She nudged against my erection.
“I won’t do anything, Erin. It’s just a physiological response.” I inhaled. Her arousal had been triggered. “Just like the one you’re having.”
River had said I’d learn to control my blood lust and my other urges. I hadn’t had a lot of luck, but one thing had proved so powerful that it gave me control.
My love for Erin. My duty and obligation to see to her needs first, before my own.
She gave me the control I needed.
She pulled away from me slightly. “Will it always be this way between us? Will we always want each other so much?”
I laughed softly. “I certainly hope so.”
“There’s so much I’m not ready for yet. So much I don’t understand.”
“I know, love.”
“But one thing I do know. I want you to take me to bed. Right now.”
Chapter Twelve
Erin
I couldn’t fight the physical thing between us. I loved him. I knew that with my whole heart. And as much as I couldn’t say the V word about him yet, I still needed him. Needed him in a physical and emotional way.
And he needed me.
He needed my blood.
The idea scared me but also veiled me in a warmth I was only beginning to comprehend. I liked that he needed me. That I could give him something no one else could.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“You said… Every twenty-four hours…”
“Yes. But I can take blood from another source if I have to, Erin. At least for now.”
“You mean…you don’t need me?”
“God, no! I need you like I need air. And yes, vampires breathe.”
“Don’t,” I said.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t take blood from another source. Not today, anyway.”
The thought of him sharing the intimacy we’d shared with anyone else made me want to throw things. I cupped his cheeks and pulled him into a kiss.
Our lips slid together, our tongues tangling, and within a few minutes he scooped me into his arms and walked upstairs to my bedroom.
He had me naked in an instant, and then I watched, nearly drooling, as he removed his own clothes. First his leather boots and socks. Then his shirt, baring that gorgeous chest. Last, his jeans and boxers, his cock already hard.
I tried not to look at his handsome face.
His fangs were out. I’d felt them during the kiss.
I knew it. I could handle it. I even found it attractive.
I just didn’t want to look yet.
So I fell to my knees and licked the drop of fluid from his cock head.
He groaned. “Oh, God, Erin.”
I sprinkled tiny kisses over his glans and along the bottom of his shaft, but then I pulled back.
I wanted to look at him. Commit his gorgeous cock to memory.
He was huge, and the skin was a hue darker than the rest of him. Two purple veins marbled over the top of the shaft, intersecting and then disappearing at the base. His balls were covered in a smattering of black hair, and they were already scrunched up close to his body. But the head of his cock—that was a true work of art. It was like a polished white door knob, a shape I knew well as I felt it nudge past my lips and into my pussy.
Now I wanted to feel it slide past my other lips.
I took it into my mouth and slid about halfway down before I needed to pull back. Yes, he was that long and thick. It would take some time for me to work him all the way to the back of my throat. I slid my lips over the top of his shaft, all the way to the base, and then pressed kisses to his black curls. He smelled musky and masculine, and I inhaled, closing my eyes, my pussy throbbing.
Then I returned to his head, taking it all into my mouth once more.
He groaned above me, threading his fingers through my hair but taking care not to move my head.
Scary, but I wanted him to. I wanted him to take charge, fuck my mouth, nudge the back of my throat.
Just as the thought crossed my mind, he grabbed both sides of my head and pushed me onto his cock.
I moaned, and then he pulled me back, all the way to the head, and I sucked at the knob.
“Erin, God, that feels so fucking good.”
I smiled—as much as I could with my mouth full of cock—and then he pushed me back onto him again.
I relished his groans, his warm hands in my hair and on my scalp.
But then he pushed me off again.
“Can’t,” he said. “Not yet. Need to be inside you.”
He picked me up and threw me on the bed. Not gently. And it was such a turn-on.
I spread my legs and he hovered over me, his cock nudging my slick pussy lips. His lips were parted, and his fangs descended. I tried not to look away.
But I closed my eyes as he plunged into me.
Such sweet fulfillment. That knobby head pushed its way through, touching every crevice inside me and filling me like no other. He lowered himself until our chests, slick with perspiration, touched.
He moved my arms upward, and I clasped two rungs of my headboard.
The rungs he had bound me to only a day earlier.
I bit my lip to keep from begging him to bind me again. I wanted it yet I didn’t. It would happen again, I knew, but not this time.
He pumped and he pumped, and when the tiny tickle began in my clit and grew into contractions in my pussy, I flew.
“Yes, love. Come for me. Come with me.”
He pushed into me with one last strong stroke, and I felt each pulse of his penis as he filled me.
Eyes wide open, I looked at his beautiful face, his hair slick around his forehead.
His teeth…
I turned my head, squeezing my eyes shut. “You don’t need to tie me down.”
“I know, love.”
He bit into my neck.
Good pain. Yes, pain could be good. And it morphed into a sweet tugging that swirled through my body and landed between my legs.
My orgasm continued, growing stronger, and I floated beneath him, his body grounding me but taking me away at the same time.
