Born in Twilight: Twilight Vows

by Maggie Shayne

  But she had no business feeling desire for a man incapable of feeling anything beyond desire in return.

  She felt it all the same.

  “God, help me,” she whispered. “But I do want you, Donovan O’Roark.” She closed her eyes, tried to get herself under control. Dipping the cloth in the now pink-tinted water, she squeezed it out again, and carefully took away her makeshift bandages from his wound, to clean it properly.

  Then she squinted, dabbed the blood away, and looked again.

  It…it was smaller.

  It was shrinking. Amazed, she watched as, in slow motion, the wound’s edges pulled together like some kind of experiment in time-lapse photography. It took several minutes, but bit by bit the skin seemed to regenerate. Leaving a pucker, and then even that smoothed itself out and faded away.

  Blinking in shock, she washed the spot clean, searching for traces of the tear, but it was gone. Gone. In something like awe, she drew her fingers over the new, healthy skin. “It’s unbelievable,” she whispered, and flattened her palm against his warm flesh.

  When his hand fell atop hers, she jumped and quickly looked up at his face. But his eyes remained closed, his breathing shallow, barely discernible. But his hand closed around hers in his sleep. A sleep in which he’d told her he was beyond responding to any stimulus.

  He’d been wrong.

  And now the hand of this man, who claimed he didn’t need or want anyone in his life, clung to her own, and for the life of her, she wouldn’t have taken hers away.

  * * *

  I woke to a feeling of warmth spread upon my chest. And then as my senses sharpened, I knew that warmth was her.

  Rachel was on the floor, her legs curled beneath her, while her head rested upon my chest. Her lips…barely touching the bared skin of it. One arm spanned me, hand on my shoulder. Her other hand was tucked beneath her, held tightly in my own.

  I flexed and relaxed my fingers, to confirm what seemed unlikely. But it was true. I was the one holding her hand like a lover. Not the other way around.

  I couldn’t lie like this…not for much longer. Her soft breaths whispering over my skin were driving me to the edge of madness. I was hungry. And she was too near. Too…

  Her fingers spread on my shoulder, then kneaded like a happy cat’s claws. She moved her face, as if burrowing, only my chest didn’t give, and her lips brushed over it like fire. The groan that rose up from the depths of me was a rumble. A warning. The same rumble one might hear from a volcano as the pressure within builds. An eruption was dangerously near.

  She stirred, satin hair tickling my skin as she sat up, batting huge dark eyes at me, myopic until she blinked the sleep haze away and brought me into focus. Then she smiled.

  “It healed,” she told me.

  “I told you it would.”

  “I know, but seeing it with my own eyes…’twas amazing, Donovan.”

  I nodded, trying to ignore the fresh-wakened glow in her cheeks and the moisture making her sleepy eyes gleam. The tousled hair. She must look just like this when she’s been thoroughly satisfied by a skilled lover, I thought. Just like this.

  I tried to sit up. She noticed, and got off me so I could, and I instantly regretted the loss of her so near. But when she got to her feet, it was to press her hands to the small of her back and arch. She grimaced, groaned and rubbed, so I realized she’d spent a horribly uncomfortable day on the floor when she’d had a bed fit for a queen only yards away. “Rachel, why on earth didn’t you go to your room?”

  She kept her hands where they were, fingers massaging herself. But her head came up fast. “An’ leave you here by the front door, unconscious and unprotected? Not likely!”

  I lowered my head. The smile that wanted to come to my lips was a dangerous one, I knew. No sense encouraging her foolish notions. “You’d already locked the door.”

  “Marney Neal could make quick work of that lock, and ’twouldn’t be the first time.”

  I went still, sought her eyes, but she kept them averted. “You say that as if you know.”

  “Aye.”

  The bastard. “What lock was it he made quick work of, Rachel?”

  “The one on my room at the pub. Eight years ago, before I left for the States.”

  Her voice didn’t break at all. Mine would if I spoke again. It would break or emerge as the growl I felt building up. I’d kill the bastard. I’d rip out his heart and—

  “You’re lookin’ rather murd’rous, Donovan,” she said softly, studying my face. “An’ truly, there’s no need. Marney’s a thorn in my side, but a harmless one. He’d never have gone so far if he hadn’t had a wee bit too much ale. An’ I daresay he sobered up some about the time I shoved him out my window.”

