Stealing Time (19 page)

I blinked. “The echoes are
you?
”

He seemed delighted. “You tell me. When have you felt them?”

I paused, thinking. “During emotional moments. Wait a second. Does it work for you too? Can you feel anything from me?”

“No, but I don’t have your blood in my system.”

“So if you did, do you think it would work for you too?”

“Probably.” Seeing my expression, he shook his head. “No. Absolutely not. I’m not doing it.”

“Why not?”

His eyes flashed. “Because I’m not planning on getting shot and I will not bite you!”

He was so outraged, I started laughing and couldn’t stop. “This is the weirdest conversation I’ve ever had,” I spluttered.

He smiled minutely. “It is that.”

Getting myself under control, I pressed, “So what if I bit myself? Like you did with your wrist. You could just…”

“No, Evie. I won’t have you hurt.”

Still, with my little advantage, I could tell he was intrigued. Deciding to try a different route, I leaned back in his arms and looked up at him, smiling softly.

James grinned. “I see you plotting and it won’t work. I’m not going to do it.” After a little while, he sighed gustily. “I don’t want you hurt, even for a moment, even knowing you’ll heal.”

“To not just
tell
you how I feel, but for you to actually experience it…”

He seemed to count to himself. “Do you think I wouldn’t love to be in there?” He touched a gentle finger to my forehead.

“It wouldn’t have to be a deep bite, would it? Just a little scratch?”

“It would have to be more than just a scratch.” He exhaled and looked away.

Now that I understood the echoes were him, I felt his inner turmoil and didn’t want to add to it. But I was also thrilled by the idea of sharing so much more with him. And so I waited while he gradually grew more peaceful.

He turned to look at me, his expression amused. “So do you know what I’m thinking?”

“No. I only know that you were upset and now you’re not.”

“Hmmm.” He pressed a lingering kiss on my cheek. “I am afraid I’m being selfish but, yes, I do want to share this with you.”

“Now?” I asked, eager to see if this would work.

He reared back and his tone was mildly outraged. “Not here, on the hearth. I don’t want to just
have at it.
Blood is sacred to our kind and yours is especially to me.”

“So let’s move the venue.” Standing, I caressed his lips with a fingertip, smiling as his breath hitched.

“What? Now?

“Is there something else you’d rather be doing?” I asked archly.

Green-black streaks sailed across his eyes like storm clouds and he smiled his slow, sexy smile. “It seems this is one of those rare moments when intellect and instinct are very much in agreement.”

“I love that there’s a fireplace in the bedroom,” I said as James built a fire for me, knowing how much I enjoyed it.

Placing the logs just so, he smiled. “Sometimes, I have to laugh that it’s considered a luxury in today’s world, when it used to be the only way to keep from literally freezing to death during the night.”

He turned toward me, dusting his hands off. Seeing my bodach-torn clothes on the floor, he stilled. The way he looked at me and the speed with which his clothes joined mine made me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world.

My breath caught at the sight of him—golden firelight bathed every line of his exquisite body, the broad shoulders, the narrow hips, and long, lean thighs. He held his hand out to me and I got my feet moving again. Twining our fingers, he pulled me close and the warm, satin feel of his skin on mine enflamed me.

James lifted me onto the bed and stretched out beside me. I wondered fleetingly if there could ever come a time when I would not react to him as I did now. Just the sight of him bending his head toward me, his lips curving into another sexy smile, had my lips parted, my heart thundering.

In the time since James first mentioned marriage, so much had happened. I now understood that emotionally, I’d remained all my life that same terrified seven-year-old, abandoned on a scorching summer day. And damned if it hadn’t taken almost dying three times for me to reach this epiphany.

Gran always said I was hard-headed.

But as desperately as I wanted to get past the fear and reserve, to form those three beautiful words, I couldn’t quite figure out how. It was the reason I was so anxious for James to share my blood. At least he could
feel
what I couldn’t bring myself to express.

Cursing myself for a coward, I drew breath to just freaking
say it
when all ability to form coherent thought evaporated under his tender touch.

James rested on his elbow above me, smiling a lazy, slow smile as he trailed the fingers of one hand over my strategic bits. His eyes darkened further as I quivered under his hand and his nostrils flared at my scent.

He bent his head and kissed me, long and sweet, the effect of his mouth on mine and the echo of mine on his heightening the moment indescribably. His hands moved to the small of my back and pulled me closer.

Acting on the sudden urge, I flexed my body and rolled us, leaving me on top of a surprised James. His expression turned wickedly anticipatory as I captured his hands in my own, holding them pinned on the pillows above his head.

“Please tell me that it is again your turn,” he murmured, his voice deep and husky.

Rather than answer, I pulled my knees forward so I was astride him, purposely hovering just above his arousal. Grinning at the corresponding flash of heat in his eyes, I tightened my thighs against his sides and bent forward at the waist, letting my hair and breasts teasingly caress his chest. James groaned, his hands clenching in my grasp as he quivered with the need to take hold of me.

