Fifteen
Jude’s deep voice startled me. I turned to see him standing behind me with an unreadable expression on his face. I wasn’t sure how long he’d been there—he might have heard the entire conversation as far as I could tell. Apparently while Rosie and I had been talking, the sun had set, releasing him from wherever he spent his daylight hours. Sure enough, when I looked out the kitchen window I saw the backyard was painted in the dusky purple tones of twilight.
Rosie got up from the table, taking my mostly empty soup bowl with her to the sink. “I think I need to be getting on home now.”
“Thanks, Rosie,” I said. “For everything.”
She waved a hand at me. “Anytime, Miss Luz. You two just need to sit down and work this out now.” She pointed sternly to the kitchen table, indicating Jude should sit beside me. Then she took a cracked leather pocketbook out of one of the bottom cupboards and left. As she walked down the hall I could hear her muttering to herself. “These young folks, I swear—think everything is the end of the world when all they need to do is just talk to each other.”
“Well,” I said, looking up at Jude. “Maybe we ‘young folks’ do need to talk.”
He smiled as he took the seat beside me. “Actually, I am considerably older than Rosie is but I think she likes playing the mother hen.”
“I sort of got that,” I said dryly. “But it’s nice—she’s nice. A happy person to be around. Unlike some other people I could name.” I pointed to myself and frowned. “Why didn’t you tell me you only fed on positive emotions?”
“Because I don’t,” he said mildly. “Any kind of emotion will nourish me—the incubus part of me, I mean. But Rosie is right, I much prefer positive to negative emotions. And it does drain me to commit acts that directly cause negative emotions like pain or fear or horror.”
“Yes, but you do it anyway,” I said, remembering the gore-fest from the night before.
“Only when necessary and never because I enjoy it.” His eyes flashed. “Although I must say I took great pleasure in eviscerating the men who were about to hurt you last night. I only wish I could have killed Engle myself.”
“I wouldn’t mind bringing him back so I could kill him again, myself,” I said with a grim smile. “And normally I would say that the other males didn’t deserve to die because they were only following his lead. But in this case, they were all…I mean, Engle had told them that after he was done with me…” I couldn’t go on.
Jude reached out to cup my cheek and brushed away a tear with his thumb. “Let it out, Luz. I imagine it will be a long while before you’re able to get over the events of last night.”
“See?” I said sniffling. “You say you want to be with me but what about this?”
“What about what, beloved?” he said gently.
“This.” I pointed at myself again, at my tears. “I’m a mess, Jude. I’m full of angst and anger and unhappiness—it must be like tasting castor oil every minute you’re around me.”
“It’s not like that at all,” he assured me. “I promise you it is not, Luz.”
I wiped my eyes. “But I’ll never be a happy all the time, glass-is-half-full kind of person. Don’t you want to be with someone like that? Someone like Rosie?”
“I have someone like Rosie in my life—Rosie.” He smiled. “All I want now—all I lack—is you.”
“But I still don’t see why you would even want me near you.”
“Luz,” he said quietly. “Do you think that sorrow and joy are the only kinds of emotions I subsist on? Think back to your mythology—what are incubi said to feed on the most?”
“Nightmares and fear,” I said. “Or…humans believe they, uh, you, I mean, feed on…on sex?” I looked at him uncertainly and he nodded.
“The moment I touched you, that very first time I shook your hand at your old work, I knew,” he said. “I felt all your anger and sorrow and fear but I also felt a tremendous buildup of sexual frustration. You had been given so little pleasure in your life, so little tenderness. I knew right then that I wanted to be your first, that I wanted to taste your desire and longing and release and know I was the only man who ever had.”
I blushed at what he was revealing. “So all that stuff you said about the flavor of my blood being different, more powerful…”
“It wasn’t your blood I was talking about.” Jude lifted my hand and brushed my knuckles gently with his lips. He was looking into my eyes as he spoke and I felt a chill of pleasurable tension go down my spine. “Admit it, Luz,” he murmured. “No one had ever made you come before I did—you had never had pleasure except by your own hand.”
