Blood Guilt

by Marie Treanor

  Am I really doing this? Am I really going to kill him just because he said I have few friends?

  Perhaps the thought slowed her or made her arm waver. Whatever, the world suddenly shifted as he flipped her over onto her back on the hard, cold stone. The stake she still gripped was trapped between their bodies, the point of it just at the skin of his throat. For an instant, panting, she stared into his fathomless eyes. She couldn’t dislodge him just by pushing; he was far too old and strong.

  “Get off me or I’ll tear your throat out,” she snarled. “It may not kill you, but it’ll bloody hurt.”

  He didn’t blink, just continued to stare into her eyes, as if searching for something. Although he took some of his weight on his forearms, his body lay heavily on hers. Through her clothing, she could feel every muscle and sinew of his hard chest and powerful legs. And the steely ridge pressing into her inner thigh could only be his erection.

  “I mean it!” she warned, a shade desperately.

  He moved then, very slightly easing his chest back from hers to release her stake hand. But it was slightly numb from his weight and moved too slowly. He brushed her weak thrust aside with one hand, which then closed over her own around the stake and bore her arm back onto the ground beside her head. His body’s motion spread heat through hers, urgent and so terrifying that she jerked upward in an instinctive if futile effort to dislodge him—which merely rubbed her breasts against his hard chest, and brought the juncture of her thighs in devastating contact with the hard bulge of his erection.

  She let out a cry of rage. At least she hoped it was rage. She could no longer tell the difference between anger and lust. Her whole body seethed so that it took all her effort just to lie still under him and listen to her own ragged, panting breath. At least he hadn’t yet killed her. Although he’d implied he liked to play with his food.

  She wanted to squeeze her eyes shut at that thought, but to do so would give the impression of weakness, and that she refused to do. So she ignored the wild desire coursing through her, forced her throbbing body to lie still while she met his stare with defiance.

  “You already saved my existence with your blood,” he murmured. “You won’t end it now.” A frown twitched between his dark brows. “Because then you’d never know…”

  “Know what?” she said with as much aggression as she could muster when his long, sensitive fingers were trailing down her throat, tracing the veins with something approaching wonder. His eyes devoured her, feeding the helpless fever.

  “What it would be like with me.”

  For the space of a heartbeat, she couldn’t move. Then, unable to bear the humiliation of the truth he’d perceived, she lashed out, jerking and writhing under him, beating his shoulder and head with her free hand while trying to yank her captured one free. In the end, she simply lost the freedom of both, which he easily held on either side of her head while he slowly, deliberately moved his body against hers, watching her face as he brushed against her peaked, aching nipples, and dragged the ridge of his erection between her thighs and up to her pubic bone.

  “You bastard,” she whispered. “You total, utter bastard.”

  “I’ll make it good for you,” he promised.

  “I don’t want it to be good! I don’t want it at all!”

  For the first time in ages, it seemed, his eyelids drooped, and when they lifted again, he was, astoundingly, already freeing her hands. She’d won.

  And still she wouldn’t know. She’d never bloody know.

  With a cry, she threw herself forward, flinging her arms around his neck to hold him. Then she latched her open mouth to his.

  This time, she had, she really had, taken him by surprise. His lips were cool, still, almost rigid for all of a second. Then his arms came up, closing around her, and his mouth opened and bore down.

  She fell back under the force of it, although his arms cushioned her fall, and his hand under her head both protected her and held her still for the ravishing of his mouth. She’d never felt or even imagined such hunger in a man’s kiss. His cool tongue delved, tangling with hers, drawing it into his mouth so that she felt his sharp, murderous fangs, and even that drove her desire on. She sucked on his teeth, licked them, as greedy as he; she bit at his lips and writhed under him, for now that she’d begun it, she wanted it all, and she wanted it now.

  He’d already pushed her jacket off her shoulders. His hands circled her throat, caressing the length of it, and separated as they glided on over her shoulders to her breasts. Even through her sweater, he must have felt the hardened peaks of her nipples under his palms. Without breaking the stunning kiss, he pushed under her sweater, shoving it up to her chin and taking her bra with it so that he could hold her naked breasts.

