From the Dark
Page 21
“No.”
Now there was a debt he could never live up to.
“Do you want me to bring her back?”
“Never. I love you, Jane.”
“I’m so glad to hear that.”
“Glad…to tell it.”
“Then listen. You’re still weak. Your chest has closed up, but the damage within…well, I can’t know how critical it is. Can you feel it? Gauge the wound?”
He shook his head, not wanting to do anything but listen to her voice. No matter what she said, the music of her danced him away from the pain inside. Light, yes, his Jane.
“We can do this,” she said. “You’re not going to die on me now.”
“Jane. You’re…alive?”
“So far. And so are you.”
“No. I’m…dead. Can’t…see.”
“Open your eyes, lover. I’m going to kiss you,” she offered.
Good. He liked Jane’s kisses. What a way to go. Kissed by an angel—make that a witch who isn’t really a witch, but maybe she is, and don’t forget that vampire blood streaking through her system.
No, just plain Jane. That’s who she was to him.
He felt her upon his mouth.
“Kiss me back. Michael!”
Something stung his cheek. She’d slapped him! Because she wanted him to focus…on…? Yes, the kiss. Her kiss. Kissing him because that is all he wanted in this world. There was a way back.
He’d no intention of leaving this world, so he’d better start the journey.
The kiss, yes, fall into it, answer her back with a kiss of his own. Hard, a little sloppy at first. You know how to do this. Win her, seduce her, sing her into your veins.
It felt good. Jane’s mouth on his. Her breath pushing into him, flowing through him. Her heart beat inside him. In his heart? He couldn’t know if it was wide open inside him, or if that tightening sensation were the organ closing up, healing—it had to be.
“Love you,” she whispered. “Need you to stay here with me.”
He kissed her back. And now he was able to lift his head and slide a hand behind her neck to keep her close. Never let her away. Keep the magic for himself.
This was right. Jane in his arms. Jane at his mouth.
He’d opened his heart for Jane. And now she stepped inside.
Rolling her onto her back, Michael leaned over Jane. The fire simmered close by, it had been reduced to ash. But not him—never ash. Nor her.
Yes, Jane’s pulse had scampered back into his veins. He could feel her enter him, soaring through his blood and seeking his own pulse.
“Ah!” The pace of his own heart startled him so that he slapped a hand over his chest. Had it not been beating previously?
It was now. Like drums calling to the march. Jane resided there. And beneath him. She clung to his body and wrapped her legs about his hips.
“The sex magic,” she said. “We must do it now, Michael. Take me.”
Instinct moved him to his elbows. Jane unzipped his pants. A tug drew her skirt up above her hips. It all happened in one, two, three heartbeats. Thrusting into her, he cried out at the sweet agony of her heat. She surrounded him. She owned him. The magic seeped into him.
Jane cried out, and at the same time Michael surrendered to a thunderous climax. He continued to thrust into her, taking from her, giving to her. Sharing his dark with her light.
There was only one thing that could make his world right. One thing that would forever bind he and Jane for the eternity she had won this night beneath the wicked moon.
It was a risk. And he would take it.
Michael kissed Jane’s mouth. Soft laughter invaded the tension. He loved that she laughed after orgasm.
In every way.
Drawing his lips across her mouth, he kissed a slow trail into the corner where her laughter opened the crease in a soft arc. Then, down her jaw, following the latent scent of lilacs, buried deep beneath the blood aroma, but there—it made him smile—the garden under his tongue.
Blood spotted her neck. His blood. He swiped it away with a lash of his tongue. Above, the wicked wild moon beamed down a spotlight upon the stage.
“Jane, thank you,” Michael murmured against her neck.
“We did it,” she said on an elated gasp. “You’re alive.”
“Alive, but not complete. Do you trust me?”
“Always.”
As he leaned to Jane’s neck the delicate ash and floral smell of her flesh tempted Michael to kiss lightly the vein before tasting. He pulled away the soft strands of copper hair, slipping his fingers around the back of her head, and bit deeply, opening the vein in a hot gusher.
Jane moaned softly as the powerful sensations of blood release coursed through her body.
The blood moved swiftly through his body, tunneling through his veins at a speed so fast it was like a jolt of hot lightning. He could feel its passage as it tracked directly to his heart. His head filled with a wavering rhythm that pounded in his ears, vanquishing all other sounds that threatened to destroy the ecstasy.
No orgasm had ever been so all-encompassing and perfect. Jane shuddered uncontrollably in his arms.
