Burning Days (The Firsts Book 17)

by C. L. Quinn

  God, she tasted good!

  When she pulled back, he groaned at losing the contact, his hands still clinging to her body beneath the wet fabric.

  Moaning, Ife threaded her fingers through Jack’s long hair, her eyes on his throat, the throbbing vein, the smooth dark skin.

  “No…” she whispered. “Not yet.”

  Rising from his lap, Ife pulled the sari back into place.

  “Whew. Um, I just think that, now that we’ve broken the sexual tension, we can enjoy each other’s company without the uneasiness of expectation.”

  “I applaud your decision, but I think it just made the night, uh, harder for me.”

  Jack ran his fingers over the thick swelling in his pants.

  “Oh. Sorry. He’ll get his chance.”

  Fuck, had there ever been a sexier woman? He wanted her this second, no delay, but then she turned huge earnest eyes on him and he didn’t think he could deny her anything in the world.

  “We’re going to get to that, but I’d like to know a little bit more about you first. A connection, albeit brief, will make this more satisfying.”

  “Beautiful lady, being with you, I already know is going to blow me off the planet.”

  When she laughed and crawled back into her seat, legs pulled up, Jack found himself thinking something that shocked him. I could get addicted to that laugh.

  Shaking it off, he tried to look at this unexpected hook-up as just that, a hook-up for sex, a great fuck with a woman far better than he should ever be with. Who he was, what he did, the life he led…wasn’t conducive to long-term relationships. Hunters lived with, traveled with, and fucked with other hunters. Period. Every hunter knew that. For safety and sanity.

  “Okay. For tonight, we talk, we connect, we enjoy, then we fuck. I’m onboard with anything you want, beautiful.”

  Fuck. Ife had never really liked the term, but she guessed in this instance, it might be accurate. Sex was such closeness, so personal, and fucking just seemed like such an emotionless carnal act. But Jack was right in the sense that, for them, this would be sex for the sake of sex, so yeah, they would indeed fuck.

  “Yes, Jack, we will. First, though, let’s enjoy the night, the spirits, and each other’s company.”

  After a long pause and a lengthy stare, Jack smiled.

  “I’ll give it a try. If we’re getting to know each other, if we’re stopping to chat, then I need to tell you, not that you likely haven’t already noticed it, but it’s not really in my skill set.”

  “What is in your skill set?”

  “Wham, bam, thank you ma’am. It’s not that I don’t respect the women I’ve been with, I always do, but it’s just that, in my world, sex is pleasure, a release, a need. In my world, I barely have time to stop long enough for it, and Ife, I don’t have time for connections or relationships.”

  Raising his glass, he drained it. “If we’re being honest.”

  “We are. This is a safe place for that. We don’t know each other, and likely won’t see each other again, so we can vent, we can purge, we can confess anything without repercussion.”

  “Interesting. I mean, really, I don’t think I’ve ever had a conversation like this. So on the honesty thing, you are miles above my league in every way. I’m not even half good enough to be with you, but I hope that doesn’t change your mind, because I really want to.”

  “It won’t. I want to fuck you, too, and when I say that I do, it means a lot, because I rarely do casual sex. It’s perfectly normal where I come from, but I’ve always been a stick in the mud about it. Still, you intrigued me from that first moment I saw you looking down at me.”

  “You couldn’t possibly have seen me.”

  “I didn’t.” Ife paused, then said, “I felt you.”

  “Felt? What do you…oh, the psychic thing.”

  “Yes, the psychic thing.”

  “Talk about fascinating. What’s the short story on your life? What brought you here?”

  He watched the slow smile on her face as she lowered her glass from taking another sip of Scotch. The words formed in his mind that he could fall in love with that face, the crystal eyes, that small nose, peaches and cream skin, the sweetest smile ever. He shook his head. Where did that come from? Too much of the hard stuff already. Or not enough. The second glass waited on the table, so he picked it up and killed half the glass. God, this shit was good.

