At Twilight

by Maggie Shayne

  plans once. I was going to learn the answers to every question I had

  about him—his kind.

  Now all I want is to keep him from hurting you.”

  “Hurt him, and you’ll be hurting me, Daniel.”

  He stepped closer to her, slowly shaking his head from side to side as

  his eyes searched her face.

  “I love him,” she said.

  Daniel’s eyes closed tight and he released a guttural grunt as if he’d

  been punched hard in the stomach.

  She didn’t show mercy.

  She felt none after what he’d said about Eric.

  “You say you love me, but I don’t think that’s true. I think you’ve

  used me all along and just can’t admit it to me now.”

  Again he shook his head.

  “That isn’t true. I do love you—couldn’t love my own child more than

  I love you.”

  “Prove it.”

  He faced her, standing stock-still as if he knew what she would ask of

  him.

  “Tamara, I ” “Drop the research, Daniel. Give up this plan to capture

  Eric, or any of them.”

  She took a step toward him, and realized she was willing to beg if it

  would help.

  “He isn’t what you think. He’s kind and sensitive and funny. If you

  met him on the street you wouldn’t know he was different at all. He

  doesn’t want to hurt anyone, only to be left alone.

  If you want your questions answered, Eric would probably be willing to

  answer them, once he sees he can trust you.

  ” “That’s absurd! If I got within his reach I’d be a dead man. Tamara,

  you’re the one who doesn’t know this man.

  He’s cunning and ruthless.

  You accuse me of using you, but he’s the one using you.

  to get to me, I think.

  ” She blinked slowly.

  “I can see I’m not getting through to you.”

  Feeling her heart had been bruised beyond repair, she turned and moved

  to the curving staircase.

  “Where ” “I’m going to shower and change. Then I’m going out.

  Tomorrow I’ll come back and pick up my things.

  ” “You can’t go to him. Tam! My God, don’t do this ” “I can’t stay,

  not unless you agree to what I’ve asked.

  Keep in mind the way you’ve deceived me all this time, Daniel.

  How much have I ever asked from you?

  If you love me, you’ll do this for me.

  If not, then it won’t kill you to see me go.

  ” She moved up the stairs, and did exactly what she’d said she would.

  Daniel didn’t try to stop her.

  When she left by the front door he was not in sight.

  She sank into his arms when he opened his door to her.

  Eric had sensed her turmoil as she approached, and he felt a burgeoning

  anger toward those responsible.

  St.

  Claire and his protege, no doubt.

  He held her, and her tears flowed into his shirt.

  Beyond her, through the open doorway, he felt eyes upon him, and he

  kicked the door closed.

  Rogers, he realized slowly.

  He’d followed her.

  Eric felt the man’s rage like a blistering desert wind, and not solely

  directed toward him.

  The heat of his anger was aimed toward Tamara, as well, and the

  knowledge shook Eric.

  He knew when the van moved away.

  The sense of hatred faded, and Eric put it aside for later

  consideration.

  Tamara needed to be the center of his attention now.

  He held her tighter, and pulled her with him into the parlor, where a

  cheerful fire and a pot of hot cocoa awaited her.

  He settled himself on the set tee, pulling her across his lap as he

  might do a small child.

  He cradled her head to his shoulder, stroking her hair and feeling the

  painful throbbing in her temples and the dampness of tears on her

  skin.

  “Oh, Eric, you were right. Daniel knew about us all those years ago.

  He knew you’d come back some day, and that was the only reason he took

  me in when my parents died.”

  He felt her shuddering breath.

  “He admitted it to you?”

  She nodded.

  “He could—could barely look me in the eye.”

  Eric released a sigh, wishing he could choke the life out of the

  heartless bastard for causing Tamara this kind of grief.

  “I am so sorry, sweet. I wish I had been wrong.”

  The air kept catching in her throat, making each breath she took like a

  small spasm.

  “It hurts to know the truth.

  I love him so much, Eric.

  ” Love him, not loved him.

  Eric frowned.

  She lifted her head from his shoulder.

  “I can’t stop myself from loving him just because he lied to me. I

  think..

  in his own way… he loves me, too.”

  “I keep forgetting how well you read my thoughts,” he told her.

  “How can you believe he cares for you after” — “I have to believe it.

  It hurts too much to think he’s been acting the part all these years.

  He says he came to love me, and that his motives for keeping me with

  him changed.”

  She blinked away the remaining tears, and gently brushed his white

  shirt with her fingertips.

  “I got you all wet.”

  “I would gladly catch every tear you shed, if you’d permit it,

  Tamara.”

  Her lips turned up slightly at the corners, but still they trembled.

  “I’m giving him one more chance.”

  Eric’s brows lifted, one higher than the other, as he was prone to do

  when puzzled.

  “I told Daniel that if he truly loves me he’ll drop his research, and

  the investigation of you.”

