From the Dark

by Michele Hauf

  Spreading her fingers across his chest, she mined for his heartbeat and found it pounded rapidly beneath her palm. “Everything all right with you? Blood?”

  He touched the small spot of red on his shirt sleeve. “My own. Truth.”

  “New clothes?”

  He tugged down the hem of the long-sleeved tee shirt. A distorted black skull had been screen printed onto the lower left side of the gray fabric. “I find I’ve become an extra large.” He took her hand and placed it over his groin. “So what have you been up to today? Catch up on your work?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  He took her hands from his body, and, spinning her into a dance pose, pressed against her and swayed her around for a few steps. His light mood felt so good, she couldn’t find the words to protest.

  “It’s good to stand in your arms, Jane. Everything is right here with you. We should go dancing tomorrow night. For my birthday. Can we do that?”

  “We could put on some tunes and dance in the workroom? Make it our own private ballroom.”

  “Fill the room with flowers and candlelight and soft music.” He dipped her masterfully. “Just you and me dancing under the moonlight.”

  Yes, that damned full moon. And Ravin had yet to call her back. Jane swirled out of the dip. “So, where did you go besides the stores? You’ve been gone the entire afternoon.”

  Michael leaned against the stove and bowed his head. Everything was wrong.

  “Michael, what is it?”

  “You know the other night when I thought I saw a face on my iPod. Well, I did, and it was a familiar face. And there was a new entry in the address book.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “This afternoon I went to the address. The reporter from the graveyard lives there. The kid from the club that talked to you. He took me—” a heavy sigh engulfed his powerful frame in a feeble cringe “—to my blood master.”

  “Your what? Oh. The vampire who created you?”

  “Yes. Isabelle LaPierre.”

  Jane uttered a tiny sound.

  “I haven’t seen her since the night she transformed me, fifty years ago.”

  “But she’s sought you out? To find you here, in this small town? Michael, what does she want? Oh. I suppose it’s none of my business.”

  “Really? You don’t want to know about the afternoon I’ve spent with a sexy, four-hundred-year old woman?”

  “Sexy?”

  He shrugged a hand through his hair and sighed. “Devastatingly so.”

  “Oh.” Jane sat on a kitchen chair and tilted her head into her hand. “What did she want? I want to know.”

  Michael sat on the table before her and tilted up her chin to inspect her eyes. He shouldn’t do this to her, bring her into his past, but he wanted to see her reaction. As well, she needed to know everything about him if they were ever to have a future together.

  “She’s been burned. The complete right side of her face is scarred.”

  “But you said she was sexy.”

  “She remains so. Jane, a woman’s beauty is not what a man reads on her face, but rather from within. A witch spat upon her.”

  “Good.”

  He delivered her a scathing look, fisted his fingers, but wouldn’t reproach her. She had every right to her opinions. And the undertones of jealousy pleased him.

  Clasping a hand over her beating heart, Jane couldn’t find her voice. She wanted to speak, he could sense it, but this time her pulse was not so calm. Anger laced her scent. Delicious and thick and startling.

  Can’t use your magic to overcome jealousy, can you, Jane?

  “Why has she contacted you?”

  “Only a blood child can give her the restorative blood required to erase the scarring.”

  “And you gave it to her?”

  “Not yet.” The small taste of Isabelle’s blood still lingered on his palate. It was too rich for words. Too splendid to share with anyone, even if it was only in description.

  “So you’ll return to her,” Jane stated.

  “I’m considering whether or not that would be wise.”

  “What if I ask you not to?”

  “Would you?” Amused by her indifferent daring, Michael studied the play of emotions on Jane’s face. Confusion danced with anger, and yet a sweetness of character befuddled the wanting rise of rage.

  He could take her right now, suck out her blood and fill his mouth with her essence—before it killed him.

  And isn’t that what he’d wished for upon first sight of her? That she plunge the knife into his heart and kill him long, slow and hard?

  For then he wouldn’t have to make this choice between two women. If he did choose to give Isabelle his blood, there would be a price to pay. Their blood bond would be renewed, it would become more than he could control. Jane would cease to matter. No witch magic could fulfill him as the mistress of his creation could.