  “I’ve taken on a monumental task, on the order of epic. After a tough year, a death, a resurrection, bad guys and some miracles, I decided I needed to walk away for a while. I just needed peace. A few days to just drop onto the earth and breathe with no responsibilities of any kind. Here I am and here I’ll stay until I feel ready to return to my life again. Short story.”

  “It looks like it’s working. Last night, whew! When I saw you, I didn’t think you could be real. And when I came back here tonight, hoping to see you again, I didn’t believe you’d be here. You’re so beautiful, you dazzle me.”

  Jack set the whisky glass aside and slid off his chair as she had earlier, and knelt in front of her.

  “Excuse me.”

  He pushed his long fingers into the mass of white hair and pulled her the six inches that separated them so that he could explore her face. His tongue slid out to push her lips apart, then he took her lower lip in his teeth too gently, she prayed for him to bite harder. She wanted to tell him to bite, to draw blood, to lick her.

  But he was human, he probably wouldn’t do it, and even if he did, she wouldn’t want him to stop there. Sex, blood meals, all had been pleasant for most of her hundred years, and she’d had wonderful lovers, but she’d never felt attachments to any of them. Never that burning need for someone. Not like she felt right now.

  This man, something about him was different. He was beyond sexy, all man, but her desire for him was flaming now. For the first time, she understood her sister’s almost uncontrollable need for sex. Jack caressed her hair, his palms against her cheeks, his chest barely grazing hers, and the idea of talking to him now seemed impossible.

  She felt a sharp stab as he nipped her lip again and she lost it.

  “The time for conversation has concluded.” Ife pushed from her chair, forcing him back against the wall of the house, not careful enough. Jack hit hard, breath knocked out, but he didn’t care. He curled his fingers around her buttocks and lifted her higher until her legs went around his waist.

  Pressed close to Jack, Ife’s respiration soared and she had to control her urge to use air-displacement to rip both their clothes away and move them to her bed in seconds. She wanted that, with desperation, but then she’d have to use compulsion to erase his memory, and that, she didn’t want.

  She wanted him to remember what they did together, to remember her. If she didn’t allow any vampire skills revealed, took no blood, she wouldn’t need to do it. She’d always hated to use it on anyone, but with this man, for whatever reason it may be, it was important his memory remain true.

  “Where’s your bed?” Jack was ready to explode.

  His graveled voice barely penetrated Ife’s spiking need.

  Sliding down his body, seeking full contact, Ife placed her feet on the smooth deck as she took Jack’s hand.

  They were past words, past truth and confessions, past foreplay. All either wanted was the purest moment of sexual contact; him, inside her, pounding into her, friction, fucking. And her, lifting to him, urging him to move so she could feel every thrust, his skin sliding against hers in the most intimate way possible.

  They entered the sky-blue and white room with ambient mood lighting and a roomy bed that made Jack happy.

  “Now that I can work with,” he groaned and laid Ife on the mattress. Using constraint, he pulled the knot loose in the sari and pitched it aside, his breath stopped as he saw his naked beach phantom beneath him.

  “No way you’re real,” he whispered. “I’m going to lick you from top to bottom. Later.”

  “First…” />
  His hands slid around her buttocks and he lifted her up to kiss the tops of her thighs where her legs came together.

  “Heaven.” He lingered there, his thumbs moving around the curve of her thighs to caress the folds between, his tongue pushing in to replace them.

  Ife nearly collapsed, but it wasn’t what she needed.

  “Later, yes, but Jack. Now…”

  Ife yanked Jack’s shirt off in one solid tug when he raised his arms after she grabbed the tail.

  “The pants,” she demanded.

  Jack reached for the zipper. “I like a woman taking charge. Fuck, it’s sexy.”

  “Off! Now!”

  They were, instantly, lying crumpled on the floor as Jack stroked his freed cock. Hard, ready, the tip moist, he grinned. “Is this what you want?”

  Ife couldn’t believe how much. She’d never been driven, sexually, never like this, but now, with a stranger, with this man she felt a connection to without knowing him, she was half afraid she might go into a sexual thrall. It had to be her empathic skill, flamed up for some reason, but she couldn’t think, all she could do was want.

