“Die?”
He nodded slowly.
Serena shuddered as the impact of his statement hit her. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
“Nor do I. Unfortunately, I have no choice.”
“Why is that, exactly?”
Griffin leaned back in his chair and watched her as he spoke. “The others wouldn’t let you live with a memory of me.”
“Others?” Her mouth went dry.
He nodded again.
Fighting shaky hands, she raised her mug and sipped the steaming tea, flinching when she burned the roof of her mouth.
“Shit.” She carried the mug to the sink, dumped the contents, then turned to her vampire guest. “How about I promise not to say anything and we call it good?”
Griffin rose and floated across the room to stand before her, or at least that’s the way it seemed.
“We cannot, dear Serena,” he whispered, drawing a slow line down the side of her face with his fingers. “Besides, I want you.”
She whimpered.
Gently grasping her chin, he drew her face up to his. All concern, and fear and rational thought disappeared as his mouth covered hers.
His tongue circled and disappeared, then he nipped her bottom lip and she thought she might swoon—something she never imagined she’d do. She felt his desire merging with her own, growing into a live, pulsing beast to fill the shrinking room.
He pinned her against the counter, sliding his thigh between hers, and she not only let him but welcomed the intrusion. She held his shirt in her fists and pulled him closer.
His fingers slid down the side of her neck, stopping momentarily above her pounding pulse, then around to the front of her blouse. He brushed his knuckles over her hardening nipples, and she strained forward against the pleasure.
“I’ve wanted you since I first saw you long ago,” he said, his mouth near her ear. “I want to taste desire on your skin.” He pressed his mouth to the side of her neck and nipped.
She raised her head, quivering with excitement.
Suddenly, she didn’t care if this was to be her last moment on Earth, she simply wanted more of him.
She wanted all of him.
His arm slid around her waist as darkness closed in, threatening to swallow her whole.
“Yes,” she whispered.
And then the world disappeared.
Serena woke with a start and sat up, confused.
Where the hell was she?
A small light broke the darkness, from a doorway. The hall?
Yes, she knew this place. She was in her bed, in her room. But how had she gotten here? Had the whole thing been a dream?
“Are you all right now?”
She screamed and jumped away from the voice.
“It is I, Griffin,” he said.
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
He didn’t respond, but with a sudden burst of light and sting of sulfur, he lit a candle on her night table.
“There,” he said. “I much prefer subdued lighting.”
She wiped her palm across her forehead. “What happened?”
He rose and walked to the end of the bed where the candlelight barely reached his face. Shadows looked eerier on Griffin than they did on other men.
“I was…swept up in the moment,” he said.
“I don’t understand.”
“Yes.”
That damned evil grin reappeared, and she believed she saw fangs denting his bottom lip. A chill ran down her back.
“Cold?”
She shook her head.
He continued around the bed to sit on the side she’d moved to, and she slid to the middle, staying mostly out of reach.
“You see, my mental powers are quite different than yours, as are most of my faculties. Things sometimes become too intense, even unpleasant.”
Something about the way he said “unpleasant” made her uncomfortable.
As he spoke, he unbuttoned his shirt. “But I’ll be more careful. I want very much to enjoy you, flesh and soul, Serena.”
“What if I’ve changed my mind?”
He froze for an instant, then tore off his shirt and dropped it to the floor, staring into her eyes as he did.
She was more than just a little impressed by his bare torso. Muscles suggested a wildcat of some kind—tight, lean and shaped for speed. A small T of dark hair marked his flawless, pale chest.
Then he turned his back to her and removed his boots. Muscles rippled with the effort, and her mouth watered.
“I’m hoping,” he said finally, stretching out on his side to face her, “that I can convince you to cooperate.”
“What happens if I don’t?”
He studied her face in silence for a long time.
She started to scoot off the bed, but he grabbed her wrist and held her in place. “Don’t leave.”
“Is that an order?” She glared, angry at the thought of any of this happening against her will, even if his intention was to keep her alive, which she still didn’t quite believe.
