“I love the feel of your hands on me. Love tasting you.” When she bit into his shoulder with her benign human teeth, it was all he could do not to retaliate, sample all she’d so clearly offered, all he must not accept. “I love the way your skin feels so smooth beneath my hands and lets me trace each muscle beneath its satin surface.”
When she moved her fingers along his pectoral muscles and found the sensitive flesh of his nipples, he suddenly had to breathe. When he inhaled deeply, the mingled scents of her perfume and aroused mortal female filled his nostrils. The touch of her fingers on his belly, the little sounds of pleasure she made when he touched her—when she touched him—had his balls growing tighter, his cock throbbing harder than he recalled ever having experienced.
Being with her in his world, the world of night, seeing her silhouetted by the waning moon, her golden skin and pale hair absorbing the little light and giving her a surrealistic glow, made him want so much more than he dared to take. He wanted to invade her mind and heart, make her his not just for now. For always. Stefan had never been so hard, so ready—or so afraid he might lose control.
She cupped his sex and tilted her head back to meet his gaze. “Make love to me now, my handsome vampire. Take away the ache inside me. Now, Stefan. I’m burning.”
More than her words, the breathy, highly aroused sound of her voice drove him past reason, past restraint. The pulsating vein in her throat caught his gaze, taunted him. It was all he could do to control himself, hold his fangs back when they wanted so to elongate, to answer her blatant invitation with the act that might make her eternally his.
“Do not tempt me. I will make love to you in your world, but I cannot take you into mine.” Scooping her into his arms as though she weighed no more than Noodles, he laid her across the bed and followed her down, kneeling between her legs. Her damp heat reflected on him, beckoned him.
“Oh, yes, please. Don’t wait. I want you now.”
“Your wish is my command.” When he positioned himself and started to enter her, she wrapped her long legs around his waist, taking him deep, bathing him in her hot, slick dew. Her flesh pulsated around him in perfect harmony with the thrumming of blood through his veins. She moved in perfect rhythm with him. It felt so right. His sense of urgency grew stronger. Pressure built throughout his body, driving away caution and restraint. The fragile strands of sanity he tried so hard to hold on to began to shred in the face of her temptation.
She lay across the bed, her head slightly over one side, her throat bared, taunting him again with that throbbing vein just below her golden skin. Stefan closed his eyes, trying to put that enticing vision out of mind. He concentrated on the way she felt when she used her inner muscles to milk him, the rush of pressure building in his balls. The tickling of her silky pubic hair against his smooth scrotum. She pulled him down on her with her legs until they lay chest to breast, belly to belly. Until he buried himself to the hilt in her silken heat, his flesh surrounded with her hot wet juices.
“Stefan. Oh, God, I’m coming.” Her climax began as tiny tremors, multiplied and intensified until she writhed beneath him, whimpering his name. Moaning, digging her heels into his buttocks, she clutched him as though she’d never let him go. She shifted her hands to his head, drew him down against her vulnerable throat. Her vein pulsed invitingly beneath his cheek, so temptingly that he barely resisted her effort to move him into perfect alignment.
“Damn it, bite me. Don’t hold back. I want it all. All you’ve got to give.” She clamped down on him with her inner muscles, broke the last of his restraint.
“You don’t know what you ask. I cannot. Help me, don’t tempt me. I’m coming now.” As his seed began to spurt, Stefan shoved his own forearm into his mouth, burying his fangs, tasting his own blood, letting his climax carry him away from the pain of denial . . . to a surprisingly satisfying place.
A place where differences between them didn’t matter. Where good always triumphed over evil.
Chapter Nine
She still lay beneath him. Her tears dampened his shoulder. Stefan pressed his nose into her hair, wishing he didn’t have to raise his head and see the hurt in her eyes. He knew it was there, felt it in every rigid line of her beautiful body. “I’m sorry.”
