Chapter 7

“I thought you didn’t want to be impulsive,” he noted.

“You changed my mind,” she said right before she stood up on her tippy toes and touched her mouth to his. He saw it coming so he lowered his head and caught her in a steamy, intense kiss. Both of his hands came up to cup her head and face, holding her to him. He didn’t want her escaping too soon. He was willing to sacrifice the feel of her body if it meant he could keep tasting her mouth.

He needn’t have worried. She plastered her body to his, letting her hands fall to his broad shoulders, clinging to him for all she was worth. Heat flew fiercely through him, arousal blooming everywhere at once. He liked this aggressive version of her. But what he found he liked even more was that he no longer had to hide a part of himself from her. It was liberating to feel her come to him knowing all of his secrets, both dirty and not so dirty.

Well…most of them anyway. The major ones. Halo liked being a mystery. However, he liked kissing her like this even more.

He shouldn’t be doing this. He shouldn’t be indulging in her where Roth could see. Hell, it burned him just knowing the phant was able to see her naked and vulnerable. The bastard. Halo couldn’t care less about himself, but Felice…

He should push her away from him. He shouldn’t take advantage of her emotions. He shouldn’t expose her to scrutiny.

However, pulling away from the delicious warmth of her mouth proved to be an impossible task. He fed from her as voraciously as he would if he was taking her energy into himself. He grew harder thinking about taking her energy. The act was like a form of ecstasy for both the giver and the receiver. Making love while doing so was an act of pleasure beyond the surreal. It was exposing and addictive. It was something he never did, never wanted to do because of how raw it could leave one feeling.

Yet suddenly he felt like doing it. Poisoned to him or not, he wondered what it would feel like to have this lush little body surrounding him as he fed from her and came inside of her all at once.

He broke from her mouth with a gasp for breath. She was pressing both of her small beautiful hands to his chest as she licked her lips seductively. He was shocked to find himself shaking with an overriding hunger for her. He wrapped a trembling hand around her waist and jerked her forward against him, rubbing his hips against her with blatant arousal, seeing if he could shock her into pulling away from him. It didn’t work. She made a sound like a purr deep in her throat and bent her head to kiss his left pectoral muscle. Then she stuck out her tongue and licked him across his nipple.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into you,” he said with a rasp in his voice. “Most people find out someone’s a vampire and they run in the other direction.”

She kissed him on his chest again.

“I’m not most people. And I’ve been thinking about what you said…about how this could be the last thing I do in life.”

“You shouldn’t listen to me. I’m just trying to get in your pants.”

“If you hadn’t noticed, it’s working.”

“I know. That’s the problem,” he said with a sigh.

She looked up at him and frowned. “Why is it a problem?”

“What happened to your impulse policy?”

“Why? Don’t you want me? Is it all a bluff? All this talk of fucking and desires…is it all an act?”

“Not an act. Just…you’re not my type.”

She looked immediately hurt and tried to step away, but he caught her arms and held her in place tightly.

“What I mean is…usually I go for cheap, fast, and easy. You are none of those things. You’re worth a lot more than cheap, fast, and easy. I don’t deserve someone like you.”

“Why would you say that? Why wouldn’t you deserve someone nice and warm and giving?”

He smiled a little. It was right on the money. She was all of those things and more.

“Because I’m crude and rude and careless. I don’t know how to treat nice things—or hadn’t you noticed? I’m an ass and an ape. You’ve said so yourself.”

“You know what I think,” she said, her fingers drawing patterns on his chest, stimulating the hairs there. “I think you act like that because you’re afraid of getting too close to someone.”

“You’d be right about that,” he admitted readily. “Closeness kills. Attachments are weaknesses in my line of work. Look at us now. You’ve already become a liability for me. They know they can use you against me, force me to do what they want. Or at least try to anyway.”

“Don’t let them. Don’t let them use me to weaken you. I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you because of me.”

“That’s just it. You’re officially cannon fodder. They’ve put you in a position where I must feed from you or fall into torpor. I will grow desperate for energy. I will be tempted to use you no matter what. I don’t want you to be a part of that. I don’t want you to see it. Worse, if I do feed from you, I don’t want you to see me change into a sycophant.”

“What do they look like?”

“Oh, they’re mostly the same on the outside. Usually thinner and paler, rather like how a human junkie looks. Bad skin, open sores in some cases. But that’s over time. You won’t see a physical difference in me in the beginning. But there will be a mental one, a change in my fundamental makeup and personality. If you think I’m bad now…I’d hate to be around a sycophantic version of me.”

She trembled a little between his hands and he instinctively began to stroke her back in comfort—and also to enjoy her warmth and closeness, he had to admit to himself. Her body heat was addictive, as was her smooth, soft skin. But he was trying to make her wary of him. Trying to put some distance between them, which wasn’t an easy thing to do with her lush body pressed up to all corners of his.