  I blinked, then slowly reached out, hooking one finger under her chin and tipping her head up so I could see her face. She seemed to be telling the truth. “You pushed him out your window?”

  “’Twasn’t hard. Marney didn’t have much balance that night anyway, as I recall. So he kicks in my door and starts groping at me like a ruttin’ buck, goin’ on about marriage and love and other such nonsense. I simply turned so his back was to the window, and gave him a bit of a shove.”

  I couldn’t help it. I smiled. “But your room is on the second floor.”

  “Aye. He broke his arm in two places when he landed. Good for him our main road isn’t paved, wouldn’t you say?”

  I felt an odd feeling welling up for Rachel Sullivan, in the center of my chest.

  “No man alive ever got so much as a kiss from me without my consent, Donovan. ’Tis not something I’d tolerate.”

  My gaze faltered. “Are you trying now to take the blame for what I did before?”

  “I’m only saying you spoke true when you said that if I hadn’t wanted it to happen, it wouldn’t have. And not only because I’d have prevented it, but because you would.”

  I met her eyes, my own narrowing. “Don’t start again tonight crediting me with qualities I don’t possess.”

  She shrugged. “I’m starving. Aren’t y—” She broke off there, bit her lip, and sent me a quick, hot glance. Her trembling hand shot to her neck, but the wounds there were gone now. Would have healed with the daylight. As if they’d never been there.

  “Do you…would you…”

  “Don’t.” I looked away, forcibly, from her tender throat. “Why don’t you go to your rooms, Rachel. You must want a shower, a change of clothes.”

  “But…how do you get…What I mean is, where do you…?”

  I looked at her again, unable to help myself. “I don’t kill, if that’s what you’re asking. I have stores. Cold, stale, sealed in plastic bags.” I swallowed hard, as one of my hands rose up to stroke her hair, arranging it behind her shoulder. My fingers touched the soft skin there. Felt the pulse thudding endlessly, the river of her blood, flowing there. Warm, living blood.

  “You…you drank from me…before.”

  “I shouldn’t have done that.”

  “It was…” She swallowed hard, but her eyes heated, and the flame singed me.

  “It was ecstasy,” I finished for her. “I know. That’s the danger, Rachel. That’s the allure. What makes us so dangerous to you. You love it. You want it. You crave what could end in your own destruction.”

  She lifted her chin. “You’d never hurt me.”

  “Don’t be so sure of that, Rachel.” I turned away.

  “But I am sure of it,” she said to my back. I’d been walking toward the kitchens, but I stopped then and stood motionless. “Perhaps you’re the one who needs convincin’.” She moved forward very slowly. When she slid her palms slowly up the length of my back, curling her fingers on my shoulders, I stiffened, inhaled sharply. “I’m not afraid of you, Donovan. I’ve no reason to be and you know it, I think. But you’re afraid of me, aren’t you?”

  “Don’t be a fool.”

  “I’d only be a fool if I were askin’ you to trust me,” she said, and she moved her h
ands slowly, caressing my neck, fanning her fingers up into my hair. “Or to love me. But I’m not, Donovan. I’m not askin’ for anything like that.”

  She was, she knew she was. All her life she’d dreamed of this man. He was meant for her, she knew that. Somewhere deep inside her, she’d always known. She’d never been with a man. Even believing her guardian angel, her immortal Donovan O’Roark to be a fantasy, she’d saved herself for him. Only for him.

  He didn’t turn, didn’t speak.

  She lowered her hands to her sides. Defeated. Maybe her dreams were as foolish as she’d once convinced herself they’d been. Maybe she’d been wrong after all.

  “I’m sorry. I thought…I thought you wanted me, too.”

  Turning away, she went to the stairs, climbed them slowly, and found the haven of the rooms he’d created for some fantasy woman—a woman he must have dreamed of. A woman he’d never let in.

  * * *

  I stood where I was for a full minute. No longer. I ached for her, craved her with a force beyond endurance. And she was right, I feared her too. She could destroy me, if I gave her the power.