No aphrodisiac was so powerful as the scent of your lover’s need and it was my turn to groan as James’s intoxicating musk filled the air.

Wanting more, I buried my face against his warm neck, inhaling
James
into my lungs and feeling my own heat flare in response. Alternating kisses and gentle nips, I worked my way down his broad chest, delighting in the way his muscles twitched under my touch, the little needful sounds he made, the way his legs moved restlessly. As I reached the limit of my arms’ reach, I released James’s hands and put mine to good use, exploring his body with fingers and tongue and teeth.

“Evie.” My name was a desperate prayer on James’s lips. I lifted my head to watch him for a long moment. Face flushed, eyes heavily lidded, his perfect mouth open as his breath heaved in and out—just the sight of him like this, in an agony of want for me, was almost my undoing.

Something between a purr and a growl rumbled in my chest as I slid my way up James’s quivering body to capture his lips with mine. Burying his hands in my hair like a man clinging to a life-jacket, James took the kiss to levels of passion I’d never dreamed possible. There was nothing gentle about this kiss, almost as if we both needed to absorb the other’s flesh into our own. We pressed against each other so hard, if we’d been human, we would have left bruises. Lips and tongues demanding, hands rough and greedy, our harsh breaths mingled as hunger drove us together.

Tilting my hips just so, I pushed myself back onto his arousal, in a motion so primal, so essential, it required no conscious thought. James’s head slammed back on the pillow as he inhaled sharply, his hands grasping my hips and holding me to him in an almost painful grip. Everything in me demanded movement, demanded satiation, but he only tightened his hands further, stilling my effort.

Reproachfully, I nipped his shoulder and sat straight up, gravity and my new position driving him deeper within me. Rotating my hips once, twice, I sighed with exquisite pleasure. James groaned and I felt him swell even more inside me, and I knew he was on the verge of exploding. He made a desperate noise and shifted his grip on my hips to hold me motionless. A husky laugh worked its way up my throat and I sat harder into him, rhythmically tightening internal muscles on his throbbing arousal.

In a choked voice, he murmured, “If you do that, I won’t be able to control—”

I interrupted him in a rough whisper, “Good.” Deliberately, I took his hands from my hips and moved them back above his head. Pressing my breasts flat against his chest, I let myself move, taking him deeper into me before withdrawing. My hips moved slowly, languorously, drawing the sensations out in long, sensuous strokes that had us both panting.

“So beautiful,” James whispered. “So perfect.”

Digging his heels into the mattress for leverage, he drove himself into me as his lips trailed across my jaw on a delicious path to my throat. Releasing his hands, I tilted my head to give easier access as he tenderly brushed my hair out of the way. When he hesitated, I smoothed my cheek against his. “I want this.”

He pulled back to look me in the eyes, to read my sincerity, and I saw that his fangs were extended. Worry and longing battled in his expression, reflecting the echo I felt from him. A tender smile stretched my mouth and I was overwhelmed by my feelings for this wonderful man. Kissing his cheek, I leaned down until his lips were against my skin, the tips of his fangs a light, sharp promise as I offered him my throat.

“Evie.” James’s voice was raw. He drew a preparatory breath and then a stabbing pleasure/pain exploded through me. I arched against him as he clung to me, his teeth buried in my throat even as his body was buried in mine.

The world spun as he rolled with me, his weight pinning me to the bed. One of his hands moved to cup my nape, holding me tight against his mouth. His other hand found my butt, grasping it to pull me, hard, into his driving thrusts. A growl rumbled in his chest as he adjusted his lips and began to draw upon my vein, his mouth hot and demanding, his hips pumping faster.

Wild, acute sensations from the intimate invasions obliterated all thought. I tangled my hands in his hair, pressing him to my throat and groaning with mind-blowing pleasure as he deepened his feeding. Every cell, every synapse exploded in flames and I was merely a vessel for the inferno raging between James’s body and mine, need and passion echoing between us with ever-heightening, dual intensity.

Deeper and deeper still, James drew at my throat, deeper and deeper still, he buried himself in me, drawing from me as he filled me. As his thrusts grew ever faster, more frantic, and his body’s need and pace increased, he withdrew his teeth from my neck. Throwing his head back, he shouted as he convulsed violently. A heartbeat later, I joined him, clinging to his straining, spasming body. Passion and exquisite release—his and mine and mine and his, echo after echo—filled my senses.

All too soon, the fire banked. We were boneless, the aftershocks slowly easing as we basked in the twin sensations. Experiencing lovemaking from both perspectives was incredible. A person could die from such exquisite, intense pleasure.

James’s weight was warm and pleasant on me. His face nestled against my throat and the puffs of air from his harsh breathing tickled. I stroked his hair, utterly content. When he kissed me, I tasted my blood on his lips and it was wildly sexy. This tightened internal muscles and he groaned, rubbing his cheek against mine, inhaling my scent. He murmured sweetly in French as his lips brushed my throat, where the tenderness was already fading. I didn’t understand his words, but I felt the intensity and was humbled by the depth of his feelings.