“I’m not afraid of you,” she whispered against the skin of his broad chest.

“You ought to be,” he countered with a frown.

“It won’t work. You won’t push me away so you can stop trying.”

“Damn it, woman! Show a little sense!” he barked. Yet even though he snapped at her, his arms remained locked tightly around her. He couldn’t seem to make himself let her go.

“And you show some vulnerability without being afraid of it!” she shot back. “I get it. You’re the big, tough vampire dude. You’re dangerous and a badass.”

“No, you don’t get it! If you did you wouldn’t let me anywhere near you, never mind this close to you!” This time he grasped her by her upper arms and forced himself to put a foot of distance between their bodies. In a surprisingly agile and slippery move, she broke his hold on her and closed the distance between them once more.

“Stop it! Stop pushing me away!” She reached up and gripped him by the back of his neck, squeezing. She couldn’t have known it, but the back of the neck where the skull met the spine was a very vulnerable spot for his breed. Insert a blade there and cut the connection between brain and body and the vampire dropped dead in an instant. Batter and beat on that spot and a vampire might do anything to make it stop. That was how sensitive to pain it was.

Touch it sensually and it drove a vampire wild. This touch, the feel of her fingers gripping him, was bordering on the latter. There was nothing particularly sexual about the touch…except that it was coming from her, and they were naked, and she was proving to be a turn-on he couldn’t resist.

“Don’t touch me like that,” he said huskily as he reached up to pry off her grip.

“Like what? Why not?”

He remained stubbornly silent, but there was no stopping her clever deductive mind.

“Does it turn you on when I do this?” She reached up and raked her fingers through the hair at the back of his neck. He grew his hair long and kept it braided in a conscious effort to protect the back of his neck from purposeful and accidental contact, but he also knew that women loved long hair and couldn’t resist running their fingers through it. Being hedonistic, it only seemed right he would grow his hair specifically for that reason. However, the spot seemed extraordinarily sensitive at the moment. His blood was high and hot. When she raked her fingernails through his hair, loosening his braid, it was like striking a match to tinder.

He forgot about where he was and who was watching. He forgot everything in a storm of desire. He yanked her into full body contact and crushed her mouth with his. He kissed her with a fierceness bordering on violence, his tongue raiding her delicate, sweet-tasting mouth. She met him kiss for kiss, flick of the tongue for flick of the tongue. She was hot and fiery and tasted so delicious it was like dining on a sweet dessert dusted in pure gold leaf. She was rich, decadent, wonderful…all of the things he loved to indulge in. All the while he kissed her, he felt her fingernails scraping in small circles on the back of his neck, both stimulating him and holding him to her. As if he would go anywhere else at that moment.

His hands were busy, rubbing her back at first, pressing her into him so as to make sure she was fitted to him perfectly—which she was. Surprisingly so considering their height difference. He could feel every inch of her skin like this, from the lush weight of her breasts to the bareness of her mound. He felt the way one leg was curled high around his, her weight insignificant as he supported most of it practically off the floor. Only the barest tips of her toes on the other leg were brushing the floor.

She was so sumptuous and round, her extra weight so pleasing to him. He loved dragging his hands over all those pronounced curves. He had already been hard, but the whole of the situation and the feel of her body made him harder still. So much so his cock ached. His nuts felt heavy and ready—ready to inject himself into her and fill her with his essence.

He gripped her thigh, craving the feel of her heat, wanting to know if she was wet for him…because of him. He pulled her completely off her feet, urging her legs around his hips, until he could feel the hot dampness of her delicate flesh slipping against the length of his heavily engorged cock. As blinding as the pleasure of that intimate caress and connection was, he waited anxiously to see if it would shock her out of her daze of pleasure. The next step to intimacy was for him to get inside her, and that was merely a thrust away. Here was when she would back off…wasn’t it? When she would leave him feeling bereft and unfulfilled and aching for her loss.

She didn’t recoil in any way. She didn’t back off or gasp in shock. Instead she moaned and rubbed herself against him almost frantically, using his cock to stimulate her clit as she ground it against him. It was such an incredible turn-on. He specifically chose women who knew what they wanted and weren’t afraid to take it, but those had been cases of using each other for personal gratification without any personal connection. This felt different from that. It felt somehow more intimate. And because of that it felt all the hotter.

And because of that it felt all the more revealing. He found himself glancing up at the cameras. Damn, but it was tempting to just say the hell with it and indulge in her but for some reason he didn’t want to expose her like that. Not to that prick who was watching them. What he had seen so far was bad enough.

“Easy,” he whispered against her lips, stroking her hair back from her face. He calmed their kisses. “Easy,” he repeated.

She pulled away from his mouth, looking up at him with confusion shining in her eyes. And no wonder. He had been making moves on her since the moment he’d gotten there. To refuse her now made no sense. He saw the very moment she assumed that she must be the problem. He chased the thought away by kissing her passionately one last time. “When I have you,” he murmured as he placed gentle kisses along her jaw and around the shell of her ear, “it’s going to be just between you and me. Not the whole goddamn world.”