Knowing he’d disappointed Julie caused Stefan greater pain than the throbbing puncture wounds he’d made in his own arm. He rolled over, blocking the view of the rising sun by covering his eyes. “We need to talk. I need to tell you—”
“I have to take Noodles for a walk.” She sounded miffed but calm.
Stefan raked a hand through his hair, wishing it would help his headache go away. He started to curl his hand around her arm, keep her stubborn, lovely ass on that bed until he made her listen. But that wasn’t how he wanted to handle her. She needed a moment, needed space. Hell, he needed some himself. “Fine. But I’m going with you. It’s not safe for you to go out alone, especially now when it’s hardly even light outside.”
Sitting up on the edge of the bed, he reached to the floor and grabbed his clothes. “Wait. I’m getting dressed. You are not going anywhere unless I go with you.”
“I don’t need a babysitter, Stefan. You said yourself that Louis would try to strike in two more nights. Not now. And not in the daytime.”
Stefan pulled up his slacks and slipped his feet into his loafers. Then he stood. “Indulge me. Reynard has already modified his pattern of killings. He might do it again. He might very well be waiting for you in the park, assuming that you’ll be walking Noodles. Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s go, then.” He picked up the dog’s leash and handed it to Julie.
The sun rising over Lake Michigan practically blinded Stefan when they stepped outside. Mentally cursing his weakness, he slipped on the dark glasses. Hated them. Hated that they suddenly represented all the reasons he couldn’t take Julie, make her his own.
This was her world. A world where she could exchange pleasantries with an elderly couple like this one they passed not far from Julie’s house. A world where he had to take care not to show his fangs and hope the couple’s fragile Yorkie on its braided satin leash wouldn’t sense danger and dig its razor-sharp teeth into his ankle.
“I’m happy to meet you,” he said with a careful smile, vaguely aware Julie had introduced him as her friend from Normandy. Because the old woman seemed to expect it, he bent and brought her thin hand to his lips after shaking hands with her husband. Fortunately the Yorkie seemed disinclined to bite him, although it didn’t take to him the way Noodles had.
“I see them walking their dog every once in a while,” Julie mentioned after they’d parted company. “They seem so loving, and they always have a kind word for everyone they see. Each time I see them, they seem less robust . . . I wonder . . .” She looked at him, as though she thought he might be the salvation of mortal mankind.
“No. If they were to become vampires, they’d be old, sick vampires. We have no ability to reverse aging or cure mortal ills.”
“Oh. Then you only turn young, healthy mortals?”
“Julie. I don’t turn mortals at all. No matter how much I might want to.”
He hated the way her lower lip quivered, as though she wanted to cry but was determined not to. Feeling helpless, devoid of words to make things better, Stefan smiled hopefully at the couple coming toward them.
“A beautiful dog,” he commented loudly enough that the owner of the elaborately clipped white miniature poodle would be certain to hear.
“Why, thank you.” The poodle’s owner, a statuesque black woman with a heavy accent, smiled broadly then bent to admire Noodles. Her sandy-haired companion, who reminded Stefan of the stereotypical all-American mortal male, grinned.
“Can’t separate a woman from her dog, can we?” he asked, shaking his head. “At least you don’t have to take that one to the groomer every Friday afternoon.”
Stefan glanced down at Noodles, then at the beribboned, perfume
d poodle. “Every Friday?”
“Yep. If Princess misses her bath, Areatha says her coat begins to get dusty-looking. How long can yours go?”
Stefan shrugged. “I’m not sure. Julie?”
“I bathe Noodles once a month. She’s low-maintenance.” Julie looped her free arm through his, giving him the feeling that while he wasn’t totally forgiven, she felt better for having gotten out and about in her world. “Speaking of maintenance, we’d better be going. Noodles is going to want her breakfast.”
“I’m sure we’ll see you again,” the other woman told them as she tugged on her dog’s hot pink leash. “Take care.”
“Those two are from different worlds, Stefan. She’s cosmopolitan, elegant, obviously a world traveler. He’s like a small-town boy from the way he speaks. It seems they’ve managed to bridge the gap.” Julie interlaced their fingers once they’d moved along, then paused to look out and admire the sunrise. “Why can’t we?”
