Silent Night: Vampire Holiday Romance (The Night Songs Collection Book 4) (20 page)

This is what we should be doing. Not worrying. Not fighting. This was what I wanted. And I knew Aidan did, too.

I slipped my fingers inside the waistband of his pajama bottoms, grasping his ass. He jumped and chuckled, bringing his face to mine while he lowered his hand from my mouth so he could kiss my lips. He grew aroused, and I squeezed my hand in between our bodies to tease him.

“You know,” Aidan’s voice was breathy when he pulled away from my lips. He held my face in my hands, even though my ponytail was still wrapped around one hand. “I’d been thinking about going back to bed.”

“I think that’s an excellent idea.” I eyed my ponytail. “Are you going to use that as a leash?”

He tugged on it, but not enough to hurt. “If that’s what you want.”

I wrapped my hand around his penis, and he drew away slightly, sucking in a breath as I lightly ran my fingers lightly along the length of it. “I’m not being clear?”

He kissed me again, deeply, and I knew we were on the same page. “Come on.” He pulled my ponytail as he headed back to the bedroom. I laughed, took my hands back and followed.

Aidan stripped out of his clothes as soon as he entered the bedroom, but I hesitated. Ever since Aidan’s big reveal, we’d slept together every day. But it was just that, sleeping. My back to his chest, his arm around my waist. I thought of it as security, for both of us, comforting, but not sensual. Don’t get me wrong, my body was screaming for this. But my heart was terrified. He’d all but insisted that he was a vampire. Just because I didn’t believe him didn’t mean he wasn’t going to go the extra mile to prove his point.

I’d been in the house with him, alone, ever since he’d brought me back from Matt’s house. He hadn’t done anything to hurt me. Ever. Of course, if poor Matt was still around, he’d tell us a different story. So I knew it was possible, and that’s why I’d been tiptoeing around him.

But Aidan, naked, with his arms around my waist, kissing my collarbone, pulled me down to the bed. My hands were everywhere, his bare skin free reign. He pushed my pants down from my hips and I pulled my shirt up over my head. He lowered his mouth to my breasts, taking a deep breath before working one nipple, then the other, to hard peaks. I fell back on the bed, and my hips curved up to meet his body while his tongue made me crazy. I raked my fingers through his hair so he couldn’t escape, then pushed his head down so he could continue working the rest of me to a frenzy.

This was perfection. But I had to fight to put everything out of my mind so I could enjoy it the way Aidan deserved for me to. Why couldn’t I have this, and have everything else fall into place? Why did it have to be either or?

If I’d seen the mess I would create, the bridges I’d burn when Aidan sat next to me in that church, would I have walked away from him?

Would he have let me?

Did it matter? My hips bucked up in pleasure as he put two fingers inside me, gentling nipping and kissing me as he moved back and forth, shutting my brain down. I was thankful to have such a beautiful distraction. My thinking got me nowhere, I’d already come to the dead end of everything I knew.

Except that drug test tomorrow.

Aidan climbed back up to meet my eyes, brushing my hair away from my face. I pulled him down into me in an urgent kiss. I didn’t want to give my brain a chance to start working again. While we kissed, his hands reached down, spreading my legs wide so he could thrust inside me. Rolling my hips to meet him, I hooked my ankles around his waist and held on for the ride.

I didn’t think he’d ever stop, and that was fine with me. With him inside me, I felt complete. I whimpered and cried out as he brought me to the edge, but he didn’t break his rhythm. When he slowed to a stop, he stayed connected to me, caressing my face, and kissing my breasts.

“Will you trust me?” He looked up at me, his eyes so hopeful, like a scared boy.

His question made it hard to breathe. “I trust you.” How else could I possibly prove it to him?

“I need for you to just believe, don’t think.” He traced his finger along the outline of my lips. My muscles spasmed around him still inside me. “Have faith in something bigger than yourself, can you do that?”

I opened my mouth to ask what he meant, even though I knew I wouldn’t get the answer I was looking for. He stretched up to kiss my lips, then rolled back, bringing his arm up to his mouth. His lips rested on the inside of his wrist, and his eyes never left mine.

