by Moira Rogers
A fireplace burned merrily on the left. On the right was an open door, and through it he could see a deep marble tub lined with dozens of vials of brightly colored salts and liquids.
Everything was gilded beyond the bounds of good taste and the colors—the colors made him dizzy. Diana was staring up at the ceiling, and when he followed her gaze, he saw ornate mirrors anchored above the bed.
Jonah stood by the door, his hands clasped behind his back. “Does it suit?”
“It’s—” Obscene. Ridiculous. Horrifying. “Beyond words. Thank you, Jonah.”
“Because of the festivities, we’re dining early—nine o’clock. But feel free to take your meal en suite if you prefer to make an entrance tonight.” He winked at Diana. “A little mystery never hurts.”
The door closed behind Jonah, and Diana sank to the bed. “Well.”
“Well.” Nate shrugged out of his jacket and tried to find a place to rest his eyes. Someplace that didn’t whisper of carnal promise. “This is… I’m quite speechless.”
“I don’t like it,” she murmured, rising again to pace the floor with nervous energy. “Everything is so overdone and gaudy. Heavy. Like it’s going to press in on us.” She lifted her hands to her throat, almost in a flutter.
Then he realized what she was doing.
Diana was taking off her clothes, and now he was well and truly speechless.
It was damn hard to casually remove your dress with a man gaping at you.
Diana stood her ground, slipping free the last button before speaking. “I can handle this better than a human. And you said yourself you’d have to feed from me eventually, to prove to the others it can be safely done. We may as well start now.” She let the heavy lace fall to the floor.
He swallowed hard but didn’t look away. “Things will change if we do this. Drinking blood from the vein changes me. Hunter’s did, in any case.”
“All the more reason the first time shouldn’t be in front of an audience.” If it looked like the first time, it could get them killed.
“I know. But there are other things you need to be prepared for. The pleasure you asked about, or the pain, if you want me to try to hold back.”
She’d felt pain before, fleeting and physical. What she didn’t like was the certainty that it would hurt knowing he’d fed from someone else. It was intimate—more intimate than sex, because his very existence depended on it.
All or nothing, Diana.
Her hands trembled, but she kept her voice steady. “I don’t like the thought of you being in anyone else. Even your teeth.”
Something dark stirred behind his gaze. “Are you feeling possessive, Diana?”
“I’m a bloodhound, Nate.” She untied the ribbon lacing the neckline of her chemise. “Words don’t exist for the sorts of things we can feel.”
“And those indescribable feelings, you have them for me?”
The admission was a weakness. She’d have to lay herself before him, open and vulnerable, and trust him not to hurt her. “I have them,” she whispered. “I want you.”
Nate extended his hand in silence.
His gaze burned, tenderness warring with outright lust, a combination she knew all too well. Diana let it wash over her as she stepped closer. It might not be sex, but this was the moment, the one that mattered. No going back, no regrets.
She laid her hand in his.
Without looking away, he lifted her wrist to his warm lips. His tongue lashed over her pulse, and she felt the pinprick of teeth.
The expected pain didn’t come. Instead, heat flooded her, a heat that seemed to come from everywhere, all at once, throbbing through her in time with her heart.
She fell against him with a moan, and he braced her with an arm around her waist, pressing her body tight to his. The pleasure intensified, became a coaxing pressure that urged her to melt.
She’d fall, straight through the floor and never stop. “Nate…”
He lifted his head with a growl, revealing eyes glowing bloodhound gold.
“You have to catch me.” It made no sense, but it was all she could manage as she tilted her head to the side, baring her throat.
“You can’t be caught, love.” He kissed the inside of her elbow. “Can’t be tamed.” A tug, and the neckline of her chemise slipped from her shoulder. “You’re a wild creature.”
She slid her fingers into his hair, tugging on the strands. “When I fall, not when I run.”
He laughed, and his breath warmed her collarbone. “You already did. I just didn’t let you hit the ground.”
