“Breathe, habibi,” he murmured, his tongue brushing her cheek, tasting her tears.
Sid nodded and tried to concentrate on just that. Breathing. Inhale, exhale. Slow and steady.
“What does that mean?” she managed to ask, then drew in another lungful of air. “That word you call me.”
“It has different meanings, but for you, it means sweetheart.”
“Habibi,” she repeated, testing the syllables.
“Hmm,” he agreed. Sliding a muscled arm around her waist, he dragged them both farther up onto the bed, settling against the pillows with her a limp weight against his side.
“I want you to stay here today,” he told her. “It’s not safe for you out there.”
“You mean because Silas sent that guy on the train, but I don’t get it,” Sid said fretfully. “What would she want with me?”
“I’ve never kept a woman around before. Maybe she thinks I like you.”
“So, I’m the only one?”
“Stop fishing, Sidonie. What do you need to know?”
Sid found enough energy to drape herself over his chest, so that their eyes were more or less even, his expression filled with a patient humor that made her want to bite something, him for starters. She blinked at the thought. She’d never been a biter before she met Aden. Come to think of it, she’d never done a lot of things before she met Aden. This bad boy fling was turning out to be a lot more than she thought. The question was, what did Aden think it was, and was Sidonie about to get her heart broken?
“Okay,” she said, hoping she looked more alert than she felt. “I like you. Probably more than I should, given your . . . dangerous profession.”
Aden laughed out loud. “Is that what we’re calling it? My dangerous profession?”
Sid slapped his chest. “Don’t make fun. What would you like me to call it?”
“I’m a vampire, Sidonie. Violence is in my nature. If that makes me dangerous—and it fucking well does—I make no apologies.”
“I don’t want an apology. I like you the way you are.”
“You like the violence. You’re as bloody-minded as I am. It’s an unexpected bonus in such a wholesome all-American girl.”
“Most people would consider it sick, not a bonus.”
“I’m not most people.”
“That’s for sure. So what is this, then? Am I the flavor of the month?”
“Oh, surely longer than that. At least six weeks.”
“Aden!” she protested. “I’m being serious here.”
“So you are.” He stroked his hand over her face, lifting the heavy weight of her sweaty hair and brushing it back over her shoulder. “I don’t think in forever terms, habibi. Forever is a very long time for a vampire. But I find myself uncommonly attached to you. And when I think about some other man so much as touching your hand, I want to rip his heart out. Will that do?”
Sid smiled happily, then stretched up to kiss his mouth. She intended it to be quick, but as always Aden had his own plans. One hand on the nape of her neck, he wrapped the other around her back and held her in place, taking the kiss deeper, his tongue twisting around hers, tasting every inch of her mouth until Sid felt an impossibly powerful desire rising once again. She moaned as Aden closed his teeth over her lower lip.
“It’s late,” he murmured. “The sun is nearly here.”
Sid voiced a wordless protest. She didn’t want to give him up to the sun or anything else.
Aden rolled her beneath him with a rumbling growl, his fingers going unerringly to her drenched pussy. Sid flexed her hips, thrusting against his hand in a silent demand, spreading her legs wider when his clever fingers dipped into her sex, his thumb circling the tight bud of her clit. She started to grab his hand, although whether it was to crush him against her vulnerable flesh or to pull him away, she couldn’t have said. It didn’t matter, because Aden bit down on her lip with a snarled warning.
Sid cried out in protest, but slid her hand along his powerful arm, stroking the smooth muscle up to this thick shoulder, before threading her fingers through his hair. Their kiss became deeper, more frantic as he continued to stroke her, as her pussy began to tighten around his fingers. Her clit was unbearably sensitive, every caress of his thumb sending a fresh jolt of pleasure, turning her nipples into hard pearls of exquisite sensation as they rubbed against the rough hair on his chest.
The orgasm rolled over her like a wave, unstoppable even if she’d tried. Aden’s fingers continued to fuck her, his thumb a constant pressure against her clit, until the wave crashed, and she screamed into his mouth, her back bowing off the bed with the force of her climax, his weight the only thing keeping her from thrashing off the bed.
