This was real. She couldn’t click her heels together and wish for home. She couldn’t make a garlic clove bikini and wear it everywhere she went. There was nothing she could pin her hopes on except pure determination.
She had to trust that her body wouldn’t ultimately betray her. She had to believe, to continue, to fight.
It didn’t matter that she was tired. It didn’t matter that she was hurting. It didn’t matter that Winters hated her and Dillon didn’t. Oh, how he didn’t. She tried not to remember the look in Dillon’s blue eyes. That look that said she was his salvation and his heart’s desire all rolled into a petite little package of impossible-to-resist.
She succeeded in pushing that look from her mind only because the face that truly ruled her thoughts was one with dark, brown eyes. Those eyes didn’t adore, they accused. She’d used them like a mirror before. The reflection she carried with her now in her mind’s eye hurt her to her very soul. He saw her as a traitor, a monster, a thing to be killed.
More pink water went down the drain and it was accompanied by tears.
Chapter Fourteen
He remembered Julie Preston in third grade with her pigtails and pink bubble gum smile. He remembered Carla Santino in sixth grade with her long, long legs and lip gloss. He remembered Beth DeRosa the summer after their senior year in high school in the back seat of her father’s Trans Am.
How did you stake Julie and Carla and Beth? How did you plan to kill someone you wanted to kiss?
Holly shivered.
The heat was pouring out of the old Fairlane’s vents and had been for hours until he was tempted to crack a window just to be able to breathe and she shivered.
How could you ash someone you wanted to plop in front of a fireplace with cognac and flannel and hours and hours of lovemaking?
She had stopped him from killing Dillon. The reminder didn’t cool his need to hold her. In fact, he wanted to hold her even more when he thought of that freak’s smug, seductive smile. The vampire was so sure. Even with a bullet hole in his chest, he was so sure she was his.
Winters wished he could be as certain she wasn’t.
It was after eleven o’clock when he pulled the car into the parking lot of a run-down motor inn. He’d been driving since sundown. They’d left the Blue Ridge Parkway behind and used the interstate to cross over into South Carolina before Holly had directed him off the busy highway and onto a more winding route.
He didn’t drive so much as dive into the parking lot. The long car’s front end dipped down and bumped on the curb. It was sudden and gravel flew, but he’d been thinking about it for hours and he didn’t want to change his mind.
“What—” Holly began, but the rest of her question was swallowed up in a kiss. She warmed instantly under his hands and he moved them everywhere across her skin to spread the heat.
At first, she seemed almost ready to hold him off with her hands on his chest, but then they slipped up and over his shoulders and one buried into his hair.
He kissed her like he meant it, with no hesitation, no second guessing. He kissed her like she was Holly, just Holly.
And she kissed him back.
She opened her lips under his and moved her tongue against his, sweet and responsive, but he sensed hesitation as if she was afraid he would pull back at any moment.
He remembered the showers and Dillon’s force and how many times he had pulled back.
Not this time.
He smoothed over her hesitancy with warm, questing hands and even deeper kisses. He warmed her. He held her. He gave her the taste of her name on his lips in urgent whispers.
And her hesitancy faded away.
She pulled his head closer and tasted his kisses with greater and greater abandon. She sighed over his warmth and moved under his hands.
He could have waited until they checked in. He could have waited for more privacy, but he had known, deep down, that he couldn’t wait, not for one more second.
Dillon’s smug look burned behind his eyes and Holly’s mouth welcomed him, wanted him as she’d never welcomed or wanted Dillon. Here was the proof he needed that she wasn’t her Maker’s.
How could he resist exploring that proof, bringing it out to taste and enjoy even as it soothed his concerns? How could he watch her shiver and not give her the warmth she needed?
Under his hands, her skin began to heat. Her sweater didn’t help. The hot air from the vents didn’t help. He did. His touch. His hands. His warmth. She needed him. Holly needed and wanted this kiss as badly as he did.
