Maggie Shayne

  amusing.

  I shall manage to travel under my own power, thank you.

  ” With a dramatic whirl of his black cloak he vanished into the

  darkness.

  Eric closed Tamara’s door, circled the car and got in beside her.

  For a long moment he simply looked at her, drinking in the familiar

  beauty of her face.

  Her eyes moved over his in like manner, as if she, too, had craved the

  sight of him.

  He dragged his gaze away, and searched the car’s panel.

  “It’s been a while,” he told her, frowning.

  “But I assume you still need a key.”

  Her smile sent warmth surging through him.

  She glanced around, and pointed into the rear seat.

  “It was in my purse.”

  He glanced where she pointed and spotted her handbag, spilling over the

  back seat.

  He leaned over, located the keys and returned to the correct

  position.

  It took him a moment to locate the switch.

  The last time he’d driven a car the switch had been on the dashboard,

  not the side of the steering wheel.

  He inserted the key, turned it on and jerked at the mechanical hum the

  car emitted.

  She laughed aloud, the sound like music to him.

  He felt some of her tension leaving her with that laughter.

  “How long has it been?”

  she asked him, amusement in her voice.

  Smiling, he looked at her.

  “I don’t recall, exactly. But fear not, I am a quick study. Now

  then…”

  His feet did a little tap dance on the floorboard.

  “Where’s the clutch?”

  “It’s automatic.”

  She slid across the seat, closer to him, and pointed to the pedals on

  the floor.

  “There is the brake and that’s the accelerator. Now hold your foot on

  the brake.”

  He slipped an arm around her shoulders and drew her closer to his

  side.

  He pressed his foot onto the pedal she indicated.

  She put her finger on the indicator.

  “Look.

  Park, Reverse, Neutral, Drive.

  Put it in Drive.

  ” He did, smelling her hair, then jerking his head around when the car

  began to move.

  He eased it onto the street and moved it slowly until he got a feel for

  the thing.

  Soon he maneuvered the car easily, finding the correct ramp and

  bringing them onto the highway.

  “You said you could never lie to me,” she said softly, settling close

  to him.

  “Is it true?”

  “I could attempt to lie to you, but if I did, and you paid attention,

  you would know.

  ” He tightened his arms on her shoulders. ” But I’d never have reason

  to lie to you, Tamara.

  ” She nodded.

  “I don’t want to go right home. Could we stop somewhere? Talk for a

  while?”

  CHAPTER NINE Ohe didn’t need to tell him that the first thing she had

  to do was to wash the memory of the vile man’s touch away from her

  body.

  It amazed her that he could read her so well, but he did.

  He took her to his home, parking the Cadillac within the fence, and

  around a bend in the driveway, so it couldn’t be seen from the

  highway.

  He then suggested she call Daniel with a plausible explanation for her

  lateness.

  She told Daniel that she and Hilary were heading to a nightclub after

  dinner, and that she didn’t know how late she’d be.

  He grumbled, but didn’t throw too much of a fit.

  She had to give him credit.

  He was trying.

  When she replaced the receiver of the telephone, Eric reentered the

  living room, carrying a tray with a bottle of brandy and a

  delicate-looking long-stemmed bubble glass.

  She eyed it, unconsciously rubbing one palm over her breast where the

  pig had touched her.

  “His filth can’t touch you, Tamara. You’re too pure to be sullied by

  one so vile.”

  She realized what she’d been doing and drew her hand away.

  “I feel dirty… contaminated.”

  “I know.

  It is a normal reaction, from what I understand.

  Would you feel less so if you bathed?

  ” She closed her eyes.

  “God, yes. I want to scrub myself raw every place he” — “I sensed as

  much. I drew a bath for you while you spoke to St. Claire.”

  Her eyes opened then.

  “You did?

  ” He lowered the tray, poured the glass half-full of brandy and brought

  it to her.

  One arm around her shoulders, he led her down a long, high-ceilinged

  corridor, and through a door.

  The room glowed with amber light from the oil lamps, and the tall,

  elegant candles that burned on every inch of available space.

  A claw-footed, ivory-toned tub brimmed with bubbly, steaming water.

  He took the brandy from her unresisting hand and set the glass on a

  stand near the tub.

  He picked up what looked like a remote control from the same spot,

  thumbed a button, and soft music wafted into the room, as soothing as

  the steam that rose from the water, or the halo glows of light around

  the myriad of tiny flames.

  She leaned over the tub, touched an iridescent bubble and felt the

  spatters on her wrist when it popped.

  His hand touched her shoulder and she turned, staring up at him in

  wonder.

  “I can’t believe you did all this.”

  “I want to comfort you, Tamara. I want to erase the horror that

  touched you tonight. I want to replace it with tenderness. I cherish

  you. Do you know that?”

