The Secret Night Page 13

  “I didn’t see them. I felt them.” She raised her face and looked at him. “What kind of game are you playing with me? What’s going on?”

  “Nothing!”

  “You’re lying.” As she spoke, she climbed out of bed and marched toward the door.

  He should simply let her go, he told himself. Out of the bedroom. Out of the house. Out of his life.

  That would be the smart thing to do. But he had long since stopped being smart where Emma Birmingham was concerned. Now he well and truly understood why he’d allowed her to share his bed. He didn’t just want to keep an eye on her. He wanted to make love with her. He wanted everything he had denied himself for too many long, lonely years.

  His throat constricted. He couldn’t have everything. He’d already taken blood from her twice. He couldn’t do it again. Not so soon. But he could share with her what a mortal man might share….

  Before she reached the door, he shot past her, blocking the exit.

  She looked at him, blinking, obviously trying to figure out how he’d gotten there so fast.

  “You…were just in bed,” she said in a trembling voice.

  “Uh-huh. And I didn’t want to let you go.”

  As he folded her close, he heard himself utter a low sound that might have been a curse—or a plea. He didn’t know which. Then he lowered his head so that his mouth could come down on hers.

  Her lips were warm and soft yet somehow also challenging. The thought flashed through his mind that maybe she was asking for the honesty he had denied her.

  He couldn’t give her honesty. He couldn’t give that to anyone. Never. And as he kissed her, he felt fear gather in his belly. Fear for her. Fear for himself as he experienced the intensity of his response to her.

  He could cloud her mind, the way he always did when he made love to a mortal woman. But he didn’t want to with Emma. And there was no need for that now, because he would take no more blood from her. He would make love with her, but he would deny himself the ultimate pleasure.

  He knew she felt the waves of need coming off him. And maybe she was trying to prove to both of them that she wasn’t afraid of him, because she moved in closer and angled her head so that he could kiss her more deeply.

  He gladly accepted the invitation. Blood pounded in his ears as he tasted her again and again, deeply, roughly, then more gently as he heard her soft cries of pleasure. When he finally lifted his head, her body was plastered against his, and his palms were under her shirt, splayed against her back. They were both struggling for breath.

  He reversed their positions, bracing his back against the door, opening his legs and bringing her hips into the cradle of his so that she could feel the erection straining at the front of his shorts.

  When she made a small sound and moved against him, he felt his heart skip a beat.

  She raised her face and looked into his eyes. “Nick, where are we going with this?” she whispered.

  “Where do you want to go?”

  “As far as you’re willing to take me.”

  The words tore at him. He knew where he wanted to take her, but he couldn’t go all the way. Not and live with himself.

  “You should leave—while you still have the chance,” he said honestly.

  “Are you trying to scare me off?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I’m staying right where I am.”

  “Oh, Lord, Emma.” His hands were trembling as they stroked her back. Then, with one smooth motion, he pulled the Batman T-shirt over her head, tossing it onto the floor.

  She gasped as cool air hit her upper body.

  He held her away from himself, his eyes roaming over her ivory skin, her breasts, the beautiful coral crests that were stiff and puckered for him. Reaching out, he cupped their fullness, his fingers stroking upward to glide across her perfect nipples.

  He lifted his gaze to her face. Her skin was flushed a beautiful pink. She looked so exposed and vulnerable and at the same time so aroused that the sight of her took his breath away.

  He could imagine his own face—dark and heated and vulnerable as well. In all the decades of his exile from the human race, he had made love to many mortal women. Usually he had taken their blood and clouded their minds so they wouldn’t know.

  But not this time. Today he vowed he would take no blood from Emma; he had already taken too much from her.

  Her hands drifted upward, pushing up his T-shirt again. He tensed as she stroked his chest, but she made no comment. This time she tugged the shirt up farther, and he yanked it over his head, tossing it onto the floor to join hers.

