Gideon

by Sharon Hamilton

The sky thundered, and the sunny morning became dark and wintery. He decided not to risk harming the little human woman, so continued his flight north. It wouldn’t be long now.

  Who knew something so beautiful could rise from the ashes of this near-tragedy? Could survive just because of the protection of his arms. He understood the sheer terror she must have experienced as the bus plunged into the bay, just before the water turned black. And yet, she survived! He’d saved her!

  Her fingertips explored the groove between his enormous muscles, lacing down the smooth valley of his midsection. As they began to descend, he dropped her knees and pulled her against him, holding her waist and allowing her to slip just slightly, over his erection. She flung her arms around his neck, encircling his hips with her thighs.

  He was thrilled.

  They hit ground softly, and she hesitantly unwrapped. The landing had enough of a jolt so that the delicious feel of his cock rubbing against her core brought him ecstasy. Her thighs grazed his. She seemed to be in no hurry, and he closed his eyes and savored the warmth between them like two carefully crafted pieces of a puzzle. Gideon licked his lips, and inhaled her scent. Standing on her own, but solidly pressed against his body, she blushed, braced herself, stepped back, gazing down at her bare feet, and took a deep breath. Her naked beauty seemed to bring a hush to the whole universe. Gideon applied his fingers just under her jaw, tipping her face to look up at him. His other hand reached down and completely covered and squeezed the left cheek of her rear, and then released her with a pat. She was emboldened, pulling his face down to hers, intent on stealing a kiss from him. His mouth watered as he arched down so slowly, resisting her pulls, making her work harder while judging and calculating her strength and vitality. He hovered unhurriedly closer and closer to her hungry mouth. She tugged down on his thick neck and the back of his head. It made him chuckle how strong the little waif was. Her fingers squeezed the wet, curly shoulder-length hair at the back of his head, her eyes tenaciously focused on the angle of his mouth.

  At last his lips melted over hers, quenching his thirst for her but creating an even greater need. Their tongues found each other and explored, lips sucking, giving and receiving the breath of each other’s passion. The feeling of her bare breasts against his chest started an electric buzz that vibrated her lithe body. His already rock-hard cock stiffened further and pressed against her abdomen. She removed one hand from his neck, heading down to touch him there, when he stopped her and kissed the palm of her hand, then licked her wrist. He showed her his longer-than-normal canines, and her brow furled in a frown.

  He whispered in her ear, “I would never hurt you. Never.”

  She melted in to him in response and appeared to accept him in his hybrid form. He marveled at her courage, or perhaps it was her previous experience.

  No matter. I am at last a Guardian. I have saved a human woman!

  Another loud thunderclap punctuated the air. “Come. We need to go inside,” Gideon said, motioning to the large oak door entrance to his estate. Spurred on by her acceptance, he decided to try out his newly rediscovered skills, and was able to bring her through the door by tracing them through.

  She squealed in delight.

  He led her through a dark, carved, wooden archway twice her height into the grand foyer and living room beyond. Gideon viewed his vineyard, bringing her to the arched picture windows off the living room. The leaves were like her flesh, blushing burgundy and pale apricot. The darker the clouds became, the brighter the foliage appeared.

  He hadn’t left her side, but kept them joined along one long leg line, one arm around her waist. When they arrived at the windows overlooking the view, he stood behind her. With hands on her hips, he ground his pelvis to her backside and kissed her just under her right ear. He pressed his canines to her flesh, claiming her, commanding she obey his every desire with his glamour.

  She placed her palms above his hands and moved them to her breasts and squeezed him over them.

  “Yes,” he said.

  Her submission was sweet as she angled her head, exposing her neck again to him, begging him to take what she somehow knew he wanted. Was she telepathic? His writhing tongue took a long, languid stroke against her carotid artery, and then he inhaled and bit down. He felt her core react, as spasms of a sharp, powerful orgasm overcame her. She rocked back and forth while his arms held her close to his heat. He bit down on her neck again, which drove her wild.