  “What do you want to do?” she asked.

  “I need to think about it some. And I won’t be dissuaded by your efforts to guilt me.”

  “I’m not trying to guilt you, I’m trying to…lay claim to you.”

  She clutched his shirt. Her fingernails dug painfully into his chest. Good pain, that, for he could still feel despite his desire not to.

  “She’s a part of you, as I can never be a part of you. You’ve shared blood. Don’t think I don’t understand the power of such a connection. She’ll heal. Eventually. Don’t do it, Michael. Be mine. Take me.”

  He shook his head. “Jane, I’m tired.” He slipped his fingers through hers and, though he didn’t tug, she followed his gentle nudge and pressed her entire body against his, tucking her head into his neck to breathe in his anxiety.

  “Can we make love?” she whispered. “I missed you.”

  “Feels good to have someone say that to me. You make me want to be better, Jane.”

  “You are better, Michael. You can’t prevent the need for blood. It is a part of you. And you don’t need the adrenaline anymore, because you’ve got me. My magic.”

  “True.” He breathed into her hair and stroked her back. “You tempt me.”

  “Why must I tempt? You can have me, as you wish. Now, whenever, forever.”

  “I haven’t fed. I’m…Your blood smells so good, Jane.” Michael moaned. “I won’t be able to resist, not even your chains could keep me from biting into you. Please don’t ask me to risk so much.”

  “But I am. I want you to risk it all for me, Michael. Prove to me there is no other woman you would rather be with. Make love to me. Now.”

  Michael pulled Jane into the studio. “We need music. It’ll refocus my cravings, should they rise. Can we do it loud and hard?”

  Jane’s hand slipped around the front of his jeans and squeezed, not too gently, his erection. “Hard is good,” she purred. “We going to do it right here in the studio? On the floor?”

  Michael shoved The Fallen CD into the player. Jane ran her palms up under his shirt and raked at his chest with her nails, converting the frenetic noise into useful distraction.

  “Meet me in the bedroom. I won’t crank up this until you’re out of ear damage range.”

  He watched her slink across the hallway, long, thoroughbred legs sashaying under the sexy silk skirt. No panties, praise the devil, her master.

  Flicking the volume to high, he took off across the hallway.

  Jane danced to a different beat. Swaying in the center of the room, at the end of the bed, her arms twisted in a sexy Spanish lure. Her head back and her eyes focused on him, she pressed a kiss to the tip of her finger and blew it his way.

  Slapping the blown kiss against his heart, Michael fell to his knees. Erratic guitars and vigorous drums scurried through the house, filling the framework. The beat, born in his veins, could not capture his sweet, wild Jane. Nor did he wish it to.

  Filled with Jane, her scent, her rhythm, her air, he inhaled, closing his eyes to take it all in. Sex magic. It was an amazing thing.
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  Spellbound, Michael remained an adoring fan, genuflecting before her, as she twisted and shimmied closer. Tiny silver coins edged the crimson skirt she wore and tinkled near her ankles. Every lilting sway of her hips tugged at him.

  “All night long,” he crooned, and went up on his knees as Jane’s skirts dusted his cheek and she danced around behind him. “All night,” he said softly.

  He vowed his heart to her silently. This dancing vision of otherworldliness. A woman trapped between the normal and the glimmering exoticness of the paranormal. He worshipped her. And even if he could not speak it aloud to her, he pledged only to her. She tamed his monster. He needed no other, no wicked blood mistress to tempt him back into her arms. He could be true to Jane. He wanted to be.

  If only he could resist the need. For even as he swayed to the music, he felt the delicious sting of his fangs against his lower lip. Not completely descended, but soon, he knew. Soon.

  Jane’s sensuous rhythm seeped into his heartbeats and together their pulses synched. They called to one another beyond voice, gesture or sight. It was innate.

  Dancing her feet to either side of his knees, Jane settled slowly, hips rocking and that gorgeous flat stomach shimmying before his face, until she sat upon his thighs. They went down together in a tangle of kisses and tearing silk.