Aden kissed her, swallowing her screams, and when her screams turned to tears because it was all too much—too much sensation, too much love, damn it—he swallowed her cries, too, kissing away her tears as she held on to him, not wanting to let go.
He held her as she drowsed in his arms, until in the distance, from down the long hallway, she heard the distinctive trilling of the elevator bell as the doors closed, and the car dropped to the fifth floor for the day.
Aden brushed the sweaty mess of her hair away from her face. “This room will lock soon, Sidonie.”
Her eyes struggled to open. “Will I be stuck here?” she mumbled, half asleep.
“No,” he said, laughing a little. “You can stay here as long as you want. You can shower . . .”
Her eyes flashed open to see if he was being snarky with the shower comment. He winked at her, which could have meant almost anything, but she was too tired to figure it out and way too tired to do anything about it anyway.
“Take your time,” he continued. “But once you leave my suite, you won’t be able to get back in until sunset. So be certain you have everything you need.”
“Mmkay,” she murmured, ready to go back to sleep.
“Sidonie, are you listening? Open your eyes.”
She forced her eyelids up and stared at him.
He didn’t even pretend not to laugh this time, which told her how she must look. She scowled at him, and his expression became deadly serious, but she didn’t think it had anything to do with her scowl.
“This is important,” he said, holding her chin in his fingers and forcing her to meet his eyes. “Don’t leave the office. You can use the computers, the phones, whatever you like. Hamilton and his security team will be manning the fifth floor, so you’ll be safe up here. Do you understand?”
She nodded.
“Say it.”
“I understand,” she said grumpily, jerking her chin away from his fingers. “You haven’t completely fucked my brains out, you know.”
“Not yet,” he murmured, smiling. “It’s time, habibi. Kiss me good night.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, soft and seductive, putting everything she was feeling, everything she couldn’t say out loud, into the kiss. “Good night, Aden,” she whispered, then jumped in surprise as the shields came down over the door in the next room.
She laughed nervously, feeling silly for reacting, but Aden only smiled. He pulled the covers out from underneath them, until they were both lying on the clean sheets of the bed, and then he settled back against the pillows and closed his eyes.
Between one breath and the next, she knew he was . . . gone. Not dead. Just no longer there.
Sid watched him for a long time. He was still breathing, although not as deeply, nor as often. She put her ear to his chest and heard his heart beating very slowly, but with a steady, strong rhythm.
Somewhere out there, the sun was shining, trapping their enemies in their holes. But she and Aden and the others were here. And they were safe, for one more day.
She believed that. She really did.
Chapter Sixteen
SID KICKED BACK on the leather couch in front of the TV, laptop in front of her, a bottle of cold water and an energy bar close at hand. One thing Aden had
n’t thought of, when telling her she should stay here for the day, was the food selection in the office. Human food, that was.
There was plenty of booze to be had. Apparently vampires drank like fish. Who knew?
There was also an entire shelf of bottled water in the big refrigerator which took up most of the floor space in the office’s tiny kitchen. The rest of the shelves were stacked with bags of blood, the kind you’d find in a blood bank. Sid wondered what their supply chain was. Dresner had told her that people volunteered at the nightclub-like blood houses, partying with vamps and letting them drink from the vein. But where’d the rest of this come from? She pictured a special room in every vampire-owned nightclub, with a staff of trained phlebotomists always ready, just waiting for donations. Cookies and orange juice available.
Sid chuckled. It was kind of funny, but also probably not far from the truth. Come to think of it, she wouldn’t have minded some of those cookies and orange juice right about now. She’d found a lone bag of stale chips that must have been left behind by someone months ago.
Thank God for her backpack and its supply of energy bars, but by the time sunset rolled around, she’d be making a beeline to the nearest restaurant and some real food.