  “Yes. Yes, Jack.”

  Her fingers closed around him, the thick throbbing penis alive in her hand, and she pulled him on top of her, using too much strength, he nearly lost his balance, but he recovered and thrust in, fast, as she demanded by rising to him.

  Thrusting up as he thrust in, Ife forced him in and out of her so quickly, he could barely keep up, and when their joined orgasms came too soon, so powerful, they both collapsed.

  Breathing hard, Jack dropped to Ife’s side to keep his weight off her, and onto his back, a hand reaching for hers.

  “Holy… that was ballistic,” he breathed out when breath would come.

  Ife felt like she was floating, satiated, happy, and confused.

  “I’ve never wanted anyone like this before.” A whispered confession she probably shouldn’t reveal to him.

  He picked up her hand and kissed each finger.

  “Kudos to chance encounters and unexpected moments of wildness.”

  “Kudos.” Ife didn’t understand her behavior, but accepted that Jack seemed to bring out the feral sexual need he’d mentioned. It was transforming, it felt right, like she’d finally satisfied her birthright of truly enjoying sexual contact. She said the only thing that came to mind at that moment.

  “Thank you,” because she was grateful to feel such unexpected sexual feelings with him, and because she wanted to do that again…very soon.

  Very soon didn’t happen right away. Jack yawned and rolled close to pull her next to him and before she realized he had done so, he was sound asleep. Disappointing, it wasn’t a surprise; she’d read a deep exhaustion in his aura. Something kept this man from finding restful sleep. What did surprise her was that she was extremely interested in finding out what.

  Ife had several hours before she had to send him away and prepare the house for safe vampire daylight conditions. The feeling of someone wrapped around her as she slept was alien to her, and yet, another surprise, it felt amazingly good…unsettlingly right.

  She let herself fall asleep in Jack’s arms.

  Lying still beside him, wake now after two hours, Ife watched his face as he slept. He snored, but she found it charming. In repose, she could really study his features, which she found remarkably attractive. Rough, a healed scar tracing from his right eye to his lips, the face was anything but classically attractive, masculine, deeply so, with lips that she couldn’t help but touch. Her eyes dropped to the hard curves of his chest, highly defined abdominals, and the generous cock that lay between strong thighs. Her smile widened. He’d proved tonight that he knew what to do with it.

  Fingertips sliding down his body, over the curves of his chest, lingering on more scars that showed he’d had an interesting life, Ife couldn’t believe how much she enjoyed touching him. On contact tonight, she’d found a connection with this man, a sexual bond, that she’d never felt before.

  Was it her empathic link to his pain? Perhaps. All she knew was that with him she had experienced the most satisfying erotic sex of her life. Admittedly, she wasn’t as sexual as most young vampires, the lovers she’d had in a number so small, Brigitte laughed at it.

  Now she knew why she had always been so cautious choosing a sexual partner. The empathic link needed to be there for her to experience it fully, and until now…until Jack, it never had.

  What was she going to do about it?

  One thing was certain. While she was here, if he was interested, she wanted to explore the capacity of her sexuality.

  Laying her head back on the pillow to snuggle in closer to this new lover, she felt his fingers close over her breast. Lifting to look at him, she felt lightheaded when he smiled at her. His aura had changed, softened. It was obvious that his connection with her had eased his troubled spirit, if only for a little while. She felt his discomfort with feelings he didn’t know what to do with, that somehow he felt the connection just as she did. Knowing he felt elated and confused too, she pushed up and off the bed, her eyes lingering on his.

  “We’re strangers,” she commented after long moments of silence.

  “We are. I think. Are we? I feel like I must have met you somewhere before, I feel so…”

  Jack sat up, sliding to the edge of the bed and captured her waist. “I feel like I know you.”

  “No, we couldn’t have. It isn’t possible. Sometimes, people just connect. We’re highly attracted to each other. Whether that’s why, I don’t know, but it’s the most likely reason.”

  Ife pushed him back and fell beside him, her fingers going to his cock, already rising. “Why don’t we just enjoy each other as it seems we were meant to do?”

