Dark Secrets Box Set

by Angela M Hudson

  After a lengthy pause, “Yes” was all he whispered.

  “Do you need to—”

  “I’ll wait ’til you’re asleep,” he cut in.

  “Okay,” I whispered, too low for human ears, knowing he’d still hear me. “Maybe I should get changed.”

  “I was just thinking that.” He moved as rigidly as an overtired human, groaning like a creaky door as he rolled up to sit. “Do you need a shower?”

  “I’m okay.” I shrugged one shoulder, staying where he left me. “Except… I might need some help to get my clothes off.” I looked down at my body suggestively. “They’re all sticky and tight.”

  David stopped breathing for a second, looking me over from head to toe. “You’re asking too much of me, Ara.”

  “I never ask more than I think you can handle.”

  “Then you must think very highly of me.” He knelt on the bed beside my hip, barely disturbing the covers, and despite the hesitation in his touch, reached down and tampered with the button on my jeans. “Naked?”

  “Naked.” I nodded, then reached down and rolled the edges of my sweater up my waist and over my head, dropping it to the floor by my bed. And with my bare skin completely open to the air under his captivated gaze, a spread of tiny goose bumps appeared all over me.

  “Naked,” he whispered quietly to himself, his green gaze falling over my breasts.

  “Well, I’m not yet.” I wiggled my hips. “You still need to get my jeans off me.”

  He blinked a few times before shaking off whatever thought he just had, then forced his attention back to my button, smiling a moment later. “This won’t work.”

  “What won’t?” I said.

  His hands left my waist, moved down and lifted my ankle, then rolled the boot off my foot and peeled my sock away.

  “Mm. Sexy,” I joked.

  “This isn’t the sexy part,” he said, taking off my other boot and sock. “Yet.”

  “Yet?”

  “Yet.” He hooked his fingers into the back of my jeans again and tugged once, prompting me to lift my hips. “God, these are a bit stuck, aren’t they?”

  I laughed with him. “Yeah. Denim and wet skin don’t mix well.”

  “Clearly,” he said, concentrating on my jeans as they finally gave way and slipped past my hips, dragging my underwear with them. “Looks like all your clothes are eager to come off.”

  “You don’t have to put them back in place.” I stopped his hand.

  “One piece of clothing at a time,” he said, moving my hand away to roll my undies back in place. “I want to savor this.”

  My jeans hit the floor with a soft kind of thud, leaving me cool and shivery, covered only in little bumps of angst and a pair of wet underwear. Wet, totally unfashionable, old-and-comfy underwear.

  “Look at you.” He shook his head softly, his deep, whispery voice filling my heart with its presence. He stood then and toed off his shoes as he unzipped his jeans. “You may be half emaciated, Ara, but you are still very beautiful.”

  I pinched a bit of flesh at my hip. “I’m not emaciated.”

  “No.” He landed beside me, his hands taking his weight as his almost completely bare flesh touched my quilt. My quilt. Finally. “But I don’t ever want to see you this thin again.”

  “Yes, Boss,” I said, and as much as I didn’t want to, I had to shift from the spot we were laying, inching up the bed to the pillow—away from the moist circle of leftover lake. When my cheek touched the pillow, David appeared there in front of me, his nose to mine, our knees tucked up and touching.

  He took a steady breath through his nose, moving my hair from my back to the top of the pillow, then gathered my fingers, curling our hands into his chest.

  “I missed you,” I said.

  He nodded. “I know.”

  “I’m tired.” I closed my eyes for a second, yawning.

  “I know.”

  I snuggled closer to my vampire, raising a hand to trace the side of his body, stopping on his jocks. “How did you get these dry?”

  “I put new ones on.”

  “I didn’t even see you do it.”

  “I know.”

  Our smiles widened for every second we stared into each other’s eyes then, and the pain from months of separation rolled into the heat of desire, my breath mimicking the thoughts it provoked.

  But David’s warm eyes went suddenly dark and cold. “Stop thinking that way, Ara.”

  “What way?”

