That little practical voice that usually stayed her when tempted instead taunted her by pointing out that, since he was immortal, she didn’t have to worry about STDs. And this was a safe time in her cycle, which meant no pregnancy fears either.
What the hell was she waiting for?
Sarah smiled and unbuttoned the waist of her jeans.
She knew she felt as comfortable with Roland as she would with an old friend. And more drawn to him than she had ever been to another.
His gaze dropped to her hands.
She knew he wouldn’t touch her if she didn’t want him to, even with an erection already straining against the front of his slacks.
He watched every movement avidly as she slid the zipper down, then peeled the jeans down her legs and stepped out of them.
And she knew she wanted him to touch her. Needed it. Almost desperately.
“Roland,” she said, reaching around behind her and unhooking her bra.
“Hmm?” His hands curled into fists at his sides as the black lace fell away.
“You aren’t a stranger.”
* * *
Roland stared at her, pulse racing. He wasn’t a stranger? “Are you saying …?”
“I’m saying take your pants off. The sooner we wash this blood off, the sooner you can do to me all of those things I can see you’re thinking about doing.”
Oh shit.
His pants were on the floor before she drew her next breath.
Sarah jumped at his super-quick movement, then laughed.
He grinned, shrugging sheepishly, then felt compelled to caution her. “This could be a reaction to the violence and having come so close to getting killed, Sarah.” He had experienced such a reaction himself a time or two before he had been transformed—that need for a physical reaffirmation of life after coming so close to death.
“I know. I don’t think it is. But if I’m wrong, I don’t care. I just want your hands on me. Everywhere. As soon as possible.”
“I can do that,” he murmured, stepping closer.
She raised her face to his for a kiss, eyes twinkling. “I know you can. But do you want to?”
Placing his hands on her hips, he brushed his lips against hers. “You already know the answer to that.”
Roland teased her with his tongue, grazing her lower lip, then gliding within. Withdrawing. Sliding within. Withdrawing. She tasted so good.
Moaning, she rose onto her toes, wrapped her arms around his neck, and leaned her nearly bare body into his. Her soft, full breasts came to rest against his chest. His cock, no longer restrained by his pants, was trapped against her flat belly.
It was torture. Wonderful, exquisite torture. Because he wanted to bury himself inside her and couldn’t. Not yet.
Hooking his thumbs in the waistband of her black panties, he tore himself away from her lips long enough to slide the small scrap of material down her body to the floor. She made a light sound of protest at his retreat, then rested a hand on his shoulder as she liberated one foot and used the other to kick the panties away.
When he looked up, his face was nearly on a level with the triangle of dark curls he had touched through her jeans the night before. He wanted to lean forward, kiss her there. Lick her. Stroke her. He glanced up, saw her staring down at him, seeming to read every thought as it occurred to him.
“Maybe we can forgo the shower,” she whispered. Shifting the hand on his shoulder, she moved it up to tunnel through his hair, grip a fistful, and give it a light tug.
Excitement shot through him.
Oh yeah. This was going to be good. This was going to be so fucking good.
But as he rose, preparing to pounce and please her in a hundred different ways, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror behind her. Unlike Sarah, who only had blood on her face, hands, and a little bit of her chest, he was covered in the crimson liquid. He had been shot a dozen times or more, had bled copiously, and had been spattered with the blood of his opponents as well. There was scarcely an inch of skin left clean. It even dampened his hair.
He couldn’t come to her like this.
She glanced over her shoulder, caught his reflection in the mirror, and turned back, eyes questioning.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“I wasn’t either.” She looked at the steaming shower, then back at him, lips quirking. “Wanna race?”
He grinned. “I’ll wash you if you’ll wash me.”
“Deal.”
Laughing, they stepped into the shower and closed the door. Steam swirled around them, brushing their skin with spectral fingers. Sarah closed her eyes, ducked under the water, scrubbed her face, then gave the spray her back.
Roland’s breath caught as she tilted her head back, ran her hands through her hair, elbows pointed at the ceiling. Water sluiced down her body, over her shoulders and full breasts, skipping off the hardened pink tips. Her long hair darkened to black, straightening as it molded itself to her slick form in a shiny curtain. One thin section slid down her chest, hugged her breast, and continued down to tease her belly button.
When Roland raised his gaze once more it was to find she had opened her eyes and was watching him. “You’re so beautiful,” he told her.
She smiled. Her lashes were dark and spiked with moisture. “So are you.”
“I’ve never showered with a woman before,” he admitted.
“Really? What do you think so far?”
He felt a slow smile stretch his lips. “I like it.”
Grinning, she moved aside so he could take her place.
Roland stepped beneath the spray. Reluctantly ceding his ability to stare at her, he turned away and began rinsing his hair, face, and chest. The water turned red as it sluiced down his front, collecting more blood from his arms, abdomen, and legs. By the time it circled the drain, it looked like cranberry juice.
When his front was as clean as it would get without soap, he turned his back to the spray.
Sarah had taken a cloth from the recessed shelf and was lathering it up, her gaze firmly fixed on his ass. When he faced her, she hastily raised her eyes to meet his.