“That’s true,” I said, wishing my voice didn’t sound so breathy.
“Do you have any idea how exquisite you taste when you come?” Jude leaned forward, his eyes never leaving mine. “You flood me with your pleasure, your overwhelming release. I could spend hours between your thighs, licking you, sucking you, fucking you…”
My breath caught in my throat. “Jude!”
He shrugged, his broad shoulders rolling under the plain dark green T-shirt he was wearing. “I promised to tell you the whole and unblemished truth and there it is. I love your taste—the taste of your blood, the taste of your sex, the taste of your pleasure. Your flavor is unequaled anywhere.”
“That’s nice to know,” I said, pulling my hand out of his and sitting back to avoid the temptation to grab him. “But…is that all I am to you? Just a snack bar?”
“Oh, Luz…” He sighed and shook his head. “Beloved, how can I convey this to you? You are so much more—the other half I’ve been searching for these many years. I knew when I had found you because we had so much in common.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “What? Like you being a vamp and me being a were?”
“Both of us are outcasts from our people,” Jude said quietly. “Both estranged from our families.”
I frowned. “I thought you said your parents had passed away.”
“They did, but I neglected to give you the details.” He sighed. “When I was a child my parents suspected that something was wrong with me but they didn’t know what. Then I reached my between years—what humans and weres call adolescence— and my eyes began to glow red when I was angry or feeling other intense emotions. Of course they knew what I was then.”
“An incubus,” I said softly.
Jude nodded. “I cannot tell you the level of hatred and fear that is among my people for one such as me. We are stronger and faster than a normal vampire and they think us able to manipulate their minds as easily as a regular vampire manipulates a human’s mind.”
“Can you?” I asked, truly interested.
Jude shrugged. “Yes, if I wish, though most often I do not. But the others know I can and despise me for it. It isn’t easy to be so hated by your own people.”
“Tell me about it,” I said with a heartfelt sigh. “Or to be betrayed by them.”
“I know something about that,” Jude said quietly. “Once they found out what I was, my parents attempted to have me jailed in a facility that would have kept me drugged and chained with silver for as long as I lived.”
“That’s terrible.” I put a hand to my mouth. “But…there are drugs that work on vampires?”
“Certain poisons and toxins—horribly lethal to humans but they act as sedatives on us.” He ran a hand through his hair. “At any rate, I decided that I did not want to be drugged and chained for the rest of my life. I broke out of the facility, killing the director of it on my way out. I was full of rage and he was in the way.” Jude shrugged. “I regret it now but I was young and very angry. It was a great shame to my parents when the news got out—they had been trying to hide my condition from their friends and acquaintances. And of course, they had to pay a great deal in reparations to the victim’s family.”
“My folks never wanted anyone to know they had a non-shifter in the family either,” I said, sympathizing with him.
“Yes, but my parents were so shamed that they decided there was no help for us—our family name had been irrevocably stained. And so they…they…” For a moment Jude’s throat worked and I realized that whatever he was about to reveal had hurt him deeply.
“Yes?” I said softly.
“They went to greet the sun,” he said at last in a choked voice.
“But…doesn’t the sun…?”
“Kill vampires? Yes. They were burnt to ashes, both of them.” He sighed. “After that I was very angry for a long time. I took over the reins of my father’s business and I drove it with a cruel hand.” He laughed bitterly. “Ironically, those years of ruthlessness are what established my reputation. I suppose I decided that if my own people wanted to fear me, I would give them a good reason to do just that. And so I did.”
“What happened?” I asked softly. “How…how did you get over it?”
“One never completely gets over something like that,” Jude said. “But you can learn to live with it. That is how I knew you needed to talk about your past—only by sharing with another can the burden of your pain be made lighter.”
“So you weren’t just getting me to talk about it so you could, uh, taste the pain it caused when I told you what had happened to me?” I said.
“I think we have already established that I prefer the flavor of your other emotions much more,” Jude said softly and took my hands again. He frowned. “Luz, you are wounded.”