He leaned back so he could see my face. “Of course I love you, Evie. How can you not know this?” His voice was rough.

“It is one thing to know it, another to feel it,” I whispered, caressing his cheek.

His eyes were so dark an emerald, they were almost black. “This is an incredible gift, my love. Thank you.”

“It worked?” I held my breath.

“You are here…” James touched his forehead to mine, “…and in my soul.”

“Now you know how much…” I swallowed hard and, suddenly, the words were there, “…how much I love you.”

“Evie,” he breathed, my name like a prayer on his lips. “It is so good to hear you say it. But you showed me every day, in countless ways,
ma mie.
I already knew.”

Overcome, I kissed him, negating the need for words. As desire overtook us again, the world was subsumed by touch and sensation and immeasurable love.

The next morning, I was dressed and sitting on the hearth in our bedroom, watching James pull a navy sweater on over his head. The perfection of his body never failed to hold me spellbound, only easing when it was covered—as it was now by a pair of jeans and the pullover.

James chuckled as I blinked.

“Does it ever bother you?” I asked, still feeling dazed.

“What’s that?” He sat beside me.

“My ogling you.”

He leaned over and kissed my neck, the spot he’d tasted the night before, and my pulse lurched in response. He grinned. “I rather enjoy it.”

“Oh?”

“Mmm. Besides, I do my fair share of ogling in return. Does that bother you?”

“You know I like it,” I teased. “But you’re much more…refined about it than I am.”

“It is only because I am more practiced.”

“Okay, you’re going to have to explain that one,” I said archly.

James snorted. “Victorian gentlemen had very strict behavioral standards. Ogling was definitely unacceptable. Even in France.”

“Oh.”

“Everything about you calls to me, my love. And I am, indeed, ogling you. It is only that I am trying to be discreet.” He lowered his mouth to mine, kissing me deeply. I smiled against his lips as I heard his heartbeat respond and felt the echo of his reaction. “Besides,” he said, his lips now trailing along my jaw and grazing my neck, “I believe I have established my inability to keep from touching you for any decent interval of time.”

I heard a digital beeping and James reluctantly pulled back. “The satellite phone. Only a handful of people have that number.”

“Which one do you suppose is calling?”

“Only one way to find out,” he said and we walked out into the great room, where the phone was lying on a side table. “Hello?” He smiled with genuine pleasure as the caller spoke. “Leo, it’s good to hear your voice.”

Gage wandered in from the front porch, having heard the phone. I gave him a small wave and sat on the hearth, gesturing for him to join me.

“Who’s he talking to?” Gage asked.

“Umm, a friend named Leo,” I answered, alarm tightening my voice as I felt James’s sudden distress. I was next to him in an instant, my hand on his arm. Gage began to speak, but I motioned him silent. I wish I’d focused and heard what Leo had said that caused such a reaction.

James said, “Leo, I’m going to put you on speaker.” He set the phone down on the coffee table and half-fell onto the sofa. I sank into his embrace and felt his rigidity.

“Can you hear me?” Leo’s voice was pleasant and deep, with a musical accent I couldn’t quite place.

“We can. Allow me to make introductions,” James said. “My fiancée, Evie, is here with me. And our guest, Gage. Please repeat for them what you told me.”

“Why, James, this is wonderful news, indeed!
Mazel tov!
” Leo said warmly. “Evie, it is a delight to speak with you.”

I said, “Hello, Leo. It’s nice to meet you too.”

“Gage, my greetings to you as well. I do wish our first talk wasn’t under such circumstances as I must share with you.” Leo’s voice grew grave. “As I told James, the Elders learned a month ago that the Church’s slayers have begun to mobilize, both in terms of recruitment and opening new training camps. We’ve not yet seen any violence, but I fear it is only a matter of time.”

I asked, “Why all the activity now?”

“They’ve a new leader, a fellow called Militis, and he’s said to be quite charismatic. Under his leadership, at least five new training centers have sprung up in the world’s largest democracies—including one in the heart of America. The Elders and I believe they’re receiving significant financial backing in order to accomplish such exponential growth, but the Ancients continue to insist that the treaty will keep things peaceful.”

“It sounds like you disagree,” James said.

“Indeed I do. Which is why I argued that we send a delegate to Rome to speak directly with the Vatican. The Ancients finally agreed and a well-respected Elder named Kain left two weeks ago.” The phone line went silent and I wondered if we’d lost the call.

“Tell us the rest,” James prompted softly.

“My apologies. This is not easy to say. A sealed box was left on my doorstep this morning. I was curious, of course. So I carried the box inside and opened it.” Leo had to clear his throat. “The box held a human heart and a square piece of skin, as well as Kain’s head.”

“What…?” The breath whooshed out of me.

Gage’s eyes were huge. “Whoa,” he said, drawing out the word.

James cursed. “The skin…it bore a slayer’s tattoo?”