He grinned. “Caught you.”
Laughing, she blushed. “What’s good for the goose?”
“Is great for the gander.” He grabbed a second cloth, randomly chose a shower gel from the selection provided, and started lathering it. “Turn around.”
She gave him her back, so delicate beneath his large hands as he slid the thin soapy cloth across it. Shoulder to shoulder. Down to her narrow waist. Over the smooth round globes of her bottom. Following the curves of her lightly muscled thighs. He knew these curves. Every gentle flare, subtle dip, and hollow down to her tiny feet. He had learned them well last night. Memorized them. Dreamt of them.
He could hear her heartbeat pick up, her breath shorten, as he drew the cloth down the back of her thigh to her ankle, around and up the front to the bend at her hip, then down the outside, around and up the inside until his soapy knuckles grazed the curls at her center. A pause. Then down the back of the other thigh, up the front, down the outside, and slowly up the inside to end with another brush of his knuckles.
“Turn around,” he said again, his voice raspy with the desire that made him so hard he thought he might burst if he didn’t have her soon.
She swung around to face him, face flushed with need.
As he rose and reached toward her, she stayed his hand.
“My turn.”
When he opened his mouth to protest, she made a twirling motion with her index finger.
Roland gave her his back.
Molded to her small hand, the soapy cloth touched his shoulder, then smoothed across his back in firm, but languid strokes, drifting lower, down to his waist.
The water from the showerhead pounded his front, pouring over his ultrasensitive shaft, adding to the pleasure of her every touch.
When both of her hands settled over his ass and squeezed, he moan
ed and dropped his head back. Her hands left him.
Her front pressed against his back. When he felt her reach around him, Roland glanced down and saw her dangle the cloth under the spray until the pink suds were whisked away.
She stepped back. He heard her add more soap to the cloth, lather it. Then it was brushing the back of his thigh, slipping down to his ankle, around, up the front, down the outside just as he had done to her and up the inside until her knuckles brushed his balls with just the lightest touch.
He hissed in a breath as pleasure darted through him.
Down the back of his other thigh, up the front, down the outside, and up, up, up the inside, anticipation as sharp as a knife. But she stopped without touching him this time. The cloth withdrew. He let his breath out in a faint sigh of disappointment, then sucked it in again when her small hand, slick with soap and free of the cloth, slid between his legs, cupped his sac, and fondled him, squeezing gently. His cock jumped. The need to be inside her was so strong he shook with it.
“Sarah,” he moaned.
Her hand left him. “Turn around.”
Sarah was practically panting with need when Roland spun around and faced her. His chest rose and fell as swiftly as hers. His eyes glowed brightly. His swollen erection strained toward her.
“Hurry,” was all she could say.
He tossed his cloth aside and instead palmed her breasts with soapy hands. Dipping his head, he captured her lips in a feverish kiss. When his thumbs and fingers found the hardened peaks and strummed them, pinched them, circled them, a throaty sound of need unlike any she had heard herself make before escaped her.
Dropping her own cloth, she followed his example and drew her sudsy hands across his powerful chest.
One of his hands slipped down her stomach to the damp curls at the juncture of her thighs. Her knees nearly buckled when he stroked her clit with his thumb and, finding her entrance, dipped a finger inside.
Moaning, she trailed a hand down to his erection, curled her fingers around him (he was too large for her to enclose completely), and stroked him from base to tip.
He groaned, urging her on with his hips when she stroked him again and again. “Fuck this,” he muttered. “We’re clean enough.”
Sarah sputtered, then laughed as he drew her back with him under the steamy spray.
They aided the water in swiftly sweeping the suds from their bodies. Her hands teased him. His hands teased her. He shut off the water, then lifted her.
“Wrap your legs around my waist,” he growled.
Sarah did so eagerly, trapping his long, hardened length between their bodies.
They didn’t pause to dry off. He merely carried her into the bedroom and tumbled them smoothly onto the bed.
“No more preliminaries,” she begged as he settled his weight atop her, his hips between her thighs, his upper body propped on his hands. “I want you inside me.”
He groaned and reached between them, positioning his erection at her entrance, rubbing the smooth head against her. “Next time you’ll let me taste you first,” he vowed, then plunged inside her.
Sarah threw her head back as he filled her. “Yesss.”
He withdrew almost to the crown, then plunged again.
“More,” she purred.
A very masculine chuckle rumbled forth as he obliged her.
Sarah stared up at him raptly as he continued to thrust, grinding against her, driving her pleasure ever upward. Short, dark hair fell over his forehead in wet spikes that dripped cool water onto her every time he thrust. His luminous amber eyes were brighter than she had ever seen them. His fangs had lengthened and peeked out from between soft lips. Heavy muscles bunched beneath smooth skin beaded with moisture.
Sliding her hands down his back, she gripped his muscled ass and urged him on, arching against him as the pressure built and built and built. He felt so good inside her. So hard. Touching all the right places.
She screamed his name as she came, heard her own emerge from his lips on a groan as he followed her over the edge.