  She felt a lump in her throat.

  His words were so poignant they made her eyes burn.

  “I won’t lose control. I couldn’t unleash my passions on you after

  what you’ve experienced tonight. I only want to pamper you, to show

  you…”

  He closed his eyes, lifted her hand to his lips.

  He kissed her knuckles, one by one, then opened his eyes and turned her

  hand over and pressed his lips to her palm.

  She gave her consent, without parting her lips.

  He heard it, it seemed.

  He gently removed her tattered blouse, and set it aside.

  He reached around her, unhooked her bra in the back and then drew the

  straps down over her shoulders.

  Her right breast was bruised, and she felt the marks of the other man’s

  fingers would never go away completely.

  “The marks are only skin-deep, and they will fade.”

  He pushed her still-damp jeans down, lifted his hands and she held

  them, to balance while she stepped out of them.

  She J removed the panties herself.

  She didn’t want him to lookt down at her body.

  She still felt dirty, despite his words.

  He I kept his gaze magnetized to hers, holding her hands as she ;

  lifted one foot, then the other into the bubbly water.

  She sank slowly down, leaning back against the cool porcelain ; and

  closing her eyes.

  She felt the touch of the chill glass in her palm and she closed her

  hand on it.

  “Sip,” Eric instructed.

  �
��Relax. Let the tension ebb. Hear Wolf gang’s genius.”

  She tasted the brandy, not opening her eyes.

  “Mmm.

  This is wonderful.

  ” “Cognac,” he replied.

  She heard the trickle of water, then felt a warm cloth moving over her

  throat, and around ; to the back of her neck.

  ; She frowned, still keeping her eyes closed.

  “There used to be a legend about vampires and running water….”

  She heard his low chuckle.

  The cloth left her skin to plunge into the water.

  He squeezed it out, lathered it with soap and returned to his gentle

  cleansing—of her soul, it seemed.

  “Completely false.”

  He moved slowly over her chest, washing her breasts as her heartbeat

  quickened.

  But he didn’t touch her in passion, only in comfort.

  “And so is the one about the garlic, or wolfsbane. And, as you already

  know, the crucifix.”

  “But sunlight…”

  j

  “Yes, sunlight is my enemy.

  It is one of the things I try to work out in my laboratory.

  The how of it, and the why.

  What I might do to change it.

  ” He sighed, and lathered her stomach and abdomen. ” I can’t tell you

  how much I miss the sun.

  ” His hand, covered by the wet cloth, moved over her rib cage beneath

  the water, and down her side.

  “The wooden stake?”

  “It isn’t the stake that would do me in. Any sharp object could, if

  used properly. A vampire is almost like a sufferer of hemophilia. We

  could bleed to death quite easily.”

  He ran the cloth between her legs all too briefly, and then moved on

  to rhythmically massage her thighs.

  “Why do we have this mental link?”

  She took another long, slow drink of the cognac and opened her eyes to

  watch his face as he answered.

  “I will try to begin to explain it to you. You see, not just any human

  can become a vampire. There are, in fact, very few who could be

  transformed, all of whom have two common traits.”

  He moved to her calf, kneading the back of it as he soaped it for

  her.

  “One is the bloodline. It traces back to a common ancestor, but I

  suspect it goes back much farther, even, than that.”

  “Who?”

  He captured one of her feet in both his soapy hands and lifted it from

  the water to rub and caress and massage it until the foot and his hands

  were invisible beneath a mound of suds.

  “Prince Vlad the Impaler… better known as” — “Dracula,” she

  breathed, awestruck.

  “Exactly. The other trait” — he rubbed her big toe between his thumb

  and forefinger “—is in the blood itself.

  There is an antigen called Belladonna.

  ” She sat up fast.

  “But I have the Belladonna antigen.”

  He turned his face toward her, his gaze momentarily locking onto her

  breasts, jiggling with the sudden movement just above the water’s

  surface, bubbles clinging, sliding slowly down.

  He licked his lips.

  “Yes, and you have the ancestor, as well. Such humans with both traits

  are rare. We call them the Chosen. Always there is a mental link

  between us and them, though in most cases the humans are unaware of

  it.

  We know if they are in danger, and we do our best to protect them.

  The incident in Paris was not the first time Roland had saved my life,

  you see.

  ” He forced his head to turn away again, she noticed, and he went to

  work, with his magic hands and fingers, on her other foot. ” That is

  where our link began.

  It became much stronger, and that | part of it you must remember on

  your own.

  ” | She lowered herself into the water again. She believed | him. She

  no longer doubted what he’d told her. The sensation of being able to

  see what was in his mind was awesome to her, but very real. She knew,

  for instance, that it would do her no good to insist he tell her more

  of their past and this link. He wouldn’t. For her sake, he

  wouldn’t.

