He made her wait. One heartbeat, two, and then he was there, his teeth sinking into her flesh as his cock plunged deep, swelling and jerking within her as he gave her what she wanted, the dual possession more than she could take—burning, pleasuring, sending her senses careening off beyond her control as the whole world exploded in ecstasy.
10
“TELL me about the dream.”
Allie took her time putting the plate of bear claws in front of Caleb. This batch looked better than the last. Edible at least. “Which one?”
He leaned back in the chair, the powerful muscles in his arms and chest coming into stark relief beneath the black of his shirt. He caught her hand before she could get away. His green eyes focused knowingly on her as he pulled her front and center. “The one you’ve been dodging talking about for the last four days.”
She tugged her hand free. “It’s just a dream. What do you want me to say?”
He reached for one of the pastries. The laziness of the motion did nothing to mitigate the impact of those eyes. A bug under a microscope got more leeway than he was showing her. “I want you to describe it.”
She shrugged. “I can’t. It’s a bunch of random flashes of images and stuff.”
“Then maybe we can talk about that.”
He took a healthy bite of the bear claw. She watched as he chewed and swallowed. He didn’t make a face, but he did grab his coffee.
“Too dry?”
With a shake of his head, he took another bite. “They’re getting fair passable.”
“Fair passable? What does that mean?”
His eyes crinkled at the corners. “Means I’m not planning on cocking up my toes on the next bite.”
“Great.” She’d really thought she had it this time. Maybe if she let the wood burn longer before putting the bear claws in . . . She sighed. “I’ll keep trying.”
He caught her hand again. His fingers, with their square tips and even nails, were as completely masculine as the rest of him, and just as strong.
His gaze flicked up to her face and his eyes narrowed. The feeling of being a bug under the microscope increased. “Feeling a bit contrary today?”
“Why limit it to today?”
Boredom and frustration had her just about jumping out of her skin.
“Want to talk about that?”
Still leaning back in the chair, long legs stretched out before him, one booted foot crossed over the other, Caleb was the total picture of nonchalance. If, and it was a big if, she discounted the intensity of his gaze and the tightness of his jaw muscles.
“Not particularly.” She didn’t know him well enough for that, which was weird, but true. Despite all that had happened, how much she depended on him, she didn’t know him well enough to communicate how much that dependence made her crazy. Like she was trapped in a prison with no walls, no rules, and worst of all, no purpose.
“Why not?” He brought her palm to his mouth, pressing his lips to the center before flicking his tongue over the sensitive skin in erotic little passes that popped like sparks through her system. This past week, desire had been enough to distract her from boredom, but today, edginess was winning out over potential pleasure. She tugged her hand. He didn’t let go. She glared at him. “I don’t want to make love either.”
“What?” The right corner of his sexy mouth dented with the amusement she could hear in his drawl. “You’ve lost interest in me already?”
She rolled her eyes. Like any woman would get tired of all that single-minded intensity, all that masculinity, all that testosterone taking up residence in her bed. “Hardly.”
“But?”
“I’m sick of you using sex to distract me like I’m some mindless bimbette.”
His eyebrow rose and a smile started in his eyes, deepening slowly, as his gaze dipped to her hips where it lingered before rising to her breasts. His tongue eased over his lips, wetting them once, twice as his attention centered on the two peaks stretching the soft cotton of her shirt. “You are?”
She watched his tongue pass over his lips, felt the imagined touch against her breast, took a deep breath, and forgot to let it out. Beneath her shirt, her breasts swelled enticingly, offering themselves up like twin sacrifices to the pleasure of his kiss. Allie released the breath she’d been holding on a curse and took a step back. The man was positively lethal! “Yes. Truth is, I’ve only got one nerve left and it’s fraying fast.”
A frown replaced his smile. She wasn’t surprised when his fingers tucked between hers, separating them, breaking the tension in her grip, breaking the tension in her. He was incredibly tuned to her, which was a change from her usual lovers, who always seemed to bumble along, only focusing when the urge hit them. His head tilted slightly, and his gaze zeroed in on hers, searching, she knew, for clues to what she was thinking. “I don’t suppose there’s any way to catch it and snub it down before it frays further?”
“Not unless you find me something to do.”
He squeezed her hand. “Cooking and cleaning doesn’t do it for you?”
He had to be kidding. “Did you sleep through the whole women’s lib movement?”
He snorted, and the humor in him reached out and called to the laughter in her before a word passed his lips. “Not hardly. That bra burning thing was a real attention getter.”
Allie rolled her eyes. “I’ll bet.”
As if he was that shallow. She knew him well enough to know that, which was an oasis of relief in the middle of havoc. Tears stung her eyes. Oh God, now she was going to cry?
Caleb sighed. This time she felt his concern. She needed to work on developing her barriers.
“I must be losing my touch. Used to be you’d lecture me until my ear fell off for trotting out a comment like that.”
“Maybe I’m just losing my mind.” These emotional extremes were going to drive her crazy. She didn’t know if it was due to the change, boredom, or something else, but lately she wanted to scream and rage and at the same time, burst into tears. The last was not acceptable. The first two debatable.