  Yes, he tore off her shirt. What man could take the time to mess around with those delicate little straps on her shoulders? He wanted now, and he would have her. If he took her quickly, then maybe he could outrun the monster.

  Jane murmured when he ran his tongue across her nipple. Her body arched into his, her hip grinding against him. Ridiculous need gushed through him.

  The music had entered her, drawing her own demon out and demanding it be fed. For she pushed his head lower, and his tongue trailed over her abdomen. Sweet like flowers and some kind of forbidden fruit, her innate perfume.

  And there, deep within, he could feel the rush of life as it danced through her veins, seeking the beat. Blood scent. Pure. Wicked. Like none other he’d smelled before. Perhaps steeped with the centuries of life given her by her parents; immortality, how sweet upon the tongue.

  Tearing away the skirt from her hips, the silk ties defied him from completely removing it. He kissed her deeply and teased her to the edge he loved to hear her fly over. Her scent tempted the monster.

  She glided a probing finger over the thick scar on his right shoulder. “What’s this from? It must have been deep.”

  “Jesse burned me with a cross.”

  “What? That’s awful!”

  He smirked and nipped at the underside of her chin. Rising onto one fist, he slapped a palm across his arm and inspected the scar. “It was stupid, but, right after I told him I was a vamp, he demanded proof. The fangs didn’t do it because Jesse had seen too many movie props. So, Jesse, obliging bastard he can be, grabbed the wood cross from his wall and pressed it to me.”

  “He could have done some serious damage.”

  “You don’t think this is serious? It hurt like hell. Jesse felt awful. But he believed me. I’ve always had to stay away from the sacred.” He tugged her skirt, but it insisted on clinging to her hips. “But you’re not sacred, are you?”

  “Never.”

  Michael captured the end of her gasp with his tongue. He flicked it inside her mouth.

  She pulled him on top of her and gripped his hair, tugging gently, then harder. And when she dove off the cliff and began to fly, his teeth grazed the slim twisted silk tie of her skirt—and cut through the fabric.

  Flinging back his hair to clear it from his eyes, he stretched his mouth and gnashed at the air.

  Grasped by the shoulders, Michael plunged into Jane’s fast breaths. She kissed him on the mouth. He tried to pull away from her. Madness red want need. Oh, the delicious pain of tasting her flesh with his teeth.

  “Jane, no.” He protested, but not very loudly.

  Just one bite? A small taste? Surely, he could risk that? Would the sex magic overwhelm the death cocktail?

  A sigh of surrender to the end of the orgasm, and Jane relaxed, her shoulders settling onto the hardwood floor, her fingers slipping from his shoulders.

  “Kiss me again,” she murmured, eyes closed, completely unaware of the monster that had just made its way into the room. Giggles, those sweet, satiated trills of joy, punctuated her final pulse of pleasure. “Please, Michael.”

  Twisting his head down and pressing the crown of it against her collarbone, Michael fought the rising urge. Focus. Not red. Not red. It was everywhere, the blood scent, filling the room and drowning out the frantic guitar solo that skidded toward destruction in lightning fast licks.

  His chest heaving, and fists forming near Jane’s head, Michael knew he should push away. But an even more insistent part of him wasn’t about to leave.

  He thought he’d begun to take control!

  “Michael? Oh, no.”

  “I warned you I needed to feed.”

  Jane pressed her fingers against his lips. He had but to jerk to the left and a canine would razor through her skin. Seeming to realize the stupid move, she pulled away. Her legs scissored under his as she pushed herself across the floor.

  “We can handle this, Michael. Don’t let it control you.”

  He wasn’t hearing her anymore. The music blasted. The blood hunger pulsed like sixteenth notes in his ears. Every pore on his body craved Jane. Jane in his arms. Jane wrapped around his need. Jane inside his mouth. Jane slipping down his throat.

  “Jane…” he gasped. “Go!”

  “No!” She twisted beneath him. Her elbow caught him against the jaw, not hard, but the cloying scent of blood permeated his pores.

  Slipping out from under him, Jane gripped her elbow. She leaned forward, studying his face.

