by Kathy Love
The young woman nodded, seeming to relax just a little. “That would be nice. Thank you.”
Annie’s voice contained a lazy twang. She wasn’t from here, Mina realized, and she wondered if she had any family nearby. Then she wondered if her family would be supportive of her. Or would they blame her for the attack? Blame her for being in a nightclub. For letting a guy convince her to leave with him.
She hoped not.
Jane left the room to go get the drink, and Mina moved closer to the woman.
“Do you have anyone you’d like to call? Your parents?” Mina asked, perching on the sofa beside her.
Annie shook her head. “I’m here for college. My parents didn’t want me to come to New York in the first place. They’ll make me go home if they find out.”
“You’re going to have to tell them something,” Mina said.
Annie shook her head again. “I’ll be okay.” She offered Mina a tremulous smile. “I have my roommates and other friends.”
Mina nodded. At least she had them. Mina hadn’t even had that. She wondered how different she’d be now if she had had someone.
Mina looked up as she heard footsteps entering the room, hoping it was Sebastian. She suddenly felt the need to see him. To be near him. But it was Jane, returning with a glass of soda.
The room fell silent as everyone waited for the police to arrive. Soon they did, followed by Sebastian and Mick, a large, bald, goateed preternatural. A faery if Mina was reading him right. For a moment, Mina thought of that huge biker back at the other bar-Mick did look similar to that man. But the physical resemblance was where the similarities ended. Mick didn’t give off any of the violent vibes the biker had. Mick protected the helpless, like Annie, not preyed on them. Then Mina looked at Sebastian’s poor battered face. He may not love her, but he had protected her.
She glanced at Annie. Sebastian would see that this woman was protected too.
“Okay,” Rhys said to the mortal. “I guess we should clear out so that you can talk to the police. Good luck, Annie.”
Annie nodded, giving both of Sebastian’s brothers her thanks. Jane hugged her. And Jolee smiled at her reassuringly, telling her to take care of herself. Mina also started to rise, but Annie touched her arm.
“Please stay,” she asked and Mina nodded, wanting to stay, because she did understand this woman’s fear, and Annie seemed to sense that too. Mina looked to Sebastian, then she sat back beside the woman. Mina took Annie’s hand as the two officers began to ask the young woman questions.
“So he attacked you in the alley between Carfax Abbey and the parking garage?” one officer asked.
Annie nodded.
“Did he have a weapon?”
She shook her head. “No, but he was very strong. I tried to fight him, but he was just… ” She shook her head as if she couldn’t explain, which she couldn’t. Mina knew preternatural strength was hard to put into words. Mina gently squeezed her cold fingers to give her comfort.
“He was just very strong,” Annie said with a helpless shrug.
“What did he look like?”
Annie took a breath. “He was about six feet tall. In his mid-twenties. Curly brown hair. Dark brown eyes.”
Mina shifted, an uncomfortable feeling coming over her. She looked at Sebastian, who watched her rather than Annie. She offered him a reassuring smile. This woman was describing a thousand men. There was no reason to think this person could possibly be-
“He had a dimple in his left cheek. And an Italian accent.”
Mina swallowed, her stomach roiling. Sebastian saw her discomfort and took a step closer.
“Did he give you a name?” the officer asked.
Annie nodded. “Yes, Donatello.”
Mina would have bet that vampires couldn’t faint. She proved herself wrong.
CHAPTER 24
He was back. Oh God, he was back. She had to escape. Terror flooded Mina as she pushed upright. She struggled to catch her breath, then she cried out.
“Baby, I’m right here,” Sebastian said softly, his arms coming up around her, a safe haven in the dark. Only then did she realize she wasn’t back in that wet, black forest. She was in Sebastian’s bedroom. In his bed. Safe.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, letting his steady warmth replace the fear chilling her skin. His large hands massaged her back as he told her over and over she was fine. He was there. He was there.
