I gripped Nathan's shoulders as we tumbled into the same bed for different reasons. He avoided, I confronted.
"It's been a really long time since I've done this," he mumbled apologetically against my neck as his hands skimmed below my T- shirt.
His fingers raised gooseflesh on my thighs. I shivered. "You're doing fine."
Every inch of his body was as hard as it looked. There wasn't a spare ounce of flesh on him, and when he pulled his shirt over his head I didn't know where I wanted to touch first. My hands wandered restlessly over his smooth chest, his solid arms, the ridges of his abdomen.
Lying between my legs, he pushed my T-shirt up, baring my thighs, my stomach, my breasts. I pulled the shirt off and he rested his head against the curve of my stomach. When he kissed me there, I clamped my knees around his waist, my breath hitching.
With every gentle brush of his fingers, every stroke of his tongue against my flesh, he lost himself a little more in the act. His gratitude overwhelmed me.
Nathan sucked my nipple into his mouth, and I could only concentrate on his flicking tongue and the scrape of his stubble against my skin. I threaded my fingers through his hair and closed my eyes. Nathan crawled up my body, pressing kisses to my neck. "It's the most incredible thing," he whispered. "I can hear what you're thinking. Where you want me to touch you. Was it like that with-"
The instant he said it, my body went cold.
He cursed. "That was probably the dumbest thing I've ever said." I wanted badly to cover myself. I was too exposed, too vulnerable. "It certainly wasn't smart."
"I only-" He shook his head. "You know you're my first fledgling. This is an entirely new experience for me. I'm not used to being the one who needs information. I'm usually the answer guy."
"I don't know anything about being a sire, Nathan. I have no idea how it works. It's something you're just going to have to find out on your own."
He rose onto his knees and it looked as though he was going to get up from the bed. His denied need throbbed painfully through my own aching body, and I reached for him. I'd never been the initiator in sexual situations. Most of the time, I'd just gone through the motions, wanting to please for the sake of approval. Now I just wanted to make him feel something other than fear or anguish. And I really wanted him.
"What are you-"
I shushed him as I reached for the gleaming button of his fly. He took a sharp breath as the button popped free. I pulled the zipper down and slipped my hand inside his pants.
Despite the interruption, he was still hard. His erection jerked as my fingers closed around its substantial girth, and his shudder passed through me. I stroked him, my head reeling from the peripheral sensations that affected me through the blood tie.
He stood beside the bed to step out of his jeans, and I slithered across the mattress to grip the tight muscles of his thighs. He groaned when I rubbed my cheek against his hip, my soft breath teasing his straining cock. I gave in to his silent urging through the tie, opening my mouth to draw him in.
He tasted salty, but not unpleasant. I swirled my tongue around the swollen head as I sucked more of him in. As his excitement built, so did mine. When he grasped my hair and gently pulled me back, I knew he'd nearly reached the end.
Laying me back, Nathan relied on the blood tie to learn how I liked to be touched. He'd rush to fulfill my requests with eager hands and lips. He reveled in my responses. Not the way Cyrus had. Nathan didn't view my desire as a way to manipulate or control me.
This realization removed the last of my inhibitions. If I lost control with Nathan, I wouldn't lose a part of myself. I was so relieved by this that I came as he slid two fingers inside me. From the look on his face, he was as surprised as I was.
"Apparently I'm not as rusty at this as I thought." He sank between my legs, bracing his weight on his arms.
The movement of muscle beneath his skin fascinated me. "Watch it. I've got what I wanted. I could just decide I'm done with you and then where will you be?"
"Jerking off, like I've been for the past twenty years. But you're not going anywhere."
I slapped his shoulder lightly for his crude remark, and he reached between us and guided himself into the slick entrance of my body.
My lungs constricted as I stretched to accommodate him. I gasped, wrapping my arms around him. "Oh, my-oh."
He slipped his hands beneath my back and lifted me onto his lap. I held on to his shoulders as every long inch of him slid into me.
Leaning close to my ear, he practically purred, "Told you you weren't going anywhere." I buried my face in his shoulder as he flexed his hips. He felt solid and real, and his skin smelled faintly of soap.
"I've wanted to do this since the night you came into the shop." His voice was fueled by ragged breaths, and his words sent a shock through me.It was nice to be wanted. Not for power or control, but wanted as a woman.
