by Grosso, Kym
“Laryssa,” Léopold grunted as she continued to thrash. Goddess, the woman was strong. “Laryssa, stop,” he commanded in a strong, dominant tone. “Enough. It’s me. It’s Léopold.”
“Léopold?” she croaked, forgetting how angry she’d been with him. Not a demon.
“Oui. You’re safe,” he lied as they drifted further away from the coast. Perhaps the demon was gone, but he knew that Lake Ponchartrain could be a dangerous place for even the most experienced swimmers. Besides the treacherous tides and currents, the basin was littered with trees, logs and even glass.
“Is it here?” she cried.
“The demon is gone,” he assured her.
Exhausted and relieved, she sagged into his arms and rested her forehead against his chest. It was gone.
“You saw it?” she whispered against his skin.
“Oui, I saw it. Come, let’s get inside, ma chérie. It’s cold.”
Using one arm to paddle, Léopold brought them to the dock. By the time they reached it, Laryssa had begun to shiver uncontrollably and wasn’t speaking. Léopold held tight to her, pulling her up the steps with him.
“I can walk,” she stammered through chattering teeth. Laryssa wasn’t sure what was happening. Normally she never got cold. She reasoned it was the shock of the demon that had done this to her.
“I’ve got you,” Léopold insisted, easily lifting her into his arms.
He cursed, realizing that she was naked save for her panties. Cradling her against him, he knew his own body heat wouldn’t sufficiently warm her. He was soaking wet as well, laden down with sodden clothes. He should have asked her before he transported them into his bedroom. But she’d never agree, so he’d made the decision without explanation. Léopold was not surprised when she began mumbling into his chest, complaining about what he’d done. He placed a kiss to her hair, intending to explain to her later about his special ability.
“What did you do? Where are we? Please…” Nausea rose in her belly. Laryssa looked around and realized that Léopold had moved her somehow…without walking. “How did you do that?”
“A conversation for another time, love. Take a few deep breaths. You’ll feel better in a minute,” he assured her, refusing to put her down. “No time for walking, I’m afraid.”
“I don’t feel so well,” Laryssa slurred. She clumsily pushed at his chest. How did I get in the house? Confusion and fogginess blanketed her brain. She swallowed and her breath quickened.
“You’re a bit hypothermic is all. Nothing severe, though. Let me look at you.” Léopold noted her glassy eyes and the pale color of her skin. Her lips were slightly grayish but not blue. He snatched the comforter off the bed and wrapped it around her.
Reluctantly, he set her into his bed so he could get undressed. He stripped, throwing his lake-soaked clothes aside. Walking into his bathroom, he started a lukewarm shower and then returned to her side.
“How’re you feeling?” He asked, gently bending down to eye level.
“Help…help me,” she stuttered.
“It’s gonna be okay. Easy now.” Léopold carefully scooped her up in his arms and took her into the bathroom.
“What’re you doing?” she asked, aware of the warmth caressing her skin.
“You’re just a little cold from the water. Not surprising given that you were under so long.” He unraveled the bedspread, dropping it onto the floor.
“I don’t get cold.”
“Yeah, you do,” Léopold disagreed, stepping into the spray.
“I can go in any water,” she insisted. “No matter the temperature.”
“See that? You’re starting to warm up already,” he said, ignoring her comment. He bit his lip, resisting the urge to ask her, ‘How’s that workin’ out for ya?’ Yeah, not so well. She could go in any water? What the hell was that supposed to mean?
Part of him wanted to scold her. But he knew in her current state, it wouldn’t help the situation. Glancing down, he couldn’t avoid noticing how incredibly beautiful she was. Her swollen breasts pressed against his own naked skin, her pink nipples beaded into ripe tips. Goddess, what he would give to take one into his mouth, teasing it further into hardness. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, willing his dick into submission. Jesus Christ, already, the woman is suffering and I’m thinking about sex? He knew it was wrong, but his passion was scarcely controlled.
“Léopold,” she whispered, tilting her head upward so that her eyes met his. “I think I can stand. Please.”
“Careful.” Slowly he let her slide out of his hold but kept his hands on her waist.
