by Alyssa Day
All of it due to a vampire attack that might even have had something to do with the Emperor and whoever had stolen it. Not to mention the maidens lying helpless in Atlantis, waiting for her to find the Emperor and save them.
And yet—in spite of all of that—here she sat in luxury and peace in her bath, playing at ideas of being a sexual temptress. Shame and exhaustion overwhelmed her, and she dropped her head to her knees and gave in to the sobs that had lain in wait for her since she first stepped foot out of that pod.
So much responsibility on Serai’s inexperienced shoulders. Too much, perhaps. If she failed them, her sisters-in-stasis would die—because of her. She’d never been responsible for anything more important than choosing a new gown for a ball, and now the fate of the maidens, and maybe even that of Atlantis itself, lay in her hands. The Seven Isles couldn’t rise to the surface without all of the jewels from Poseidon’s trident.
It was too much. Far too much. She couldn’t possibly live up to the task. She pulled a towel from the heated bar near the tub and pressed her face into it, the end trailing in the water, so the sound of her sobs wouldn’t reach beyond the bathing room.
When the door crashed open, she knew she’d failed at even that. Moving so fast he was a blur, Daniel crossed to the tub and pulled her up and out of it, cradling her—wet towel, bubbles, and all—on his lap.
“Serai? Are you injured? Should we call for a healer or a doctor?” He stared into her eyes, holding her tightly to his chest, and she felt herself flush so hot her skin must be on fire.
“Daniel! I’m not injured, but I’m . . . I have no . . . I was in the bath. This is shockingly inappropriate. Release me immediately and leave the room.”
He ignored her completely and instead tightened his embrace and kissed her gently on the forehead. “Then why are you crying as if your heart would break, my beautiful one?”
She shook her head back and forth as the pain rushed up again to choke her, her childish concerns about her nudity forgotten. “The attack. The dead rebels. Jack. My sisters. The Emperor. What if I can’t find it, Daniel? My connection to it keeps growing weaker. What if I can never find it and the rest of the maidens die, too?”
“You’ll find it. We’ll find it together. I swear to you that we will succeed. We’ll save those women, and you’ll be safe, and you can return to Atlantis and live a long and wonderful life.” His voice rasped as he said it, as if he were suppressing some deep emotion. He shifted his position sitting on the edge of the tub, still holding her, and the blood rushed to her cheeks again as she realized she felt a growing hardness under her bottom.
“I’m sorry, Serai, but I am a man,” he said ruefully. “Some things are impossible to ignore, and you, naked in my arms, tops the list.”
He stood and carefully released her, and then took her wet towel and handed her a dry one, but his searing gaze swept every inch of her body before she got a chance to wrap herself in the soft white cotton.
“A gentleman would have closed his eyes,” she informed him rather breathlessly.
“I’m not a gentleman,” he said, flashing that wicked smile of his that made her think of dangerous, seductive things. “I’m going to take advantage of every chance I get to see your gorgeous body, especially naked, you can be sure of that.”
She blushed again but then frowned. “It’s not right. To think of . . . pleasure . . . when such bad things have happened.”
He grabbed another towel and started to dry her hair for her. “It’s the most normal thing in the world, sweetheart. To affirm life in the face of death. To reach out for a connection to another—it’s entirely natural.”
He tossed the towel on the floor and put his arms around her, pulling her closer. “Do you know what else is natural? This is natural.”
He touched his lips to hers, and she stopped breathing, stopped thinking, stopped existing as a rational person as the sensation thrilled through her. He was kissing her.
He wanted her.
She didn’t know why, and she didn’t care. She didn’t care.
She just kissed him back. She threw her arms around his neck and clung, just in case he changed his mind. She wouldn’t let go so easily. She kissed him with every bit of the longing she’d built up after so many years of missing him. Wanting him. Dreaming of him.
All of those years of wishing, hoping—she put all that into her kiss, too. All of her enthusiasm, her passion; it had to make up for lack of experience, didn’t it?