  She moaned into his mouth, wrapping her legs around his hips, rubbing her damp, aching loins against his rigid erection.

  He released her mouth. “Hunter, you kiss like a demon,” he whispered and pulled sweater and bra up over her arms and head to throw them aside before falling once more upon her mouth. This kiss was more sensual than desperate, and it finished more quickly, though only so he could transfer his attention to her breasts. For an instant, he simply devoured them with his eyes; then he lowered his mouth to the right one and took the nipple between his lips. He rolled it a little, then began to suck, and her womb clenched with need and pleasure. His hands were on her hips, stroking her jeans while she burrowed under his tank to feel his cool, smooth skin. His whole body undulated to the caress of her fingers, and it was the sexiest, most exciting thing she’d ever known.

  One of his hands pushed between their straining bodies to get at the fastening of her jeans, and she thought she would come just at the feel of his knuckles so close to the center of her need.

  He might have been six hundred years old, but modern fastenings gave him no trouble. Returning to her mouth, he kissed her while he shoved both jeans and panties over her hips, raised one of her knees and pulled the jeans and underwear completely off that leg. Then he left off kissing her, reared up, and tore at the buttons of his own jeans with clear intent. His dark hair fell forward over his forehead, shadowing his face. His eyes blazed silver.

  This is going too fast. I’m mad, I’m insane, and I can’t stop. I won’t stop…

  She wriggled with impatience, reaching for him as he shoved his jeans down over his hips. She had a glimpse of his cock, pale and rigid as he lowered himself between her thighs. She felt the length of him, cool and exciting against her damp heat, and then he settled into position, his glowing eyes boring into hers as he pushed into her in one long, smooth thrust.

  She heard a weird sound escape her throat, half shock at the sheer size and coldness of the thing filling and stretching her, half in triumph, because at last she had what she craved, what she’d dreamed of and yearned for. Maximilian inside her, giving her only an instant to adjust, to prepare before he began to move.

  His first thrust was hard, so hard that she cried out, but not with pain or fear. The pleasure was intense, instantly converting the hot fury of need into the buildup to release. She clung to him as he reached far inside her, trying to take him impossibly deeper. But he was moving again, devastating her with every stroke. She tried to match him, straining upward and thrusting, listening to her own cries and gasps. She wanted to get rid of his tank, of the jeans that still clung to his thighs, preventing his velvet skin touching hers in far too many places. But it seemed he wouldn’t take the time to remove them.

  “Take them off,” she panted, tugging at his tank with one hand and grasping his hard, tight bottom with the other, pulling him into her.

  “No,” he said uncompromisingly. It maddened her that he didn’t even sound out of breath, even though he had none. “Not yet.”

  Totally naked, apart from the jeans still dangling off one ankle, she lay on the cave floor under the half-dressed vampire. He arched his lean back so that he could kiss and suck on her breasts while he thrust into her. If it hadn�
�t been for his hands holding her strictly in place under him, her own back would have been scraped to bits on the stone floor. But she didn’t care about that. She only cared about the wild pleasure soaking through her body, building and building at her core. Maximilian didn’t speak as he brought her closer and closer to orgasm, but he growled and groaned deep in his throat, a sound that vibrated through her, delighting her, until she knew she was almost there, almost at the wildest, hardest, most amazing orgasm of her life.

  And then he held still, and when she cried out in helpless, frustrated fury and tried to rock herself the last inch to ultimate bliss, he held her still too, and kissed her, smiling against her lips. He dragged his parted lips down the line of her jaw and throat and paused.

  There was an instant when she knew, but there was no time for fear or anger, or even anticipation. His teeth grazed her skin and bit down, in perfect time with his sudden thrust inside her. Mihaela moaned, no longer sure what she felt, what she wanted to feel, but he gave her no choice. He began to drink her blood in short, sensual pulls, each one accompanied by a thrust inside her body. After two, she fell into helpless orgasm, but he didn’t stop. Instead, he sped up, thrusting and sucking, growling with increasing wildness as he pounded her.