“No.” He drew her hand to his mouth, ignoring her attempt to resist, and held his lips to the back of it. Somehow, his cool, dry lips awakened nerve endings in her hand and sent electric charges tingling up her arm.
She stopped trying to pull her hand away.
He turned it over and studied her palm, tracing its lines with one finger, then he pressed his lips into the middle of it, and his eyes closed.
She barely kept herself from reaching out and stroking his hair.
Still kissing her palm, his eyes snapped open and he looked up at her.
His eyes, now a strange shade of gold, held an eternity of sadness that broke her heart, and she fought back a wave of tears. She remembered the dream of joining her fantasy lover in his dark world.
Releasing her from his gaze, he moved up to her wrist, which he licked and kissed, and then further up her arm, nibbling places that tickled and made her spine rubbery. When he reached her sleeve, he stopped.
“Take this off, Serena,” he said, his voice deep and throaty.
With her heart once again pounding, she pulled the blouse off over her head and tossed it aside.
Again, he took possession of her arm, moving up quickly to lick a line up the tender inside of her bicep, snapping loose her bra as he did.
His mouth slid over her shoulder and down to her breast where his velvety tongue circled and teased, and her body reacted with a flood of almost violent need. She grabbed a fistful of his silky hair and held him close, and he suckled as he circled her waist with his arms.
Her head swam.
He dragged her down onto the bed without effort, drawing her under him, marking her stomach with gentle bites. Sharp points pressed against her skin but didn’t break it, and she remembered the animal fangs.
Her clothes melted away until she lay sprawled across the bed naked, quivering with excitement. His hands and mouth touched, caressed, teased, soothed and tempted, appearing everywhere at once. She felt as if she would explode into a million pieces if he kept going.
And then he stopped.
Panting, Serena opened her eyes to find him on his hands and knees over her, his clothes also gone.
He stared down with fiery red eyes and an open mouth, and his fangs did more than dent his lip. He raked them with the tip of his tongue as he studied her face and then her neck.
She wondered what he could possibly be thinking, why he waited, but she couldn’t begin to guess. She wasn’t really sure she wanted to know, anyway.
He growled softly, almost purring, and started down her body like a snake. The gentle friction of his skin against hers sent glistening sparkles through her head; her fingers slid over his body as he went.
He eased her legs apart with his shoulders.
She held her breath, unsure what to expect, but unable to want him to stop.
Slowly, deliberately, he licked a trail up the inside of one thigh, nipping the tender flesh. She clenched her fists to keep from moving.
The sensation of his mouth suddenly covering her most sensitive spot arched her back, and she rose to meet his caress. Fangs pressed to tender flesh as his tongue swirled around her nub, demanding every bit of her attention.
She sucked in a breath between gritted teeth at the intensity of the pleasure.
His mouth pressed harder, sucking, tongue swirling faster.
Her awareness narrowed from the world around her to her own body, focused on his demands.
His hands slid down the outsides of her thighs and under her buttocks, stimulating nerve bundles connected to her back and breasts and crotch, which vibrated with his growl.
Juices gathered, a molten vortex, touching down and lifting away. Darkness swept over her in a heated wave.
He moved faster, deeper, his tongue flicking and plunging.
“Give yourself to me,” he whispered, from inside her head.
She opened wider, giving more, wanting all, aflame with need.
The edge approached, a dark void, sucking at her soul.
She screamed as intense spasms of glorious release shot through her, radiating outward, twisting her body. On and on they went, ripping through her muscles. She clutched at sheets, silently begging him to stop.
Too much, too perfect, too intense.
Easing down to the bed as the pulses slowed, she groaned. She’d never experienced an orgasm even close to this and she felt far more than drained.
He moved back up her body, purring again, pressing against stray muscle spasms.
She tingled all over and was a melted mass of useless flesh.
He nuzzled her neck and stroked her side.
Her vampire, her dark fantasy.
“I still know who you are,” she said.
“Yes.” His voice hissed in her ear.
After a long while, she managed to raise her arms and touch his chest with the back of her hand. He shuddered in response.
“Weren’t you supposed to erase my memory?”