His thumb stroked over the back of her hand. “Did you ever think you’ve just had to do a lot of adjusting and maybe you need more time than you’re giving yourself?”
“No.” She sniffed, forced a smile, took a slow deep breath, and pushed her bangs off her face. “I do, however, think being useless is definitely taking its toll.”
Caleb went quiet, so quiet the very air around him stilled as he asked in a voice she’d never heard him use before, “Who told you you were useless?”
He was angry. The emotion hit her like a fist. Survival instinct sent her a step back before she realized what she’d done. She shook off the instinctive fear and stepped right back into the spot she’d just vacated. She cocked her head to the side. “That’s a neat trick, projecting your anger. Does it work on everyone you try to intimidate?”
“More often than not.” Not a bit of inflection colored his drawl as he asked again, “Now, who told you you were useless?”
“No one.” She yanked a chair from the table, put it kitty-corner to his, and dropped into it. The table protested as she bumped the leg with her knee. She pulled it back into place. “I figured it out all by myself.”
“Because you can’t change?”
She dug her nail into a nick on the scarred wooden top. “Because I can’t do anything. Heck, I can’t even hack it as a vampire’s bit of pampered feminine fluff.”
His fingers caught her chin, balancing it on the edge of his knuckle, tilting her gaze up. “You’re doing fine.”
He just didn’t get it. It didn’t matter what he thought. She knocked his hand aside. “How can you say that? I’m no longer human, yet I can’t do the simplest vampire things. I have to sleep all the time, and if I’m not sleeping, I have to feed.” She threw up her hands. “Nearly twice a day now, and because I can’t feed from anyone else, you have to feed three times a day, risking exposing yourself and your brothers.”
&nb
sp; Caleb caught her hands in his, bringing them to the table between them. “None of that matters.”
The rage built in direct contrast to the restraint. The tighter he held her, the more she wanted to fight. “Of course it does. You’ve avoided detection for two hundred fifty years. Everyone around here thinks you’re the offspring of yourselves.” She wrenched away, the stab of pain in her shoulder welcome as she hit the resistance of his hold. “They think you’re normal, for God’s sake, and I’m endangering everything by being such a complete parasite.”
He manacled her wrists in one of his, his grip like iron. “Look at me. You’re not a parasite!”
The fingers that subsequently grabbed her chin tightened to near pain. There was no looking away. No avoiding. Everything she felt was laid out between them, everything he felt just as visible. Her fear. His conviction. The emotional bond between them, appearing so solid, though it had formed so fast. Oh God, it was all there. And so very permanent looking when she didn’t do permanent.
She found a fragment of her voice. “You need someone else.”
This close she could see the lighter green flecks and the sparks of gold lighting within his eyes. She could also see his resolve.
“I’ve got what I want.”
She closed her eyes against the strength of his will, trying to close her mind as well. Unable to, she felt his determination and his own fear. Only his worry wasn’t fear of discovery. He was afraid she’d leave him. She wasn’t sure she wouldn’t. “I can’t be what you want.”
He didn’t look away. “You already are.”
“I’m not the type of person anyone should depend on. Just ask my parents, my brothers, my exes.” She waved a hand, encompassing the whole damn world of people she’d disappointed. “Just ask anyone.”
“I don’t need to ask anyone.”
She shook her head at the enormity of the responsibility he was placing on her. “I always screw up, always fail, no matter how good my intentions. And that’s in the best of circumstances.”
His grip didn’t slacken and neither did the resolve with which he mentally surrounded her. “Allie, I know who you are, what you’re capable of, and there isn’t a damn thing about you that has me worried.”
“Well, you should be!” He had no idea how badly she could screw things up without even trying.
Caleb’s hand slid around to the back of her head. His expression blurred out of focus as he dragged her forehead to his. This close there was no avoiding his mental push.
“I’m not your father, not your brothers, not any other damn man you’ve ever known. I don’t want to pigeonhole you in a box that doesn’t fit. I like you just the way you are.”
And they called her strange. She tried again. “This is a mistake.”
“No, it’s not.” There was no shake in his voice, as there had been in hers. “I’ve been in your mind. You’ve been in mine. You know as well as I do the strength of what we have.”
His conviction smoothed over her anger, glided into her hope.
“Oh, God.” Little more than an exhalation, the tiny prayer hung between them. He was asking too much of her.
His fingertips skated down her throat, spreading over the top of her shoulder. His thumb pressed against the pulse in her neck. “I know who you are, Allie. I’ve known since the first instant I saw you, when my vampire perked up.”
A little of her willingness to believe slipped. “So it’s your vampire who wants me?”
“Definitely, with my human side riding a hard double.”
She hated the way he insisted there were two parts of him, and that the two didn’t work in harmony. “They’re one and the same, Caleb.”
“Hardly.”
For such a smart man, he could be so blind. She’d point it out to him if she wasn’t having a contrary moment. One that didn’t want to fight with him. “I’m still a burden.”