  Mihaela was utterly consumed, overwhelmed. Shocked to the root of her being by the sheer force of the pleasure being pushed into her and sucked out of her, she could only let it rage through her. She could do nothing to focus or control it. It was too much, surely too much to survive, and yet if she could have stopped it, she wouldn’t. Not for anything.

  His whole body shook, and with awe, she realized he too was losing control. Inside her. Her body was massaging him to orgasm. And so she finally knew that vampires climaxed too. He collapsed on her, curiously silent now. Her blood flowed into him in a harder, wilder stream, and her orgasm surged with his until she almost fainted. But she felt his mouth detach from her neck. His trembling tongue licked her throbbing wound and slowly, slowly, she began to come down.

  Maximilian raised himself on his elbows. His eyes seemed dark now, yet no less exciting. They were hot in his cool face, and they sent the aftershocks of her orgasm dancing through her stomach.

  “Fuck,” she whispered. “Just…fuck.”

  He smiled and kissed her mouth long and thoroughly. She tasted blood, her own blood. “I’d hoped you’d say that.”

  He moved, rising with her in his arms, and her head spun. As if she weighed no more than a doll, he strode with her to the bed, shaking off the second, still-clinging leg of her jeans, and dropped her onto the mattress. She bounced, smiling through her dizziness as he finally divested himself of shirt and jeans.

  Naked, he was magnificent. Lean and thickly muscled, smooth-skinned and beautiful, his penis still standing rigid and proud over his flat stomach, just a shade darker that the rest of his skin. And he’d just given her the best sex of her life. Of anyone’s life. Ever.

  “So that’s why Elizabeth loves Saloman,” she blurted.

  “No.” Maximilian lowered himself onto her, caressing her with his naked chest. “But it’s probably one reason.”

  She felt him nudge between her legs and, being thoroughly over-sensitized in that department, she gasped. “Again?” she said in amazement.

  Maximilian’s eyes blazed. “And again. And again. And again.”

  “Oh Jesus Christ,” Mihaela whispered.

  ****

  Maximilian was as good as his word. After the second time, she lay sprawled across his chest and said faintly, “Do all vampires have your stamina?”

  He shrugged under her cheek. “I haven’t had a woman in a long time.” Something flamed in his eyes, darkening them once more. “And you’re a heady meal for a starved man.”

  “Are we talking blood? Or sex?” she asked, tracing one fingernail around his nipple, teasing, just to see the effect. It was rather more than she expected.

  “Oh yes.” He grasped her by the hips and lifted her, lowering her deliberately, inexorably back over his shaft.

  “Oh please!” she exclaimed, only half laughing, clinging on to his hands as if to a lifeline. “I’m only human! And to be honest, I’m sore!”

  He paused, the head of his member just touching her burning entrance; and, despite the truth of her protestation, the feel of him so close sent little pulses of fresh desire coursing through her. Hell, what was a little pain compared with such exquisite, excruciating pleasure?

  “And if I could make you not sore?” he asked huskily. “What would you say?”

  Mihaela swallowed. It was, after all, why she was here. “I’d say, ‘bring it on,’” she said blatantly.

  Maximilian smiled, and abruptly she was on her back again, and when her head cleared, his was between her thighs. “Oh,” she gasped in understanding.

  “Vampire saliva has healing qualities,” he said, just to clear the matter up. “Let’s kill two birds with one stone.”

  Mihaela pressed her head back into the pillow and wondered wildly if he could possibly be as good at this as at the other.

  He was. He licked around her folds, soothing and teasing before closing his lips around the swollen nub of her pleasure and holding on when her whole body jumped in shock. Again, he soothed with his tongue, began gently, tenderly to suck while his tongue swirled, and even his teeth, those sharp, murderous fangs, grazed against her clitoris. It drove her wild, moaning, pleading, all pain forgotten in need.