  “Sweet, trusting Tamara,” he said, lifting a lock of hair with his

  forefinger and tucking it behind her ear.

  “Do you believe he’ll agree?

  He’s made me his life’s work, you know.

  He was tracing my every movement even before you were born.

  ” “I don’t know if he’ll agree. But, Eric, if he doesn’t I think you

  should go away from here. I’m terrified of what he has planned.”

  He smiled fully.

  “I am well aware of what he has planned for me. And no, I will not

  give you new nightmares by sharing it with you. You needn’t fear for

  me, Tamara.

  With vampires, age is strength.

  I am over two hundred years strong.

  A mere human—or even a pair of them-pose no threat to me.

  ” “But this tranquilizer I heard them mention” — “It matters not, I’ll

  not leave you again.”

  She gazed into his eyes with so much love Eric nearly winced.

  “I wouldn’t ask you to. I’d go with you.”

  She’d go with him, and he knew she’d stay with him.

  For the span of her mortal life he would be allowed to cherish her and

  adore her.

  And then she would leave him to die of heartbreak.

  He wouldn’t have her for more than a moment in time a mere twenty more

  years, at best.

  For though he hadn’t shared the knowledge with her, he was painfully

  aware that humans with the Belladonna antigen rarely live beyond their

  forty-fifth year.

  Perh
aps, he thought, Roland had been right.

  Perhaps the decision wasn’t his to make.

  But could he sentence her to an eternity of darkness?

  Would she even want it?

  Her hand at his face broke his line of thought, and he looked into her

  eyes.

  “What is it?”

  she asked.

  “I feel sadness but I couldn’t tell what you were thinking.”

  “I was thinking that you must leave me in the morning.”

  She had enough to deal with tonight.

  Let the question of her mortality wait for another time.

  “I wonder if it is wise, now that St. Claire and Rogers know the

  nature of our relationship? I do not like to think of you within reach

  of their wrath.”

  “Unless Daniel changes his attitude, tomorrow will be the last time I

  set foot in that house.”

  She looked at him and smiled very softly.

  “Unless I’m jumping the gun. You haven’t invited me ” “Shall I come to

  you on my knees? Shall I beg you to stay with me?”

  “You only need to tell me you want me.”

  Her voice came out lower than a whisper, and he saw the glimmer left by

  the tears turn into a soft glow, put there by passion.

  “In my existence I have seen women of such beauty it was said they

  could drive a man beyond reason. Beside you, they would fade as a

  candle’s flame beside the heart of the sun. Never has a woman stirred

  me as you have done.”

  He lowered his head, tilting her chin with one hand to settle his lips

  over hers.

  Softly he sipped them, suckled them, first upper, then lower.

  He lifted only enough to speak, and to be able to watch her glorious

  face as he did.

  “To say that I want you is not enough. Might as well say that the

  parched and barren desert wants the kiss of the rain. You are the part

  of myself that’s been missing for more than two centuries.”

  The shimmer in her eyes now had nothing to do with her earlier pain.

  “Eric, you make love to me with your words as thoroughly as you do with

  your body.”

  She pressed her mouth to him, parted her succulent lips and invited his

  tongue’s invasion.

  He accepted eagerly, and her taste aroused him even more than the last

  time he’d kissed her.

  Eventually he lifted his head to breathe.

  “I can’t say it as well as you can,” she told him, breathless now.

  “But I feel the same. My life was so empty. I thought I’d never stop

  wondering why. Then I found you and I knew. I don’t know what went

  between us before, Eric. I don’t know why we are this close, but

  whatever it was, it bound us together.

  You are a part of me, as vital to my existence as my own heart.

  If you leave me again.

  ” She stopped there. The sob that involuntarily blocked her words came

  without warning, he knew.

  He lifted her in his arms as he rose from the set tee.

  “Leave you? Leave you? Look into my heart with yours.

  See what is there, and end your doubts.

  I would swim naked through a pool of shredded glass for you.

  I’d crawl on my belly over hot coals through hell itself to get to

  you.

  You are in me, woman, like a fever in my blood.

  All I find myself wanting these days is more of you.

  ” He took her mouth fiercely; plundered it as she’d been longing for

  him to do.

  He knew she had.

  He’d heard her silent begging.

  Even as he took her mouth he moved with her, to the staircase and up

  it.

  By the time he reached the top he was panting, as she was.

  Her fingers twined and tugged at his hair.

  Her tongue dipped and tasted him, then wrapped around his and drew it

  back into her moistness.

  She suckled it as if it were some rare, prized fruit something she

  needed in order to live.

  He kicked open the bedroom door, carrying her through it, certain she

  only vaguely noted the candles and oil lamps that cast their

  flickering, amber glow over the bed he’d prepared for her.