“What do you mean?” I looked down and saw that he was looking at my wrists. Rosie’s potato soup had restored me a great deal and my natural healing powers were coming back but the marks of the silver manacles were still clearly visible and always would be—Engle hadn’t just been looking to restrain me, he’d been trying to brand me when he used silver to chain me down. The wrist I’d bitten to feed Jude was still raw too but I was hoping it would be better in a day or two. If I kept getting enough rest and food, it would be.
Jude appeared to have other things in mind, though. “Let me heal you,” he murmured, nodding at my wounded wrists.
“With…with your blood?” I asked uncertainly.
He shook his head. “I know you aren’t ready for that and you may never be. I cannot tell you how much I regret keeping the truth about our growing bond from you—I fear you’ll never trust me again.”
“Trust has to be earned,” I said, looking into his eyes. “But I think…at the very least I can give you a chance to earn it.”
“That’s very good.” He lifted my right hand to his mouth and lapped gently at the sensitive underside of my wrist, making me shiver. His tongue was warm and wet and the slow, careful way he licked me reminded me inevitably of the way he had licked other parts of my anatomy. Sensitive parts that were currently throbbing with need.
“You’re always so gentle,” I whispered as he continued to circle my wrist with his tongue, being sure to get everywhere the silver manacle had burned me.
“You have had enough brutality in your life already. How else would I be?” he murmured, turning his attention to my other wrist—the one I had shredded to feed him. He shook his head at how mangled it was. “Your teeth are sharp enough but you need to learn how to bite through flesh effectively.”
I started to laugh but the sound caught in my throat and turned into a sigh when he began that slow, steady licking again. “It’s not a skill I expect to have to use often. You’re pretty much the only person I’ve bitten since I was a kid fighting with my sister.”
“Good. I could not bear to think of you biting anyone else but me.” He licked me again, being especially tender around the ragged area. I could feel my skin tingling and knew that he was healing me.
“Do-do you like being bitten as much as you like biting?” I asked breathlessly, remembering that I had wondered about that earlier.
“That depends on who is doing the biting.” His sensual lips curved up in that lazy smile that made everything below my waist feel tight and achy. “I very much enjoy it when you bite me, especially on the neck.”
“Why the neck?” I asked as he resumed licking.
“It is a mark of possession and ownership, biting in a place where anyone may see it.”
“But vamps heal so fast,” I pointed out. “Even faster than weres. It’s not like it leaves a mark.”
“It would if we were bonded,” he said quietly. “My body chemistry would alter itself to yours, somewhat in the way yours did to mine when you gave me your virginity. Just as other shifters were able to smell my scent on you, other vampires would be able to see the marks of your teeth on me.”
“So they would know that you were what—off the market?” I asked, smiling.
“In a manner of speaking. Of course, I would display your marks with pride.” He gave my wounded wrist, which was now almost completely healed, a last, lingering kiss. “There, all better.”
“Thank you.” I looked down at my hands. I hadn’t liked the idea of always wearing Engle’s marks of attempted ownership on my body and I was grateful that Jude had so effectively erased them.
“You have one more wound,” he murmured.
“Where?” I looked up at him.
“Here.” He cupped my cheek and brushed my split lower lip with his thumb.
“Oh. I almost forgot about that. It’s where Engle hit me last night.” I shook my head. Already the entire nightmarish incident was beginning to seem like it had happened in another lifetime or to someone else. I was glad for the emotional distance but I wondered if I would pay for it later in flashbacks or panic attacks.
Jude’s eyes glowed red. “Again, I wish I had been the one to kill him. I would have liked to take my time with him.”
I pictured him skinning Engle alive as he had the Clear Water pack master and shivered. Some things didn’t bear thinking about. Though he was extremely gentle with me, there was a definite dark side to Jude. If that was the only part of him he ever showed to the other vamps, it was no wonder they feared him.
“I’m all right, now,” I said.
