"That was probably—" He hesitated, looked confused. "What are those letters Jennifer used once? TMA?"
"TMI? Too much information?" Kailey supplied.
"Yes, too much information. Was it?"
"Because now I know you are at least several centuries old? Or because I know you have practiced sex for at least that many years?"
"Both. Though I would have told you the first had you asked."
"And the last?"
He didn't answer but merely gazed down at her, an expectant look on his face.
She knew he waited for her to blow up, go berserk, freak out. She chuckled instead and shook her head. "Triple digits, huh? Maybe even quads. No. You don't have to answer that," she said quickly and held up a hand to stop him when he opened his mouth to speak.
He nodded, closed his lips, but they set in a grim line rather than the smile that made her go all goofy inside.
"You aren't a virgin. I never expected that. Even if you were an everyday human male, I never would have dreamed a man as gorgeous as you would be completely inexperienced. I don't care how many women you've bedded. Sex is a beautiful thing. It should be embraced, not frowned upon. So you've had sex. A lot of sex," she said on a laugh. "I'm here now. That's all that matters to me. Well, that and two other things."
"And what are those two other things, my sweet?" He sounded almost afraid to hear her answer.
"You haven't exactly bedded me yet. You've showered me." She looked down at herself and laughed again. "And I have the drying soap all over me to prove it."
Amazement mixed with amusement in his eyes and he side-stepped enough that the shower stream ran passed him to spray on her. He didn't touch her, but watched instead as she rinsed herself. She ran her palms over her flesh, caressed her breasts, toying with her nipples, all for his benefit. A benefit he so obviously enjoyed, she realized, as his eyes grew so dark with lust that she thought they might turn black.
"You are doing that on purpose," he said and his voice sounded so teased, so tortured she nearly chuckled.
She gave him her sexiest, most seductive smile instead. "Yes. Is it working?"
"You know that it is" He watched her, his gaze riveted on her hands as they slid over her abdomen, down her thighs. "Are you trying to make me lose control again?"
"I'm not sure that I've actually managed to make you lose control the first time. I mean, yeah, you said I did. When you jumped in my head again but that was just for a moment. You still retained the majority of your control. I haven't really made you lose it yet. Why is that, Damian?"
His gaze darted to her face and locked with hers. He seemed to hesitate, almost as if he wondered how to answer her. "I am afraid to answer you honestly, my sweet, yet I do not wish to lie to you."
"Wow. That bad, huh? Something I'm doing wrong perhaps? Should I be worried, concerned, insulted?"
"Truth can be such a tricky thing. I have certainly learned that over the years. Still, in situations such as this at least, it is best." He paused, sighed. "Your reaction is what I fear for you have just begun to accept, no, I should say believe, as I am not sure you have reached the acceptance stage yet. You have just begun to believe what I am."
"A vampire." She could say it now without thinking him insane, without thinking herself off her rocker, because she did believe. "I've accepted that."
"And what that means?" He made it a question. One thick dark eyebrow arched as he stared at her. "After I let myself go, allow myself to cum inside you I will have to leave you for a bit. I was not ready to do that just yet."
"Don't want to fuck and run? Thank you for that." She grinned at him, ran a light fingernail down his bicep. "Though I expected you would have to go back to your own room, or wherever you stay, to get dressed for the party." She shot a glance through the closed glass door at the pile of silk on the floor outside. "Unless the robe is your costume for the evening," she added with a wicked grin and a suggestive wiggle of her eyebrows.
The corners of his lips twitched but he didn't smile. "My costume is in this room. I brought it with me. I will, however, need to eat again before the party. Sex with you—" his gaze raked down her body, heated her flesh, moved back up to meet her eyes, "—is very energy draining."
Kailey licked suddenly dry lips. With great effort, she forced her mind from the throbbing that began yet again in her pussy. "We can eat together. The cart is still out there. I haven't looked to see what Jennifer…" The instant the name left her lips she knew. He hadn't meant food. He meant blood.
His gaze searched hers, watched for her reaction. She tried her best to keep her eyes neutral, to give nothing away. She felt fairly certain she failed.