She hoped. She would—what had he said? Affirm life? Yes. She would affirm life with him. Enthusiastically.
He groaned a little, deep in his throat, and she blushed. Maybe all that enthusiasm was a little too much. She didn’t actually know what she was doing, after all. Maybe she was—
“Stop thinking so hard,” he said, his lips quirking up at the edges. “Kissing is more about feeling.”
“How did you—”
“I could tell. Am I going too fast?”
“No! I mean, no, I just—you have probably kissed so many women, and I don’t, well, not that I should have, and what were you doing kissing all those women, anyway?” By the time she got to the end of that convoluted sentence, she was indignant and more than a little jealous.
His eyes flashed with heat and maybe even a little amusement. “There weren’t all that many, mi amara. But if you want the absolute truth, there has never, ever been anyone who could compare to you.”
She clutched the towel closer to her chest and stared up into his eyes. Nothing but absolute sincerity and that exciting glimpse of barely restrained hunger shone back at her.
“My heart has waited for you all of my life. I feel like I’m learning what a kiss is for the very first time, and I want to learn it with you,” he said, and she fell.
Fell out of doubt, out of insecurity, out of shyness.
Fell into love.
And knew, without a doubt, that she couldn’t let him know. She’d scare him away, with his stupid notions of honor. But she could find a way to show him; that, at least she could do.
Would do. Tonight.
He waited, letting her decide, and she framed his face with her hands and pulled his head back down to hers.
“Then maybe we should try it again,” she whispered, shyness almost—almost—completely overcome.
He flashed that wicked grin. “I thought you’d never ask.”
He kissed her, and time stood still, the stars exploded, and a thousand other lines from a thousand other love songs and poems evolved from data fed to her by the Emperor . . . into truth.
He kissed her, and somehow she was in his arms while he carried her into the bedroom. His eyes glowed like dark stars in the dim room, which was only lit by the light from the bathing room.
“I need you,” he said, and his voice was tight with strain as if he somehow hurt because of needing her. She felt a thrill of purely feminine triumph as she tightened her arms around his neck and kissed him in response. She didn’t need words, she didn’t even have the words for what she was feeling—only random thoughts and emotions and feelings whirling around and through her like bolts of electricity or a lightning strike composed of sheer sensation.
He lowered her to the bed and lay down beside her before she could take a breath. The towel had vanished between bath and bed, but he covered her body with his own. He was still fully dressed, and she shivered with the wantonly tactile sensation of his clothing against her skin.
“Are you cold?” He pulled the bed’s coverlet up and around them, but she shook her head, laughing a little.
“I feel like I’ll never be cold again, if you keep kissing me,” she confessed, and she was surprised at the breathless sound of her voice.
He laughed and it was his turn for triumph. His eyes darkened, and she knew, oh, yes, even she in her inexperience knew what he felt.
“There’s more, if you’ll allow me to touch you,” he said.
“I know what making love is.” She could fee
l the heat in her cheeks at her bold declaration, but she didn’t want him to think she was completely ignorant.
He kissed her forehead, her nose, her lips, and then her neck. “There’s knowing, and then there’s knowing. May I?”
“Oh! Oh, yes, um, what?”
“May I touch you?”
“Yes, oh, yes,” she whispered, and then she lay perfectly still and waited for her world to change.
Daniel thought his brain might explode if she said no, so when she said yes, he didn’t hesitate but did what he’d wanted to do since he first saw her again after so long. He touched her.
All over.
He ran his hands down the silken skin of her arms while he kissed her, and then he rolled to his side, pulling her with him, and stroked her back and her hair. And kissed her some more. He couldn’t seem to stop kissing her, as if he were drowning and she were the very oxygen he needed to survive. At first she lay still, as if afraid to move, but then she threw her arms around his neck and pulled him even closer. Her kisses were enthusiastic and tentative all at once, as if she was learning the art of kissing.
