Dead After Dark (27 page)

That thought brought tears. It felt like a gigantic knot of tension had been released inside her, one that had been
building over centuries. He must have felt her crying against his chest, for he rocked her, soothing. No one had ever done that for her. She wanted to give him something in return. She raised her head and smiled at him. It was time. She would love keeping him at the edge of insanity. The sexual act would be an act of giving, not demanding performance. She sat up and pushed him gently to his back. Then she straddled him. She wanted to feel him filling her. And now that she was sated, she could be attentive to just how long he could stand the strokes inside her. How long could he hold his release tonight? She was going to find out.

It was the wee hours of the morning. But Drew wasn’t tired. The hours of making love to this woman seemed to fill him with energy rather than drain him. He had brought her to release several times now. And he had held his in abeyance. That should have been onerous. But it wasn’t. Even now she was caressing his cock as she sucked at one of his nipples. She was so skilled, the sensation so intense, he seemed to find some core of stamina that allowed him to appreciate the pleasure she gave him for what it was in the moment, not the orgasm it would bring. Several times he had felt that constriction in his testicles that came with lust unreleased. She seemed to sense it. Perhaps his balls tightened. Always she would massage them gently until the aching passed. Once or twice when he was on the brink of orgasm, her eyes seemed to glow red again. He was so centered in the moment he could not focus on the questions that raised. She would whisper, “Find your center,” and he would regain control again.

He had never felt closer to a woman. She was so generous, so attentive. He was only glad he could return the favor. She rolled on to her back, her breasts flattening, and opened her knees to invite him in. He hung on his elbows above her, positioned his cock.

“Fill me. Please,” she whispered.

He sheathed himself in her wet warmth. She bit her lip in pleasure. He began to stroke in and out, slowly. He could do this. He went inside himself again, trying to get lost in the rhythm.

Until she changed it. She wanted it faster now. “I’m not sure I can hold it,” he panted.

“Now is the time to stop trying,” she breathed.

He blinked. Now? Then he grinned. He repositioned himself so that his cock touched her on that spot that women liked the most, just in front of the entrance to her womb proper, and pumped in and out a few times to stimulate it. That made her open her eyes. They slapped together in delicious counterpoint. His loins were so tight, his genitals so heavy and sensitive, he thought he might burst. But he had to wait a little longer. Surely a woman as sensual as she was could reach ecstasy just once more tonight. He grabbed her buttocks as he knelt upright, his knees wide. She wrapped her legs around him. He plunged into her harder and harder, as if he could never get enough of her. He felt her begin to contract around him, and he let go.

The explosion was like nothing he had ever felt. His seed pulsed into her, on and on, stripping him of all his fluids. His vision contracted to a single point of light. He could hear himself grunting from somewhere far away, a bass counterpoint to her shrieks.

They both collapsed, finally, nothing left of themselves to share. He cradled her against his body. This most sexual of experiences had felt almost . . . spiritual. He’d started tonight as one kind of person—alone, inviolate, sure of his purpose. And he’d ended as someone else, a man who needed someone else.

He’d never needed Emily, except as revenge on her father. He’d never even known her. He’d certainly never loved
her. He knew that now. But this woman, with whom he’d shared only a few words, he knew with every fiber of his being.

He just didn’t know any facts about her. And now that he was not buried in the sensation of the moment, there were definitely questions.

Well, he’d have to remedy that.

She snuggled against him. They had been drowsing together for a while, but he knew she was awake. He had been wondering where to start with his questions. His preoccupation with his mission to find Emily, the incredible sexual attraction they’d felt—all had distracted him and made his denial of those questions easy. But he could no longer ignore them. He would come round to red eyes and disappearing and the wounds at his neck. He was not frightened of her, not after tonight. But he could not dismiss them as mere tricks. He would start his questions with what had happened to him. What he really wanted was to know if she had experienced it, too. “I’ve never felt anything like that.”