He eased a lock of hair from her face with one finger as he smiled at her. Somehow, his fangs didn’t surprise her anymore.
“The first one was for you,” he said. “My gift.”
“First one?” She couldn’t imagine being aroused again within a week. “Griffin—”
He stopped her words with two fingers. “Hush. My name sounds too sweet falling from your precious lips.”
He leaned over and kissed her gently, tenderly—a lover’s caress. Then he drew her into his arms and she rested with her head on his shoulder, her palm pressed to his chest.
It took several minutes to realize what was so strange about him. His heart didn’t pound under her hand, and his chest didn’t rise and fall.
She gulped.
Griffin tightened his arms around her, nuzzled her hair and made soft, soothing noises she could feel as well as hear.
She closed her eyes to enjoy his scent, which seemed to have changed. Mulled wine came to mind, and late nights at her grandmother’s, where cedar and roses spiced the air. Comforting memories billowed over her like a soft old sheet and she smiled.
When she opened her eyes a short time later, he was gone.
The next day, Serena canceled her class at the college, skipped a book club meeting and sat around her house, waiting.
And waiting.
A day turned into a week and then a month. Anticipation collapsed into anger and then blossomed into suspicion. Had she just imagined Griffin? Was he her shadow lover returning in her adult years as a full-blown delusion?
She tried meditating, something she hadn’t done in years. She even tried conjuring him from her subconscious, but nothing happened.
Slowly, she gave up waiting for his return and moved on with her life.
She didn’t lecture on the mythical beasts that humans created to deny death. Instead, she turned her focus to pubescent fantasies and how family relationships shape sexual desires. Old hat, but at least something she believed in.
Three months after her wild night, she was standing barefoot in her kitchen nuking leftovers when someone knocked. Assuming Jeri had come to say she’d returned a day early so Serena could quit feeding her cat, she carried a half-filled wineglass with her, took a drink as she opened the door—then inhaled it into her lungs.
Griffin stood on the porch watching with concern as she choked and coughed. Serena turned to place her glass on the coffee table as she struggled to breathe.
“Do you require medical assistance?”
She shook her head and pounded on her chest with her fist.
“Are you certain?”
She nodded and finally managed to fill her saturated lungs with air.
After taking several deep breaths, she regained control of everything except, possibly, reason.
“What are you doing here?”
“I thought we’d already established that.”
“You mean the memory thing? That was three months ago.”
“Was it?”
Actually, it had been three months and two days, but she decided not to point that out.
She frowned at her guest, trying to determine how she felt about his return.
He looked as fantastic as he had before, or maybe even better. He wore jeans, which seemed anachronistic on him but fit perfectly, and a dark blue shirt that showed off his features and made his blue eyes appear even lighter.
She remembered the way he’d looked at her that night as he knelt over her, and a shiver shot through her.
He watched and waited.
She cleared the last of the wine from her windpipe, picked up her glass and returned to the kitchen for a refill. “Wine?”
“No, thank you.”
Since he didn’t follow, she had a moment alone to gather her wits.
She hadn’t imagined him; he was real. Or, at least, he seemed real at the moment.
And the memory of the pleasure he’d produced felt suddenly fresh, as if it had just happened. She thought about the night after his visit, when she’d lain in bed longing for him. The only thing she could think about was how incredible it might be to feel his body joined with hers. Would he maintain control? Would he growl like he had before?
His primal strength and the hint of danger had excited her that night, until she’d had to provide her own release. And she’d called on that fantasy many times since. Had she blown the whole thing out of proportion in her mind? Was Griffin simply somewhat better than most men at oral sex?
Just the questions had her nipples tightening under her T-shirt. She took a swig of wine from the bottle, hunched her shoulders a little so maybe he wouldn’t notice the effect he had on her, and marched out to face her demon guest.
He stood in the middle of the room, his hands clasped behind his back, watching her approach. He should have been wearing knee-high boots and riding clothes.
She walked past him and locked the front door, then turned to face him. “Why did you wait so long to come back?”