  She smiled at him, continuing to caress his shoulders, then his chest. “You are so perfect. How can a man be so perfect?” she asked, a note of wonder in her voice. “I want—” The rest of her sentence was lost as he brought his mouth back to hers for a fiery kiss.

  When he pulled her closer, they both gave a little cry as the softness of her breasts made contact with the hard planes of his chest. For a long moment, he held her still against him, savoring the warmth of her skin. Then he began to shift her body from side to side, sliding her breasts against his chest.

  To his delight, he heard glad little cries tumble from her lips. He felt her knees buckle, but he caught her, supporting her weight.

  Her breath came in gasps as he bent her backward, his hands moving to play with her breasts, cup them, shape them to his grasp, tease her nipples to tighter points. The pleasure of touching her that way was almost more than he could stand.

  One hand glided to her hips, urging her more firmly against his aching erection, rocking her against him.

  Then she was moving on her own, pressing, stroking, frantic for the contact she needed most.

  The heat built relentlessly, beyond endurance, and he said her name over and over, telling her how much he wanted her to come undone for him. He felt her melt into a hot, pulsing surge of gratification that brought an incoherent shout to her throat. In the aftermath of her climax, she sagged weakly against him, gasping, her skin slick with perspiration.

  He stroked her back, stringing tiny kisses along the side of her face as she dropped her head to his shoulder. When she shivered, he wrapped his arms around her shoulders. His body was rigid, his back still braced against the door.

  She raised her face and must have seen the tension burning in his eyes. Slipping her hand between them, she cupped her fingers around his rigid flesh through the shorts they hadn’t even removed, stroking his hardness. “I need to feel this inside me.”

  The breath huffed out of him. He wanted that, too. He wanted everything he could take from her. But he had already taken too much.

  “Emma.” His mouth came down on hers for a long, greedy kiss. Lifting her into his arms, he carried her to the bed, gently laid her down and swept off her panties. As he gazed down at her, he stripped off his shorts, feeling his erection spring free.

  Reaching out, she took him in her hand, stroking her fingers over the hard shaft, drawing a gasp of pleasure from him.

  He came down beside her, gathering her close.

  Because he wanted this time with her to last as long as he could make it, he started with soft kisses and caresses. Yet very soon, simple kisses and sweet touches weren’t enough. One hand left her breasts and slid downward toward the slick heat of her most sensitive flesh. His fingers played over her as they might a fine Stradivarius, wringing exquisite cries of pleasure from her.

  Once again, he lifted her higher and higher, until she was writhing and thrusting against his hand.

  “Nick…please.”

  “Oh, yes.” He moved over her and plunged into her deeply, his breath coming in gasps as he felt her close tightly around him. Lifting her hips, she surged against him, taking him still deeper.

  “Emma!” It seemed he wasn’t capable of saying more. Or of pacing himself.

  She smoothed her hands over his back, down to his buttocks, pressing him closer. He shifted himself slightly so he could s
lip a hand between their bellies to stroke her, to stoke her pleasure.

  He focused all his concentration on the heat and the friction, on the giving and taking of pleasure. He felt her driving toward completion again—and he felt her take him over the edge.

  As she cried out her release, he bent his head, his fangs against the tender flesh of her neck.

  Orgasm rocketed through him, but it wasn’t enough. His whole body vibrated with the craving for her blood, and in his mind he could already taste her sweetness. But before his fangs pierced her skin, he forced himself to stop, to remember why he couldn’t take her that way. It was too soon. Much too soon.

  Calling on every ounce of determination he possessed, he willed his fangs to retract, willed himself to lift his head and take a breath. He felt lost, starving to death in a world where he could never have what he craved.

  Her voice brought him back to reality.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  He could only nod wordlessly at her astonishing generosity.

  As she gazed lovingly up at him, her sky-blue eyes seemed to cloud over. “I thought… Wasn’t it good for you, too?”