Her eyes went wide, as if she were suddenly remembering where they were and the scrutiny they were under. He realized that was exactly what had happened. She’d been so overwhelmed by her need that she had shut everything else out. Damn, that was hot. A woman who could laser-focus her attention on sex and lust to the exclusion of all else? He’d take that any day of the week.

She blushed fiercely, tipping her chin down and hiding her face from his unsuccessfully. He ducked down his head and nipped at her rosy cheek.

“You’re not going to forget me the minute we get out of this mess, are you?” he asked her.

She looked up at him in surprise. She examined him with narrowed eyes for a minute, perhaps to see if he was making fun of her. His expression made it clear that he was quite serious. It made her smile a little and shake her head.

“No. I doubt I could do that. You’re really quite memorable.”

He kissed her forehead and chuckled. “Well, that’s good to know. Now, let’s focus our energy and attention on getting out of here.”

“But they can hear everything we say,” she whispered.

“Not if we whisper,” he whispered back. “They would have to have extraordinary microphones in this place to be able to pick up a whisper. Especially if we are right next to each other’s ears.”

She leaned forward a little and touched her lips to his ear. “Do you have a plan?”

“Not yet,” he replied, trying not to shiver as her warm breath cascaded over his ear and neck and her lips brushed his lobe. “It’s a work in progress. It’ll all depend on if I can get them to come in here without knocking me out.”

The conversation was helping to calm him. Refocus him. It settled his body, but her nearness was still so stimulating. He stepped back from her a little, holding her steady by her arms as he did so in case she was a bit wobbly.

“Tell me…does this…when we…does it burn energy? Energy you need to survive?”

“Yes,” he answered with blunt honesty. “But just like you so does breathing and moving and everything we do…just a little bit more so for me. I burn energy at a higher rate than you do. But at the same time my metabolism is slower than yours. You need to eat every day, at the worst every three days. I feed every seven days and I can stretch it out a little beyond that if I keep really quiet.”

“When was the last time you…ate? Do you really call it feeding? That evokes images…It’s a little disturbing.”

“I last fed about five or six days ago. I can’t really tell you because I don’t know how long we were out. We call it feeding, not eating, because ‘eating’ means consuming food…which we also do, as you’ve seen.”

“Surely you derive energy from that.”

“If we do it’s almost insignificant. But we do get energy from the sun, which is probably why the bastard has the window so high and so narrow—to keep me out of direct sunlight.”

“When you feed, what does it entail exactly?”

“Do you really want to know this?” he asked. He wasn’t used to revealing things about the vampire nation and their practices. In fact, it was safe to say he had never revealed things about his species to a human before.

“Why? You don’t want to tell me? Is it horrid?”

He chuckled. “No, it’s not horrid. And I only resist telling you because we’re not allowed to reveal anything about ourselves. But I suppose Roth has already done that. It wasn’t my fault all this got started. Besides, when we get out of here…” He broke off and she raised a brow.

“When we get out of here what?”

“I am going to erase this whole sordid business from your memory.”

“What! You can do that? No. No way! I won’t let you.”

“I don’t have a choice! It’s against the law for you to know about us. It’s our most important law. Our first law. The repercussions of allowing you to keep your memory about us are harsh.”

“How harsh?” she asked suspiciously.

“Death. It could mean a death sentence.”

“Oh my god! That’s…that’s barbaric!” She surged away from him, stumbling as she staggered across the room.

“Surely you can see why we have to protect ourselves. Imagine what it would be like if humans knew we existed. Imagine what the reaction would be. Look at your own reaction. Remember how horrified you were? Think of how prejudiced people are. Think of the frenzy of fear and hatred that would ensue.”

She covered her mouth with a hand and shook her head. He could see the tears in her eyes. He could see the understanding dawning on her. The understanding that he was right.

“I won’t tell anyone,” she murmured behind her hand. Then she dropped it away. “What if I promise not to tell anyone?”

“Very few humans know about us. The temptation to tell is just too great. The committee very rarely allows humans to know about us and the approval process is difficult.”

“But they do allow some humans to know. They do trust some humans with the secret.”

“Only when we have something to gain from them knowing. You’re an obscure antiques dealer with nothing to offer us.”

“Thanks for that,” she said dryly.

“I have to tell you the truth so you understand.”

“So I understand your justifications for wiping my memory you mean. No. No! I don’t want to forget about all of this! I don’t want to forget the danger I’m in.”

“You won’t be in danger once I’m done with Roth.”

“You don’t know that. You don’t even know why I was taken.”

He had no argument for that. “I’m going to find out,” he promised. “I’m going to remove the threat from your life.”

“How? How are you going to do that?”

“I’ll figure it out. You have to trust me.”