“Warmer.”
“Hmm?”
“The water. Can you make it warmer?”
“Oui.” Léopold reached around her, turning the spigot to the right.
“Ahhh,” she purred. Laryssa began to remember what had happened by the lake. Demon. Rejuvenation. Léopold. But no matter how hard she racked her mind, she couldn’t figure out how he’d brought her to the bedroom. She glanced down to her skin. Realizing she was nude, she covered her breasts with her hands.
“Don’t,” Léopold told her softly. He reached for her shoulders and slid his hands slowly down her arms, bringing her hands to her sides.
“But I don’t have any clothes on…” Her voice was weak. Embarrassed but fatigued, she let him guide her.
“Oui. Nor do I. But we’re as we were meant to be. Nous sommes naturel.” Léopold let his hands fall to her hips and hooked his thumbs over the sides of her panties. With great patience, he tenderly but deliberately dragged them downward. His lips passed mere inches from her bottom as he bent to remove the dripping undergarment.
“I can’t…” she began.
“Don’t fret, ma chérie. Let me take care of you,” he breathed into her ear.
“No one cares for me.” She shook her head, still looking down.
“You’re wrong. You have me.”
Laryssa exhaled heavily as his breath warmed her ear. Whether it was out of need or defeat, she believed his words as truth. Tendrils of steam poured into the air as she nodded in acceptance.
Léopold removed his hands from her skin and reached for the loofah and soap. Laryssa went to turn her head to see what he was doing when his voice stopped her movement.
“Stay,” he directed with a smile, aware that she’d be none too happy with his command.
“I’m not a…”
“Oui. I know, ma chérie…not a dog.” He laughed. “You’re a woman. A beautiful one at that. Someone who needs lessons in trust, I fear. Will you allow me that much?”
Laryssa didn’t answer. The man was incorrigible. Simply unbelievable. But as he swirled the sponge over her back, she sighed, conceding that he was right.
“Yes, yes, I’ll trust you. Oh God, that feels so good.”
Léopold didn’t respond. He merely smiled, continuing to brush his fingertips over her slippery breasts, gliding them across her belly. Dipping further downward, he slid the loofah over her mound. His left hand massaged her shoulder, sloshing the bubbles down her back and into the crevice of her buttocks. Craving her touch, he pressed into her, his cock settling against her silky skin. Léopold dropped the sponge into its wall holder and reached with both hands to deposit a dollop of shampoo into his hand. He heard Laryssa gasp as he fingered the solution into her hair, frothing it throughout the wisps of her mane. Working from underneath, he tended to her scalp.
Laryssa shuddered in arousal, angry that she could feel this way for a man who’d treated her the way he had. Only earlier, he’d pushed her away, almost enjoying the way he’d played with his food in front of her. She tried to imagine the donor moaning on the couch, Léopold’s eyes boring into her. But as quickly as the picture came to her, it faded as he ground his hardness into her ass. Confusion swept through her. She hated herself for how much she wanted this man to touch her and was almost glad he’d finished soaping her skin. But as soon as his hands reached the nape of her neck and began to g
ently caress her hair, she melted, losing her fight to remain angry with him.
“We need to talk.” She couldn’t go on like this, naked with Léopold, craving his touch, without discussing what happened. Laryssa knew she’d risk making a fool out of herself, sharing how she felt, but the words began to spill out of her mouth before she could stop them. “Listen, Léopold, I don’t know what’s going on between us. One minute we’re kissing and the next you withdraw. That woman…God, I must be an idiot. I mean the way she was dressed. You can call her food or whatever the hell you want, but I’m a woman and she wasn’t gussied up just for dinner. She was practically wearing nothing for Chrissakes. But kissing you and touching you, it felt so good. I haven’t been with someone in a long time but you’re like this super-old vampire guy and I’m like…well, I’m not a vampire. And you know I haven’t been completely honest with you.”
Léopold smiled, knowing she couldn’t see his reaction. Articulating was an art, he supposed. And given she’d just been thrust into his world, had an encounter with a demon and almost drowned, he assumed he should cut her some slack and let her get whatever she needed to off her chest. He wanted to hear what she was, after all, and he knew she was precariously close to taking a leap of faith.