  He laid her gently upon the high mattress, then straightened, allowing

  his gaze to devour her.

  He’d never thought highly of the denims today’s women favored.

  On her, however, he found them alluring, the way they hugged her form

  like an outer skin.

  Then again, on her he thought he’d find a burlap sack alluring.

  She blinked and broke eye contact, glancing around the room.

  The satin coverlet on which she lay was fortunate enough to receive a

  long, appreciative stroke from her equally soft hand.

  She regarded the oversize four-poster bed and the hand-tooled hardwood,

  then the masses of candles and the two lamps burning scented oil.

  “You did all of this for me?

  ” He nodded, watching her face.

  “You approve?”

  Her smile was her answer.

  She held his eyes prisoner as her delicate fingers began to release the

  buttons of her blouse.

  He took a step toward her.

  She stopped him with a small shake of her head.

  Eric swallowed hard, but obeyed her silent request.

  He stood where he was, as the fire inside him burned out of control.

  She shrugged so that the blouse fell from her shoulders, and he saw the

  creamy-colored silk garment beneath it.

  She slid from the bed, releasing her button, then her zip.

  She pushed the denim down over her hips, down her long, bare legs, and

  daintily stepped out of them.

  She looked to him like a confection prepared especially for him to

  savor.

  Cream-colored lace touched her thighs, and the exposed mounds of her

  breasts.

  As he fought to form words she repeated his earlier ones.

  “You approve?”

  A low growl was all he managed before he had her in his arms, crushed

  against him.

  When his hands lifted the scanty lace to cup her hips he found them

  bare to his touch.

  For him, she’d done this.

  To please him.

  To arouse him to the point of madness, he thought.

  He moved his hips so the aching bulge that strained his own zipper

  nudged her center.

  He brought one hand up to push the flimsy strap aside and expose her

  breast to his rough exploration.

  As his hand teased her nipple to a taut pebble hardness he spoke,

  moving his lips upon her throat.

  “You wish to drive me mad, woman? I hope you’re certain you want this.

  I believe you’ve pushed me beyond the point of return.”

  He lifted her, hands on her silk-clad sides, and dropped her onto the

  bed.

  She watched him struggle with his shirt.

  He didn’t hesitate, but removed his trousers and shorts, as well.

  He couldn’t wait to be inside her luscious body.

  He saw her eyes focus on his erection, and he clambered onto the bed

  beside her, eager to mount her.

  Then he stopped himself.

  She was his for the entire night, he reminded himself.

  He needn’t take her in haste.

  He could love her slowly, drive her as wild as she’d already driven

  him
.

  She reached for him, eyes glazed with passion.

  “Are you in such a hurry, sweet Tamara?

  Would you deny me the chance to savor you first?

  ” “You want to drink from me again?”

  Her words were merely sighs given form.

  “Do it, Eric. I am your slave tonight. Do what you want.”

  “What I want is to devour you. Every succulent inch of you. At my

  leisure.

  Will you lie still and allow it, I wonder?”

  He knelt on the mattress beside her, and reached for her tiny foot.

  He lifted it, kissing a hot path around her ankle, nipping the bone

  with gentle teasing scrapes of his teeth, then sliding his tongue over

  it, tracing its shape.

  She breathed faster, and he moved his head.

  His mouth trailed very slowly up the soft flesh of her inner calf.

  He lifted her leg, flicking his tongue over the sensitive hollow behind

  her knee.

  She shook violently, and he glanced up to see that her eyes were closed

  tight.

  Oh, yes, my love.

  Tonight I’ll show you the meaning of pleasure.

  His mind spoke to hers, since his mouth was too busy carrying out the

  promise.

  He nibbled and tasted and licked at her thigh, moving higher slowly and

  steadily so she couldn’t mistake his intent.

  By the time he reached the heart of her, her need was so great she

  whimpered with each breath she released.

  One flick of his tongue over her, and she cried out.

  Open for me, love.

  Give me your sweet nectar.

  She did.

  He slipped his hands beneath her quivering buttocks and tilted her up,

  and then he gave her what she silently begged him for.

  He ravaged her with his mouth, and his teeth.

  He plunged into her with his tongue.

  Her taste intoxicated him.

  He shook with feeling, for her sensations were his, as well.

  She gasped for breath, tossing her head back and forth on the pillows,

  her hips writhing beneath him.

  He pushed her ruthlessly to the precipice, and then forced her over

  it.

  She screamed in ecstasy—and still he persisted.

  She shuddered uncontrollably and pushed his head away, gasping.

  “No, no more—I can’t” — “Oh, but you can.

  Shall I show you that you can?

  ” He lifted himself and moved until his body fully covered hers.

  He nudged her opening with his hardness.

  So wet, and still pulsing with her climax.

  He drove into her without warning.

  She shivered beneath him as he withdrew and drove again, and yet