She did not bother to wait for him to make the move. Instead, Jessie pressed her lips to Ricard’s and relaxed in the perfection of this very moment when all her fears and worries, all the sadness she’d lived with for so long, and her new-found anger and need for vengeance all disappeared.
In this moment, in this kiss there was only Ricard. Everything about this moment seemed magnified into a brilliant display.
The warmth from his body. The wide expanse of his chest. His firm arms holding her tight against him. The way his hands felt, fingers pressing her closer.
His scent, oh, his scent was heavenly, like cloves and the cleansing aroma of incense.
The softness of his lips on hers delivering a needy, wanton kiss. The way his mouth roamed from her lips to her neck, suckling at the skin, silently begging her for more.
Mixed with her own desires was another, one separate of her own and nearly as powerful. It was a hunger so raw, so intense it broke beyond her feelings. It overpowered her and flashed through her mind like a bolt of hot, wicked lightning.
“Do it. Don’t wait. This time, just do it.” Tilting her head back, she held him to her.
Never had she wanted anything more than this. Never had she needed something so badly. Right now she needed Ricard.
She needed him to want her, to have her, to make her his own.
He pulled back from her skin. His hot breath puffed into the collar of her lab coat. “I cannot. Not yet. It’s not right for me to do it this way.”
He sat up, dropping his head back and stared up at the ceiling. “I want it to be special for you, not a moment of bloodlust.” His heart beat strong, and steady, and fast, pounding in his chest against hers. “Once it is done, there will be no way to reverse this, no escaping me.”
Jessie drew in a breath, trying very hard to remain calm. Remembering her parents’ marriage and her mother’s advice, that she only now realized was amazingly sage advice, she exhaled and slowly brought Ricard’s face to hers.
“My mother once, no three or four times, told me that spouses, which is what we are for all intents and purposes…”
“Agreed.” He watched her with an interest no one else had ever shown.
“…spouses must always balance one another. We can and should agree on most things. At times we should disagree in respectful ways.”
“Yes.” Ricard frowned, clearly unsure of where this was going.
“She told me we must recognize when it is appropriate or not to encourage each other vs. recognizing when agreeing is simply taking the easy way out of something to avoid an argument that quite possibly should be had.”
“Are we having a fight?”
“No.” Jessie smiled and ran her fingers through his hair, an act that made him close his eyes and sigh. “But we are disagreeing with each other, and you are going to change your stance immediately or we will have a fight.”
Jessie had been trained by the best how to win an argument.
Ricard’s eyes snapped open. “What?”
Deep within, Jessie saw something churn, something she’d noticed earlier, something she knew he fought to control.
She narrowed one eye. “You’re afraid. I get it. I sort of am, too, but not like you.”
Sitting this close with only enough space for Canella to occasionally pop her furry head between their faces, then wiggle back down to Jessie’s lap, made it impossible for either of them to avoid the other.
“It’s probably the knowing part that makes you nervous. They say that’s what scares mothers-to-be. The first go-round they’re scared, but the second one is terrifying because they remember the first one.” She nodded.
His eyebrows drew together. “How do you know?”
“They know. Like you know. All that studying and trying to figure it out.” She nodded toward the wall of photos, which she now surmised were pictures of mated couples. “Wanting to understand love, because let’s be honest, this whole vampires finding mates and bonding with them is just some weird supernatural version of love.”
Ricard opened his mouth as if he intended to cut her off. Jessie promptly squeezed his lips together.
“I’m not done.”
His lips puckered between her fingers, and he looked down at where she held them shut.
“I’m into it, this whole who-knows-what-it-is…” She shook her head from side to side. “Who are we kidding? Every pair of mates, and half of this pair, knows what it is. Only you don’t know or aren’t willing to admit you know what it is.”
Ricard shifted in the chair.
“Well, the point is I’m in, totally committed, and not just because I think you and your friends are the only way to get revenge on that prick who killed my family.”
Ricard’s eyes widened for a split second.
“I know that worries you. I feel it here.” Not wanting to release his lips for fear he’d interrupt again, she used the finger from the hand wrapped around his neck to point toward her chest, leaning up to make the two connect, which made her fingers slip off his lips.
“Sorry, I need to hold onto these for a second longer.” She pinched his lips again.
“Ow,” he mumbled.
In a three second release she pecked a kiss to his lips, then grabbed them again.
“Now, where was I? Oh, right. I bring up the revenge thing because I get the sneaking suspicion you’re hanging on to the idea that I might be motivated by vengeance, and thus not thinking clearly, not planning, not fully acknowledging the risks associated with us. Am I right?”
“That had crossed my mind,” he said from the corner of his mouth.
“Yeah, well, let it go. Let’s think about this logically, shall we?”
He nodded.
“Whether or not you and I solidify this situation I’m going to do everything in my power to destroy Panthera. I’m well aware that I have no power and thus this will be a suicide mission.”
Ricard’s grip on Jessie tightened, pulling her in closer and causing Canella to take her monkey and jump to another seat.