Gradually she became aware of the fire crackling in the fireplace. The thick quilt that he’d wrapped around her. The ways he’d tried to make her feel warm and secure.
“I passed out,” she said as if he didn’t know that.
But instead of giving her one of his half smiles, he only nodded, looking very serious.
“I bet that confused the police,” she tried to say lightly, wanting one of his smiles to reassure her everything was fine.
“The police and the girl were fine. It was-fine.” He touched her hair almost as if he needed to be sure she was fine too.
“It was really him, wasn’t it?” she finally asked.
His eyes locked with hers. “We don’t know that for sure. It could just be a coincidence.”
“Do you really believe that?”
Sebastian shrugged. “Even if it was him. He’s gone again. He won’t come back here. And I don’t believe he was looking for you.”
She nodded. If he’d wanted to find her again, he certainly had the time to do it. A hundred years worth of time.
“I will admit it is a weird coincidence, but I really believe a coincidence, nonetheless.”
She nodded again, wanting to believe him.
“Mina.” He brushed her mussed hair from her cheek. “I won’t let anything happen to you. You know that.”
She met his eyes, seeing the concern clouding their golden depths. She did know that. She caught the hand still stroking her hair and pressed a kiss into his palm, the skin against her lips warm and slightly calloused. She kissed there again, her tongue flicking out to test the roughness.
He groaned, his hand moving away from her mouth to curl into her hair. His other hand came up to hold the other side of her head. Then he gently, tenderly brushed kisses to her forehead, across her fluttering eyelids, to her nose and finally to her lips. His mouth remained soft, soothing as it molded over and over against hers.
His lips never leaving her, he eased her back against the pillows. She felt his fingers move to her clothes, unhurriedly working the buttons loose. Then he pressed fluttering, open-mouthed kisses to each inch of skin that he exposed until her dress was open, her body bared to him. With hands that Mina could have sworn trembled, or maybe it was only a trick of the firelight, he stroked her naked skin. A leisurely exploration of her body that was staggeringly arousing because of his almost innocent touches. Her belly. The sensitive spot behind her knee. The arch of her foot.
By the time his hand slipped between her thighs, she was burning for him, as hot as the flames in the fireplace.
“Sebastian,” she whispered, awed by the adoration of his touch, the reverence in his eyes. She understood that he didn’t return her feelings in the same way, but she felt unable to contain the emotions inside her. Maybe she was a fool, but she didn’t care. She had to tell him.
“I do love you.”
Sebastian’s breath caught at her whispered words. Words that shook him as if she’d bellowed them from the highest mountaintop. Words that he desperately wanted to hear, even as he told himself again that he didn’t. Words that terrified him just as much as they excited him.
He watched her face as he caressed her, the damp curls of her sex tickling his fingers. The pulse of her tiny clitoris against the pad of his thumb. He studied the rapid rise and fall of her beautiful breasts. The redness of her bottom lip as the soft skin pillowed around her white teeth. The little whimpers she made as she strained against his hand.
No woman had ever fascinated him as she did. No other woman had been this important to
him. This essential to him. His hand paused at his own thoughts, then he pushed them aside, falling back on the mattress so he could strip off his shirt and jeans.
He returned to her, their mouths melding, their bodies fitting perfectly together. He took her gasp into his mouth as she accepted him inside her. His full length deep into her body. He pulled back, gazing down at her. Her perfect pale skin, her beautiful eyes, so dark, so blue he wanted to drown in them. His eyes remained locked with hers as he began to move in a slow easy rhythm. Gliding nearly out, only to slide back in to the hilt, filling her completely again and again.
Her lips parted, a ragged breath escaping her with each stroke. He kept that leisurely pace, fascinated with watching her, painfully aroused by the desire in her eyes. Then she began to squirm under him, her hands growing frantic as they stroked his shoulders, his back.
“What do you want, baby?” he murmured against her lips.
“You,” she answered automatically.
“Like this?” He plunged deeper.
She cried out, her head bobbing. “Yes. Oh, yes.”