“You could be better. If you’d let me heal you.” His eyes were glowing for a different reason now. Somehow I knew that if I took this step, that if I let him “heal” my lower lip, there would be no going back. I could talk to myself all I wanted about Jude’s dark side but the fact was that it felt too good when he touched me, when he tasted me. Too good to stop.
“Yes,” I murmured, leaning toward him. “Please.”
Jude smiled and leaned forward to suck my bottom lip gently into his mouth. In the long, breathless kiss that followed my nipples hardened under the silky red blouse and my pussy began to get wet and hot. It had been a week and a half since we’d made love but my entire body ached for his. And since Jude was touching me, I knew that he knew it.
“I ache for you too, beloved,” he murmured, kissing his way from my mouth to the sensitive spot beneath my ear. “Will you allow me to taste you again?”
I knew he wasn’t talking about my mouth and desire flared along my nerve endings. “I don’t know,” I said, trying to think clearly while he was nibbling my neck. “Maybe…maybe we should take things slow.”
“You promised you would allow me to earn back your trust,” he pointed out, breathing the words in my ear. “There can be no position more trusting than opening yourself for me and allowing me to taste your pussy.”
“God,” I moaned as he began unbuttoning my blouse. “I don’t know, Jude. It just seems like…like if we’re not careful we’ll—”
“Fall back in love?” He was on his knees now on the kitchen floor in front of me. “Luz, I never stopped loving you. Never stopped wanting you.”
“I never stopped for you either,” I admitted with a sigh as he spread the blouse apart, baring my breasts. “Even when I thought…when I had the wrong idea about you.”
“I am happy to correct your misconceptions.” He kissed the skin between my breasts and then nuzzled his face against me. “You’re so soft here. I love the scent of your skin.”
I moaned again as he sucked one of my nipples into his mouth and teased the other one by pinching it lightly. God, when he did that it felt like I had a direct circuit connecting my breasts and my sex. It made me incredibly wet to look down and see my nipple disappearing into his mouth. I buried my fingers in his thick blond hair and pressed my breasts up and out, offering myself to him.
“Yes,” he whispered, releasing one nipple and nuzzling the other. “I like when you think like that, Luz. I like the idea of you offering yourself to me.”
Knowing that he could read my mind while we touched so intimately was a surprising turn-on. It certainly answered any questions I might have had about why he was such an excellent lover. He could tell immediately what was working for me and what wasn’t.
“Attention to detail is important too,” Jude murmured, releasing my other nipple. “And a great deal of patience.”
I shook my head. “Don’t you ever get tired of taking it slow with me? Don’t you ever want to just fuck—hard and fast?”
Jude’s eyes gleamed. “We may get to that eventually but why would I want to rush when your pleasure is also mine? I love to take my time, pushing you higher and higher until I feel you lose control.” He pulled back and put his hands on my hips, urging me to stand. Then he turned me to face the kitchen table and reached around to unbutton my skirt.
I looked over my shoulder. “What…what are you doing?”
“What do you think?” He gave me a slow smile, his eyes hooded with lust as he helped me step out of the skirt and pulled down the plain cotton panties I’d been wearing. “Do you trust me, Luz?”
“Yes,” I whispered, biting my bottom lip. “I mean, I think so.”
“Good. Then lean over the table and spread your legs.”
I did as he asked, my heart thundering in my ears. Jude stayed where he was on the floor behind me, his big, warm hands stroking over my ass and thighs in a slow, soothing caress. I had never imagined it this way but the feeling of him behind me, of his hands on my skin and his breath warm against my legs, was strangely erotic.
“Is this all right?” he murmured, kissing my inner thigh. “Your thoughts are chaotic. Do you mind being taken from behind?”
“I-I don’t think so,” I whispered as he kissed me again.
“Good,” he said again. “Then I need you to trust me even more. Spread your legs wider and arch your back so I can reach you.”
I did as he said, biting my lower lip as I felt his mouth higher on my thighs. I hadn’t had a wax in a while and his warm breath stirred the sensitive curls that decorated my mound, making me shiver. I wondered if Jude liked me like this, more natural and less waxed within an inch of my life.