He sighed heavily and took slow steps toward her, one foot placed carefully before the other. She backed to the door, but found no desire to move away. The closer he got, the faster her heart raced, and sweat prickled just under the skin of her face and neck. It wasn’t quite fear that swelled in her chest, but something close to it.
“Three months isn’t very long to someone my age.”
“That’s no excuse.”
His brow furrowed as he stopped less than a step away, and his nostrils flared. “I smell your desire,” he whispered.
Heat rose into her face.
His eyes darkened and he leaned closer. “Lovely, and quite tempting.”
She swallowed hard.
He hadn’t touched her, but every cell of her skin felt invigorated, freshly scrubbed and alive.
A low rumble filled the air. “You have no idea what you do to me,” he said.
She whimpered, wanting to tell him that she shared that sentiment, and the rumble grew louder. Her knees shook violently.
He leaned forward, flattened one hand on the door and then trailed his lips down her cheek and the side of her neck.
She raised her head, offering something she knew better than to give, but she couldn’t help it. His lips stopped above her jugular, and she felt her heartbeat against his mouth.
Time froze.
A century could have passed for the rest of the world and she wouldn’t have known.
He opened his mouth just a little, and hard points of his fangs pressed to her skin.
She closed her eyes and gripped the sides of his shirt.
Then he locked on to her neck and sucked, and she cried out at the pleasure.
Growling, Griffin wrapped her in his arms, and she felt his body against hers once again, perfection she’d dreamt of and missed to the depth of her soul.
“No idea,” he whispered against her cheek.
She turned her head and he took her mouth as he lifted her from the floor. She wrapped her legs around his hips, wanting him closer. Any second thoughts she might have had dissolved in the force of his kiss.
She tasted his hunger, a flavor like no other, and it shook her. She knew he tasted hers in return. She wanted him at that moment with a longing unlike any she’d ever experienced, and drew him into her mouth, stroking his tongue with her own, thrilling to the familiar strangeness.
His hand slid down her back, and he pulled her hips into his. She felt his erection between her legs and whimpered again, this time with need.
Griffin tore his mouth from hers and turned his head. “Not here.”
“My bed,” she said between gasps.
He nodded and released her, and she slid her feet to the floor, but before she could step away, he scooped her into his arms as if she was light as air, which she certainly was not.
She clung to him as he carried her upstairs to bed. He moved through darkness with ease, making no sound, tripping over none of the many obstacles.
Staring into his face, she tried to picture him as he’d been before losing his mortality, and wondered what the world had been like for him. She considered pushing him away so they could talk, but found no will to do so.
No, she wanted Griffin, longed for him.
“Yes,” he whispered, as if hearing her need.
He placed her on the bed, and she removed her clothes and lit candles without prompting as he undressed.
They faced each other, naked, bathed in candlelight. He sat very still, studying her, and she took the opportunity to admire his body.
He truly was magnificent. Not in the way male models are, with bulging muscles and perfect tans, but more like a leopard stalking wary antelope on an African plain. He leaned forward with his hands on the bed between them, and she felt as though he were about to spring and drag her down with claws and teeth.
Instinctively, she leaned away.
“Wise girl,” he said, smiling.
His smile grew into a wicked grin as he continued forward and kissed her with deceptive tenderness.
She reached out and touched his cool shoulders, and he leaned in for another kiss, this one slow, luxurious, enticing. She pulled him closer and he obliged, nipping her lips carefully, then diving in, swirling into her mouth.
He eased her down under him so gently, she barely noticed the maneuver. As he moved his head away, she opened her eyes to find him stretched out beside her, his arm across her waist, stroking her skin. His leg held her in place, but wasn’t necessary.
She noted a flood of emotion she couldn’t explain, and sighed. Griffin’s touch excited her beyond belief, but she felt more than sexual stimulation. She empathized with what she guessed he must have gone through, losing the woman he loved, and marveled at the thought of seeing centuries pass. She wanted to spend the rest of her life with him, and yet was afraid of what this single night might bring.
“I expected you sooner,” she said.