No, she was floating. If anything, he’d have to hold her down. “What is it like? Feeding?”
“I don’t know.” He cupped the back of her head, holding her in position as his mouth brushed her throat. “That was only a taste. A few drops. If I truly drink, I think we’ll lose ourselves in one another beyond reason or hope.”
“But you have to.”
“Oh, I want to.” The words were a rumble. A warning. “I crave it. Promise me you do, too. Promise.”
“I do, I—” His teeth sank into her skin. Diana clutched at him, scrambling for purchase as another swell of pleasure rocked her. It eclipsed the mild throb from the bite at her wrist…and then it eclipsed everything.
Oh, sweet Jesus.
His voice wrapped around her, an impossibility with his mouth still fixed to her neck. But the words bloomed inside her head, hot and heavy, ringing with hunger. You taste like life.
She writhed against him. Her chemise had fallen down to bare her breasts, and his shirt rubbed her nipples as she moved. It tightened the already stiff peaks to the point of pain, and the heat between her thighs coalesced into a heavy, hollow ache.
No sooner had she noticed it than Nate’s grip changed. One hand curled around her thigh, jerking it high around his waist, and he lifted her from the floor and carried her the two steps to the bed before bearing her down. The iron bulge of his cock ground against her clit, rocking down in rhythm with his tongue stroking her throat.
Light exploded behind her eyelids with every thrust. Diana clenched the velvet bedspread in her fists and arched up, desperate to get closer.
One more devastating swipe of his tongue, and he moved, dropping a trail of kisses down her shoulder on his way to her breast. He sucked one tightened nipple between his lips with no preamble, working it with a demanding growl.
The possibility of taking her next breath without him inside her was unthinkable. She reached between them and tugged at his trousers. “Nate.”
“No.” He caught her hand and pressed it to the mattress. His hips circled. Pressed hard. “Not yet.”
She shuddered as the hard grind shot pleasure up her spine. “When?”
He answered by turning his attention to her other nipple, drawing it deep into the heat of his mouth as the pressure of his hips silently commanded she give in to release.
Diana met his rhythm, smoothly at first and then jerking her hips against his. Every brush of his tongue over her nipple made it harder to relax again, to accept the distance between them.
She opened her mouth to demand, even to beg, but all that came out was a low, tormented whimper. The waves of heat gained speed, coming faster and faster until they reached an inevitable hurtle. Unstoppable, this ecstasy, and she arched her head back with a cry.
“Yes. Yes.” He buried his face against her throat, whispering obscene compliments as he urged her through her orgasm. How beautiful she was, and how good she tasted. How soft her body felt beneath his, and how desperate he was to be inside her.
It had to end, but it seemed it never would. The pulses went on and on, so long she’d already caught her breath before her head stopped spinning. A strange mix of pleasure and heady magic, like the dizzy burn of fine liquor.
Sated and yet still needy, Diana bit his ear and eased her hands under his shirt. “What are you thinking?”
Nate laughed hoarsely. “Not a damn thing, for once in my life. You’re
beautiful.”
“So are you.”
He rested his forehead on her chest with a sigh. “And I can hear your thoughts.”
She pulled his hair. “Then you know what I want.”
Nate groaned and rolled away, landing on his back beside her with his legs hanging off the mattress. “Yes, Lord help us both, but I’m drunk on you. If I let go now, I don’t trust myself not to hurt you.”
“Hurt me?” Diana climbed atop him and ripped open his shirt. “Maybe I’m the one who needs to worry about that.”
“Never.” He caught her hair and dragged her head down until her lips almost touched his. “Unless that’s your way of telling me I feel like a vampire to you now.”
He should have, perhaps, now that he’d fed. But if anything… “You feel like you and me,” she whispered.
“Oh God.” He licked her lips. “Your mouth is intoxicating. If I told you the sort of things I imagine you doing with it, you’d slap me.”
“Only because you haven’t let me yet.” She reached down and teased the skin just above his pants. “Tell me anyway.”