  He felt her fear when he ended his feeding, perhaps not being properly chaste and taking too much of her. But he’d not been able to totally control his urge. The more he drank, the more he wanted of her. His lack of female companionship had obviously left him famished and overcome with his vampiric side left dormant and neglected for so long.

  She tilted forward slightly, pressing against his desire, asking to be taken. But he held himself back and enjoyed the feel of the friction against his throbbing member.

  He finished his lovemaking drink with a lick to her bruised neck, and then he ended with a pert kiss.

  “You are luscious, my dear.” The hot words lingered heavy between them. “I’ve… I’ve never…”

  She quickly turned, facing him and placing her palm against his mouth just after his tongue swiped his bottom lip to lap up the droplet of her blood left there. “Shhh. Don’t say anything. I don’t want to know anything. I just want to feel this.”

  Again, she’d surprised him, and he gave her back an incredulous smile. But behind it, he grew cautious as if some distant alarm had struck.

  Is this all too easy?

  But he put it out of his mind. “Come.” He allowed his voice to wash over her, hoping to enhance her erotic thoughts. She appeared to resist his glamour.

  “What do I call you?” she asked.

  “Thought you didn’t want to talk,” he said as he led her by the hand up the white marble stairway like taking her through the Pearly Gates themselves.

  “You don’t want me to call out your name? How perfectly odd. Most males enjoy me screaming their names to the Heavens. As an angel, don’t you find it so?” She made a mock frown and stopped.

  “You first. What do I call you?” he asked.

  “Ashley.” Her name floated in slow motion over his face, producing a small electric current traveling down his spine. Her luminous green eyes glowed, sending heat straight to his chest.

  “That’s nice. I love the name Ashley.”

  “Now you.”

  “Lover. Call me Guardian lover,” he said as he swept her into his arms again. “But if it’s all the same to you,” he whispered in her ear, “let me see it in your eyes and taste it in your blood.” He was going to suggest she scream it telepathically but decided not to complicate something that was already going very nicely for him. Why spoil it?

  She leaned back, nearly fainting, but he lifted her under the arms and knees and carried her up the remaining steps, kicking open the gothic bedroom double doors like breaking into a cathedral.

  At the sight of the bedroom, she held her breath. The light brown marble fireplace with white veins throughout the smooth stone was engulfed in flame he caused, bringing instant warmth to the room. The fireplace was large enough for her to stand in. A set of French doors were to the right, opening to a tile-floored balcony that stretched wide, overlooking the colored hills of the vineyard. Wrought iron handrails with heart-shaped designs framed the outdoors, matching the drapery rods inside the room, dripping with sheer silks and satin materials wafting in the breeze. There was the familiar smell of cinnamon and myrrh, as well as the ancient untraceable scents of his people.

  Directly ahead, he carried her with slow, sleek movements from his vampiric predator side, to lay her across his hand-carved four-poster bed with raised two-step platform beneath. A burgundy velvet coverlet stitched with designs in gold and silver thread covered the massive bed, dipping all the way and spilling to the floor. As if she were a delicate piece of porcelain, he nestled her there in a sitting posi
tion at the edge of the bed and grazed her calves with his fingertips, following from her knees to her ankles and then feet, pressing them gently to the floor. His large hands slightly squeezed the balls of her feet, and he felt a warm tingle travel all the way up her spine. He knelt before her, put his hands together, and bowed his head.

  She slid off the bed and straddled his thighs, encased in black leather pants. She lazily sifted the long hair at the back of his neck, her breasts at the level of his mouth, pressing one knotted nipple to his lips.

  Her head arched backward as his tongue tasted, pulled, and his fangs nipped her. He felt her core spasm again. Her fingers trailed behind his ears and under his jawline as she drew his chin up and studied his eyes. The green glow coming from hers pulled things from inside his soul he suddenly couldn’t help but share with her.

  “I worship the ground you walk on,” he said without warning, surprising himself. He had never uttered these words before.