Which, of course, was exactly what she was doing. He had no idea why the thought of it humbled him at the same time it drove him mad. His cock was so hard the imprint of his zipper would probably be a permanent tattoo if he didn’t get out of his pants soon, but he didn’t want to scare her by undressing. Not yet.
He took a breath and dared to let his hands drop to the sweet, sweet curve of her hips and ass, and he couldn’t help the way his own hips bucked against her when he had both hands wrapped around her lush behind.
“Daniel, it . . . tingles. I never, I don’t . . . It feels like I’m empty and hungry for something,” she said, her cheeks blushing a hot rosy pink. “I never knew I could feel like this. I want—I want—”
“I want you, too, mi amara, but I’m not going to rush you,” he said, feeling like a big damn hero. Or a big damn fool. “Not yet. It’s too soon, and I don’t want to take advantage of the heightened emotions you’re feeling right now.”
“You want to stop kissing me?” Her voice was barely a whisper, and she peeked up at him from beneath her eyelashes, and he thought this must be the hardest thing he’d ever done. Talk about self-sacrifice.
Nobility.
Cold freaking showers.
“No, I never want to stop kissing you, but I want to hold you, and I want us to sleep,” he said, clenching his jaws shut against the please, please, please, I need to be inside you right now that he was really thinking.
She squirmed and pushed away from him a little, just far enough for him to see the luscious pink tips of her full, round breasts. He listened to the blood pulsing through her veins, and the monster in him hungered to come out and bite.
He prayed for strength. This was Serai. If he bit her—if he took her blood—then he was nothing more than the beast, and he deserved to die horribly and alone. He deserved for her to shove him away in disgust. He wished she would.
He prayed she didn’t.
“I don’t want to sleep,” she said. “I want you to touch me.”
She took his hand and placed it on her breast, and the beast quieted, perhaps in shock at being willingly touched; the man took over. Daniel gave up the idea of complete nobility as a lost cause, because touching her body was a far, far better choice than sinking his fangs into her throat. He could push simple desire to the fore and shove bloodlust to the dark recesses of his soul.
He would. He must.
Forcing his fangs to retract, he flipped her onto her back and pounced, taking her breasts in both hands, and finally, oh, by all the glorious wonders, finally, he kissed them and then each nipple in turn. When she gasped and clutched his hair, he gave in and licked one peak into his mouth and sucked on it until she was crying out and trembling underneath him, and then he gave no quarter but instead treated the other breast to the same tender care.
He would pleasure her until she came, crying out his name, and then—then—he would make her sleep. Surely that was noble enough.
Serai cried out again and was almost rational enough to wonder if anyone could hear her through the walls, but then she didn’t care, when Daniel did that wonderful thing with his mouth to her breast and pure liquid fire shot through her body from her nipples to her most private parts. He turned to her other breast and took that nipple into his mouth while he gently pinched the other with his fingers, and she cried out again, wanting something, not knowing what, but needing—needing something.
Needing him.
So she told him, since her psychic commands weren’t working. “Daniel, I need—I need—”
“I know, mi amara,” he said, putting his hand between her thighs, right where she needed it, and stroking a finger through the hot wet slickness that had somehow appeared. And then his finger touched her right there and she cried out.
It wasn’t just heat, it wasn’t just passion, it was more, so much more. The man she’d dreamed of for eleven thousand years was kissing her and touching her, and oh, dear Poseidon, she thought she might actually explode from the pleasure and unbearable rightness of it.
“Daniel! That’s . . . you . . . oh, yes, yes, yes,” she said, as he kept rubbing her there in that most sensitive of spots. His finger pushed a little inside her and she gasped, and then his talented fingers, now wet and slippery, applied just the right amount of pressure, and her body shattered into a thousand fractured prisms of light.
He pulled her into his arms and held her tightly, murmuring gentle, meaningless words as she trembled in his arms; just rocking her slightly back and forth, holding her until the tremors shuddering through her body from his touch subsided.
“That was . . . was that . . . was that making love?”
He smiled at her, but his face looked a bit strained. “Yes, but it gets even better than that.”