  I went to the foot of the stairs, gazing up them, wanting with everything in me to go after her. I wanted her. It wasn’t love. It wasn’t trust. It was only need…a need I knew she felt as well.

  I put my foot on the first step. Closed my eyes, swallowed the trepidation welling up in my throat. Told myself this was a bad idea. Very bad. I took another step, and another. And I could hear the shower running now. In my mind, I could see her standing beneath it, wet and beautiful, utterly naked, mine for the taking.

  What man alive would deny her?

  “Not me,” I whispered, and the words emerged deep and throaty. “No, not me.”

  I took the rest of the stairs by twos.

  Chapter Twelve

  Her door stood open…in invitation, I thought. Her clothes lay tattered on the floor, and I recalled the hounds surrounding her. The fear in her eyes. The courage that surged in spite of it.

  My fingers fumbled with the trousers I wore, and I stepped out of them, and into the bathroom. Nothing between us now but the flimsy shower curtain. Her naked on one side, beneath the pounding spray. Me naked on the other.

  Suddenly the water stopped flowing. Her fingers curled around the edge of the curtain, and it slid open. And then she stood there, still, silent. Wide eyes sliding up and down my body, before finally meeting mine, holding them.

  She stepped out, one foot lifting over the edge of the tub, lowering to the floor, then the other. She didn’t reach for the towels stacked nearby. Instead she merely stood there, head tilted back, eyes dark and stormy.

  I stared back at her, drinking her in with my eyes. Water beaded on her skin, her shoulders and arms. Her tight belly. Rivulets formed, trickling from her long, wet hair down over slick, perfect breasts. She waited. Up to me, I knew. But did she really think I could turn away now?

  Reaching out, I touched her. Ran one hand slowly over her hair, and followed the water downward, absorbing it into my palm as I skimmed her delicate throat, her tender breast, her narrow waist and rounded hip. I tugged her closer. And she came so easily, at the merest nudge of my hand. She pressed her body to mine with a soft sigh, twining her arms around my neck and tilting her head back for my kiss.

  I shuddered in reaction to the feel of her in my arms, wet and so warm, as I touched my mouth to hers. My arms closed tight around her, one hand cupping her buttocks while the other cradled her head. When her lips parted, I tasted heaven, and the fire inside me flared hotter. With my tongue, I delved inside, to touch and stroke hers. I felt her shaking. Warming until her flesh was hot against my hands. Feverish. I arched hard against her, and she pushed back. No hesitation, no shyness. My hands slid up and down her shower-damp body, unable to get enough of the feel of her as I fed from her mouth. She was sweet. And my mind floated away, until all that remained was sensation. Desire. And the taste of her. I moved my lips away, licking the moisture from her jaw, and her throat. She arched backward, and I slid lower, drinking every droplet from her skin, from her breast. Taking the hard little nipple into my mouth and suckling, gently at first, but harder when her hands tangled in my hair. Scraping and nipping with my teeth, making her whimper in need, a sound that added fuel to the fire.

  I wanted her…all of her, everywhere. Lower, I moved, dropping to my knees and kissing the wet path down her belly, nuzzling my face in the nest of damp curls, and then pushing deeper. Parting her secret folds with my tongue, I tasted her, and she cried out, fists clenching in my hair and tugging it. Hurting me so deliciously that my knees nearly buckled. Then she stepped back, just a little, urging me upward again, until I was standing. Her arms encircled my neck, and she lifted herself. I helped her, clasping the backs of her thighs and lifting them, positioning them around my waist. I felt her, warm and ready, teasing at the very tip of me, and closed my eyes at the flash of desire that nearly blinded me. And then she lowered her body over mine, took me slowly, so slowly inside her. Deeper…and deeper still, and when I felt the resistance, wondered at it, she pushed harder. A soft gasp, a small sound of pain.

  I went still. Throbbing inside her, feeling her body’s tightness pressing around me, holding me, I closed my eyes and knew the secret she hadn’t told me. The gift she’d just given me. “Rachel…”

  “Shh,” she whispered, and then she moved over me, lifting away, lowering again. Slowly, excruciatingly, her breasts sliding against my chest as she did, taut nipples caressing my skin.