"I'm not sure what to say," she admitted after allowing the silence to stretch on way too long.
"It is part of the acceptance, my sweet. You have so much to take in tonight, so much to understand in such a short amount of time. I had wanted, tried to introduce you to all of this slowly but—"
"I was too hard-headed," she supplied and he chuckled at that.
"I can not argue with that." He ran a hand down her arm and she could tell by his expression the touch was more for comfort than for sexual arousal. "Inviting you here tonight, on a night when there are so many of my kind and others, may not have been wise but it should erase all doubts of what truly exist."
"And when you leave me to eat," she wrinkled her nose, frowned, "is that really what you call it?"
"Feed is the term we use most often. Vampires feed, though some of us do eat food as well."
She knew that. He had taken her to dinner at a posh and popular restaurant on one of their dates. "But you can't survive on food as I do."
"No, my sweet. I do need blood to survive."
"So when you leave me to feed, will you go to Jennifer?" She almost winced at the jealousy she heard in her voice but stopped herself. She hoped he hadn't heard. No such luck. The slight tilt of his lips, the little twinkle that came to his eyes told her he heard it too.
Wisely, he didn't comment on it but answered her instead. "No, not Jennifer. Enough time has not passed for me to take from her again."
"She likes it," Kailey said and remembered the glassy look in the girl's eyes as she touched the marks Damian left on her neck. "You feeding on her, she likes it."
"Yes, many do. My kiss is not torture, Kailey."
Kailey's brows shot up. "I might argue with you on that one."
He laughed, a short musical sound, but quickly became serious again. "I meant my vampire kiss. It is but one more thing I have had centuries to perfect. I have been told it is quite orgasmic."
"But it doesn't make the person you feed from a vampire too?"
Damian hesitated and angled his head ever so slightly. His gaze turned guarded and curious at the same time. "No, my sweet," he said slowly. "To make one a vampire requires a different technique as well as the taking of my blood."
"Will you feed from me?" The question came out of her mouth before she could stop and think. Yet, as the words lingered in the air, she knew she wouldn't take them back.
Chapter 4
He stared at her, face and eyes blank. His mouth opened, but when she thought he would speak, he closed his lips instead and set them in a thin line. He reached around her and turned off the shower with a quick twist of the knobs. Then he turned, opened the shower door and stepped out.
Kailey stood dripping, mouth agape and completely baffled. A full ten seconds passed before he returned, but then only to hand her a towel and disappear again. More confused than ever, she wrapped the towel around her body like a sarong, tucked one end to secure it above her left breast. For some sudden and unexplainable reason, she didn't like the thought of him seeing her naked right now. It seemed strange somehow.
She rung out her hair with her hands and stepped from the shower. Goose pimples covered her flesh when her bare feet hit the cold tiled floor of the bathroom. She expected to find him waiting for her. He didn't.
Wishing
she could move as soundlessly as he, she tiptoed to the bathroom door and peeked into the dimly lit bedroom. He stood before the window, the heavy drapes parted just enough to reveal the ebony night sky and the full silver moon that hung high in that darkness. He, too, wore a towel to hide his nakedness. He wrapped it around his waist like a fuzzy white cotton kilt. He stood still, so very still it unnerved her.
The still of the undead, she thought as she watched him. His shoulders didn't rise and fall with breath, his muscles didn't twitch or flex, he didn't turn to face her.
The silence was deafening and she couldn't take it. She squared her shoulders, took a quick moment to build her courage and stepped into the bedroom. Though she wanted to, she didn't go to him, but stopped at the edge of the bed. Distance. Best to keep her distance until she knew what angered him. Testing the temper of a vampire didn't seem like a smart life move. Even if said vampire was Damian.
"Damian." She said his name softly and with great caution. She even flinched before she could stop herself when the muscles in the back of his shoulder rippled and bunched as he shoved his long slender fingers through his hair.
"Why, Kailey?" He spoke softly, but his voice held an edge of anguish that surprised her.