  “It was wonderful,” he managed to choke out.

  “But…?”

  He shifted himself off her and gathered her close.

  His lips brushed her eyebrows. “But we both need to sleep now.”

  It was enough that he had satisfied her. Enough that he had climaxed. He told himself that, even though he knew it wasn’t true. He was left with an agonizing craving he couldn’t allow himself to satisfy.

  Another woman would have accepted his reassurance. Not Emma. “You made that fantastic for me,” she murmured. “But something was missing for you.”

  He couldn’t talk about it. Couldn’t tell her why his body still throbbed with unfulfilled need.

  So he did what he had sworn he wouldn’t do. He invaded her mind, soothing her as he helped her slip into sleep.

  They were both exhausted. If they slept all day and into the night, that would be good for both of them.

  IT HAD INDEED been a good evening thus far, Damien Caldwell thought. Better than he had any right to expect. Nick Vickers had gotten himself shot. Maybe he’d even die from loss of blood. Which would be an excellent resolution to the problem Vickers presented.

  To celebrate, Damien sat in his office, contemplating an extremely pleasurable decision—which one of his women followers to summon to his bed.

  He knew their names and faces as well as his own. But he would prolong his own pleasure by making his obsequious male secretary bring him the videotapes, wait for his Master to select the one he desired and then obediently put it into the VCR for the high-definition, wide-screen television set, only to be summarily dismissed before the fun began.

  The tapes held Damien’s favorite footage from the hidden cameras around the estate. Some of the cameras he used for obvious security purposes. But the ones in the women’s dormitories and their bathrooms were strictly for his own private pleasure.

  Tonight he had decided to view a tape from the women’s shower area. He sat back and watched his male minion find and insert the first tape, bow and wait to be dismissed. “Be gone,” Damien instructed the servant brusquely. The man bowed again and scurried out of the room.

  Damien smiled as he watched his girls undressing, standing under the shower, bathing their breasts, their buttocks, their intimate places, all the while unsuspecting that he might scrutinize them at will in those most private moments, and from nearly any angle he chose.

  It was highly arousing. He watched Kendra Larson get into the shower and raise her arms to shampoo her hair, in the process thrusting her bobbing breasts directly toward the camera.

  Then blond, pretty Margaret Birmingham walked into the frame and hurriedly began to take off her night-clothes to get showered and dressed in time for breakfast. She knew he wouldn’t abide her being late, and he smiled at this sign of her obedience.

  He knew she wasn’t trying to be sexy, as she had no idea she was being seen by anyone but the other women moving in and out of the bathroom, but there was an unconscious sensuality about her nonetheless.

  He’d had his eye on her for…special purposes for quite a while. He wanted her now, and he thought about summoning her to his bed tonight. She’d come willingly, of course, and she’d serve him in any way he wished. But he knew his own needs. He was too keyed up to settle for mere copulation and a few sips of blood. Whoever came to his bed tonight would die there. And he wanted to keep Margaret around a while longer.

  So he enjoyed watching her shower and gave himself over to the pleasure of making his decision.

  Whom would he select? And how long would he let her live? Minutes, or hours?

  Lately, he’d been killing faster. The craving was getting stronger and stronger. But he dared not let it get out of control. He would put some limits on himself. Or he would have to dredge up a whole new batch of recruits.

  EMMA AWOKE feeling groggy. But she knew where she was—in Nicholas Vickers’s bed. He had made wonderful love to her. And then… She wasn’t sure what had happened after that. She’d felt him climax. Strongly, powerfully. Yet she’d sensed something. Something wrong. She’d been completely, gloriously satisfied. He had seemed restless, unfulfilled. As if he needed something more. But what? Obviously, he wasn’t going to tell her.