He pushed his hips up with a growl. “Sometimes I have to fight to concentrate on the words you’re saying. I stare at your lips and think about what I’d give to have them around my cock.”
She waited, then arched an eyebrow as she dipped her fingers just under his waistband. “I’ve yet to hear anything that would earn you a cross look, much less a blow to the face.”
“You’re telling the truth.” He sounded shocked, not to mention painfully, helplessly aroused. “I’ve never bedded a woman who didn’t require my restraint. Not without—”
“Payment?” He may as well have spoken the word, but Diana shrugged it away. “Would it help if I confessed my own inability to listen to your voice without the sound conjuring any number of carnal imaginings?”
He laughed again. “No, Diana. It will only baffle me further. But I delight in this brand of bafflement. Share your imaginings with me.”
“I can’t.” She bent and pressed a kiss over his heart, and another to the vulnerable spot just beneath his sternum. “I’m about to be doing something altogether different with my mouth.”
Nate grasped at her hair, tangling the strands around his fingers. “You can share. You need only think it.”
She realized the truth of it with a pulse of pleasure. She closed her eyes as she trailed her tongue lower and opened her mind to his, gave him access to her fantasies. Every whispered word, every groan, every flash of naked skin slicked with sweat.
Every scream.
His cock jumped against her cheek as a growl rumbled free of him. “In your mouth.”
It was as much an order as a plea. Diana wrapped her hand around his shaft and met his gaze. “I wanted this. To taste you.” She teased her tongue around the head of his cock.
He tilted back his head, his handsome face slack with need. He parted his lips to reveal his fangs, something he was usually careful to avoid. “More. I need this. I need you.”
And she needed him—like this, unguarded, as bared as she. One more flick of her tongue, and she began to lick him with slow, wet caresses, readying him for her mouth.
“That’s right,” he rasped, clenching his fingers. “You love licking me, don’t you? I can tell.”
“Mmm.” It was all she could manage as she pursed her lips and slid them down around him.
The muscles in his arms corded, restraint trembling through every inch of him. “Think the words. Let me hear them in your mind.”
Her mind stuttered over a dozen false starts. He was beautiful when he smiled, but he didn’t do it enough. Delicious when he wrapped himself in his control, and breathtaking when he finally let go.
Mine.
“Such a bloodhound,” he whispered, the rasping words curling around her. “So possessive.”
And he liked it. She scratched her fingernails over his hip and sucked him deeper. Harder. His hips pushed up, and he groaned and clutched at the back of her head, all that careful control dissolving. “Diana.”
Yes. She wanted to raise her head, wrap her hand around his wet length and stroke him until he spilled on her breasts, her face. Earthy and visceral, a claim as blatant as the now-healed marks of his teeth.
He shuddered as the thoughts poured over him. “Do it.”
Diana pulled away and barely managed to whisper his name before he tensed beneath her and came with her name on his lips, his entire body shaking with the force of his release.
His seed, hot and musky, splashed on her chest as she used her hand to coax him through his pleasure. “Such a bloodhound,” she murmured, echoing his words. “So possessive.”
He growled and half-rose, pulling her to meet him with his hands tangled in her hair. He kissed her once, roughly, and pulled back. “I’ve never felt the bloodhound parts of me as strongly as I do now. You bring out something decidedly feral in me.”
“I know the feeling.” More than he could understand, perhaps ever.
A lazy smile curved his lips as he studied her breasts. “I suppose a bath would be the civilized thing to offer.”
“Civilized, yes. Not that you seem anything but smug at the moment.”
He laughed and touched her collarbone, slid his fingertip down to her nipple. “I feel young again, that’s how I feel. Not like an old man in a young man’s body. Good.”
It pained her that he ever felt trapped like that, in a body that didn’t belong to him. She knew what that was like too. “No regrets?”