I pushed my hips down as he surged up and I bit down hard on my lip to stifle a moan. I tasted the blood my bite produced.
Nathan leaned back, his eyes dark. He unconsciously licked his lip.
My heart pounded, echoing the throb of his erection that was buried deep inside me. Nathan's eyes never left the smear of blood on my mouth.
"Go ahead," I whispered. "I want you to."
He hesitated only a moment. Then he caught my lip between his teeth and licked the blood away.
When I'd ingested Cyrus's blood, I'd seen a vision of Nathan's past death. I could only imagine what Nathan saw when he tasted mine.
Whatever it was, it tore a fierce growl from his throat. He pushed me back on the bed and stretched my arms high above my head, pinning me.
Pain. In my blood, he'd seen pain.
The tenderness in his eyes overwhelmed me. "Why didn't you tell me what he did to you?"
I shut my eyes. "Why would you want to know?"
His lips brushed mine. There was nothing in the gesture but kindness, the love of a sire. His frustration and rage shook me to the core. "I could have made it better. I don't know how, but I could have."
I swallowed against tears. "You could make me forget."
With a sad smile, he nodded. "I'll see what I can do."
He moved within me, slowly. Over and over, he withdrew almost completely, then slid back in, gaining a bit of speed each time.
Soon, he pumped against me so furiously, an explosion of breath escaped from me with each thrust. I clenched the sheets in my fists and rocked in time to his movement.
The familiar spiraling feeling, the sense of swiftly losing control, gripped me. I needed only a little push to make it over the edge.
Hearing my silent desperation, he slipped his hand between us and rubbed my swollen clitoris. The stimulation was exactly what I sought. I arched up from the bed.
It was his name I cried when I came, his face I saw when I opened my eyes. The relief was so intense that I almost sobbed.
"That's it, sweetheart," he groaned against my hair. He abandoned the rhythm, plunging into me with more urgency than before.
"Come," I urged, clutching at his sweat-slicked back. He thrust almost too hard against me as he reached the end.
"Thank you," he whispered over and over when he could speak again. He kissed my lips, my forehead, anywhere he was able to reach.
When he laid beside me, I rolled awkwardly off of the bed, wrapping the sheet around my bare body.
Nathan frowned. "Where are you going?"
I suddenly felt cold, and oddly lonely. "The bathroom. To clean up."
When I got to the door, he spoke. "It was good we got that out of our systems. It was probably inevitable." "Yeah," I agreed. Hadn't it meant anything to him? It didn't have to be serious, but he had to feel something more than just relief that it was over.
Exhaling in frustration, he leaned up on his elbow. "You know it did, Carrie."
His answer to my unspoken question should have comforted me, but it didn't.
I shuffled to the bathroom and snapped on the light. As I stared at my suddenly tired face in the mirror, a tear slid down my cheek.
No, I don't know. And I don't know you, either, Nathan. I turned away from my reflection, slightly disgusted with myself.
I didn't know him any better than I ever had.
Twenty-Two
I Left My Heart in San Francisco
Though I dreaded the fallout from our encounter, the nights that followed were too busy to be very awkward.
During my recovery, Nathan had been feeding me his blood. With nothing to replace what he'd given, he'd seriously drained himself. Combined with the marathon insomnia and the energy he'd expended with me, he could barely get out of bed the next evening.
Luckily, I was able to contact his emergency donor. A perky suburban woman, she graciously dropped off neatly labeled and dated bags of blood. The first night, he was so weak I had to hold his head up so he could drink, but he improved quickly after that.
Ziggy's room was nearly packed up. Nathan had obviously been splitting his time between caring for me and repressing more memories. The only indication that the kid had ever lived in the apartment at all was the small collection of framed pictures on the bookcase in the living room. I rummaged through the boxes and brought out a few other items, tucking them away in places I knew Nathan would find them later. I wasn't about to let him forget Ziggy.
Little by little, I began to learn about Nathan's past. Not that he helped with the process. Occasionally, things would come to me in a flash of intuition from the blood he'd shared with me. That's how I learned the photograph hidden in the closet was indeed his wedding portrait, and the woman in it was Marianne. She'd been seventeen when they'd wed, and it had been a quickly arranged affair, owing to the bundle of joy that had already been on its way. But she'd lost the baby, and subsequent others, the first sign of the tumors ravaging her organs. The feelings of guilt and desperation that blanketed those memories was too thick to see past at times.