Blood sex magic. Finally.
It was a long time before sounds started to fade in, as if a finger were being dragged slowly across a rotating record.
Things were becoming clearer, the swoon subsiding like sloe gin. He struggled to hold on to its last dizzying effects by hugging his arms tightly about Jane.
Clarity.
Unable to put words to the incredible high he had experienced, Michael closed his eyes. Trembling as he surrendered the last fleeting whispers of the swoon, he had the brief thought that this could be the beginning to the end.
Jane’s blood could kill him—if Baptiste’s blood had not made him immune to the witch’s curse.
But he wanted to believe the father’s blood had nothing to do with his life or death. No, this moment was entirely Jane and him. Together, they gave to each other what no one else could. Light and dark, and the entire universe in between.
Once again, Michael had become something different. And this different he could really embrace.
“Michael?”
He kissed the wounds on her neck, tracing his tongue over them to induce the healing. “I’m still here,” he murmured. “We did it, Jane.”
“Your heart?” She felt his chest, pressing tenderly. No pain. Even the inner ache had diffused. “Is it…?”
“Thanks,” he said. “You did that. You healed my heart, Jane.”
“Only because you gave it to me in the first place. So we really did it? You’re feeling…strong?”
“I feel like I could fly.”
“Wait a minute, vampire, even I can’t fly.”
“But with practice you could.”
“True. So you think, with my blood, you can too?”
“I know so.”
“Bewitched,” she whispered aside his cheek. “You have become one of the bewitched now, Michael.”
“In body, blood and soul, Jane. Bewitched by you, and happy to be so. You cold?”
“No.” She looked about, pressed her hands to the ground where they’d made love. “Are we going to have sex all night?”
“Until the sun rises.”
“Sounds good, lover.”
Chapter 27
A week later, they were buckled into the Mini, headed for California beneath the midnight sky. Eventually Michael had to return, get back to the band, and into the groove of life. And Jane did want to return to Venice, to tell her mother all about the magic she now possessed, and to begin her education in controlling it. But neither was in a rush.
Isabelle had left word with Baptiste to tell Michael that she believed Jane would be very good for him. She intended to seek another of her blood children, in hopes of healing her scars faster, and sent her love to Michael.
Baptiste had remained in town for a few days following the ritual, and visited Michael in town to say g
oodbye. “I was wrong about you,” he said to Michael. “You are a fine young man. Even considering your propensity for distasteful, loud music. Take a look at the windows when you return to the house, will you?”
The windows had been installed yesterday afternoon, but Michael hadn’t even looked at them, for he’d been too involved in Jane.
“There is such joy in the windows,” Baptiste had said. “Nothing Jane has ever created has so screamed her happiness.”
It was all about the scream. And the laughter that followed her gorgeous climaxes.
And so Michael had went home to look at the windows, Jane standing at his side, their hands clasped.
“Your father was right,” he said. “They’re gorgeous, and they absolutely scream joy.” The vivid azure and emerald glass flowed into crimson and amber and violet. A dragonfly made its flight across the set of windows, landing on the head of a rock ’n’ roll skull at the last window.
“It is how I feel inside,” she’d said and hugged him tightly. “When I’m with you.”
Now, with the car window rolled down and seat pushed as far back as possible, Michael propped one foot up on the doorframe and tapped the center console with his wrist, his bracelets jangling and keeping a steady beat.
“Oh, the wild wicked child of a witch,” he sang.
Jane flashed him a smug grin.
“She’s not a witch, just plain, plain Ja-ee-ane.”
“Michael, stop.”
“But that ole sex magic filled her up. And it gave her man a new habit.”
“Oh, brother, that is so corny.”
He ignored her obvious lack of musical appreciation, and sang on. “She gave me a black birthday cake—
“—and an ax through my heart. Oh, sweet Jane!”
He strummed the lick line out on his air guitar.
“Forever wild about my sweet Jaaaaane.” He drew out her name in a long, twisting finale that would have made Jimmy Page proud.
With a wink, Michael asked, “Did you like that? I invoked the power of Led Zeppelin. Pretty damn cool if you ask me.”
Jane stopped the car at a stop sign and leaned across the console, gripping Michael by the T-shirt. “Invoke this, rock star.”
She kissed him there at the intersection that lead to their future, and a long one at that.
Life was good. In fact, life rocked.
ISBN: 1-55254-702-7
FROM THE DARK
Copyright © 2006 by Michele Hauf
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