"Why what?" She wished he would turn around and let her see his face. She hated to talk to someone's back even if that back was flawlessly beautiful and ridged with hard muscles.
"Why would you offer yourself to me that way?"
"Isn't that what you want?" She knew it was the wrong question the instant it left her lips. He visibly stiffened—shoulders, hips, legs—until she thought he resembled a two by four. A very slim, very sexy, very pale two by four.
When she expected him to yell, he surprised her yet again. He spoke softly, though with great feeling and honesty. "Not like this. Not because I want it, but because you want it too." He finally turned to face her and the pain, the vulnerability she saw on his face stunned her even more. "Because you want me."
Kailey stared at him, unsure what to say, how to clarify. How could she explain when she didn't know why she offered or certainly not why the offer felt right, still felt right even several minutes later?
"I didn't mean for that to come out the way it sounded," she began. That much was true. She hadn't meant for it to sound as though she laid blame and guilt at his feet, as though she felt pressured to make the offer.
"You walked away from me. When I told you what I am, you left. Would you have come back to me if I hadn't invited you here tonight?"
"I—" She stopped, unsure exactly how to answer. Would she have? She didn't really know but her first instinct told her no. She wouldn't have. When she walked away from him that night she intended it to be a permanent end to their relationship. "No," she finally admitted in a voice barely audible even to her own ears.
He nodded slowly as if he'd already known the answer and had been merely waiting to see if she would be honest or attempt to lie her way out of it. "Yet you did come at my invitation."
"I couldn't stay away. I wanted to see you again. I've missed you, Damian. I—"
"When you arrived tonight," he spoke over her, "you were ready to think I’m insane rather than willing to believe the truth. Now, only a short time later, you not only believe I am a vampire, but you are ready to be my food for the evening. You willingly offered to feed me." She grimaced and he didn't miss it. "It does not sound like such a good idea when you hear it spoken aloud, does it?
"No," she said quickly. "It's not that. It's just, well, you say feed and I picture…" Cannibalism, flesh viciously torn from bone, blood splattered on the walls, the carpet, the ceiling, horrible, gut wrenching pain. "Let's just say that it makes me think of some pretty gruesome stuff. Far from romantic and enjoyable."
"That is why most of us, myself included, prefer to call it a kiss."
"A kiss," she repeated thoughtfully. "American kisses are known to be mere pecks on the lips, to French is to use one's tongue, and to do the vampire is to sink sharp fangs into flesh and drink blood."
"To do the vampire." Damian's eyes lit with amusement. He even let out a soft chuckle. "I am sorry, my sweet. I am certain you were not meaning to be funny, but I do love your terminology."
She started to bristle at that, probably would have any other time, but not tonight. Right now it wasn't worth her anger. Instead, she said, "At least it broke the tension between us."
His smile faded, the light in his eyes dimmed, and he turned back to the window.
"Even if it did only last a few seconds," she muttered under her breath. She straightened her back and went to him now. She hesitated only a moment before she put her hands on his hips just above the towel and lay her cheek on his back. "I can't explain to you why I feel I am suddenly ready for it all, to accept it all, to be kissed by you. I just know I am and I do. It's a big leap, I know. My going from, 'Damian, you're insane and I can't see you anymore' to 'I believe everything you say and want to be a part of what you are tonight.' But it's true, and not because it's what you want." She stepped beside him so she could reach up, put a palm on his cheek and pull his face until he looked at her. Then she said it again. "Not because it's what you want. Because it's what I want."
He stared down at her, seemed to take it all in. Then he slowly nodded, at the same time pulling her into his arms. "You are sure, my sweet?" he asked, his voice thick with emotion.
"I am sure."
She yelped her surprise when he scooped her into his arms. He nuzzled his face at the side of her neck and whispered, "I can make it hurt less if I am inside you. Or, at least, make the pain far more enjoyable."
She almost let it pass. He carried her to the bed, lowered her down, somehow shedding both their towels in the process, and ended on top of her. She didn't want to ruin the mood, had sworn to herself that his past lovers didn't matter. But less than twenty-four hours was more recent than what she could consider the past. "Is this why Jennifer enjoys it so much?" she asked and tried to keep her tone quizzical rather than accusatory. She failed miserably.