“It’s not like I get naked with every guy I meet and jump in the shower with him.”
“I should hope not.” He stifled his laughter.
“I was so mad at you. I have no right…I know that. I mean you have to eat. But you…she…and we’d just…you know what you did to me,” she sighed. “And what you didn’t do.”
“Ah, that.” This time he did laugh just a little.
“Were you going to sleep with her? Do you have sex with all your donors? I know we just met but I can’t do this with you. What I’m trying to say is that there is something about you…about us. God, I know I must be crazy. We just met but I was thinking if we could get to know each other better we could…”
“Make love,” he suggested, continuing to wash her hair.
“If you hadn’t stopped upstairs, yeah, I guess that could’ve happened. But you want to know what I am. And there are things I want to tell you. I want so badly to trust someone. I’ve been alone forever. Well, I’ve had friends but that doesn’t really count. The only person who really knows is Avery, my friend from the club. And now that thing…”
“The demon?”
“Yes. That.”
“You can say the word. It is what it is. When you described the eyeless dark ones, I wasn’t sure what you were talking about. Now a demon. Well, I haven’t seen many but I have seen them before. Nasty lot.”
“I don’t want to say it. If I say it, it’ll…” Maybe she’d watched the Exorcist too many times or maybe it was her lapsed Catholic upbringing, but she didn’t want to say its name. It was as though if she acknowledged it, she’d be asking it to show itself. “I don’t want it here.”
“Saying the word demon won’t bring it to you. What does worry me is why a demon would show itself to you in the first place. It wanted something, I take it? Something besides sex.” Léopold had a difficult time erasing the image of the beast touching itself in front of Laryssa, reaching for her.
“Yes,” she said softly.
“Do you want to tell me?”
“It wanted me to find something, to bring something to it.” She closed her eyes trying to remember what it had told her. She’d been terrified and not exactly taking notes as it threatened her. “It began with a T…Tamo? Teca? No it was Tlalco something. Dammit, I can’t think of what it was.”
Léopold momentarily stopped moving his hands on hearing the ancient Aztec word, but resumed, squeezing the bubbles out of her hair from top to bottom. He didn’t want to alarm her.
“Tecpatl?” he suggested.
“Yeah, that sounds right. Tlalco Tecpatl. Do you know what it is?”
“A Tlalco is a knife. One that was used by the Aztecs.” To perform human sacrifice. “Tecpatl was one of the Gods they worshipped. I’ve never heard of such a relic but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. We’re going to have to do some research. I’m not exactly sure why the demon wants it, but whatever the reason, I know it can’t be good.”
“It threatened to take Ava if I didn’t get it. And it wants to kill me.” Keep me. The demon had said she belonged to it. Mine. She shuddered, deciding to tell him about the time constraint instead. “Seven days.”
“What?”
“It wants it in a week. Like I can find some ancient knife in seven days,” she chortled. “What am I supposed to do? Waltz into the natural history museum and say, ‘Hey, you don’t know me but could you acquisition an Aztec knife and let me borrow it to give to some demon?’ Why in the hell would it need me to get it anyway?”
“My best guess is that it has something to do with what you are,” he surmised. Léopold carefully turned her to face him, and brushed the back of his knuckles over her cheek. He waited patiently until she finally raised her eyelids, before tilting her head back into the hot spray. Carefully, he fingered her locks, the bubbles falling away to the floor. His cock jerked as she licked her lips, parting them as if she would drink from him.
“I want to tell you,” she responded, returning her gaze to his. Her eyes darted to his chest and abdomen before catching a glimpse of his glorious erection. He was the most magnificent male specimen she’d ever seen, beautiful, every inch of him ripped in muscle. She shouldn’t have been surprised by the way his groin had been perfectly trimmed, the enormous length of him straining outward. As she realized what she’d been doing, drinking in the sight of him like she’d been admiring a painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, she blinked back up to his eyes in embarrassment. When she caught his gaze, her heart pounded in her chest. Desire washed over her once again.