“As I understand it you all want to stop Panthera, too, and I might have some little bit of information that will help in the mission.” She shrugged. “So you and I can do this thing that scares you into paralysis and improve our chances of stopping Panthera or you can refuse, and I’ll march off to my death.”
The muscle below Ricard’s eye ticked.
“What’s it gonna be?” She smiled.
He pulled her hand down. “You do realize you’re not marching anywhere? There’s no way I’m letting you march off to your death. Your elaborate attempt to blackmail me into…”
“Biting my neck like every vampire wants to.”
“Every vampire wants to bite your neck?” He cocked an eyebrow.
“Well, no. I don’t know. What I meant was neck biting like vampires do. You’ve done it before with others. Don’t act like you’re innocent.” Jessie knew what he was up to, and she would not be dissuaded.
“It’s not simply a matter of me biting your neck. That act will seal our bond for eternity. You will literally be stuck with me forever. There’s no divorce, no changing your mind, no moving out and leaving me behind.”
Ricard glanced toward the wall of photos. The air around them churned, pulsing from hot to cold.
Jessie caught his chin and turned him back to her. “You think I will change my mind? Why? How many mates do?”
“It’s not how many do. It’s that the probability you will be the one doing it, is high. Everywhere in nature there are glitches. Nothing is ever so perfect—”
“Stop. Right now. Stop.” Jessie heard her tone, and if she didn’t know better, she’d have thought she was channeling her mother. “If you assume for even another second that we will be the glitch in nature, I swear as clear as I’m sitting on your lap, I will beat your ass into the ground.”
His mouth dropped.
“Don’t say another word about that. I am not kidding. I have been very patient
with your worries. I am trying to be supportive. But, I have spent my entire life dealing with scientists and probabilities and reality. You have spent, who knows how long trying to rationalize love. Do you know how stupid that is?”
“There are things about me you don’t know, and you should know them before committing to me. It’s only logical that you should know as much as possible before—”
“I’m not done.” She pushed back, putting an arm’s length between them. “I’m sorry, but rationalizing love is the most moronic way for a scientist to spend his time. You don’t study something as beautiful and imperfectly perfect as love. You enjoy it. You live in it. You believe.”
Jessie looked away, studying the wall and noticing all the vampires she’d met and a couple men who’d visited her father many years ago were memorialized in pictures.
“I want to be on that wall with you. I can’t explain love and I certainly don’t understand this supernatural love, but I know I love you. I know you and I belong together. I know that if I have to spend another minute of my life away from you, I’ll give up living because there’s nothing left in this world for me, but you.”
She looked at Ricard. “If you don’t love me, tell me. But if you do, you can’t let fear stop you from living.”
They sat for a moment in silence, and during that time a lump rose in Jessie’s throat. She hadn’t started this conversation with any plan to give him an ultimatum. In fact, she’d never given anyone an ultimatum. But, she would not allow Ricard to love her in dribs and drabs.
It was all or nothing. And damn it, it had better be all.
Chapter Fifteen
In nearly six hundred years Ricard had not been treated like this. No human had the nerve to stare him down, let alone force him to look at her. When he thought back he wasn’t even sure his own sire had done this to him.
The experience nearly had him at a loss for words.
He studied the curlicued pipsqueak, noting the way her bottom lip quivered and the way her blood raced through the veins at her neck. Her eyes were slightly dilated, another sign of rising anxiety.
“I do not like for you to be afraid.”
“I just said I’m not afraid,” she said quite sharply.
“You are not afraid to be bitten, so you say. But you are afraid I may turn you away.”
She huffed. “How perceptive of you.”
“You bait me.”
“Hardly.” She shook her head but did not make eye contact when she answered.
The fact was the little imp was baiting him. She was doing her damnedest to tempt him into either fighting with her or simply taking her. He fought to keep his fangs from descending.
He hated to admit all she said was true. For centuries he’d tried to apply logic to love, thus separating himself from the pain. Theories and conjecture, hundreds of them, lay scrawled on parchment, in notebooks, on the computer. But the impetus behind each was a painful longing. He’d waited so long that he’d begun to doubt.
Now sitting on his lap was the one he waited all these years to find, and he was terrified.
“Really, you’re the one who baits me.” She stared beyond him at the wall. “Sending me in here to sit and wait while you and Serge and Rafe argued over who would question me in your special vampire way. The whole time you knew I’d see all those pictures and find your charts and see your notebooks. You sent me in here to get me all excited about thinking you wanted me.”
She turned to look at him with a glare. “Or maybe you sent me in here to make me think you’re some sweet and interested man who lives with love ideas formulating non-stop in his brilliant little brain.”
“You believe I have a little brain?”
She rolled her eyes. “Or, did you send me in here to break it to me scientifically? That’s it, isn’t it? You don’t have any interest in me. You’re not even thirsty enough to take a bite. You wanted me to see how scientifically focused you are and that you have no real desire for me other than to find out what I might know that could help you with your mission.”