I didn't go to bed with him again, and neither of us mentioned what had happened before. I slept on the couch for a few days until Nathan recovered and took Ziggy's things to storage. One day he'd tossed me a clean set of sheets when he returned and said, "Ziggy's room is all yours."
Apparently, he wanted me to stay. Though I balked at the fact he hadn't bothered to ask me if I wanted to, I didn't argue. There was nowhere else to go, and no other place I felt safe.
After another two weeks, I wondered if Cyrus would ever bother me again. At first, it had been easy to assume he bided his time, waiting for an opportunity to strike. But I knew he wasn't patient enough to wait a full month.
The nights grew gradually shorter as spring approached. Renovations on the bookstore were nearly completed, and I found myself working with Nathan, cataloguing inventory in preparation for the upcoming grand reopening. Still, reading ISBN numbers hardly kept my mind off the nagging feeling that any moment, Cyrus would come back for me.It didn't help that, for the fourth day in a row, I woke to find Nathan beside me in the tiny twin bed.
I knew he wasn't asleep. "Nathan, what's going on?"
He leaned up behind me, propping his chin on my arm. "Max will be here tomorrow. We postponed the mission when I told him what happened to you, but the Movement is getting impatient."
"We've still got to kill Cyrus?" The calm feeling that had just begun to take root in me vanished. I rolled over to face Nathan, careful not to push him off the bed.
His expression confirmed my fear before his words did. "We better get it out of the way now. Before Max goes after the Soul Eater."
"Okay." I tried to smile and appear unconcerned. "What's the plan?"
I shouldn't have bothered with the facade. He didn't. "Don't get killed."
"How do we do that?" My voice wavered as a balloon of fear swelled in my chest.
He didn't answer right away. He toyed with one strap of the tank top I'd worn to bed, sliding it off my shoulder and back again.
In the semidarkness of the room, he looked tired and defeated. "I don't know."
He was certain he'd lose me. His terror surrounded me in waves, terror that he'd feel the same pain over me that he'd felt over Ziggy. Over Marianne.
But Nathan would never admit he felt anything toward me but the obligation any sire feels toward their fledgling. It was a good thing, too. I wasn't sure I was ready to accept more from him.
I rolled over and let him pull me into the curve of his body. He locked his arms around me as if I would try to escape, but relaxed some when I laid my hand over his.
I wasn't ready to accept anything more than friendship from him because I wasn't ready to admit the depth of my feelings for him, either. As long as we both ignored our feelings, we could live, awkwardly but happily, in our dysfunction.
The workmen were just finishing up when we got downstairs that night. While Nathan engaged them in a fascinating conversation about wall studs, I went to the mailbox.
I dropped the assorted bills and catalogs on the counter, more concerned with the large padded envelope that had been stuffed in with them. It was addressed to Dr. C. Ames.
I waited until the workmen left before I presented the envelope to Nathan. "I'm not opening this. It looks like 'discreet packaging,' if you know what I mean."
"Very funny," Nathan said, snatching it from me. He ripped the brown paper open and caught the object that fell out. "This is yours. It's nothing dirty. I hope you aren't too disappointed."
It was another copy of The Sanguinarius. This copy was a little more beaten up than the previous one.
Nathan frowned and headed to the storeroom. "Near mint my ass! Bluebird45 is getting some seriously bad feedback."
"You bought this on eBay?" I flipped to a random page and started reading. "Man, you really can get anything on there."
The shop door swung open, and the bells, which Nathan had yet to replace, announced Max's shrill entrance.
Max was as young, confident and good-looking as I remembered. But I'd learned from Nathan that Max had a reputation as a merciless assassin. Judging from all the purple hickeys above the collar of his T-shirt, he was a merciless ladies' man, as well.
"I love this town, I love this town!" He jumped and grabbed the lintel of the doorway to swing inside.
"Have a good flight?" Nathan didn't look up from the stack of mail he browsed through.
"You better believe it!" Max grinned from ear to ear. "Listen, am I now in the seven-mile-high club, or does this just mark my seventh membership card?"
"Excuse me, lady present!" I turned back to the book.
Max sidled up behind me to read over my shoulder. "Whatcha doin'?"