In the meantime, she was making do. She’d showered and changed, feeling every strained muscle, every bit of deliciously tender flesh. There was a unique soreness to a woman’s body after sex, muscles used, secret places rubbed and invaded. Sid wasn’t an innocent; she had prior experience of that soreness. But never like this. Sex with Aden was like nothing she’d ever known before, nothing she’d ever thought existed. And she could hardly wait to do it all over again.
She smiled to herself, wishing she could be there when Aden woke, imagining his eyes opening, his broad chest expanding as his lungs drew their first deep breath of the night. And then he’d roll over and wrap her in his big arms, tucking her beneath his body, one thigh slipping between hers, the weight of his cock against her thigh…
She sucked in a deep breath of her own. She felt herself growing wet, her pussy aching as she remembered the feel of Aden’s thick shaft sliding in and out.
“Jesus, Sid, get a grip,” she muttered and forced her attention back to her computer screen and the article she was writing about hidden slavery in America. That was a splash of cold water on any arousal she’d been feeling. This was the reason she was here. Meeting Aden had been an amazing bit of luck all around, but her purpose in getting inside the world of vampires had been to expose their illicit business practices.
Had been being the operative words there. She’d had every intention of rousing the peasants with their torches and pitchforks, of dragging Klemens into the light and letting him burn. But now it was Aden she’d be exposing, and that wasn’t going to happen. Whatever sins he might be guilty of, selling women into slavery definitely wasn’t one of them. He’d been ruthless the other night in killing every one of the slavers, but when it came to the slaves themselves, he’d shown tremendous care. Knowing his background, it made sense to her, but not everyone would have come out of his horrific experience with compassion for others. Studies had shown over and over again that some of the worst abusers had been abused themselves. It spoke to Aden’s strength of character that he chose to protect the weak instead.
But Sid’s story still needed to be told. Americans needed to know what was going on under their noses. Maybe she could play down the vampire angle. The fact that the slave ring had been controlled by vampires wasn’t that important in the overall scheme of things. There had been plenty of humans down the food chain, too.
Her cell phone rang, and she glanced over. It was her oldest brother again. He’d been calling ever since the weekend, wanting to know what was up with her, why she’d left not just the party but the whole town so suddenly. She wondered what he’d say if she told him the truth, that she was shacked up with a vampire, and not just any vampire, but the next Lord of the Midwest. He’d probably send the men with their white jackets after her.
Sid touched the side of her neck. It was tender, but the wounds were almost gone. If she hadn’t been so pale, there’d probably be nothing left to see, no evidence of a vampire’s bite at all.
Her phone was still ringing. Two more rings, and it would go to voice mail. She should really answer this time. If her brother Jamie didn’t hear her voice soon, he’d get someone to knock on her condo door. And when no one answered the door, he’d get the super involved. Jamie took his responsibilities as the oldest child very seriously. Particularly when it came to his baby sister.
She exhaled a long-suffering sigh and took the call.
“Hey, Jamie.”
“About damn time,” he shouted. “You disappear from the party and then don’t even bother to answer the phone?”
“I’m sorry. Didn’t you get my e-mail?”
“Seriously, Sid? I’ve been calling for two days.”
“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “You know how I get when I’m finishing a story.”
He grunted wordlessly, but said, “So the slave story’s almost done?”
“Almost,” she agreed.
“You’ll be coming back home then?”
That had been Sid’s plan all along. Her move to Chicago was supposed to be temporary. A few months to write a story about drugs and violence, then back home to the suburbs. But the drug story had become a slavery story, and then Janey had died, and the slavery story had become a crusade to shut the whole ugly thing down. And now it was almost two years since she’d left her parents’ safe and cozy suburb for the wilds of the big city.
If Jamie had asked her that same question two weeks ago, she’d have told him, yes¸ that she was leaving Chicago and coming home soon. Her condo lease was up in a month, and she’d have been more than ready to get out of the big city and back to the quiet comfort of her parents’ suburb. There’d been nothing keeping her here.
But now that she’d met Aden, the idea of leaving Chicago made her chest hurt, because it meant leaving him. And she didn’t know if she could do that.