“I’m not sure I would survive better,” she admitted, and he laughed.
“You should sleep now,” he said, stroking her hair away from her face. “You need to rest. This has been a pretty big day for your first day awake in millennia.”
“You have a talent for understatement.”
“I’ve heard that before.”
Before she could protest, he tipped her chin up and pressed a brief, gentle kiss on her lips, then captured her gaze with his own.
“You should sleep now,” he said again, and a red gleam flared in his pupils.
She knew she should argue with him, but she was just so sleepy, and after all, he was right, they needed to sleep, and—Oh.
Oh, no.
“You used your nightwalker hypnotic powers on me,” she said, fighting against it, but the compulsion was too strong. The last thing she saw was the smile on his beautiful face, and then the room went dark as she sank into sleep.
Daniel smiled at her, even though his body was screaming at him to jump up, take a cold shower, or, better yet, take his cock in his own hand and give himself just a little bit of relief from the screaming pitch of need. He lasted about five minutes lying there, trying to be content to watch her sleep, but—as he’d told her—he was only a man.
He climbed out of bed, hit the shower, and did both.
Chapter 13
After a few restless hours of not-quite-sleeping and one short trip to the street outside of the hotel bar to relieve a drunken tourist of a pint of blood he’d never miss, Daniel lay again in bed next to Serai, holding a long strand of her silken hair in his fingers and wondering how long he could bear it before he woke her and took her, claiming every inch of her body as his. He wanted her to wake up with his cock sliding into the sweet warmth of her body, and only the knowledge of her innocence stopped him from acting on that desire.
Instead, he gritted his teeth and thought about unappetizing things like turnips, lima beans, and congressional politics. As the first fingers of dawn’s light made their way through the tiny gap in the curtains, Daniel heard the measured tread of the footsteps in the
hallway. He jumped out of bed, clothed himself, and raced to the door, daggers handy although probably unnecessary. It sounded like Reisen’s walk, and Daniel’s excellent vampire hearing was generally dead-on about such things.
He pulled open the door to find Reisen standing there with one hand raised to knock. Daniel stepped out on to the green-and-gold patterned carpet of the hallway and gently closed the door.
“She needs to sleep. Yesterday was a strain.”
Reisen’s eyes widened. “Is that some vampire thing? Gargantuan understatement? A strain? She could have died.”
“It’s even worse than you know,” Daniel said grimly. “Is there someplace we can talk?”
“There’s a coffee shop in the lobby. Few humans are about at this hour. Melody is waiting there.” Reisen paused and then shrugged. “It’s against an inner wall, away from any windows. You’ll be fine there.”
“Not used to worrying about whether a bloodsucker bursts into flames, are you, Atlantean?” Daniel said, grinning.
“It’s a first.” Reisen waved the stump of his arm in the air. “I figure I owe you one. At least.” The warrior’s face turned grim, probably remembering that horrible day when an evil vampire named Barrabas had captured and tortured him.
“How about coffee, and we’re even?” Daniel hesitated, concerned about what Serai would do if she woke up alone. Whether she’d be afraid. “I’ll meet you there,” he told Reisen, and then slipped back into the room, wrote a quick note, and put it on the pillow next to Serai. Her face was burrowed in the pillow, so all he could see was the sensual curve of her arm and neck, but it was enough to make him want to climb into the bed with her and finish what he’d started only hours earlier.
“Later. I promise you,” he whispered to her sleeping form, before leaving the room in search of the coffee shop.
He easily avoided the patch of morning sunlight streaming in through the lobby windows by ducking around the gift shop to find the coffee shop and Reisen and Melody sitting in welcoming dimness in a back corner. A poster of a smiling skeleton on the wall above Melody’s head announced “Welcome to Arizona! At least it’s a dry heat!” and he wondered, yet again, at the human sense of humor. Three cups sat on the table, and he thanked the fates that he could enjoy a good espresso and wasn’t doomed to take in nothing but blood like some comic book version of his kind.