  “Imagining sex. We can never do that.”

  “Why?”

  “You know why.”

  “Because of the spirit bind thing?”

  “Yes. You have to move on one day. If you’re bound to me, you will never be capable of it.”

  “Is it not possible that I’m already bound to you? That maybe I don’t need to make love to you first?”

  He shook his head, staying calm under my rising air of infuriation. “Not like this. If you let me have you, you won’t want to live when I leave.”

  “Then make love to me.” I closed my eyes and rolled onto my back. “Because if we can’t be together, forever, then I want to be dead anyway.”

  “Oh, how I missed your melodrama.”

  “No. Time changed things, David. It’s not just melodrama. I mean it. I’ll die when you leave.”

  “Die, or kill yourself?”

  “I don’t know.” I placed my hands gently over my belly. “Why don’t you just make love to me, then kill me yourself.”

  “Ara!” He lifted my head off the pillow, his sparkling eyes wide in front of mine. “Please don’t say things like that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the thought of you not existing in this world is too much for me. I can’t die, and I can’t go on without you. Please, just live—just be happy, for me.”

  “I can’t. I tried that. I wasn’t living.”

  He lay back, rolling me into his chest. “Can we please not fight about this tonight?” He seemed to be talking to a distant me, like I wasn’t in the room; his eyes, his touch, somewhere farther away. “Can we just pretend like we have forever?”

  “Sure.” And I let it go without another word, memorizing each tiny imperfection along his chest with only my fingertips instead. His skin was always so smooth, like he’d never reached the part of human life where men grew hair on their chests. But as I traced his nipple, making it smaller with my touch, and ran my fingertips slowly between his breastbone then down to his belly, I not only felt a few small hairs there but also a trail of tiny bumps. “I didn’t know vampires could get goose bumps,” I said.

  He cupped my hand as it reached his jock line. “Of course we do.”

  “It’s nice. Makes you feel kinda human.”

  “I am kinda human.”

  I smiled to myself. “I like that.”

  “I know. Ara?” David’s chest stopped moving, his cold body going ultra-stiff.

  “What?” I sat up from him, sensing the doom.

  “I need to eat.” He appeared by the bedroom door.

  “Really? Now?” I motioned down at my near-nakedness.

  “Yes. Either I get blood, or I eat you,” he joked, but his eyes widened for a second.

  “Then eat me.” I sat up, holding out my wrist. “Save a life—drink my blood.”

  He hesitated in all his perfectly-toned loveliness by the door.

  The dawning of the day outside made everything more visible in the darkness of my room, and though I was exhausted from lack of sleep, the idea of David drinking my blood made me feel like the night was new.

  “David, you know you can do it without killing me.”

  “I know.”

  “Then…” I clambered off the bed and stood beside him, reaching toward his arm.

  “Okay.” The tension in his shoulders dissolved. “Let’s do it.”

  “Seriously?” Part of me jumped for joy, while another part bit her lip, taking a step back as David moved in—a towering
work of art. I felt the strength of his hands as he cupped my neck; felt the vampire climb to the surface and order my death, but the man I loved controlled this moment, holding me instead with the firmness and simplicity of a guy who wanted a girl.

  When his hands went down and cupped my bottom, I jumped, wrapping my legs around his waist, and he sat on the edge of my bed, moving his fingertips slowly over every inch of warm flesh from my knees to my hips.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah. I’m fine.” I rested my brow to his.

  “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

  “Would you believe me if I said yes?”

  “Yes, but I’d still ask you another hundred times, just to make sure.”

  “Fine then,” I said. “Yes, I’m ready. Yes, I’m ready. Yes, I’m—”

  “Okay. Point taken.” He laughed, sweeping my hair delicately away, revealing my shoulder. “But, you know, if I drink from you, I’d need to take a fair bit. It will leave you weak.”

  “Not if I drink from you after,” I suggested, barely able to contain the excitement in that breath.

  “Okay.”

  “Did you just say okay?”

  “Yeah. Okay.” He smiled. “But only if you promise not to scream when I cut you open and drink from you.”