  “I am the one who should worship you,” she whispered. “Your perfect body, your strength. Because of you, I am here to enjoy this afternoon.” She covered his wet mouth with hers. Gideon’s huge boner was in danger of exploding as he pushed up against her and growled. Her pulse quickened and her eyes briefly widened. She was panting for air again, nearly at the edge of an orgasm already, and he wasn’t even inside her. Gideon knew at that moment this woman was made for pleasure.

  “How did you find me? How did you recognize I needed saving?” she asked, looking from one eye to the other. When her gaze turned to his chest, he felt his skin tingle.

  He hesitated with the answer for just a second. A thunderclap outside distracted him.

  “Uh, I got vibrations. I felt your fear when he scared off the other tech and you were alone with him. When he stole the bus.”

  She arched backwards at first, then straightened and examined his expression again. He felt like she was pulling truth from him. Saying things he couldn’t stop from saying.

  “Where were you?” Even her wrinkled brow was intoxicating.

  “At… at… at the truck stop where your coworker was gassing up.” He reached up to kiss her again, but she drew back. Gideon felt the gentle shift in energy at that very moment. She scrambled to her feet and walked to the center of the room. He followed her but kept a wary distance. Darkness was seeping into his mood.

  “How did you follow the bus?”

  “I flew. I can fly, as you know.”

  “Why didn’t you stop the bus from going off the edge? If you are a Guardian angel, why didn’t you stop the bus, save the bridge, and those people I watched fall into the bay?”

  He paused, unsure how to answer her.

  “I saved you instead.”

  “But you let all those people die!”

  “It… it wasn’t my job. Other angels came to save them all. It’s hard to explain.”

  The mood had definitely shifted. She impaled him square in the eyes. “Try harder.”

  Chapter 4

  Of all the fornicating Greek gods in Heaven and the Underworld! Have you never spoken to a woman before?

  It had all been going so nicely. He was fully aroused on that rock overlooking the bay. Why did he let her see the little cars kerplunking into the cold water?

  You complete idiot! Have you forgotten how to be the powerful vampire you used to be? He loved chasing young girls and hearing their screams just before he took their life. His gift was to leave them with an orgasm ten times as strong as any they had experienced before. If they died, they died in bliss. If he happened to take a life because their bodies couldn’t handle his need, at least they’d invited him in at the end. The blood was good, laced with passion, fresh fruit of a life snuffed out at its peak, before hateful doubting thoughts became resident in their souls.

  And he hadn’t wanted to end her life, just enjoy her thoroughly. He was good at it. Really good at it! Ending her life was now something he wanted to avoid at all costs, perhaps evidence that he had adopted some of the angel qualities bestowed upon him without his permission. He was a vampire still, but a vampire with a conscience. A vampire with wings!

  But that was before Gideon’s “reclamation,” as they called it in Heaven. Perhaps some of his other talents were stripped from him, although his blood lust never waned. His ultimate death was still a mystery to him, but waking up as an angel practically sent him over the edge of sanity.

  Some fucking reclamation. He still wanted to dip his cock in the folds of their angel pussies and sink his fangs into their heavenly blood. In Heaven, nubile angelic girls had kept him achingly uncomfortable and had surrounded him without mercy. Did they not realize the pain and agony they caused him, their sweet smiles requiring his inner restraint to the point of excruciating pain? He’d exercised his palm so much he nearly had calluses, as the human joke went.

  He’d resisted the temptation for years. Stuck on top of the north fucking tower at the Golden Gate Bridge. Freezing his butt off. Watching. Watching for jumpers so he could telegraph a quick memo to the Guardians. Eternity as a Watcher. Removed from everyone except his one angel buddy, Francis.

  So today he resisted his Guardian nature and embraced another path, perhaps to a dark angel, judged by his acts like he’d walked through a car wash. White wings to black. Hungry for sex and no desire to hold himself in check. Big fucking deal he didn’t try to save all the people on the bridge. The Guardians didn’t save everyone who wanted to jump, either. In fact, and just for sport, he’d purposely delayed some transmissions to make the little white “moths” as he liked to call them, have to work up a sweat. He liked the way they smelled when they sweat. It made him horny. Even with all that, they still managed to save everyone. No harm, no foul.