“Oh yes, I like it very much,” he answered my thought. “I think you’re more sensitive this way.” He stroked my curls lightly with his fingertips and I gasped at the ticklish sensation. “See?” he murmured. Then I felt his big hands on me, his thumbs gently spreading my pussy lips to bare my slippery inner folds.
It was different this time, maybe because of the unusual position. But after a few hot, open-mouthed kisses, Jude’s fingers took the place of his lips. He circled my clit with a single fingertip, using a slow, infinitely patient rhythm that had me gasping in no time. I wondered where his mouth had gone but I didn’t have to wait long to find out. I think I moaned his name as his tongue slipped inside me and then I was completely consumed by pleasure and couldn’t think straight anymore.
Jude fucked me with his tongue for what felt like an eternity. And all the while his fingers were slipping over my swollen folds, teasing my throbbing clit until I thought I would explode. Was he trying to drive me crazy?
“Yes,” I heard him murmur as he pulled away for a moment. “That is exactly what I am trying to do, Luz. I want to make you so hot you can’t help coming for me. Can you do that? Can you come while I eat your sweet pussy?”
“God,” I moaned, my hips moving uncontrollably. “Yes, just don’t stop!”
“I won’t stop until you come for me.” He went back to tongue-fucking me and his fingers began to move in a faster rhythm. I balled my hands into fists, wishing there was something to hold on to but the tabletop was slick wood with nothing to grab. All I could do was try to brace myself for the orgasm I could feel building like a storm cloud inside me.
At last it came, drenching me in pleasure like a warm rain. I cried out, my hips bucking fiercely and knew that Jude could feel me contracting around him as the waves of sensation swept over me.
He stayed with me for the duration, lapping and sucking, swallowing my honey eagerly and no doubt feeding from my pleasure as well. Surprisingly, the thought didn’t bother me in the least. Instead, I felt a warm kind of satisfaction knowing that the pleasure I felt was more than mine and that Jude was getting as much out of it as I was.
“As much and more,” he murmured, stroking my thighs and giving me one last, lingering kiss. “Thank you for trusting me again, Luz.”
“You’re welcome. Although it seems like I ought to be thanking you.” I turned around on shaky legs and almost fell. Quicker than thought, Jude caught me and settled into one of the high-backed kitchen chairs with me in his lap. Since I was straddling him, it reminded me of the time we’d spent together in my apartment. I wiggled against him, loving the feel of his hard shaft under the faded denim jeans he wore.
“Mmm.” Jude kissed my mouth, sharing my flavor with me and making me hot all over again. “If you keep that up, I might ask you to trust me in a whole different way.”
“What did you have in mind?” I knew we were getting in deeper and deeper but I couldn’t seem to care. All I knew was that I was on fire for him, that I couldn’t stop wanting him.
“I can’t stop wanting you either,” he murmured, looking into my eyes. “I want to be inside you, Luz. I want to feel you coming around my cock the way you just did around my tongue.”
I loved the way he told me exactly what he wanted and the way his eyes captured mine and wouldn’t let me go. “We shouldn’t,” I whispered, knowing that I wanted to anyway. “We have to be careful. The bond—”
“Won’t be formed unless you take some of my blood,” Jude assured me, kissing me again. “You don’t have to worry, Luz. It’s safe for me to come inside you.”
“God.” I bit my bottom lip again, feeling a surge of pure lust roll through me. I wanted him so badly! Too badly to say no.
“Then say yes, instead.” Jude rolled his hips, pressing the hard ridge of his shaft up against my bare pussy. “Let me in, Luz. Or would you prefer to have me chained to the bed again?”
“No,” I said in a shaky voice. “No, I think…I think this will be okay. As long as you’re not on top of me.”
“That’s all right,” Jude murmured as I reached down and began to work on the fastening to his jeans. “I prefer to have you on top anyway. I love to watch you ride me.”
He kicked off his jeans and I said, “Shirt too,” and helped him take it off. And then he lifted me by the hips and settled me carefully down on his cock.