“I hate to break this to you, baby, and I’m truly running the risk of you accusing me of going eighteen sixties again, but I like that you need me. That you depend on me. I like having a wife to take care of, someone of my own.” His thumb rubbed her lips as he whispered against her cheek. “I like having you in my home, in my kitchen, and definitely in my bed.”
All very normal things for a man who couldn’t have normal anymore. “Caveman.”
He smiled and kissed the tip of her nose. “Maybe, but it’s who I am.”
He was wrong. He was so much more than that. But he wasn’t responsible for her or her feelings, even if her breakdown had given him that impression. She scooted to the edge of her chair, spreading her thighs on either side of his, and rested her thumb over the tight corner of his mouth where his guilt wedged a constant tension. Guilt for converting her, and guilt for not being able to fix things for her once she had been converted. Guilt that she hated, because it was so senseless. He might believe he was the be-all and end-all of everything that happened to her, but she believed in a higher power and the workings of fate. Besides, she didn’t want him feeling responsible for her. At least not that way.
Caleb tugged her off the chair to stand over his hard thighs. She blew her bangs off her forehead. Darn, could a relationship be any more complicated? “That still doesn’t change the fact that I need to have a job, Caleb.”
“Just give it time. You’ll find your place.”
He sounded a lot more confident than any man had a right to be. She flattened her palms on his shoulders and braced her arms as he widened his legs and caught her other hand in his. “Don’t make me claw you.”
The smile that grew as he kept pulling her between those strong thighs told her he didn’t care. “I like your claws.”
“I want answers, Caleb, not sex.”
“Are you absolutely positive?” He slid his hands around her waist, his touch burning through the thin cotton of her T-shirt, arching her spine so her unconfined breasts swayed within inches of his face. She would have slapped him for taking her concerns so lightly except, this close, she could see that he wasn’t. He was doing the best he could, relying on distraction because he really didn’t know what was going on with her any more than she knew. However, eventually he’d have to understand that she was fine with him just admitting that. She caught his hand before it could slip down her hip, and replaced it on her waist. “You can’t keep doing this.”
The announcement drew his gaze up from her breasts. “What?”
“This whole chauvinistic, macho, protect-the-little-brainless-female routine you’ve been indulging in for the last week.”
His fingers skated up her back and then down again, cruising the edge of her vertebrae, dual lines of temptation that hooked the corner of her interest. “Why not?”
“Because it’s not eighteen sixty anymore.”
He didn’t respond immediately, just re-angled those fingers after arriving at the sensitive hollow at the base of her spine. Her skin prickled as it absorbed his intent. Her back arched ever so subtly, eager for the culmination of the journey, even if her mind was operating on a more intellectual plane.
“What if I said I’m only doing it because I know you’re worried, and I can’t think of any other way to get your mind redirected?”
She sucked in a breath as he accepted the invite, tracing the swell of her buttocks. Goose bumps immediately heralded the pleasure. His knowing smile, and the gold flecks in the depths of his darkened eyes, told her she wasn’t alone in the rising tide of desire. “I’d say that was honest and you’re very sweet, albeit misguided.”
“I told you before, I’m not sweet.”
If his fingers trailing over the curve of her butt were enticing, they were nothing compared to the shivery allure of their glide down the insides of her thighs. The man had more magic in his fingers than that rabbit toy, featured so prominently on Sex in the City. And that was saying something. “Yes, you are.”
As a statement, it was way too breathy and airy to be convincing, so she wasn’t surprised when Caleb igno
red it. In an effortless move that thrilled her to the bottom of her feminine soul, he lifted her off her feet. Allie grabbed his shoulders so tightly she was in danger of clawing him. A squeeze on her right buttock had her lifting her thigh over his. A squeeze on the left had her repeating the move with the other. With that same easy strength, he brought her down on his lap, thighs straddling his, her most sensitive flesh cuddling the hardness of his. The heat of his body was such that the two layers of denim might not have existed. Her pulse took off under the whip of pleasure. So did his. It throbbed just inches away beneath the deep tan of his skin. The beat of his heart pounded in her ears in a seductive invitation. Her hunger rose. She pushed it back, staring at his throat. His tanned throat.
“How come you’re not pasty white?” The question was more of a distraction for herself than a real seeking of knowledge.
“Because I choose not to be.”
Now that was interesting. “You mean I can sprout a tan, too?”
“Probably.”
It didn’t take a genius to figure out what put the hesitation in his voice. She hadn’t proven herself to be overly adept at learning vampire skills, but how hard could tanning herself be? “I think I’ll give tanning a shot. Whatever goes wrong can’t be worse than the orange I painted myself with self-tanners.”
“You painted yourself orange?”
From his expression she could tell he couldn’t picture it. “Not on purpose.”
“Glad to hear it. But just in case this goes the way of the rest of your efforts, hold off on trying to tan yourself until I’m around.”
He didn’t have to be so skeptical. With the heels of her hands, she shoved him. “Don’t you have to go puke or something?”
The only thing her shove dislodged was a frown. “Who told you about that?”
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