  Fuck it.

  She had gentled him, not that she knew that. He was going to take what he felt he was owed, had been owed for all those years, but she touched him and that made all the difference. He couldn’t take her forcibly. Something ancient rose up and he contracted a sudden case of being a gentleman, worse than an STD followed by conscience.

  He hadn’t spent any time at all choosing her. How in Hades was he going to convince her he did? He could never tell her he saved her life only because of her blood, her red hair and the way her turquoise Blood Bank tee shirt stretched over her bulbous breasts before he had willed it all away, along with that horrible contraption called a brassiere. It drove him crazy as he watched her breathe, saw the effect of blood pumping in veins and arteries just under her flawless creamy skin’s surface. He’d even considered perhaps Supreme Being wouldn’t mind if he fucked between her breasts. He didn’t see that rule written anywhere, and it certainly wasn’t in the Bible, a boring tome he’d had to memorize frontward and backward. The only good thing about Bible study was the young peach-skinned Guardian who taught it. She also liked to take bubble baths and pleasure herself as he spied on her with his stolen telescope.

  So SB is angry with me. What else is new? But now there was this girl with many surprise gifts he wanted to experience. And she was looking up at him with doubt all over her face. Why wasn’t she afraid of him? Didn’t she know he could fly, liked to bite, and wanted to keep her naked and chained to his bed for a couple of weeks at least? How could she give up the best sex of her lifetime for a few stupid answers? About those few pathetic strangers who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? End of story.

  Like her?

  No. Something was different about her. He knew it from the first drop of her blood he tasted. Something sacred was growing, as much as he wanted to track it down and kill it. Something was altering—had altered—his universe, and it would forever be different.

  Maybe if he just fucked her, all these doubts would disappear. The room had been mentally set for her. The fireplace, the opened windows, and the silky curtains he knew she would want to wrap her pink body in so he could shred them and get to her flesh. He wanted to feel the soft red velvet on his knees as he pleasured and plundere
d her gifts, as he made her cry out for him, call him by his real name. Yeah, he could get her to do that, and then maybe he’d be satisfied. Then he’d let them yank him home for his punishment. How long would he last before he started going through the delicate little pink flowers of Heaven’s angels? How many of them could he take before he got caught again? And then where would he go? The Underworld was sounding pretty damn good right about now.

  She bit his nipple. It fucking hurt. That little minx was now getting on his nerves. So much for small talk.

  “I want an answer, you, you with no name.” Her scowl was adorable. Evil thoughts raced through him, all the things he could do to her to get even. He saw her tied up, trussed like a turkey, her luscious ass hanging out for him to suckle from underneath as he raised and lowered her body onto his face. He’d make her come so many times just the brush of his sandpaper tongue on her nether lips would cause her to squeeze out her own juices and moan in the agony of it. He’d lap that tight little pussy, maybe bite her a little there, draw some blood, and feel the vibration in her core that begged for him as she struggled and said no. It was way more fun that way, he told himself, when they were confused and then finally surrendered gladly to him.

  But one glance at her lips and he knew he’d have to work harder with the glamour in order to get them on his cock without biting him.

  He checked his nipple and saw the one-inch drip of blood she’d caused. It was getting swollen. Her eyes held no compassion for his pain, his humiliation.

  Little twat. You are practically dead.

  “Have you no fear of me, human?” He was curious, after all. Even detached.

  “Me? Afraid of you?” She raised her eyebrows and smiled, licking those distracting deep rose-colored lips that now began to form an “O” that would look so nice on… “You want something I have,” she whispered as she leaned in to him. The warm vibration of her words danced across his face and tickled his ears. He sucked in air. “I’ll give you what you want, if you promise to give me what I want.”