She stretched and pressed her breasts against him. He thought she’d stripped every drop of semen from his body, yet still he felt a stirring in his loins.

“Good,” she said, her mouth softening into a smile.

“What . . . what was that?”

“The closeness we felt?”

We. He nodded, brushing his lips across her hair. She had felt it, too.

“It is the teaching of the Tantra. It comes from the Hindu, though Buddhists and Jains practice also.”

“They teach sex?” You could study sex? Apparently. She must have.

“Well, more it is the meditation that they teach. They believe the physical is an expression of the divine. And physical acts can bring you closer to God. Like sex, if you do it correctly.”

“You do it correctly,” he murmured, holding her close. Had she done this thing with others? To distract himself from that thought, he asked, “Will you tell me your name now?”

She looked conscious, as though she didn’t realize she had never revealed even this much of herself to him. “Freya. My name is Freya.”

After the Norse goddess of fertility and plenty. That was appropriate. “Freya.” He savored it. “Well, Freya, why do you live here alone, without even removing the Holland covers from the furniture and make the villagers think you are a ghost?”

She stiffened and he thought she would push away from him. Then he felt her soften. Maybe it was resignation. Her voice was small, and she did not look at him. “I am a bad person, Drew. I have done bad things. My father required them of me and of my sisters but we did not protest. One sister went mad from doing them. And I never even thought to refuse. I had never been away from my father’s . . . house until he sent my remaining sister and me to England. We were doing this thing, and it was dangerous, and it had perhaps eaten at her mind, as well. I told her she must quit. But she wouldn’t. And . . . and then I couldn’t do it any more. So I stopped. And that meant I didn’t support her. She . . . died.” She took a shuddering breath.

Her sister had died. Perhaps she had as many scars as he did. He waited for her to go on, just holding her.

“But my job, evil as it was, it was all I knew,” she said at last. “If I was not that, who was I? But I knew if I went home
I wouldn’t have the strength to stand against my father when he wanted me to pick up where I left off. So I did not go home. I came here.”

He wouldn’t ask her what she did. She was not ready yet to tell him. Not that he thought whatever it was would be evil. He knew she wasn’t evil on some deep level he couldn’t explain. “And the ghost act was to keep people away.”

She nodded. “I needed time to think. And these English, they are so strict with all their rules for what a woman must not do, and how she must be attended always by servants, and receive callers and live just so and I could not stand this. So I lived outside their censure.”

“What were you thinking about?” he asked softly, moving a strand of her midnight hair away from her forehead.

“Who I was.”

He could understand that. He’d defined himself as a bastard, a servant in Melaphont’s stable, a lover of Emily, a prisoner, a pirate, and now a gentleman. He wasn’t sure he was any of those, not really. He nodded, and waited.

“I look back on all those months.” Her voice was pensive. “I was half-alive. Not thinking, though that was what I came here to do. Not feeling.” The silence stretched.

“Does that mean you know who you are now?”

She chuckled. “No. I am more confused than ever. I know only that I was not living.”

“Well, that’s something.”

“Yes.” She looked up at him and smiled.

He could not help but swell a bit with pride. He might not be alone in the sensation of joining tonight. But if there was any way forward together there were other things he must know.

“So tell me about the red eyes and the disappearing.” He didn’t dare mention the wounds at his neck.

“Must you ruin all with your questions?” she snapped, pushing away from him and sitting up. “Can you not just live
in the moment?” She looked around, as though she realized where she was for the first time. She got out of bed, gloriously naked, and pulled the heavy draperies closed. “It will be light soon. I must move my things from the other room.”

“I’ll help,” he said. But he felt bleak inside. The bond he’d felt to her had snapped.

He got hold of himself. He couldn’t dally with a woman anyway. The revenge he’d desired for fifteen years had to be planned all over again. Melaphont must be his focus, not this tiny woman who had ravished his soul as well as his body tonight. She had secrets she would not share. He had no time to pry them from her. Where was his determination now? He forced himself to think about revenge. Money. Money was what Melaphont cared about. That and his house. Then those things were what he would lose.