It wasn’t smart. It wasn’t planned. It sure as hell wasn’t what he’d resolved to do when they’d driven away from the chapel the night before or while she’d slept through today, but it was vital and necessary and he couldn’t have stopped for all the reasoning in the world. Because he needed this proof.
It wasn’t Dillon warming her, kissing her, making her moan. It was him. Her body trembled under his hands. Her lips responded to his lips. Their bodies strained to be closer together.
Holly Spinnaker and Jarvis Winters.
No vampire shit allowed.
***
Holly burned. She had gone from cold rejection to passionate embrace quicker than her mind could follow. He was angry. She could feel it in the taut lines of his tension-filled body even as he devoured her gasps and moans and sighs. He doubted her. He’d said so, had looked so, in the graveyard under the moonlight. He had hardly spoken a word when they settled in to sleep through yesterday or when they’d risen to drive tonight and yet, he kissed her now like a man about to be torn from his true love’s side.
Holly kissed him back. It wasn’t candlelight and roses. The cool vinyl seat of the car was lit by harsh streetlights. The complex swirl of emotions he was experiencing was obvious in the strained lines of his face and the way his hands held onto her back with an almost painful grip in between soft, warm strokes. Other than her name, there weren’t any seductive whispers or playful suggestions they could laugh about in the dark.
No, it wasn’t candlelight and roses. He didn’t want to kiss her. Every brush of his lips, every flick of his tongue was hurried as if he was afraid to take his time and risk coming to his senses. Still, she kissed him back. He didn’t trust her. Nothing had changed since last night. He thought she was an hour or a day or one weak moment away from becoming Dillon’s willing toy. Still, she kissed him back.
Because he was warm and human and strong. Because she needed to hold and be held. Her body quickened and came to life the same way it had when she’d hit puberty and fallen in love with Johnny Depp on a movie screen. She’d been all of thirteen. The flush, the rush, the glow…it was normal and human and she almost cried at the sweet innocence of pure desire.
She pushed away the darkness of the vampire and embraced the woman she longed to be. Of course, she was much older than thirteen so the sweet flush turned hotter and more urgent. Winters was still tense and stiff under her fingers, but she smoothed over his taut muscles with a woman’s hands. She found the curve at the small of his back and circled there with lazy, teasing strokes and some of the tension fled.
The Fairlane had been built before people worried about miles per gallon. It was so not a compact car and Holly didn’t feel the least bit guilty for not having an environmentally conscious bone in her body when Winters pulled her to stretch out beside him on the huge bench seat.
The kiss didn’t end. It didn’t lighten in intensity, but it did soften as his anger eased. He still didn’t whisper sweet nothings in her ear, but he did turn the kiss into a deep, leisurely exploration of tastes and textures.
If possible, Holly grew hotter. Now, he enjoyed the kiss and seemed to want it. The hunter was gone and he was a man in her arms. She began to relax. She’d been waiting for him to stop and pull back and leave her cold again. As he slowed, as he seemed to revel in the way their mouths worked together, she was free to glory in his touch. And she did. She let go of her inhibitions. She let go of her fear. Sh
e let go of the last horror-filled weeks. She was a woman enjoying a man she wanted to touch and taste and know. She let go of Dillon and the vampire curse.
Only, it didn’t let go of her.
As Winters relaxed and she relaxed, as their kiss turned into a prelude of more intimate caresses to come, the hunger slammed into her with a force that stole her breath. It throbbed up from her heart and out to her veins. It brought every cell in her body to quivering, expectant awareness. “Here was life,” the hunger said. “Here was warmth. Here was need and desire and pleasure enough to fill her to her soul.”
Holly was busy being a woman. She wasn’t prepared. Vampire instinct slipped in and took over with ease and her desire turned dark too quickly for her to gain control.
Winters was hers.
It was a primitive thought, but she was too far gone to fight it. Holly shifted and he was under her…every strong-muscled, desire-filled inch of him. She pulled away from his lips and left him gasping as she ripped the collar of his shirt down to reveal bare, muscled chest. He froze, holding his breath as she leaned over to lick the skin covering his pectoral muscle above his left nipple.