He filled her again, deep, hard. Building the pace until she was thrashing under him, the muscles around his cock clutching him in the same way her arms clasped his body.
“Come for me, Mina,” he said, as he moved his hand down to where their bodies joined, finding the tiny bud in the curls of her sex.
He just touched her when she screamed, her body convulsing around him. His fangs distended, but he easily ignored them, lost in the strong quiver of her body. He pumped once more, hard and deep, then his own orgasm rocked his body. He collapsed on top of her, weak, trembling.
As he fell into a state of satisfied unconsciousness, he tried to recall how his orgasms had felt before Mina. Had they been as mind-blowing, as awe-inspiring?
Oddly, he couldn’t seem to recall.
Sebastian stretched, a smile of tremendous satisfaction on his face. “Damn I’m good.”
Mina rolled her eyes. “You would be proud of that,” she said, attempting to roll across the bed away from him, but he easily snagged her around the waist and pulled her back.
“Damned right. Five orgasms in… ” He lifted his head from the pillow to look at the digital clock on his nightstand. “In forty-seven minutes. That’s got to be a record.”
She grunted, pretending not to be impressed. But as she was the one who’d received the five orgasms, she was actually quite impressed and very, very satisfied. Her whole body felt heavy and boneless.
“Man, you’re a tough lady,” he said with a weary sigh. “Okay, I’ll go for two more.”
He started to slide back down under the comforter, but she groaned and caught her arm. “Okay, you win. I don’t think my body can take any more.”
He slid back beside her, his irritatingly smug grin back in place. But even as she told herself he really was far too self-satisfied, she snuggled against him with a contented sigh.
They remained that way, Sebastian leisurely stroking her back, she basking in the exhausting afterglow of his lovemaking.
“Do you still think I’m narcissistic and depraved?” he asked suddenly.
She lifted her head, seeing that his brow was furrowed, his golden eyes serious.
“No. You are definitely confident. And definitely very wicked.” She rubbed a leg up his as she said the last, to let him know she very much liked his brand of wicked. “But I’m starting to like those qualities in you.”
His eyes roamed her face for a moment, then he cupped one of his big hands around the back of her head and pulled her in for a kiss, slow and sweet. When they parted, she sank against his chest, rubbing her cheek against his smooth skin.
They were silent again, until Sebastian moved.
“Okay,” he said sounding far more awake and together than she was. “We need to get dressed. I’ve got plans.”
She groaned, falling back against the pillows as he rose from the bed. “Can’t we just stay in?”
“Nope.”
Mina watched him as he strode across the room to his dresser, admiring all his golden skin and taut muscles. Narcissistic, confident, depraved-the man deserved to be whatever he wanted. He was breathtaking.
With great disappointment, she watched as he shrugged on a green shirt and a pair of jeans. Then he padded barefoot back to the bed, the shirt unbuttoned and a line of muscled chest and stomach still peeking out at her, teasingly. He sat on the edge of the bed and she couldn’t resist slipping her hand over his belly. Tight muscles, a shallow navel surrounded by coarse hair that dipped down into his jeans.
He smiled at her as her fingertips snaked under the waistband toying with the curls below his belly button.
“And I’m the third most dangerous vampire in New York? Woman, you are going to kill me.”
She smiled, but didn’t stop touching him, not until he caught her hand.
“I want to touch you,” she told him. “You’ve done all the touching since you woke me up.”
And what a way to be woken up, she thought, her toes curling.
He glanced at the bed, and she could tell he was tempted. But instead, he removed her hand from him and rose. “Later. Definitely later. But we have another lesson.”
She groaned. Sebastian’s lessons to help her understand her vampire self were the last thing she wanted to do.
“Plus, you want time to stop by your place, don’t you? For clean clothes?”
Now that was a temptation she couldn’t resist. She couldn’t bear to wear that damp, dirty dress any longer. Especially when Sebastian looked all fresh and clean.
“Okay,” she agreed. “But I get to touch you as much as I want later.”