  When she came, he slid up her body and entered her to watch her climax, avidly, almost like the starving man he’d called himself. And when it died back at last, he began to move inside her all over again.

  There was no pain, only savage, intense pleasure that was somehow different each time. He drank from her again as he came this time, interspersing his sips with kisses on her mouth, so she tasted her own blood on her teeth, her tongue. It should have disgusted her, appalled her, scared her, but she was so far gone in depravity by then that it only aroused her more, and she bucked under him until she came too, yet again, gasping and kissing him all the while.

  ****

  When he was dressed in fresh jeans and T-shirt, Maximilian caught up his thick woolen jacket and packed the pockets with the stone compass, his drawing pad, pencils and pens, and the wallet in which he’d stuffed banknotes from several countries. It didn’t really matter which he used. He could make anyone see whichever currency—or denomination—was necessary to the situation. The passport-size booklet for ease of traveling swiftly by human means was still in the inner pocket.

  He slipped the loaded jacket on as he walked across to the bed and gazed down at the sleeping hunter. It was becoming a habit to watch her sleep, a curiously addictive one. Naked under his old overcoat, she lay curled and contented, her cheeks pale and yet slightly flushed still from sex.

  He’d made love to her for hours with a kind of frantic, fevered energy he couldn’t remember any other lover ever arousing in him, alive or undead. Partly, of course, that was his long abstinence. But he couldn’t rule out the effect of this woman’s charms. There was something about her that moved him, ever since she’d first looked at him over the disintegrating vampire he’d saved her from in Budapest. She fought like a tiger and yet had the tragic, startled eyes of a deer. He’d known even then that it was unexpected and unwanted attraction to him that had caused that shock, that fear. But there was more to it than that. The hunter Mihaela was complicated, wounded, and damaged. As he was. Except while he’d wallowed in isolation for centuries, Mihaela had got on with her life, fighting back the only way she knew how.

  She gave a little sigh and buried her face in the pillow. Maximilian felt his lips tug upwards in an involuntary, rueful smile. He was aware he’d taken too much from her, in terms of blood and sex and sheer emotion, but his need had been huge and urgent, and once he’d pierced her self-control, hers had been equally great. Even now, the memory of her wild, eager passion, the taste of her heady, hunter blood, made him harden all over
again. He hadn’t been able to leave her alone, had only stopped in the end because he realized how totally exhausted she was, and finally let her fall asleep.

  And that, he supposed, was all for the best. It would have been good to hang around, to have her waken with him inside her for one more bout of delicious sex before taking her with him. But he’d weakened her; now she’d slow him down.

  And more importantly, he really didn’t want her giving the boy to the hunters. It would be best all round if he was alone when he found Robbie.

  Maximilian cast a last glance around his home of several decades and realized he wouldn’t miss it. He’d been fucking miserable here, and it was long past time to move on without regret.

  He settled his gaze once more on Mihaela’s beautiful face, fighting the urge to touch her. He couldn’t regret her either, although neither could he doubt that she’d regret him.

  Turning, he left the room in swift silence, ran up to the ruined lighthouse and out into the cold wind and darkness. He didn’t need light to find his boat.

  ****

  Her sleep was so deep that just for an instant when she awoke, she knew a profound, luxurious contentment. Her happy, sated body wasn’t even sore, thanks to Maximilian’s healing if wickedly sensual tongue.

  With the flood of remembrance, heat surged, and she turned quickly to see if he still lay beside her. She couldn’t even tell if it was relief or disappointment that she felt; she was too swamped by the memory of falling asleep in his arms—the arms of the least trustworthy vampire who’d ever existed, and probably the most powerful after Saloman.

  She dragged her hand across her face and through her hair. What the hell had she been thinking? Why the hell had she allowed this? Allowed it? Shit, she’d begged for it—vocally at one time, as she recalled. How in God’s name did she live with the humiliation of that?

  By never seeing him again.