  “Right. ’Cause it excites the monster.”

  “Right.” He edged forward, his tongue searching the boundaries of his teeth as he lingered above the curve of my shoulder, his hands taut around my hips.

  “Do it.”

  “I will. I’m just… preparing myself.”

  “For what?”

  “For the possibility that I might go too far.”

  “And kill me?”

  He laughed. “No.”

  “Then… what?” My mind raced with a thousand hot ideas.

  “Yes, that.”

  “Oh, well, no objections here.”

  “I know.” He flashed a wicked grin as his ribs expanded with a breath, his fingernail meeting my neck sharply to draw out a trail of warm, wet blood. His lips moved in to scoop it up, forming a seal around the cut.

  It was perfect. Maybe a little more ferocious than I remembered, as if this were really just a meal and not an intimate exchange between lovers, but I liked that ferocity. I liked the way his chin pressed the front of my neck, making it hard to swallow. I liked how thick and scratchy his stubble was, liked the way his teeth pressed in around the edges of the wound, parting it to the point where I could actually feel it pulling, could even feel his tongue move inside it. It almost made me cringe, while the fear and pain tightened everything from my curled toes to my ears. But that only lasted a second more, making the little squeak of agony that left my lips return as an ultra-pathetic girly groan of pleasure—kind of like the one I laughed at when I saw ‘tent girl’ being eaten at Karnivale.

  The ecstasy of the lure, or whatever it was that made me want to die at his hands, seeped down my rigid spine, relaxing my arms, my legs, unfastening my fingertips from the flesh on David’s bare back. I sunk deeper into his hold, rolling my cheek away from his ear to open my throat to him—trusting him, this dangerous predator, with my life.

  It was as if I could hear my own heart beating, begging for more. The pleasure of his lips after so long was like an insatiable hunger. But he bit too softly, playing games with my desires.

  “Bite me harder,” I breathed, fighting an inhuman urge to throw him down and bite him back.

  He shook his head, his silky tongue caressing my skin, the muscle in his throat shifting with each gulp of my life.

  It just wasn’t enough. Lust or hope or happiness or anger, I wasn’t sure, raged inside me. I needed, wanted, craved more from him.

  “That’s enough!” I said, pressing my fingertips to his jaw, forcing his lips away as the good girl in me surrendered to the beastly urge.

  “Ara, what’s wrong?”

  I couldn’t speak. Could only watch his round, worried eyes as he breathed heavily, his lips seeping with red, like the thick juice of berries.

  “Ara, what is it, my love?” he repeated.

  “Nothing.” I grinned playfully. “I just think it’s my turn.”

  I forced him onto his back and mounted his hips, coming down to meet him face to face, my hair hanging like a curtain around us. Blood dripped from my stinging, gaping wound, seeping past my collarbones and onto his chest, each drop running over the ridges of his ribs and staining the sheets beneath. The whole room seemed to turn beige then, the colors of the night bleeding away with the rising sun, making the walls, the white sheets and the air feel warm, closed in, romantic.

  But inside me, the addiction burned stronger, chased here by the weakness of lost blood: unbearable, intangible—a sordid feeling I didn’t even want to control. I felt more like David, like I belonged with him, for once. Like I could take life and not regret it.

  His black eyes watched me, changing again as the green consumed the hunger within him. He tried to sit up. “Ara?”

  I held him down, a flat palm to his chest.

  “Are you hurt? I didn’t use my fangs,” he promised.

  “I know.” I leaned closer. “But I’m going to.”

  He knew what I wanted, slipping his fingertip between me and my eagerness to slice an exit point for his blood, granting it leave from his veins to enter my own—to fuel me, fuel my addiction, to be a part of me as only a vampire could.

  The cold taste of sweet sugar burned the back of my throat before my lips even felt his skin, and my tongue beat my teeth to his flesh, reveling in the smooth, soothing milk of his blood. Nothing in the world tasted like this—not even Eric. David’s blood was made for me.