He gazed down at her, that twinkle of amusement in his eyes again. "I have never had intercourse with Jennifer. It has been a long time since I have fe—given a woman the kiss this way."
With nothing to say to that, she nodded. Her arms were around him, her hands splayed on his back. She explored, hands gliding up to his neck, back down until she reached as far as she could. Even on top of her, he was too tall, too long for her to reach his ass. So she settled for his hips, sides, the wide expanse of his back and shoulders.
He leaned down, brushed a light kiss on her forehead, the tip of her nose. "I like to feel your hands on me, soft and smooth, small and delicate." Her legs spread and he settled himself more comfortably between them. The head of his dick played at her pussy but didn't enter her. He kissed her cheek, first one and then the other. "I can feel your heart beating, steady, smooth." He nuzzled her neck and brushed his lips over exposed skin. "It beats faster when I do this," he said and gave that skin a quick lick. "Is it from fear or excitement?"
"Both," she admitted honestly, her voice breathless. "But the second is more intense." Two sharp points grazed her flesh. Fangs, she realized and her breath caught, heart raced.
"Still more of the second?" he whispered.
She felt those points push at her skin. They didn't puncture and she felt no pain, but it was enough to have her breath skittering out of her lungs. "Yes."
"Your reaction excites me. You are nervous, wanting, anticipatory and just a little scared. It's arousing, invigorating. It fuels my hunger."
"Feed on me, Damian." She rolled her head to one side, exposed even more of her neck.
But he lifted his head instead and gazed down between them at her breasts pressed against his chest. He shifted, bent, lowered until his face hovered over her right breast. His breath whispered over her nipple, chilled even as it heated. Then he took her into his mouth, danced his tongue over her nipple and sucked it to a hard peak.<
br />
She squirmed beneath him, moaned, but it wasn't until she felt his fangs graze the tender flesh of her nipple that she cried out in a hoarse whisper. "Oh, God!"
Between her legs, he shifted closer and prepared to enter her. At her breasts, he trailed shivery kisses across her flesh, alternated a lick of his tongue here and there.
She dug her nails into his back, ran them down and smiled when the movement made his back arch. Her head rolled from side to side as her body screamed in pleasurable agony. "Damian," she gasped. She spread her legs wider, attempted to lift her hips, to drive him inside her, but he held her down effortlessly with his weight.
"Last chance, my sweet," he said and lifted his head to meet her gaze.
She looked at him through heavy-lidded eyes and knew what he meant. Last chance to say no, to stop him from feeding on her. She shook her head and wiggled beneath him as much as her limited movement would allow.
A smile flickered across his lips, happy, excited, aroused and oh so ready. He lowered his head once more to her breasts and sank into her, both with his cock and his fangs.
Kailey gasped, her back arching off the bed. Her nails dug into his back until she became sure she drew blood too. Where she expected pain, she got the most exotic pleasure. Where she expected to want to resist, she gave easily and all the way. His dick rocked inside her in a steady rhythm that wasn't too slow or too fast while he fed on the vein at the inside of her right breast. She couldn't think, couldn't move. She could only feel. Pleasure, mind-numbing, soul-consuming pleasure like nothing she dreamed possible coursed through her very soul.
He brought her then, with his cock thrusting inside her in an unwavering rhythm and his fangs buried in her breast. Cum, hot and thick, gushed out of her as her body quivered from the force of the orgasm. The aftershock continued even when he lifted his head to look at her. Blood, her blood, covered his lips and slid down his chin.
"Are you all right?"
For the first time, she saw his fangs and to her utter astonishment the sight excited her. Her stomach flip-flopped but not from revulsion as she would have expected. She found them oddly sexy, two gleaming white points against the crimson of the blood that remained on his lips. It was all too weird. Way too weird considering the mere sight of blood usually made her feel faint, yet at that moment she found it to be the biggest aphrodisiac of her life!
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