By the time she had finished moving her things, it was daylight. She was getting sleepy. The room was over warm, but she couldn’t open the draperies to catch a breeze. Drew was sweating and pale. She could not make him suffer here. “Go to your room and get some sleep.” She managed a smile.

He examined her face, nodded once. And he left.

She felt bereft. She had trusted him last night with her fragile psyche as well as her body. And she had felt almost . . . reborn. Until he had ruined everything with questions that reminded her what a gulf there really was between them. They were not even the same species, no matter how close they had felt. She lived forever and he but a blink of time. The feeling of being joined spiritually was only the effect of the Tantric exercise she had always made the Aspirants practice. It wasn’t real closeness, and certainly not anything else she might name. She had just been surprised by his tenderness.

She could never even tell him she was vampire. It was strictly against the Rules established by her father and the
Council of Elders. Even if it wasn’t, she couldn’t trust him enough for
that
. He would be appalled, as humans always were.

She slept fitfully until nightfall. No light leaked from his doorway as she went to the kitchen. She heated water for a bath. A roast chicken he must have prepared sat, untouched, on the cutting board with some greens she did not recognize. The English always overcooked their vegetables. She ate standing. The night was hot again. Thunder sounded in the distance. Lightning threw the kitchen into periodic bright relief. She bathed, sorry the soap washed his scent from her body, then dressed and wandered to the front of the house. But there were no lights on in that wing. Where was he? Perhaps the stables.

His horse had his nose stuffed in the manger, and the barn was filled with contented grinding. The creature didn’t seem to mind the storm outside as long as he had his oats and hay. There were several bales piled neatly at the end of the barn aisle, and his stall was clean and filled with fresh straw. The place smelled of hay, and saddle soap and oil from the freshly cleaned tack. But there was no sign of Drew. At least she knew he wasn’t far. He wouldn’t go anywhere without his horse. She realized she’d been worried he might have left.

She wouldn’t want that.

She headed back to the house. The skies let loose in pelting rain. Drops bounced off the gravel and flapped in sheets across the stable yard. She was soaked to the skin instantly. Breaking into a run, she made it to the kitchen.

His room. It was the only place left. Had he been sitting there in the dark? She, who had wanted nothing more than to be alone for the last year, without thinking or feeling, was now atwitter to know what he was doing and what he felt. She changed into a wrapper and laid her gown out to dry. Then she stalked purposefully to his room.

“Drew Carlowe,” she called, rapping softly.

A hoarse voice said, “Go away.”

Was he that angry with her? “I . . . I want to talk to you.” He didn’t know how much it cost her to say that.

“You c-can’t come in.” He sounded strange—not like himself at all. “I’m . . . b-busy.”

She tried the door. It was locked. “Are you . . . well?” She didn’t have the faintest idea what sick people sounded like. She had grown up among vampires and they were never sick.

“I . . . I might have a t-touch of the influenza.” He was trying to sound casual. But she could hear the lie in that. Pursing her lips, she twisted the knob until the lock creaked and broke. She pushed her way in.

He was huddled in the dark in a chair in front of the empty fireplace with a blanket round his shoulders. He sounded strange because he was shivering uncontrollably.

“Go away. You m-might catch it.”

Not possible of course. Her Companion killed all disease. She was immortal, for God’s sake, to all intents and purposes. She hurried over to him, frowning. “I won’t catch it. You must have a doctor.” One got a doctor for a human who was sick.

“No n-need,” he managed.

She ignored him and put a palm on his forehead. He was incredibly hot. “How long have you been like this?” Had she weakened him with a night of sex?

“It got bad t-this afternoon. I’ll be all right.”

“Let’s get you into bed.” She pulled him up.

“I’m all right.” But he had to turn away, as a dry, hacking cough took him. She could have carried him bodily, but she didn’t want to frighten him with her strength.

“Don’t be childish.” She practically dragged him to the bed and pushed him up into it.