“No regrets.” He kissed her softly this time. “That was the first time I’ve taken blood without fighting it, the pleasure or my own hunger. It defies science and reason that my intent could make such a drastic difference, but I feel like an entirely different man. Whole, finally. Sated.”
Fighting. She’d done her share during the call of the moons, both full and new. “Struggling always makes it worse somehow. I’m glad that you don’t have to do that with me, not all the time.”
“No.” His thumb traced her cheek, smoothing over her skin as he kissed the corner of her mouth. “I’m quite intoxicated by you.”
Intoxicated…and possibly not even in his right mind.
Now there was a sobering thought. Diana kissed him back and pulled away before he could sense her doing the same mentally. Emotionally. “The bath. We have a big night ahead of us.”
“Ah, yes. Jonah Knight’s debauchery.” He chuckled and reclined on the bed. “One thing hasn’t changed, Diana. I’ll give a poor impression of a man desperate to part with you. We must hope I can do a better one of a man who has no choice.”
At least they wouldn’t be vibrating with sexual tension. “We’ll be fine.”
“We will, we will indeed….” His voice trailed off in another sleepy laugh as his eyes drifted shut.
Asleep. After a moment, Diana quelled a disbelieving laugh and escaped to the washroom.
She started the bath and leaned her head against the wall, her eyes closed. She was unaccustomed to uncertainty. She’d fought long and hard to leave that in the past, and yet here was Nate, so hesitant to touch her that sure footing of any kind was impossible to find.
It had caught her off guard, too, the relentless tug of attraction between them. It didn’t fit with her plans, or why she’d come to Iron Creek in the first place. She was there to learn, not find herself inextricably ensnared by a man, no matter how attractive.
But she wasn’t sure fighting it would change a damn thing. She’d tried to let familiarity breed contempt, relying on proximity to cure her of her ill-advised infatuation, but all it had done was intensify her fascination—the lure of the forbidden, perhaps. He seemed to suffer from plenty of that himself.
He wanted her, all right, and all the while wished he didn’t. Perhaps her blood really had left him drunk and reeling, taking yet another step closer to her, a step he would regret.
Chapter Six
Sleep, it turned out, restored life to e
ven a half-vampire, half-bloodhound abomination.
Sleep—or Diana’s blood.
Nate had never been less certain of what, exactly, he was and had never cared so little about the possible answers. He felt young, vigorous and alive, truly at home in his own skin for the first time since he’d been spirited away to the Deadlands as an old man.
The reflection staring back at him from the polished full-length mirror in their suite’s dressing room belonged to a man he’d never been. Oh, the face was his—square jawed and capable of a cold sort of handsomeness—but missing were so many tokens of an arrogant, preoccupied scholar. No spectacles sliding down his nose, no furrow etched between his brows, no slouched shoulders or painful back, courtesy of the countless nights spent hunched over a workroom table, squinting at notes.
He looked like the best version of himself he could have imagined, hale and healthy, with only the scholar’s pallor remaining. That, he had no doubt, was a good thing—as long as he wanted to pass for a vampire.
“Are you almost ready?” he asked Diana, lifting his voice enough to be heard through the closed door.
“Nearly,” she called back. “I need help with my dress.” She emerged from the washroom, clad in yards of midnight-blue silk that she clutched to her chest. “The buttons.”
He fought to swallow as he stared at the vast expanse of bare skin. “Buttons. Uh, yes. They’re on the back?”
“Of course.” She turned but glanced at him over her shoulder. “I wish I could say the dress looks less scandalous fully fastened, but it would be a lie.”
An unfamiliar sort of possessiveness had awoken inside him, one tangled up with the parts of him that felt like a bloodhound. He disliked the idea of men being able to gaze upon her with an intensity that had previously been reserved for imminent bloodshed.
His fingers trembled as he set them on the delicate buttons. “This can’t be one of the dresses you owned.”
She looked up into the ornate mirror above the dresser and met his gaze. “It was, actually. A singer had brought it to me for some alterations, but she never came back to pick it up.”