She. Couldn’t. Stop.
He didn’t stop her.
The bite was inevitable.
So was his reaction.
Holly slammed against the opposite window when he threw her off. The window crank dug into her back, but the pain didn’t stop her from crawling toward him as he leapt out of the car to put distance between them.
She was dazed. She was growing cold. She was…
Winters was bleeding. The red trail of it ran down his chest, over the lean six-pack of his abs and into the waistband of his jeans. Holly had been following him out of the car, but the sight of his blood sat her back down onto the seat with only her legs out of the open door.
She was shaking when she tried to wipe her mouth. She started to cry when her hand came away red.
She had wanted to be herself again…just Holly. She had let go and forgotten everything in his arms, but that wasn’t okay because she had also forgotten to keep control.
Winters turned away with both hands fisted into his hair. His breathing was labored. His heart thundered in his chest. Some part of her counted each heavy beat.
“I’m sorry,” she managed. And she was…mostly. She would never tell him a very big part of herself wanted to drag him back into the car.
He turned toward her and she knew. She didn’t have to tell him. The knowledge was in his eyes. He knew who she was. He knew what she was.
“You can’t change what you are. I’ve said it all along. I kissed you. I paid the price.” He gingerly touched the bite on his chest. Holly refused to follow his fingers. She wouldn’t look. If she didn’t look, she could walk away. If she looked, she might…not.
“I was lost in the moment.”
“Isn’t that what all vampires do? Get lost in the moment…forever?”
“I would have stopped.”
“Really? You’re shaking. You won’t look at my chest. What happens when you get lost in this moment and then in the next and in the next and in the next? What happens if I don’t push you away?” She didn’t know if Winters asked it of her or of himself. He moved restlessly, a step here, a step there, as if he’d received an electric shock and was trying to shake it off.
“I…”
She happened, that’s what. Her mother happened. Her father and sister. He was right. In that moment, she hadn’t been Holly. She’d been a monster just like Dillon. Totally out of control.
“What happens when you lose control and can’t get it back?” he asked. He stopped his movement and stood, quiet and still, to wait for her answer. She couldn’t reassure him. She couldn’t tell him the words he needed to hear because they would all be lies.
Winters watched her struggle. His eyes were dark with emotions she couldn’t name. Passion? Doubt? Regret? His quiet expectancy as he waited for her to speak was too much for her to bear. She rose slowly to her feet. To his credit, Winters didn’t jump away or reach for his blade. Maybe he should have. Holly raised her eyes to calmly meet his, but she knew he would see beyond her slow and easy movements to the turmoil beneath, so she lowered them again as she spoke.
“I guess that’s when you won’t even have a prayer of pushing me away.”
Holly stepped toward him and this time Winters stepped back. She didn’t blame him. She didn’t look at his chest. She didn’t look at his face. She didn’t know if he reached for his blade or not. She walked away.
It was the hardest ten steps she had taken in her life, but she took them. And ten more. And ten more.
He didn’t ask her to stay.
Chapter Fifteen
It was midnight. Holly ached because she recognized the witching hour without needing a clock. She’d like to think it was a simple adjustment to nocturnal life, but tonight her mind was in a darker place.
Rain had fallen earlier in the evening. As she walked through a damp mist, she couldn’t hold on to logic or science or reason. She felt otherworldly as if midnight called her out of the falsely lit parking lot to bathe her in its shadows. She was welcomed, a part of the night.
Moisture kissed her skin and she shivered. Or had she been shivering all along? Since Winters had pulled away from her embrace. Since she had known, deep down, in that moment of heat and desire and need, she was lost to the hungers of the girl and the vampire. She wanted his warmth. She needed his warmth and she had been prepared to take it.
Gravel crunched beneath her feet, a night breeze raised goose flesh along her arms, the glow from lights in the hotel parking lot faded behind her and she barely noticed any of it.