Again, a kaleidoscope of color surrounded us, and the soft jazzy melody played.
Too soon, the tugging stopped, his tongue on my neck.
“No,” I said, my eyes still closed. “More. Give me more.”
“Open your eyes, Erin.”
“No. Please. More. Not done yet.”
He gently turned my head to face him. “Obey me. Open your eyes.”
Obey me.
Why did I want to obey him so much?
I opened my eyes.
“I can’t take any more. I need to work you up to a full feeding. I took a little too much the first time. It won’t happen again. Not until you’re ready.”
“But it feels so…so…” Words escaped me.
“I know, love. Trust me. I know.”
His teeth had gone down, but his lips and chin were smeared with my blood. Though I didn’t want to find it attractive, I couldn’t help myself. It was magnificent. He looked like an animal who had just finished devouring its prey.
Yet I was still here. I hadn’t been eaten.
But oh, I had been devoured. In the best way.
He got up and went to the bathroom. I heard the water running in the sink, and when he came back a few minutes later, his face was clean.
He’d done that for me. For my comfort. As much as I appreciated the thought, I wanted to see him covered in my blood.
Yet I didn’t want to see him that way just as much.
I was fighting inside myself, my head against my heart, and it was exhausting.
“Dante?”
“Yes, love?”
“I need to sleep. I need to. If I don’t, I won’t be able to work tonight, and I can’t call in sick again. I hate doing that if I’m not actually sick.”
“I wish I could help you. I can stay if you’d like. You’ll feel protected then.
”
I bit my lip. “Could you…?” I couldn’t believe what I was about to say. “Could you…hypnotize me into sleeping?”
“It’s called glamouring, love, and no, I won’t.”
“But I need to sleep.”
“I promised you I would never glamour you, and I won’t.”
“But if I’m asking—”
He shook his head vehemently. “That doesn’t matter. If we’re going to have a relationship, if I have any hope of getting you to accept everything about me, I can’t use what little power I have over you. I like you to obey me in the bedroom—I almost need it—but that’s only in the bedroom. I’m not looking for a subservient partner. I want us to be equals in this relationship. If I glamour you, I destroy that possibility.”
I loved him all the more, though part of me was so desperate for slumber that I almost argued the point.
“All right. Then stay. Please. Rub my back. Hold me. Do whatever it takes. I need to sleep.”
But then his phone buzzed in his jeans on the floor.
Chapter Thirteen
Dante
“Sounds like you got another text,” Erin said.
I sighed. Damn! I liked it better when I wasn’t at everyone’s beck and call. This cell phone bullshit had gone too far.
The text was from River.
Another woman went missing from University.
I silently thanked the universe that Erin hadn’t been at work. I couldn’t keep this from her. She’d find out when she went in tonight anyway.
“River says another woman is missing from your hospital.”
She sat up in bed.
“Sorry to have to tell you, but you’d find out tonight anyway.” A knife of fear jabbed me. “I’m not sure you’re safe at work anymore, Erin.”
“I’m fine. These are patients, not nurses. And they need me. I have a job to do.”
“But if anything happened to you…” I couldn’t let myself finish the thought. Couldn’t go there.
“Nothing will happen to me. You promised. Remember? Besides, the last woman that disappeared was returned unharmed.”
“That doesn’t make any of this okay!”
“Of course it doesn’t. But I have to work, Dante. It’s how I pay my bills. I can’t go broke.” She paused a moment, massaging her chin. “What was the woman’s blood type?”
“I don’t know. Why does that matter?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. Just something that’s niggling at me.”
“What?”
“The first woman who disappeared, Cynthia North, was B positive. And we’ve had a shortage of B positive at the hospital for a while now. It seems like we’re always out. That’s why I was at Tulane that morning, to ask for some B pos to be sent over. I’ll check her records when I go in tonight. If she’s B positive, and the woman who went missing from the free clinic is B positive, then I might look into it more. In fact…” She rubbed her chin some more.
“In fact what?”
“I can’t get access to the free clinic’s records, but I bet Jay and River can get them. I’ve been meaning to ask Jay about that, but somehow I always find myself otherwise occupied.”
“I can’t say I’m sorry if you’ve been otherwise occupied with me. Do you want me to text River back and ask about the blood type?”
“Yeah. If you don’t mind. Though he probably doesn’t know yet. I doubt he and Jay are overly concerned about blood types. It’s just odd that the first patient had the same blood type that we keep running out of.” She sighed. “One of the ER docs commissioned me to do some research on blood types in women with certain characteristics. But she didn’t say anything about B positive blood, so it’s most likely not related.”
“Probably not. Can’t the doctors do their own research?”
“Doctors are more overworked than nurses are, believe it or not. Besides, she’s paying me fifty bucks an hour, so I jumped at the offer.”
“Oh.” Research couldn’t harm Erin. Could it? “Where will you be doing this research?”
“Here. At home on my computer. She gave me access to all the sites I’ll need.”
“Okay. Good.”