“I don’t know,” she answered Jamie’s question honestly.
“Mom misses you, you know. So does Dad, but Mom especially.”
“I know, and I’m sorry. But . . . I haven’t decided yet.”
“Hmm. I hear Will’s getting married,” he ventured carefully, as if testing the waters.
“That’s not the reason I’m staying in Chicago, Jamie,” she told him patiently. “Will and I haven’t been a couple for a long time.”
“Just thought I’d check. I’d hate to break the guy’s bones, but you know I would if he hurt you.”
“Will would never hurt me.” She didn’t add that that was part of the problem, that Will was simply too nice, just like every other man she’d met until now. She hadn’t realized it herself until she’d met Aden. Apparently, she needed a man with an edge.
“Okay, well . . . I’ll be in town next week,” Jamie told her. “We can do lunch, or dinner. You can cook for me.”
Sid made a dismissive noise. “Yeah, right. You can take me out, how’s that?”
“How’re you ever going to get a husband if you don’t cook, baby girl?”
“Who says I’m looking for one?”
“Mom wants grandbabies.”
“Mom’s got two perfectly good sons who can pop them out for her.” She paused. “Unless you’ve got something to tell me? Maybe the popping doesn’t work so well?”
“Fuck you.”
“Now that’s just sick.”
“Jesus, Sid, that’s disgusting. You’ve been hanging around the wrong class of people for too long.”
“Maybe.”
“Look, I’ve got to go, but we’ll definitely get together next week, okay?”
“Sure. Call me when you get here, we’ll work something out.”
“Love you.”
“Love you, too.” Sid disconnected, then put her computer aside and sat up, feeling suddenly restless. Maybe it
was the call from her brother, trying to drag her back within the circled wagons. If it were up to her family, Sid would never leave the suburbs. She’d get married and have a few grandchildren for her mom to spoil, if not with Will, then with someone equally suitable. Suitable meaning one of their own—white, educated, and moneyed. She didn’t know how much formal education Aden had, but he clearly had plenty of money. On the other hand, she was pretty sure suitable didn’t include a vampire, no matter what.
Needing to stretch some of her sex-sore muscles, and desperate to think of something besides her immediate future, she grabbed a bottle of water and headed for the hallway. Aden’s office was one of three interconnected rooms, with the receptionist area the only one with a door to the hallway. The other two rooms opened off the receptionist area, with Aden’s office the largest of the three and the only one with windows. The lounging area where she’d been hanging out was the other room, with its small kitchen area and man-cave ambience.
Walking out into the hallway, Sid paused and glanced in both directions. Aden’s suite, and what she assumed were the apartments of his other vampires, were all to her right, secured behind the heavy red doors. At the other end, to Sid’s left was the elevator, and that was it. As she stood there, she was abruptly struck by the nearly total silence. No phones rang, no music played. There was the quiet rush of air that was the heating system, but nothing else.
She felt suddenly very alone. And very vulnerable. Not simply for her own sake, but for Aden and the other vampires. There was a war of sorts going on in this city. Call it a challenge or a competition, but vampires were dying left and right. What if one of Aden’s enemies decided to play dirty and attack during the day? Did the vampire culture have rules about these things? This was the sort of question she might have asked Professor Dresner not long ago. But for now, she had to rely on her own judgment, and her head was telling her that if, by some chance, any enemies managed to get to this floor, Aden had no one but her standing between him and disaster.
She spun around and headed for her backpack, which she’d left in the lounge area. She hadn’t told Aden about her gun, thinking he wouldn’t have approved. Besides, he’d only have insisted he didn’t need her protection, because his security measures would hold, what with Earl Hamilton guarding the fifth floor and the private elevator locked down. But empires had been lost because the loser believed himself invulnerable, and Sid had studied enough to know that no one was perfectly safe. If the attackers were willing to die, anybody could be gotten to. And if Sid had learned one thing about vampires, it was that their followers would do anything for their vampire master . . . or mistress.
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