  And she knew, right now, the effort it was costing him not to jerk her

  roughly into his arms and to kiss her until her head swam with

  desire.

  He held himself in rigid check, knowing the terror she’d felt

  tonight.

  For her sake, he held back.

  He loved her.

  His love was like a soft, warm blanket, enveloping her and protecting

  her from the world.

  Nothing could touch her with this feeling around her.

  It was heaven to be loved so much.

  Cherished, as he’d told her.

  The emotions touched her almost physically.

  Their warmth was palpable.

  “Roll over,” he said, his voice very deep and soft in the tiny room.

  She did, folding her arms on the tub’s rim to make a pillow for her

  head.

  His powerful hands worked the soapy cloth over her back and

  shoulders.

  He massaged and caressed and washed her all at once, and his every

  touch was pure ecstasy.

  God, she wondered.

  What would it be like to make love to him?

  He shuddered.

  She felt his hands tremble with it.

  He heard her thoughts.

  With her face averted she found the courage to speak them aloud.

  “Why do you always… hold back?”

  His sigh was not quite steady.

  “This is not the wisest subject to discuss with you naked, wet and

  plied with brandy.”

  He kneaded her buttocks with soapy hands, but removed them soon.

  She rolled over, studying his face in the candlelight.

  “Do you want me?”

  His jaw twitched as he studied her,

  “More than I want to draw another breath.”

  “Then why” — “Hush.”

  The command was bitten out.

  He rose from his crouching position beside the tub and pulled a

  blanket-sized towel from a rack.

  He held it wide open and waited.

  “It is for your own good, Tamara,” he told her.

  Tamara got up, stepped out of the bath and onto the thick rug beside

  the tub.

  His towel-draped arms closed around her, then moved away, leaving the

  towel behind.

  “I’ll leave you to dress” — “You didn’t leave me to undress,” she

  snapped.

  She wasn’t certain what made her angrier—the knowledge that she wanted

  him or the fact that he refused to oblige her.

  “Your blouse is ruined.”

  He nodded toward the stand where he’d placed her clothes after she’d

  discarded them.

  “There is one of my shirts for you to wear.”

  He turned from her and strode out of the room.

  “For my own good,” she fumed after he left her.

  She reached down into the bubbly water and jerked the stopper out.

  “Why is everything I hate always supposedly for my own good?

  It’s like / don’t know what’s good for me and what isn’t.

  ” She roughly adjusted the towel under her arms, and tucked the corners

  in to hold it there.

  She knew what was good for her.

&n
bsp; She was an adult, not a child.

  She wanted him, whatever he was.

  And he wanted her, dammit.

  All of this honorable restraint bull was making her crazy.

  The only time she felt right anymore was when he held her, when he

  kissed her.

  Tonight.

  tonight more than ever she needed that feeling of rightness, of

  belonging.

  She moved very slowly through the door, down the hallway and back into

  the living room.

  Eric’s back was to her.

  He knelt in front of the fireplace, feeding sticks into it.

  She made no sound as she moved barefoot over the parquet floor, onto

  the colorful Oriental rug, but he knew she approached.

  She felt it.

  She stopped when she stood right behind him, and she placed her damp

  hands on his shoulders.

  He’d removed his jacket when they’d arrived here, and rolled his shirt

  sleeves up when he’d bathed her.

  His arms, bare to the elbows and taut with tense muscles, stilled at

  her touch.

  Slowly he rose.

  He turned, and when he looked down at her, his eyes seemed almost pain

  filled.

  “You are not making this easy.

  ” His white shirt’s top two buttons were open.

  She touched the expanse of his chest visible there.

  “Make love to me, Eric.”

  So hoarsely she wouldn’t have known his voice, he answered.

  “Don’t you know that I would if I could?”

  “Then tell me why. Make me understand” — “I’m not human! What more

  do you need to know?”

  “Everything!”

  She curled her hand around his neck, her fingers moving through the

  short, curling hairs at his nape, then playing at the queue.

  “You want to love me, Eric. I feel it every time you look at me. And

  don’t start telling me what’s best for me. I’m a grown woman. I know

  what I want, and I want you.”

  His eyes moved jerkily over her face.

  She felt his restraint, and her bravado deserted her.

  She began to tremble with emotion, and she went all but limp against

  him.

  Eric’s arms came around her.

  His hands stroked her shoulders above the towel, and the damp ends of

  her hair.

  “Oh, Eric, I was so afraid. I’ve never been so afraid in my life. He

  held my face down in the snow—I couldn’t breathe—and he—was on

  me—his—his hands” — “It’s over now,” he soothed.

  “No one will hurt you again.”

  ‘ “But I see him.

  In my mind I see him, and I can still-smell—God, he stank!