He bared his teeth. Those fangs that revealed themselves at Matt’s house were back, as awful and beyond belief as they had been a week before. I screamed but as he sunk into his own flesh, ripping himself open, I couldn’t hear anything anymore.

Blood dripped between my breasts. I couldn’t breathe. Aidan leaned forward, bringing his wounded arm close to my face. I cringed, pulling away, but going nowhere. Blood fell on my face. His mouth, ringed and wet with his own blood, hovered over mine.

“Drink from me.” His voice didn’t even sound human, more of a strangled roar. “Kyndra, please.”

A thousand reasons why I couldn’t swirled around my brain, but nothing made it to my mouth. My voice, my willpower, my fight all cowered in a deep dark recess of my mind, overtaken by this strange carnal urge as he brought the wounded arm to my mouth, and I drank.

As his blood mixed with mine and flowed through my veins, this feeling of warmth took over my body. Every one of my problems disappeared, and I floated weightlessly, into the horizon. So many times I’d been high to escape my life, and this had been the feeling I was after every time. Before I’d always felt regret and guilt, because I didn’t think this could be achieved. I’d cheapened myself for no reason. But this, this made me better. Whole. For the first time in my life, I knew I could be the person I wanted to be. Maybe even the person Aidan told me I was.

Both hands clasped his arm to my mouth. Like the addict I convinced myself I wasn’t, I sucked greedily, the silky, sweet taste of his blood filling my mouth and warming my belly. My toes curled as Aidan began thrusting inside me again as I drank from him.

He tore his arm free of my grasp like I was a paper doll. I didn’t have a chance. I howled, the loss more than the emptiness of coming down from any high I’d ever been on before. I thought I might implode, my walls crumbling as I lost all control. Aidan held me while I trembled.

What had just happened?

He may no longer have been physically a part of me, but now there was no way I could ever let him go. Somehow, Aidan was now a part of me, past and present. That book he was writing might have been our future, and I would help him write it.

Twenty-Four

After the drug test, I thought I might go out of my mind waiting for the results. They made it so impersonal. On the way out I was simply given a card with a website address and log-in information. That might be a good thing if I didn’t pass. No face to face shame. Monday evening, it still felt lazy to say that but I’d gotten in the habit of staying up all night with Aidan. Ever since I’d drank his blood, I could barely keep my hands off of him. Anyway, that evening, I sat in front of the computer, refreshing the screen repeatedly, frustrated that my results still hadn’t been posted.

“I failed.” I put my head in my arm and rested it on the arm of the couch. I was hogging Aidan’s computer, and he was going to need it to get back to work soon. He rubbed my shoulders as I sulked. “The only reason they haven’t put anything up yet is because they’re talking to the police about all the crap they found in my bloodstream. I’m going to jail!”

Aidan burst out laughing, and I picked up my head to glare at him. “You’re not going to be arrested. I promise.”

“Don’t laugh at me. I really want this job.”

“You’re going to get it.” His hands kneaded my shoulders, and it was hard to remember to be mad at him. He sat down next to me, and pulled me into his lap. I had to hold on to the laptop to make sure it didn’t crash to the floor. “Can I tell you a secret?”

I wrinkled my nose, not sure why he was changing the subject right now, other than to make me feel better. “Sure.”

His chin rested against my shoulder. “The reason I know you passed that test was because I shared my blood with you.”

“What if they know I tested with someone else’s blood?” I turned toward him. “What if it’s like having someone else pee for you on one of those tests?”

He chuckled. I tried not to get irritated, but I wasn’t trying to be cute. I was seriously worried. “It’s one in the same now. My blood is your blood.”