I moaned softly as I felt him breach my entrance and slide slowly into me. We were having sex for only the second time but already my body seemed to know his and he entered me much more easily than during our previous encounter. Jude was still extremely careful though.
“Gently, beloved,” he murmured, watching my face as he entered me. “Slowly. Let me fill you up slowly.”
I threw back my head and moaned at the exquisite torture of him entering me, stretching me, inch by thick inch. “Jude,” I gasped as he finally filled me to the hilt. “God, you feel so good inside me.”
“I could say the same to you,” he murmured, looking into my eyes. “I love the way you caress me, the way you’re so tight and hot. And I especially love the way you get so wet for me.”
“I can’t help myself,” I said as he began a slow, grinding rhythm, pressing up and into me in short, deep thrusts. “The way you talk to me…the things you say.”
He smiled. “You like it when I talk dirty to you, Luz?”
“Yes,” I admitted, closing my eyes and gripping his shoulders. “God, yes, I do.”
“Open your eyes, beloved,” he said, stroking up into me. “Look at me while I fill you with my cock.”
I moaned softly and opened my eyes, meeting Jude’s hooded gaze. His own eyes were as red as coals, glowing with a soft light I was beginning to find very beautiful. His hands gripped my hips and he began to talk, telling me exactly what he liked to do to me and how good I felt wrapped around his shaft.
“I never want this to end,” he murmured, looking into my eyes as he filled me. “I could stay inside you for hours, taking you right to the edge and then pulling back at the last moment. I love to watch your beautiful face while I make love to you, love to see your expression when I fill you with my cum.”
“Everyone knew,” I whispered, gripping his shoulders. “That it was a vamp who had taken my virginity. They…I guess they could smell you on me.”
He growled approvingly. “That’s very, very good. I want to mark you with my scent. I don’t want anyone to doubt that you’re mine.”
“So now you own me?” I asked, gasping at a particularly deep thrust. It was surprising that I was able to keep up a conversation but the slow, steady rhythm Jude was using seemed meant to prolong our passion, not to drive it to the peak right away.
“If I do, then you own me as well,” he answered softly. “We belong to each other—belong together.”
“I like that idea,” I admitted breathlessly. “Oh! God, that feels so good. Harder!”
“Like this?” He gripped my hips and pulled me down as he began to speed up. And then he was getting even deeper into me although it hardly seemed possible. “Is this how you like it, Luz?” he growled. “You want me to fuck you hard, to fill you up?”
“Yes…God, yes.” His slight shift in posture had created a whole new delicious friction. I could feel him rubbing against my clit, pressing the sensitive little bud in just the right way. And suddenly the pleasure that had been building slowly but steadily came to a shattering peak. I gasped as the orgasm took me by surprise, slamming into me with the force of a runaway truck and making me moan and writhe against Jude shamelessly.
“That’s right,” he groaned, looking into my eyes. “Come for me. Come on my cock while I fill you up.”
I felt the warm, wet pulsating sensation deep inside me and knew that he had allowed my orgasm to trigger his own and he was filling me with his cum. It was a delicious sensation and it came with the feeling of being owned but not just owned—loved and cherished too. I knew that as long as I was with Jude, he would always put my pleasure and comfort first. That he would protect and care for me and accept me for who I was—broken or not, he loved me.
And I loved him.
“I love you too, Luz,” he murmured, looking into my eyes as our mutual pleasure ebbed. “I was half crazy with grief without you. Never leave me again.”
“I won’t,” I said, and bit him hard on the neck.
He gasped and bucked under me as my mouth filled with the delicious dulce de leche taste of his blood. I felt a tingling like I had when he had healed me but it was all over my body, everywhere at once. And then I heard him, but not with my ears. Love you so much, beloved. The feel of you, the taste of you, your cunt wrapped around my cock, your teeth in my throat. Yes, yes, yes. Forever…I want you forever.
I want to be with you forever too, I thought to him. And I knew I would be. The bond between us had been forged and it was something that could never be broken, something that would never fade or disappear. It was forever and that was exactly what I wanted with Jude.