He raised his hand to her face and feathered one finger across her lips. “I couldn’t come back right away.”
“Why not?”
“Because I wanted you too much.”
“I don’t understand.”
His hand moved down her neck and chest to her breast, where it paused. One finger drew slow, liquid circles around her hard nipple, sidetracking her attention for a moment.
“I wanted your life, Serena. I wanted you with me for the rest of my existence.”
She stared up into his steady gaze, understanding that she’d nearly met her mortal end three months earlier, both on the street and in her bed.
As she studied his blue-gold eyes, she found herself wondering if she would have protested the conversion.
“Can you make me a vampire?”
He raised one eyebrow. “I can, possibly. But I won’t.”
“Why not? What if I want to be one?”
“I haven’t offered you the choice.”
“I noticed.” Unexpected anger flared.
Undoubtedly sensing her emotion, he kissed her again, and her anger faded at the intimate pleasure. His palm slid across her breast, teasing the hard nipple, increasing the ache his fingers had produced.
As he parted her legs with his own, the ache spread through all of her, reaching her limbs. She opened herself to him, trembling with anticipation. He kissed her neck and shoulder, and pressed her to the bed with his weight. She felt his engorged cock, cool between her thighs.
His skin seemed impossibly smooth under her hands as she skimmed his back and sides, and then slipped over his firm butt.
He drew in a sharp breath and rose up on his elbows.
“Listen to me, Serena,” he said. “You must do as I say. Do you understand?”
She saw fear on his face for the first time, and realized that she was balanced on a knife’s edge she hadn’t noticed. In spite of that, her body responded to his in puppetlike fashion, writhing and lifting to meet his touch.
She nodded, ready to agree to anything as long as he continued.
“We must go slowly,” he said.
But she didn’t want slowly. Her body swelled with needing him. Every inch of her felt ready to explode. After three months, she’d had enough of slowly.
She reached between them to stroke his stomach, moving lower. If she could wrap her hand around his swollen cock, he might give up on slowly.
Griffin snatched her hand out and pinned it above her head. “No,” he whispered.
She grunted dissatisfaction with the arrangement, but he simply drew her other hand up and pinned it, too. He held both hands with one of his without effort, in spite of her struggle.
“Griffin—”
His free hand then did what hers could not and slid between them, his knuckles riding the ridges of her ribs and the trough of her belly, until his hand came to rest between her legs. Soft like silk, his fingers stroked her nub, slipping in the juices welling in her, inviting her to rise up into clouds of desire.
She obeyed, arching her back as he dipped and emerged.
“Yes,” he hissed, “so sweet.”
Need skittered up the backs of her thighs, tingling inside her belly, pulsing through the muscles in her buttocks and breasts. She’d never felt such strong urges in her life, and could think of only one thing.
“Take me now, Griffin, please.”
“Hush,” he said, his voice low and threatening. “Don’t tempt me.”
She raised her knees on each side of him and rolled her hips, offering herself to him, wanting him to mount her with animal urgency.
He growled in response, and her skin rose in goose bumps.
“Hold still,” he whispered, with desperation that should have worried her.
She tried to obey, tightening her jaw against the urge to move.
He adjusted his body then to meet hers, and she felt the glorious pressure of his thick cock nudging against her wet vaginal lips.
Years of fantasy collided with unbelievable passion as he started into her, and she thrashed her head from side to side, fighting the engulfing sea of longing. She didn’t want it to end yet. She wanted to enjoy the feel of him buried inside her, to know his body joined with hers in bliss.
But her body protested restraint as he pushed deeper, one careful inch at a time, reaching for the center of her soul with his slick hardness, filling her more than any man had, reaching the end and pushing deeper still. His mouth moved across her skin, tasting her neck and lips.
Muscles swelled and tightened, seeking release. Her breath came in quick stuttered gasps.
She needed more, but stretched no farther.
Too much, and not enough.
He withdrew and thrust in steady strokes.
Wet and hard.
Deeper.
She felt the moment approach, felt the blessed relief, and cried out with joy.
And then his thoughts assaulted her brain, and her universe switched off.