  Slowly, I told myself. Gently.

  She nestled her head in the crook of my neck, kissed me there, suckled me there. Moved faster. Her breaths hot and quick on my skin. I pushed her back to the wall, gripped her buttocks and held her there, thrusting into her deeply, again and again.

  She gasped, and clung to me, head thrown back, mouth open. I kissed her, took her mouth as I took her body, but the need wasn’t sated. Even as my passion neared release, I knew it wouldn’t be.

  And it was as if she knew, sensed it somehow, because she clasped my head and drew it lower, pressed my face to her neck, tilted her chin upward, so the tender skin pressed to my lips. I felt the pulse pounding there, tasted the warmth and salt of her skin, knew it would be as good for her as for me, told myself there was no reason to deny what she offered.

  “Take me, Donovan,” she whispered. “Taste me…”

  I shivered. I hungered. I neared release more with every thrust, and craved as I’d never craved before.

  With a trembling sigh, I parted my lips, closed them over her thudding pulse and, quickly, pierced her throat. She drew a harsh breath, but her hands pushed my head closer, clung to me and she pressed her neck to my greedy mouth. And I fed. Suckled, devoured the very essence of her, and heard her short staccato cries as she neared climax. And then I heard nothing but the thunder of my own heart beating in time with hers as I exploded inside her. She screamed my name, shuddered around me, and slowly went limp in my arms.

  I lifted my head, kissed the wound I’d left in her neck, and then her cheek, and her hair, and her lips.

  She opened heavy-lidded eyes, and stared up at me. And something about that look made me realize the enormity of my mistake.

  It wasn’t simple desire I felt for her. Not need, not physical longing. I felt something for her. Something powerful and older than time. I always had.

  I’d done it, then. I’d put the power to destroy me squarely into her hands. All that remained was to see what she would do with it.

  But not now. Not yet.

  As I lowered her gently to her feet, she stared up at me, and her deep green eyes gleamed like emeralds in moonlight. She whispered, “Come,” and she took my hand. Drawing me with her back into the shower, turning on the water. Standing with me beneath the spray. She wrapped herself in my arms and kissed me. Lingeringly…almost…lovingly.

  * * *

  She couldn’t tell him how she felt, wasn’t sure there were wo
rds for it even if she tried. Completed, somehow. As if a goal she’d been striving for all her life had finally come within reach. As if the very essence of her had been touched, shared, poured out into another soul. She was happy, truly happy for the first time in her memory.

  He didn’t feel the same. Couldn’t love her. Wouldn’t trust her. But she refused to dwell on those things right now. There would be time. So much time.

  She’d get her wish, her dream. The man she’d loved all her life. She lowered her eyes, tried to believe he would return that love. Eventually.

  “What is it?” he whispered, stroking her hair as he held her. They’d moved from the shower to the bed, where they snuggled now like lovers. Tough to believe he felt nothing for her. Impossible, in fact.

  She shook her head. “Nothing, Donovan. I was just thinking…”

  “Thinking about what?”

  Shrugging, she brushed away her doubts. “I’d like to walk outside,” she told him. “In the moonlight.”

  “Were you always such a night person, Rachel?”

  She smiled at him, ignoring the wariness, the uncertainty in his eyes. “’Tis growing on me.” She sat up, sensing his growing discomfort with the intimacy of holding her in bed this way, now that the desire was spent. For her part, she’d have just as soon remained like that through the night, but…

  She walked to the closet, pawed the clothes and chose carefully. A dress of white, so he couldn’t help but focus on her out there in the darkness. With a full, soft skirt that would dance in the slightest breeze, and a plunging neckline to remind him of how much he still wanted her. She hoped.

  * * *

  “I’ve always wondered what lies beyond this fence of yours,” she said as we walked side by side in the moonlit night. Her hair, dried during lovemaking and untouched by a comb, hung in natural, careless curls, giving her the look of a wild thing of the forests. A fairy, or a nymph. She enchanted me.

  I should never have made love to her. Never.

  “I can show you,” I heard myself tell her.