Stefan let out an audible sigh. “They’re both mortal. They occupy the same world, have the same expectations about who they are and the kind of life they’ll lead together. Acceptance as members of the same species. We do not.”
“You’re here. You function just fine, from all I’ve been able to observe.” She paused, raking him with a glance that was half teasing, half sexual—hopeful and serious all at once. “The only difference I see between us is that you get your nourishment from blood instead of conventional food. And, of course, the fact you’re the most desirable male I’ve ever had the pleasure of loving.”
He took her hand, led her to a bench under the shade of a large, spreading tree. “Could you stand living in darkness, rarely venturing out? Not seeing much of the beauty you now preserve in your art?”
She glanced at the bright sky then looked at him. “Sunlight’s proven to be disastrous to a woman’s skin. Besides—”
“As vampires age, they become less sensitive to light. You would be a very young vampire for a very long time. Perhaps as long as several mortal lifetimes. Another thing. I’ve seen how you enjoy your food. If you became like me, you not only would get your nourishment from blood, you probably would never be able to consume any other substance without becoming deathly ill.”
“On the other hand, I’d still look and feel young when mortals my age would have long been dead. I’d get to love you for centuries, not decades, see our children—”
“That might not happen, no matter how diligently I’d try.” He hated to burst her bubble but . . . “The reason there are so few born vampires is that we don’t procreate easily. With luck, I might be able to father one child. I know of only one, my own grandfather, who managed to sire more—three sons over a period of nearly eight hundred years. Many of my clan have lived and died childless, not for want of trying.”
“I don’t care.” She turned to him, laid one hand on his shoulder and the other on his thigh. “I know this doesn’t make sense, Stefan. Don’t you think I realize how crazy it is for me to feel this way? What is it that’s made me feel so strongly about you in such a short time?”
When she smiled at him, Stefan couldn’t help but smile back. “I don’t know. You’ve given me the greatest pleasure I’ve known for centuries. Centuries, Julie. I cannot deny I want you for my own. But I’m a four-hundred-and-fifty-year-old vampire. You’re a human. You flourish in the sunshine, while I move freely only in the shadows.”
“But you’re outside now. You were yesterday too. Why couldn’t I—”
Stefan held up his hand to silence her. “You’d move even less freely than I. I may seem to move easily in the sunlight, but I’ve been a vampire all my life, and tolerance to the sun seems to increase as born vampires age. It doesn’t mean being outside in the light is comfortable for me, even this early in the morning.”
He paused, barely able even after all this time to put into words the fact of his youthful selfishness, his shame. The grief had faded, yet guilt still rode him hard. “I need you to understand . . . why. Why I can’t take what I want more than anything.”
“Then tell me. It won’t make any difference about how I feel.” Squaring her shoulders and grasping both his hands, Julie looked him in the eye, as though daring him to test her conviction.
“It will. It must. I loved a mortal once before. I wanted to keep her enough to try to turn her. She’s dead. Because I loved her, I killed her. In my selfishness to keep her with me, I drained her lifeblood.”
Julie drew in a breath, but as she searched his face with her gaze, she didn’t recoil in horror. Her eyes filled with tears, as though registering the pain it had taken him to say the words. He loved her, more than he’d ever loved before, and she wasn’t making this any easier. Her grip tightened on his fingers. “Don’t try to tell me you ever hurt any woman intentionally. I may not have known you long, but I know you well enough to know that.”
“No. But Tina was no less dead because I killed her out of love, not vengeance.” Nearly two hundred years had passed, and still thinking about the lover of his youth made Stefan choke up, not so much with guilt as with regret for the youthful arrogance that had made him believe he could turn her into the vampire mate he’d yearned for.
“I’m sorry.” When he looked into her eyes he saw no fear, no revulsion. Only sympathy . . . and love.