Their breath emerged in gasps as the pleasure gradually spiraled downward and a lazy contentment enfolded them. Drawing one of her legs up over his hip, Roland rolled them onto their sides, bodies still joined, and cuddled her close.
By the time she regained enough of her breath to speak, the fatigue brought on by too many days with too little rest and too much adrenaline caught up with her and she drifted into a deep sleep, surrounded by his warmth and soothed by soft caresses.
Chapter 12
“You said earlier that I wasn’t the only woman you’ve cared about that you had found standing over you with a knife,” Sarah broached softly. She had awoken some time ago to the wondrous feeling of Roland’s hands and mouth exploring every inch of her.
It had been slow and sweet this second time, each of them leisurely learning where and how the other liked to be touched, what evoked the most pleasure, until they were once again swept away.
Roland sighed. He was lying on his back with her curled up against him.
“Who was she?”
His hand covered hers on his chest and toyed with her fingers. “There were two,” he confided grimly. “The first was my wife.”
Her heart clenched. While the thought of him with another woman was unpalatable, the knowledge that that woman had deceived him both infuriated and baffled her.
Why would any woman in her right mind want to hurt Roland?
Sarah propped her chin on his chest so she could look up at him, but he avoided her gaze, instead focusing on her hair as he combed his fingers through it.
“Once I escaped the vampire, all I could think about was getting home to Beatrice. Though ours was an arranged marriage, I loved her and thought she loved me. We had known each other since I was sent to foster with her father when we were children and shared a close friendship. Our marriage was a happy one and gave me two beautiful children before I was captured and transformed.”
If his children had looked anything like him, they had been gorgeous.
His lips formed a bitter smile. “They were all so surprised to see me when I strode into the great hall after making my escape. I had been gone for months. Everyone believed I was dead, killed with the rest of my party that day. Those seated around the trestle tables went absolutely silent. At the high table, Beatrice whispered my name and fainted. I thought my brother would, too, so pale did he turn. I didn’t know yet, you see, that he had betrayed me.”
He twined a lock of her hair around one finger. “Edward embraced me, told me how he had searched and searched for me. My wife, once she roused, ran to me, covered my face with kisses and tears of joy. I was such a fool I damn near wept, too.”
Sarah stroked his chest, wishing she could ease his pain, regretting stirring up such bad memories.
“She took me upstairs, bathed me, fed me, made love to me oh so tenderly”—that was hard to hear—“and tucked me into bed. I awoke an hour later to the feel of her plunging a dagger into my chest.”
Shock pierced Sarah. His wife had stabbed him?
Roland met her gaze, his brown eyes full of self-mockery. “She didn’t know what I had become—that I could live through such a wound—and, thinking I was dying, told me all.
“When my brother had returned home shortly after we married, she had fallen in love with him.”
Inside, Sarah cringed.
“Edward loved her as well and the two of them secretly cuckolded me from then on. The son and daughter I adored, she swore, were my brother’s offspring, not my own.”
“Oh, Roland.”
“And it was she who had heard rumors of the vampire and talked my brother into arranging for me to be taken and killed so Edward could have both the title and Beatrice. By returning, apparently hale and hearty, I had ruined everything.”
“So she stabbed you?” Sarah asked incredulously.
“That didn’t work out quite the way she thought it would.”
�
��I should hope not!” Sitting up, unable to contain the outrage she felt on his behalf, she settled back on her heels, facing him. “I can’t believe she did that to you! That she would even cheat on you, let alone try to kill you! Your brother was clearly an asshole. And even if he wasn’t, why the hell would she want him when she could have you? Was she friggin’ crazy?”
His eyebrows flew up.
“What did you do?”
His gaze turned watchful. “I killed them.”
“Oh.” That took some of the wind out of her sails. “Well. Good then.”
“You don’t think me a monster for doing so?”
“No, I’m a firm believer in an eye for an eye. They tried to kill you … twice … and would have succeeded if you weren’t different. If you had let them live, they probably would’ve tried a third time. As far as I’m concerned, it was self-defense.”
He rested a hand on her thigh. “To be honest, it was an accident. I was newly turned and unused to my increased strength and hungers. The craving for blood is strong in the beginning and I was losing a lot from the hole in my chest. In my rage and pain, I drained her dry before I even realized what I was doing.”
That must have made him feel even worse. “And your brother?”
“When he came to collect my body after she supposedly finished me off, I hit him too hard and fractured his skull. Badly. Because the wound in my chest had not had sufficient time to mend itself completely, healing him would have left me weak and at his mercy, so … I did nothing. I let him die.”
There was guilt there, despite all that his brother had purposely done to him.
Lying down again, Sarah slid over and stretched out on top of him like a blanket. “I’m sorry, Roland.”
His arms came around her and held her tightly. “It was a long time ago.”
“But I can tell it still hurts.”
“Yes,” he reluctantly acknowledged.
“Maybe she lied about the children.” That had probably hurt more than anything else.
“She did. I’m sure of it.”
She looked up at him. “How?”
He smiled. “I told you I was born with special gifts.”
Darkness Dawns (immortal guardians) Page 19