“It’s okay, Laryssa,” he said. His voice was low and smooth.
“What’s okay?”
“To look.” Léopold finally gave in to his own craving, allowing his eyes to wander over her glistening breasts. The water droplets ran down like a stream, a small waterfall spilling off her rosy peaks. “To touch.” He reached out to caress her neck, but became alarmed as he moved closer. Four deep grooves sliced across her chest, healed but still pink and tender. His fingertip glided over her wounds. “It did this to you, no?”
“I’m okay now,” she piped cheerfully, attempting to hide her fear about what had happened. Laryssa heard him growl in displeasure, and placed her hand over his, sensing his anger. “See? It’s almost gone.”
“You heal quickly. This is your magic?”
“The water, the lake, it healed me. I can’t live without it.” I’ve tried and almost died.
“You weren’t drowning, were you?”
“No.”
“You were glowing.”
“Yeah, I was.”
“I thought you were dying. I’d told you that I’d protect you. And then when you saw Sophie and ran out…I didn’t go after you.”
“Did you want her?” Laryssa defensively pulled her hand off of his, expecting him to stop touching her.
Léopold gave a small smile and shook his head. The woman didn’t get how much of an effect she had on him, how, in the moment, he only wanted her.
“She’s your lover?” she asked, wishing she could take back the question. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. It’s just that…if you want to be with me…”
“She’s a donor. If you’re asking if I’ve had sex with her, I won’t lie. The answer is yes. But she’s not my lover or girlfriend or anything of the sort. I’ve told you that I don’t do relationships but…”
“It’s none of my business.” She tried to back away, but he inched toward her.
“I want you to know that what you saw today was a physical reaction to my bite. Nothing more. We were created that way. Vampires. If our bite brought only pain, we’d have been killed as a race a long time ago. And for those of us who take mates, wives, we must be able to drink
from our partners to complete the bond. Perhaps it’s an evolutionary adaptation, but some of us are no different from humans in wanting to find a soul mate to spend our lives with. The bite must bring pleasure, great pleasure if it’s to be done during sex, many times a day.”
Laryssa swallowed. Sex many times a day? With Léopold?
“But my impression is that you don’t date. Don’t ‘do relationships’ as you say.”
“No, but I must eat. It can be an aphrodisiac.”
“Are you going to bite me?” she asked softly, her eyes lost in his.
“No.”
“No?”
“You, mon lapin, I could never use for just a meal.” Léopold closed the distance between them, his hand sliding over her skin.
“Why not?”
“Because, if I tasted of you, I’d need more. Much, much more,” he growled. Léopold felt his cock brush her belly, smiling as his rabbit shivered despite the heat. “If I bite you when we make love, I fear a bond could take place. I can’t allow that to happen. It’s not fair to you.”
“Don’t you mean ‘if’ we make love?” she quipped.
“No. I mean ‘when’ we make love,” he breathed, leaning forward so his lips touched her ear. His hand slid up from her chest so that he could wrap it around the back of her neck, spearing his fingers into her wet hair.
Laryssa’s heart pounded against her ribs. He tempted her, seducing her into his entrancing web. She wanted him to finish what he’d started earlier, taking it to new heights. But the man was frustrating as hell. He wanted to fuck her but he didn’t want a relationship? He’d made it clear that not only did he not date, he didn’t engage ‘friends with benefits’ either.
She found it puzzling how a man like Léopold could be so threatened by intimacy. Built like steel, a mind like a razor, he seemed invincible, both physically and mentally. Despite his immortality, the man had survived the centuries well. The vampire, who’d seen wars and plagues, had achieved unfathomable wealth, deliberately shunned others, appeared to relish his self-imposed solitude. While his words spoke clearly of his wishes to remain isolated, he had revealed his ability to connect with the infant. His eyes had lit up when he’d held Ava, sweetly singing to her and putting her to sleep. Even with the other supernatural she’d met at the Alpha’s home, she’d observed his interactions, which appeared natural and uninhibited. Whether he’d admit it or not, he cared about them. But perhaps it was because in at least his mind, those were business relationships. There was no pressure or expectations required so he accepted their company more easily.