He laughed. “Yes, that’s it exactly. It’s both of those things. For hundreds of years I have had so little interest in the concept of love that I’ve spent time trying to debunk it’s existence. Furthermore, because I found you in a weakened condition from this most recent loss concerning…” He paused, and Jessica nodded.
“In your weakened condition you made decisions that led me to believe you were easily influenced and thus any unintentional influence my superbly powerful presence had would have been the cause of you throwing yourself at me.”
“Throwing myself at you? Hmm.” She twisted her lips to the side and remained quiet for a moment. “You are so very confused and inexperienced in the ways of love to have misconstrued my attempts to lead you to the answer to all these many years of research.” She fanned a hand toward the desk.
“Oh, do explain. I would so love for you to help me conclude my research.”
“And I shall.” She squared her shoulders. “You see love sits in your lap, literally. There is no need for you to continue with your silly little experiments. There’s no need for conjecture or hypothesizing why some men find love and others do not.”
“You don’t say.” As the lovely little imp descended into a maddening logical explanation of why applying logic to love equated to lunacy Ricard could hardly follow the conversation.
All he could focus on was the way it felt to hold her and how everything in his world seemed to have shifted into the exact place it should be, the exact way it once was. The wall of pictures no longer looked like hundreds of test projects. Instead, he saw couple after couple, living proof, that love was real.
“…furthermore, if you do not accept my terms I am open to discussing yours. But, I will not be told no. Absolutely, that is not an acceptable answer.” Her finger pointed up into the air. “Actually…” She dropped her hand to his shoulder and turned to look at him. “Please just tell me you love me. I can’t take any more. I’m not half as good at this as my mom was.”
She dropped her head onto his shoulder. “Please.”
“I love you.”
Her head popped up. “Really?”
“Yes, darling. I do, and you know it.”
“I’ve known it since you came to my home. I knew the moment you set foot in the building. I felt it.” Her gaze dropped to Ricard’s lips, where his fangs were visible. “I’m not afraid,” she whispered and turned her head.
There was so much to tell her, so much he should share before this moment. He’d meant to say it all, to bare the painful truth of his past, but he could not. In this most perfect of moments he could not allow his secret to cast a black mark on the beginning of their love.
He bent toward her neck, pausing at her ear. “Neither am I, now that you’re here.”
His lips grazed over her skin, parting just enough to allow the tip of his tongue to glide along a pulsing vein. The sound of her soft sigh combined with the way her body relaxed against his broke Ricard’s resolve.
Being as gentle as he could he set his fangs into her skin.
Her breath caught in a frightened intake and her body jerked.
Ricard sensed a flurry of activity in her mind. It was as though a part of her was trying to rationalize the situation while another part of her swam in a tidal wave of pleasure.
The desperate attempts to remain in control and coherent through this moment when Ricard first tasted her were futile. For even though this was not the act that would bind them to each other for all eternity, it was a most important step forward.
This first taste of his mate would forever be burned into his soul. After this moment there would never be another he would crave. Not any other human would meet his need for blood. No other woman would capture his heart.
Do not fear, my love. He thought the words, sending them to her filled with all the love he felt.
Her mind did not calm. Her conscious mind clung to a state of wake that shou
ld not have been possible. Her strength in this second was surprising, far more powerful than any other humans.
Jessica, my love, relax. Allow me to care for you.
The churn of thoughts slowed. Once again she relaxed, though her breathing remained rushed.
Holding her to him, Ricard drank, and with each swallow she became more at ease. From the soft moans and the slowing respirations he knew she was no longer frightened.
Remaining focused on Jessica, Ricard noted her thoughts no longer ran wild. She calmly tried to explain how or why this could happen. Though there was acceptance, she still tried to explain it. This process intrigued him. He wondered at her ability to keep from slipping under his influence.
Drinking one last bit, Ricard memorized her taste. Hints of apricot flavored the metallic tang of her blood. Apricots. Ricard had not tasted anything as sweet in hundreds of years.
Apricots and chili.
A low growl, fueled by the excitement of recognizing his mate’s flavor, rumbled in his chest.
Jessica shivered.
Spicy. She was sweet and spicy, just the way any Spaniard loved his woman.
Sweet, spicy, and soft, the way a woman should be.
Jessica’s hold on him loosened, and Ricard realized he’d taken more from her than he should. Pulling back, he dotted several tender kisses to her neck, licking the puncture marks until they closed, leaving no apparent sign of what had happened. At least, not apparent to anyone who was not a vampire.
For a few moments she lay snuggled against Ricard’s chest, her eyes closed and a smile curving her full lips.
Long dark lashes hid her beautiful eyes. Those would be the first eyes he’d see every night from now forward.
Curls sprang in every direction, draping over his arm. Again the scent of raindrops at sunrise swirled.
Knowing this woman was his to cherish and love for the rest of his days pleased Ricard more than anything had in many years. He fought to ensure the fear of losing her would not overwhelm this moment.
As he sat holding her, waiting for her to awaken from quiet slumber, every moment of the last twenty-four hours played in his mind. At first he was bewildered by the turn of events.
A Vampire's Purgatory (Romance In Central City Book 8) Page 9