Instead, she saw the absence of faith in copper penny eyes. She felt the warmth of strong, masculine arms suddenly pulled away. Unconsciously, she walked with a quickened step away from harsh, artificial lights seeking solace in shadows.
Very soon she came to the Madison Heights Community Center. The tiny, old motor inn’s proximity to the historic church-turned-community center had been their reason for heading there.
A waning moon barely illuminated the white building, but it stood out nonetheless. She remembered from last summer how charming the church had been in the bright light of day. It was lovingly laced with gingerbread trim around white-washed clapboard siding. The spire of its copper-tipped steeple had gleamed with spots of brilliance from under years of almost-fluorescent green patina. Like a perfect version of the Little Old Church in the Wildwood, the building that was now used as a place for special gatherings like birthdays and craft shows had seemed ideal.
At midnight, on this night, it looked less like a shiny dollhouse and more like something gothic. Less a quaint hymn and more like a poem written by Edgar Allan Poe. A ghost, it shimmered up into her path from the surrounding trees and Holly paused.
She had thought to seek out the peace she had found at St. Luke’s. Instead, she grew wary. Unbidden, she was reminded of flicking on the bedroom light after a bad dream when she’d been a girl. She remembered that pulse-pounding jump through the nightmare-filled dark to find the sudden salvation of a cool, plastic switch. What joy and relief to see her bedroom flooded with bright light and all the imagined monsters proved false, banished by two 40 watt bulbs.
Suddenly, with all her might, Holly wished she could jump for a switch that would turn on the sun. The community center looked haunted. Black windows shone darkly in an unwelcoming stare. Tiny letters on a modern sign spelled out an announcement for a wedding being hosted the next day. The cheerful red plastic hearts surrounding the soon-to-be-married couple’s names made Holly catch her breath. Moments before she had been welcomed by the night, she wasn’t welcome here. She didn’t belong, yet her feet carried her forward over the ribbon-draped porch and into the vestibule.
The scent of roses washed over her. On this cool February night before Valentine’s Day, the florist and the wedding planner must have decided it was safe to decorate the day be
fore the event. The room was certainly cool enough, so the flowers wouldn’t wilt. Holly shivered again.
She didn’t know why she stepped farther into the room. The profusion of flowers and ribbons and lace filled the place to bursting and there was little space for her. She was certain it was meant to be a festive fairy-tale setting. In the dark of night, for her, it was only grim reality. Happily ever after was arranged all around her, but it was cold and distant and not meant for her eyes. She shivered, an outcast, surrounded by a frozen tableau soon to be warmed and brought to life by laughing guests and love and merriment. The preparations were expectant, waiting in the cool hush to be brought to life. It was so very human and such an obvious possibility in her previous future that she’d never seen the need to dwell on it. The loss of it now was harsh and brought her hand up to hover near a rosebud as if, with courage, she could snatch back the world she’d lost.
The snap and flare and sudden sulfur scent of a match startled Holly out of her self-imposed torture. The first strains of “Here Comes the Bride” in a whisky-kissed hum accompanied the glow of a candle being lit. Then two. Then three. He continued to hum as he dropped the first match to strike another.
Dillon slowly walked the length of a buffet table touching each pure, white taper with a flickering flame to bring them to life. Oh God, why did she find candlelight and roses, here, with him?
Holly took a step to the right for each step he took to the left, instinctively moving to keep the same wary distance between them. If Dillon noticed her movement, he didn’t acknowledge it. He seemed entirely focused on his innocent task. Strike. Burn. Light. Repeat.
Finally, he lit the last candle and looked up to meet her eyes as he puckered his lips to blow out the last match. Smoke curled up and around his head in the mockery of a crooked halo. If he had suddenly unfurled the gleaming black wings of fallen angel, Holly wouldn’t have been surprised.
“Wild flowers would suit you better. Daisies. Brown-eyed Susans. Queen Anne’s lace.”
Hunger Page 11