  She sat up cautiously and looked at him. He was sleeping deeply. The covers had slipped down around his waist, and she stared at his chest. This time she didn’t make the mistake of touching him. She only leaned over, looking for the indentations in his skin she’d felt after the shoot-out at the crack house in Baltimore. She knew she’d felt something there, and he’d said they were old scars. But as she stared at the broad expanse of his chest, she found nothing out of the ordinary. No scars. No irregularities. Not even a white line. Whatever had been there was gone.

  Cautiously, she got out of bed and opened the bathroom door a little wider so that she could see what she was doing. Then she found the Batman T-shirt and panties they’d discarded. After pulling them on, she glanced at Nick again. He hadn’t moved, and she suspected he wouldn’t wake up unless she touched him again.

  Something was out of kilter. Something she needed to figure out, because she knew he wasn’t going to explain.

  The leather jacket he’d worn to Baltimore was draped over the back of a chair. She held it up, staring at what certainly looked to be bullet holes in the front and back. If they were, he had suffered a couple of through-and-through hits in last night’s action. But now he didn’t even have a scratch on him.

  She noticed a piece of fabric sticking out of the left pocket. She reached in and pulled it out—then stifled a gasp as she held up a sodden black T-shirt. Whatever had spilled onto it was thick, like dried chocolate syrup. But Nick hadn’t been in Baltimore to eat an ice-cream sundae.

  She set the jacket down and gingerly sniffed the T-shirt. It smelled…coppery, like blood. And it didn’t have just a small, damp stain; the shirt was almost completely soaked. The shirt Nick said he hadn’t been wearing.

  She held it up by the shoulders, and she saw two round holes that let the illumination from the bathroom shine through the fabric.

  Her heart pounding, she took a quick glance back at Nick to make sure that he was still sleeping. Then she laid the jacket on the floor and the shirt on top of it. The holes in the two garments lined up perfectly.

  Her hand clenched over one leather sleeve. There was no doubt in her mind now. He’d gotten shot at the crack house, all right, and he’d bled profusely. But how…?

  She frantically thought back to when she’d found him hiding in the row house cellar. She thought he had been weak. Then…

  She struggled to bring the next events into focus, but it was like trying to gather an armful of vapor. All she remembered was finding him and their hiding from the police together. Then they’d come out from the cubbyhole under the cellar stairs, and she�
�d felt dizzy. She’d had to lean on him as they made their way back to her rental car.

  A shiver traveled over her skin. Something had happened in that cellar. Something she didn’t understand. Something that terrified her.

  But she had to face it.

  There were so many things about Nick that she should have thought about more carefully. Little warnings she’d ignored. He’d slept during the day and “worked” all night. Of course, his kind of work could dictate such a lifestyle. But no job would explain certain other events.

  Such as how he had miraculously, with seemingly supernatural speed and strength, scattered and nearly annihilated the entire gang of would-be arsonists who’d threatened her life and his home. After that, his ministrations had mystifyingly closed her gunshot wound virtually overnight. Then there was tonight, when he had suddenly blocked her exit from his room when she’d thought he was still in his bed.

  The word vampire hovered in her mind. She tried to force it away, but it kept coming back. And the clincher was what had happened when she’d found him in Baltimore.

  She’d gone down there in the first place because she’d thought he was hurt. Then he’d convinced her he was fine. But he’d lied to her about not getting shot. In fact, he’d had bullets go through his chest and out his back. Right in front of her she had the evidence that he had, indeed, bled profusely. Left untended, he surely should have bled to death. But apparently he was now as good as new.

  Because?

  She shivered, her memory returning. When she’d found him, he’d been weak, hallucinating. From blood loss. But he’d quickly regained his strength, and she’d had no idea how—only that she’d gotten woozy herself and had come out of a “faint” feeling dizzy and weak.

  Had he replenished his blood supply from her?

  Oh, God. That was why she’d been dizzy. And why he’d insisted on her drinking that potion—to build up her blood.

  He’d used her for a blood donor, and then…and then his body had healed itself.

  A sick feeling rose in her throat.