“In fact, I should get on it. She asked me a while ago and I haven’t started yet.” She yawned. “But not now. Now, I need sleep.”
“You do. I’ll stay. Do you want to put something on?”
She stretched her arms above her head. “No. I’m comfy in my birthday suit. I’m just going to get under the covers.”
She snuggled into bed, and I put on my boxer briefs and got ready to text River back.
Then something occurred to me.
Something disturbing.
Though most vampires didn’t feed on humans, I’d learned long ago that a select few could distinguish blood types by their flavors. Vampires actually had the same blood types as humans, though I didn’t know what mine was. I’d never been typed, and then I’d been held captive for so long and hadn’t given a thought to anything except escaping. I’d call Jack and find out. He’d taken my blood for the labs. It had probably been typed.
Since I had so little experience, I couldn’t differentiate blood types by taste. Erin was the first human blood I’d ever tasted, and I didn’t know what type she was.
Except that I did know.
A chill swept the back of my neck. I was certain, as if the knowledge had been planted into me telepathically.
She was B positive.
And so was I.
Chapter Fourteen
Erin
I slept soundly with Dante beside me. He was still beside me when I woke up at nine thirty p.m.
“Did you stay here the whole time?”
“Of course. I’d never leave you alone when you asked me to stay.”
I smiled as warmth surrounded me. He was a wonderful man. If only I didn’t have to deal with that one little thing…
Not going to think about that now. I had to go to work.
“Did you find out from River about the woman’s blood type?”
“I texted him. He didn’t know. Wanted to know why I was asking, though. I wasn’t sure what to tell him. I just said you were asking and I didn’t know why, which I guess is the truth.”
“Yeah, pretty much. I’m not sure why. I just have a feeling that it’s all connected somehow. Cynthia North’s blood type, and the fact that we always seem to be running low on the same type at the hospital.”
Dante didn’t answer, though one of his eyebrows was raised slightly, making him look pensive. I waited for him to speak, but he didn’t.
“I guess I’ll get ready for work.”
“Are you hungry?” he asked.
“Yeah, actually, though I didn’t realize it until now. I’ll get something on the way in.”
“I can make you something.”
“Oh? You can cook?”
“Well…no,” he said sheepishly.
“Then don’t worry about it. You don’t need another mishap with a bread knife.” I laughed. I grabbed his arm and looked at it. “All healed up. Wow, you’re a fast healer.”
“Another thing vampires do very well.”
The V word again. I shrugged it off—or tried to—and went into the bathroom to shower.
When I got to the ER, Lucy was already there. So were Jay and River, who were questioning staff about the newest missing patient.
“Her name is Sybil Downey,” Lucy told me. “Young. Only nineteen. I was here when she came in with stomach pains. She was supposed to have an emergency appendectomy but she disappeared before she got to surgery. If it had ruptured, she couldn’t possibly have survived.”
“I don’t know. Cynthia North survived, and she was bleeding to death.”
“True. We can always hope.”
“Just out of curiosity, was Dr. Bonneville on last night?”
“No. It was Dr. Anderson and all the residents.”
Dr. Bonneville hadn’t been working the night Cynthia North disapp
eared.
Probably had nothing to do with anything. I needed to stop worrying about Dr. Bonneville and concentrate on work. Still, something about her bothered me ever since I’d met Mrs. Moore and then hadn’t been able to find either Dr. Bonneville or her lookalike anywhere online. But I was being ridiculous. If Dr. Bonneville wasn’t on duty, she couldn’t have had anything to do with this new disappearance. It was more likely someone who was on duty. I knew all these people, though, including Dr. Bonneville. I couldn’t imagine any of them having anything to do with something so heinous.
“Feeling better, I assume?” Lucy asked.
“What? Oh, yeah. I think I must have had food poisoning or something. Whatever it was seems to be out of my system.” I logged in to the computer to get a blood type on Sybil Downey.
But wailing sirens stopped me.
“We’re on,” Lucy said.
Sybil’s blood type would have to wait.
A heart attack, a car accident, and a shooting later—no fatalities, thank God—Lucy and I were sharing a cinnamon roll in the break room. Steve came in to join us.
“Update on Sybil Downey,” he said. “Her mother said she had her appendix out when she was a little girl. About six or so. We’re getting the records.”
“That’s not a huge deal,” Lucy said. “Just a simple misdiagnosis. They would have discovered whatever was causing her distress when they got her open.”
“But they never did,” I said.
“I know. Weirdest thing. I was on last night. So were you, Luce. How could she have gotten by all of us? The docs, the nurses, the security guards. It doesn’t make any sense at all.”
“I know,” Lucy agreed.
I thought for a moment. “It’s almost as if…” I stood.
“It’s almost as if…what?” Steve asked.
I ignored him and raced down to the locker room to retrieve my cell phone.
It’s almost as if someone erased time.
Unhinged: Blood Bond: Parts 4, 5 & 6 (Volume 2) Page 5