  “My love.” He rolled his head back, tangling his fingers in my hair. “You have the softest bite.”

  I laughed a little inside. He’d probably never felt human teeth prizing open his flesh as his blood spilled past before. It must be a lot rougher, more animalistic to do this with two vampires—both the predator, both the fighter. And I imagined, as the breath I exhaled dragged a rise of exhaustion with it, that vampires must last that little bit longer, too.

  I flopped down on the pillow and David rolled up, resting his body between my legs.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Mm-hm.” I nodded, smearing blood across my cheek rather than wiping it away. “But, you shouldn’t lay there if you’re not going to make love to me, David. It isn’t fair.”

  “Yeah?” He gave an easy smile, kissing a line down the center of my body. “But then I couldn’t do this.”

  The muscles in my legs stiffened pleasantly as he scrolled his fingertip along my inner thigh. “That tickles so much I almost want to crawl away.”

  “Don’t run away. I like touching you here.”

  “I won’t.”

  “I know,” he whispered, his warm breath against my undies. “It’s nice that you’re so comfortable with me.”

  “Guess that kinda comes naturally when you let someone drink your blood.”

  “Yeah”—he kissed my upper thigh between words—“or when you’re in love.”

  I rolled my head sideways to let out a breath, and my cheek brushed against a sticky paste, reminding me of the gaping laceration on my neck. But the sting was nothing now with the pleasant sear of his blood coursing through my veins and the thrill of ecstasy forcing my every thought to the kinds of desires a good girl would never let herself imagine. I hardly even worried about how pale my legs might look or the fact that I hadn’t shaved them today. Even as the wetness of his lips touched the border of my untrimmed bikini line, the only thought in my mind was of us: chest to chest, lip to lip, connected, the way I’d wanted for so long.

  “Ara?” he said, and I looked down at him. He ran a fingertip over the scar on my inner thigh. “Can I bite you here?”

  A wave of butterflies rolled through my stomach. I hesitated, but only for a second. “Yes.”

  He pinched the edge of my und
ies. “Can I take these off you first?”

  Hot liquid rushed between my thighs. “Yes.”

  His lips came forward and his tongue slipped between the fabric and my skin, lifting it toward his teeth as his fingertips came up, tearing one way while his teeth went the other. And my undies came loose, leaving me bare to his warm whisper on my skin.

  “Remember, when I bite you, don’t scream.”

  “Okay.”

  “My front teeth will cut you but my fangs won’t,” he promised.

  I drew a tight breath as his teeth sank in, reopening the skin his brother had once before. But even though, in my mind, I couldn’t remember the actual pain of Jason biting me there—only remember that it hurt so badly I wanted to die—when David pressed his teeth to the scar and the skin popped open under them, I felt only tight pressure, like a longing kiss.

  Eric was right. The lust, the magic of the vampire kill, felt only pleasurable. I wanted to feel his fangs though. I could feel the strength of his bite, and it made me hot inside just thinking how safe I was with him; how he’d never deliberately hurt me, never let me get hurt. He was strong. Stronger and more capable than Mike. And his teeth, though they could make me feel pleasure that would see me hate myself in the daylight, could also do great damage to anyone who wanted to hurt me. Of that, I was sure. But he wouldn’t use his fangs on me—couldn’t use his fangs—yet the part of me that wanted to die right now needed to feel them.

  “Can I bite you somewhere else?” he asked, his deep voice, warm breath, wet lips against my skin.

  “Bite me anywhere you want,” I whispered.

  With my eyes closed, my chin angled to the roof, I couldn’t see the trail of blood-red kisses he left along my body, but I felt them, as if he’d left each kiss behind for me to keep forever. All those wonderful thoughts slipped away, though, as his fangless bite sunk in just under my breast, forcing a lustful moan from my lips. I arched my spine, pressing myself closer, the same way the girl in the tent had. I could feel it—the way she would have felt: safe, wanting, loved. She knew she shouldn’t feel that way, but at the same time, like me, she also didn’t care. She wanted to die at his hands, and my thoughts were just as sick.