Emotions that made Stefan’s own eyes well up with tears because he knew he’d have to walk away from Julie, knowing how deeply she cared, how much she trusted him despite his initial deception. His heart ached. Leaving her would hurt her, and hurting her would literally destroy him, end his existence long before his natural demise.
Or else he’d lose control and turn her, ending her life if he failed, changing it forever if he succeeded. He couldn’t chance history repeating itself. “I won’t consign you to living forever in darkness,” he ground out, steeling himself against the power of her entreaties.
“I want you to.” Her eyes glistened with ice-blue tears.
Stefan clasped her hands, compelled her to meet his gaze. “I won’t risk killing you to feed my own obsession.”
“How about for love? I’m not an obsession. You love me, damn it. I can see it in your eyes. I feel it in your touch.”
Stefan closed his eyes. Since he couldn’t guarantee he could bring her across to him safely, he wished he could change for her. If it were possible he’d shed the mantle of darkness and step into the light. Claim Julie. Raise a family with her, watch them grow up and have their own children. Their grandchildren. Not even the thought of dying young—having only fifty years or so to love his golden woman—dampened his sudden desire to leave his world. Become a part of hers.
It couldn’t be, though. There would be no children, for he could only sire a child on another vampire, one born or one he’d made. “Yes. I love you. Too much to stay with you here, watch you ostracized by your friends. Too much to risk changing you in order for you to bear my child.”
Julie’s eyes widened, as if that thought hadn’t crossed her mind before. “We’ve risked that already.”
Stefan took her hand, stroked the soft skin, admired the pinkness of her short, neatly trimmed nails. “No, we haven’t. No mortal can nurture a vampire’s seed.”
She choked back a sob. Her hands shook, revealing at last some of the emotional strain the past hour must have imposed on her.
“I’m sorry.” He put his arms around her, offering comfort . . . shared regret . . . a mutual wish for what must not be. For what he must not allow to become, for her sake.
Noodles barked, her hackles rising on her long, round back. Stefan spun around on the bench, saw a flash of a white shirt and dark pants, an apparition swallowed almost instantly by the park’s thick foliage behind them.
• • •
He pulled Julie to her feet, and she saw his eyes turn icy jade as he scanned the area in all directions. A moment earlier, he’d been pensive and sad, trying to persuade her she didn’t know her own mind. Now he’d turned fierce. The
tips of his fangs gleamed in the early sun, and he let out a low, menacing hiss—a hiss she recognized as a clear warning to any who dared threaten what was his. It froze her in his grasp, made her see him as a man who had gone from gentle nobleman to fierce predator in mere seconds. For her. To protect her.
This was the man she loved. The man she now understood would protect her, even at the cost of his own life. Even if that meant protecting her from dangers he himself posed to her safety. Dangers she must find a way of persuading him she’d face with joy, if only they might hope to share a lifetime together.
After a few tense moments, he loosened his painful grip on her arm. “Reynard,” he spat out, the name projecting more hate than the most vicious of curses. “He was here, spying on us. Come on, let’s go home. For the time being, he’s crawled back into his hole.”
• • •
Louis huddled in the darkened cocoon of his hotel room, sealed off from daylight and danger. But sleep wouldn’t come. He’d taken in stride the presence of one d’Argent shadow, even laughed at the young vampire’s apparent inability to shield himself from view. But another? It seemed this one had taken to trailing not him but his next victim. Louis clenched his fists until the nails cut into his palms, his fury building by the moment as he pictured them together, Julie’s bright head nestled on the broad shoulder of some wet-behind-the-ears youngster from the d’Argent clan.
Julie Quill was his. Only his, for all eternity, like all the rest. Not d’Argent’s. Never his.
The d’Argent pup had been holding Julie as though he had the right. As though he knew her body as only mortals or born vampires could. Louis imagined d’Argent caressing her first, the way Louis had wanted to stroke Alina, nipping at her lips and throat and breasts before burying his face between her legs and sampling the honey there. Finally, when she was hot enough, he’d drive his male tool into her warm, moist human flesh and clamp down on her jugular to feed.
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