Sebastian grinned at her. “You say that like you think I might say no. You should know me better than that. Later, I’m all yours.”
Mina smiled back until he left the room. Not quite all of him was hers. She crawled out of bed and reached for her crumpled dress. But she’d be happy with what she did have.
“I like your apartment,” Sebastian called to Mina from her living room. Mina straightened from looking in her fridge, a blue, plastic pitcher in her hand.
“A bit smaller than what you’re used to,” she said as she went to the cupboard and pulled down two mugs.
“It’s cozy,” he said, appearing in the doorway.
She smiled over her shoulder, then returned her attention to pouring thick red liquid into the mugs. She didn’t realize he was right behind her until he pressed a kiss to the back of her neck. She noticed he kept the touch very brief, always aware of the fact that his lips at her neck might scare her. It didn’t, not anymore. She couldn’t imagine Sebastian hurting her. Not physically anyway.
She turned, their bodies touching, but he made no further attempt to kiss her. In fact, after a few moments, he stepped back. She knew he was trying to behave. To keep on track of the night’s plans. Plans he, as usual, hadn’t filled her in on.
She reached for the mugs, offering him one. He accepted it, sniffing the concoction doubtfully.
“The pig-and-cow mix?” he asked.
She nodded, lifting the mug in a toast.
He grimaced, but raised his too.
She took a sip, fighting back her own grimace. The mixture was unappealing, she knew. And grew more so of late. Sebastian actually sputtered, but managed to get the drink down.
“Good Lord, you lived on this?”
She nodded, trying not to reveal that now she was nearly as stunned by the idea as he was. She didn’t know how she’d managed. Except that she’d had to and then it had become her norm.
“Well, it is a little stale,” she said, although she knew being fresher wouldn’t make it any more appealing to him.
He made another disgusted face and set the mug back on the table. “I think I’ll wait until I get back to my place for some of Rhys’s blood-bank stuff.” He glanced again at the mug, then shuddered. “And I thought his stuff was awful.”
She tried not t
o laugh at his extreme reaction and forced herself to finish hers.
She placed both mugs in the sink. “Okay. I need to get a quick shower and clean clothes.”
Sebastian followed her as she headed to her bedroom. He wandered around the room, touching this, inspecting that as she tried to figure out what to wear.
He just set down a book about day-to-day life in Regency England, when he asked, “Your roommate? What’s she like?”
Mina looked up from her underwear drawer, where she was lamenting her lack of pretty undergarments. “Lizzie? What about her?”
“Lizzie.” For a second, he looked as if he was considering something.
“How long have you been roommates?”
“Only about three months. She just moved to New York. She was living in Colorado or Montana. Somewhere like that. She’s a scientist. She came here to work with Dr. Fowler. She’s a werewolf.”
Sebastian nodded, then he noticed the pale blue panties she held, forgotten, in her hand.
He walked toward her, but stopped before he touched her. Pulling in a deep breath, he smiled. “You’d better get that shower.”
He didn’t have to add, before they ended up back in bed. Her bed, this time. She glanced longingly at the simple white wrought-iron bed with its pale lavender comforter.
She grabbed a bra and her jeans and shirt-and the blue panties and squeezed past him. She did need a shower-a cold one. Although she didn’t think cold showers worked quite the same on vampires.
Once in the bathroom, she kept her attention on starting the shower, getting out of her rumpled dress, anything but the idea of Sebastian gazing around her apartment. There was something very exciting about his being here, in her world.
She tested the water before stepping into the tub. She closed her eyes, letting the hot water sluice down her body. Then she opened them, not really seeing, her mind on all the things Sebastian had done to her when they’d awoken together. Her toes curled against the slick porcelain of the tub. He was amazing. And she now understood how a person could become fixated on making love. Although she knew for her, her fixation was more about Sebastian. She knew she couldn’t enjoy sexual intimacy like that with anyone else. It was all about Sebastian and what she felt for him.