  “Meant to do?”

  “I think so. Jack, I am somewhat intuitive. I can feel in you a great deal of tension. When we were together, it all went away. I think I can help you.”

  “With sex, yeah, we proved that already. With fixing what’s wrong with me? Sorry, lovely lady, even you don’t have that kind of magic.”

  Would he be surprised, Ife thought, wishing suddenly that she could tell him everything and bring him into her world. One of the hardest parts of interacting with humans was that who she really was could never be revealed, and when the relationship was finished, it was expected that they leave with little memory of it. Sad. Lonely, if the vampire cared about the human.

  Unless the relationship became more than sex and blood. Then…

  Which Jack wasn’t. He was only a casual, if spectacular, human she wanted to have sex with and desperately wanted to feed from.

  Keep it simple, girl. Enjoy him, feed, oh, yes, sex, oh hell yes, then send him back to his life.

  Her sisters had told her over and over it was time to get on board with the pleasures a vampire life valued and was essentially built for.

  Plus, this was her vacation, all her normal phobias and issues should be thrown away and just live in the moment for all it was worth.

  Ife lifted and studied Jack’s face. God, there was so much revealed in that face, but when he smiled, he made her lightheaded.

  Okay, he was here, they wanted each other and they were naked.

  “Enough said,” she whispered.

  “Enough what?”

  “Nothing. Jack, let’s fuck.”

  Lifting a leg over him, Ife snuggled her butt against his erection, ready to lift onto him when his hands moved to her thighs, butterflied around them, his thumbs sliding between her wet slit, the lips swollen, as he rolled his thumbs around, pressing deeper. Leaning back as far as she could, her hands supporting her body on his legs, she closed her eyes and let the sensations of his hands, just his hands, take over.

  Four of Jack’s long fingers played across her lower belly while his thumbs pressed and pulled and played, the combination of the massage against her bare skin in such a sensitive place, and his thumbs inside her overwhelmingly sensual. Before she let herself
ride the wave and succumb to the final moment of ecstasy, Ife lifted back, sat upright, and impaled herself on his cock, which had waited impatiently to be ridden. Ride it, she did!

  As he held her hips, moving to her rhythm, Jack watched Ife’s body, her breasts as they bounced, his cock as she rode it, and that beautiful face, as she pushed them both to the end, to the glorious end.

  Ife clamped down on him, and pushed vampire speed, just enough to make him explode into her, and she rode the wave, her own body coming hard while he held her to him.

  Afterward, Jack pulled her to him with handfuls of her hair, gently, but firmly, and rolled against her.

  “God. I was right. You aren’t real, you’re just a dream and you’ll fade away in my arms.”

  She might. He really thought she might. His fingers slid over a handful of soft strands, like satin, the softest, thickest hair he’d ever felt. “You’re what I used to dream of when I thought that dreams could come true. They don’t, I know that, but if they could, it might have been you.”

  A moment when he let down his guard. Ife recognized it. Afterglow, a time when reality stopped for a second and magic could be real for anyone, even naturals like Jack.

  “Dreams are your mind telling you what you need, my handsome friend. They don’t come to you, you come to them.”

  He moaned against her hair, still petting it like she was a kitten. It felt good, especially when he buried his face in it and pulled her close. A soft breath in her ear let her know he’d fallen asleep again.

  Sometime later, Ife woke to the realization that dawn approached. Gently shaking Jack, she smiled softly when he groaned and rolled away from her, which meant a more aggressive wake-up call. He had to go; she needed to seal the house.

  “Jack, you need to wake up.”

  Finally he rolled back, still a little out of it, a hand going to her cheek. “Hey, you’re still here. You’re real.”

  “I’m real, and you have to go.”

  “But I want to stay. Let’s sleep the day away.”

  She wanted to. Her eyes lingered on his neck. More than sending him away, she wanted to feed on him and ride him at the same time. With Jack, it would be cosmic, she fully knew it would. Feed, fuck, and purge his memory. Every time she almost leaned in to do it, the need almost too strong to deny, she held back. She even knew why.