  Just as Michael pushed out his tongue, she swiped the back of her hand across his lips. She looked at her elbow. A slash of crimson glistened. Which meant—There had been a stain of her blood on his tooth.

  Michael lashed up his tongue. He tasted nothing.

  “It’s gone. I got it all.” Panic deepened her eyes to an impossible emerald glint. “You can’t do this, Michael. Do you want to die?”

  “You’re not a witch, Jane. You’re just plain Jane.” He followed her journey across the floor, again on all fours. “You can’t hurt me. But I can hurt you.”

  “Is that what you want? To hurt me? All you need do is return to your blood master, that’ll do the trick.” Reaching the doorway, she scrambled up to stand. Her skirt hung loosely about her hips, the ties to fasten it hadn’t come undone. Her ruby-capped breasts taunted him, her lips plump from their wicked kisses. “Listen to the music!”

  Michael roared up onto his feet and lunged toward Jane. The sting of her Louisville slugger slap sent him reeling off balance. He staggered backward and landed on the bed.

  Gripping his knees and hanging over, Michael tasted his own blood. The woman packed a mighty wallop. “Cripes, that was a good one.”

  “Yeah?” She looked at her fist, and then smiled. “Yeah.”

  “But not good enough,” he muttered. “You want to play rough?”

  “I want to play safe, Michael. No blood. Promise?”

  She slid over his legs and knelt on the bed. Sweeping up her hair with her hands and then stretching out her arms, she displayed her body before him, all miles and miles of angry hair and perfect handfuls of breast and lickable stomach and thighs.

  Before he could reach to grab her hair, Jane slapped a hand onto his chest, pushing him back onto the bed. “Heel, vampire. Hands above your head.”

  He clenched the bed frame. His teeth had not retracted. And yet, this new side of Jane coaxed up the urge to get inside her—with his body and not his teeth.

  “You won’t,” she said. “You don’t want this to end, do you?”

  He nodded, agreeing.

  “Now.” She tugged down his jeans, and pushed them beyond his knees. Creeping back up to kis
s him, she then tapped his upper lip. “Open up, I want to touch.”

  His teeth? Weirdly turned on, Michael opened up. Jane ground her hips across his erection. Her wet heat teased at his patience. And when she touched one of his fangs, he closed his eyes to keep from seeing her curious grin. Abbreviated breaths wracked his chest. So close to losing it again, he strove for control.

  “Good vampire,” she cooed. “They’re so hard and white and sharp.”

  Don’t cut yourself, Jane. Why was she being so cavalier about the death cocktail thing? Just moments ago he had been aching to risk it, and yet—now she turned the tables?

  “I can’t,” he forced out and closed his mouth.

  It was the magic; it had emboldened her.

  “You can.” She then lowered herself onto his hard shaft. “Take it all, Michael. Mon Dieu, I believe you have grown.”

  Good to know, and a fine remedy to the slap she’d delivered him. Michael pumped his hips hard against Jane’s body. Each thrust moved him deeper into oblivion. Tight around him. Coming soon…

  “Oh, Jane…” No monster could barge in this time. Not with Jane in control.

  But the danger remained, for his fangs cut the air as he stretched his mouth to moan in bliss. The idea that they could never truly be safe with one another excited him like no chains and manacles ever could.

  As Jane’s fingernails dug into the flesh on his shoulders, Michael came hard and forcefully.

  After slipping away to gaze at the full moon, Jane fell asleep on the chair Michael had hauled out to the cement patio. Rosy sunlight prompted her to a stretch. Sweet dew twinkled on the grass tops. An ant crept across her belly. The tickle of its small appendages made her smile dreamily. Yet, she flicked it away and scanned the ground for more of its kind. No swarm. Best not to become complacent, or relive another strange insect love-fest.

  Tilting her head, Jane studied the cherub fountain that had, yet again, stopped dribbling water. Twisting her mouth in perusal, she then decided the water should run freely.

  Nothing.

  And then a sputter, and finally a stream.

  Quietly delighted, Jane looked forward to calling her mother and telling her about this. She’d never believe it. And yet, perhaps she would. Certainly, her father could no longer hold anything against the idiot vampire.