As crazy as that sounded, it was also the most romantic thing I’d ever heard. What was wrong with me? I’d gone from weed, to coke, to blood. I was just as much of an addict as Matt ever was, and just as delusional as Aidan. I’d played with his sharp teeth, running my fingers along them, daring him to bite. I’d adopted his nocturnal lifestyle. But I was still afraid to ask him about anything more about his book, and if he still thought I was the reincarnation of his wife, or why he didn’t eat. All he did was drink tea, and now we were together every minute of the day, I wasn’t sure how he survived. In the right moment, I was ready to believe anything he said. But reality was always there to make me doubt him.

“I’m never going to do that again,” I swore. Matt could no longer lead me into temptation, so the chance of me ever doing anything so destructive again were slim. Or so I liked to tell myself. Sitting here, listening to my own blood thrum through my veins, all I could think about was drinking Aidan’s blood. Ever since he put his open wound to my mouth, my senses were four, if not five, dimensional. I could hear, see, and feel things I didn’t even know existed before. My favorite part of it was the sweet explosion of Aidan’s blood hitting my tongue; syrupy silk. “I learned my lesson.”

“I’m so proud of you.” Aidan kissed me, and I turned around to face him, so I could run my tongue along his, and play with those smooth, knife like teeth. As I curled my tongue along the fang, I went in too hard and cut myself. Gasping at the sting, I pulled away.

“Kyndra,” he breathed, his eyes wide and dumbfounded. He licked his lips and pulled me in closer, forcing his tongue back into my mouth, sucking hard to get the blood that had come to the surface. He drank from me so urgently I thought he’d choke me. I struggled to get away from him, like a hypocrite. I craved his blood like oxygen, but I wasn’t willing to give him the same pleasure?

When he realized I needed to escape, he moved away from my mouth and down to my neck, kissing it just as urgently. My pulse thundered in the artery that ran along the side that he caressed like an offering. His fingers dug into my shoulders, grounding me to him, as his teeth sunk into my flesh.

I cried out, but it sounded more like a gurgle. Aidan ran one hand through my hair, enough to make me submit to him, and his other hand held me firmly so I couldn’t even squirm. He drew my blood from my body like he held a magnet over an open wound. At first, the bite burned like a blowtorch, then the pain faded to pins and needles, and finally numbed. Unable to fight anymore, I relaxed against him and let my life flow into his.

Now I knew what he needed to survive. Finally, I was ready to try to believe him.

“I’m sorry.” My hand flew to my mouth when he let me go. Tears ran down my cheeks.

Aidan rested his forehead against mine. “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry. But when your tongue bled in my mouth—“

“No, I’m fine,” I insisted, and he drew away from me slightly, surprised. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you before. I’m sorry I put us through all of this.”

He shook his head and laughed. “You freaked out when you read the books, but when I drank your blood, now you’re okay with it?”

“There’s no reasonable explanation for what we do, drinking blood. It defies logic, and that’s why I believe it.” I couldn’t believe he looked skeptical. “Because it doesn’t make sense any other way.”

“My biggest fear was losing you again. And I didn’t know how to make you believe me. There was only so long that you wouldn’t have any other options but to stay with me. Even if for some reason, you didn’t get this job, you’d get one eventually. Then you wouldn’t need me anymore.”

“I’m not using you.” I couldn’t believe how much it crushed me that he would think that.

“But you ran when you thought you had a chance.”

The truth hurt. “Okay, you’re right.” I looked up, blinking back more tears. I hated being a shitty, dependent person. “But I always told myself I’d make it up to you, somehow.”

“You don’t have anything to prove to me, Kyndra.” He kissed me on the lips, so lightly, like he’d never done it before and he was shy. Not like he’d just drank my blood.

“Can we check the website one more time?” I asked, anxious to change the subject away from me. “I know you need to get to work.”

“Sure.” He reached past me and hit refresh.

White, Kyndra Pass

My hand flew to my mouth as I stared open-mouthed at the screen. “It worked.” I looked at Aidan in wonder. “It worked! You’re a genius!” I banged my hands playfully against his chest.

Aidan pulled me in by my shirt, the collar and shoulder still soaked with my blood, and kissed my forehead. “It was all you.”

We spent the next few minutes tangled in each other, kissing. My mind reeled thinking about what had happened this evening.