BiteMe, page 4
Deacon nodded and offered her a smile that she swore was tinged with sadness. “Yes, Gina. I really am a vampire.”
Chapter Five
Gina shook her head, refusing to believe the man who’d just rocked her world was a vampire.
An honest-to-God, fang-bearing, one of the undead, blood-drinking vampire.
Why did things like this always happen to her?
Well, things like this never happened to her. But it just figured, she’d finally found the man of her dreams and he’d turn out to be a dead guy. Or an undead guy.
No, wait. Okay, now she was just being silly. This kind of thing wasn’t possible. “There are no such things as vampires.”
He turned again and this time she watched his face change, his fangs sliding down over his human teeth. She suddenly wished for a turtleneck and couldn’t help hunching her shoulders to protect her neck.
“I wish it wasn’t true, but it is. Vampires are real. I am real. Search your soul…you’ll know it to be true.”
She already knew it was, but that didn’t stop her from fighting it. She didn’t want it to be true. A fairytale had unfolded before her tonight, and she didn’t want anything to shatter her illusions.
Then it hit her. The reason for his seduction. She shivered, her body like ice. “You used me.”
He stood, gloriously naked, and walked around to her side of the bed. When he sat on the edge, she scrambled over to the other side. “I didn’t use you. You wanted this as much as I did.”
“For entirely different reasons. I was a virgin, Deacon,” she said, hoping somehow that if she revealed that knowledge it would hurt him.
“I know.”
“You know?”
“Yes. One of the reasons I chose you.”
“How did you know?”
“Let’s just say my people are very adept at research.”
Pain knifed her middle, tearing at her heart. She scanned the room for her dress, hoping she’d be able to grab her clothes and leave with as much dignity as possible. Not only had she been used for sex, she’d been specifically used because of her virginity.
The contest, the makeover, the dress, everything. It had all been a setup because she’d been targeted as “the one”. Turns out she wasn’t lucky after all.
“What is it? Some kind of ritual where you have to fuck a virgin to maintain your…your vampireness or something?” Anger added a sharp edge to her voice, but she couldn’t help it.
He turned and stared out the window. “Something like that.”
She rose and inched over to the red velvet gown by the window, snatching it and slipping it on. Screw the corset. She just wanted out of there and she’d leave whatever she had to. Slowly, she backed toward the doorway, hoping he wouldn’t notice her departure.
She turned her head to gauge the distance between the bedroom and the front door. In a flash, Deacon was upon her. She screamed as he pulled her tightly against his still-naked body.
“I’m not through with you yet, Gina,” he warned.
She wanted to look away, didn’t want to look into his eyes again, yet she forced herself to do so. She met his gaze square on and said, “Yes, Deacon, you are. We are. Let go of me.”
“You’re no match for me, physically. You know that.”
Speaking with more bravado than she felt, she said, “If your powers as a vampire are anything in reality like they are on your television show, then yes, I’m aware of that. I’m asking you to let me go. I don’t want any part of this.”
His nostrils flared. “I can smell your fear.”
She didn’t doubt that. She couldn’t mask the horror at what she’d discovered about him. What did she really know about the real Deacon Black? Her fantasies of him consisted of a romantic vampire on television who never killed for sport. That was fantasy.
This was reality. And in this reality she could very well have been targeted for much more than her virginity.
His eyes glowed an eerily unnatural color as he pulled her closely against him. As much as she wanted to be revolted by his touch, her body betrayed her, firing to a quickly boiling state.
“Aren’t you a bit curious, Gina? About what it would feel like to have me sink my teeth deep into your carotid artery and give you the kiss of ultimate pleasure?”
It couldn’t be like the television show. Nothing could be as erotic, as sensual as the victims writhing in the embrace of the vampire’s kiss. “No,” she replied, a bit too breathlessly for her own liking. She’d never been good at masking her emotions, and damn if she didn’t have about ten different ones swirling through her right now. Anger, hurt, fear, and even excitement.
He cupped her breast, finding and petting her puckered nipple. She gasped when he reached inside her gown and rolled the bud between his fingers. Moisture seeped between her legs. God help her, she wanted him to fuck her again.
Shutting her eyes tight, she willed her treacherous body to ignore Deacon’s assault. But it wouldn’t listen. One touch of his hand on her and she was melting.
Something sharp grazed her neck and she instinctively knew it was his teeth scraping against her throat. She gulped back a dry swallow, fear and desire warring within her.
“Let me taste you, Gina. Let me give you a pleasure that few have ever known.”
Yes, she wanted it. This magic, this man, everything he had to offer, she wanted.
“I chose you because you were special. And you gave me an incredible gift. Don’t think I take that lightly, because I don’t. I wanted you, Gina. I still want you. Let me love you, let me taste you.”
Her hastily built walls crumbled at the sincerity in his voice. Maybe she was a fool. Maybe she’d regret this, but heaven help her, she couldn’t resist him. “Deacon,” she murmured, clutching his bare shoulders when a pinprick of pain sliced at her neck.
Her mind swirled with emotion, her body a vortex of spinning desire. He entered her vein, a warm trickle of blood spilling down her neck and over her breast. A magical spell of sensuous delights swirled within her, taking her to peak after peak of pleasure that threatened to—
“No!”
The fierce cry of denial hadn’t come from her lips. Her eyes flew open in time to see Deacon push her away. He sheathed his fangs and turned away from her. “Get out of here, Gina. Now.”
“What? Deacon, I don’t understand. Why?” She held onto the wall for support, her legs still shaking, her body still desperately in need of his touch. She fought to clear his mesmerizing spell from her cloudy brain. Lifting her hand to her throat, she swiped at the sticky wetness there and looked at her fingers. Blood smeared them. She fought back a wave of nausea and sat on the bed.
What had she just been about to do? What would she have let Deacon do to her?
“Get out now! Before it’s too late for you.”
She should heed his words and run. And yet, questions burned within her. Questions she needed to have answers to. “Deacon, what did you have planned for me tonight? Besides taking my virginity, I mean.”
“You don’t want to know.” His voice was dull, monotone, almost as if in defeat.
“Tell me.” She rose to approach him, but he kept his back turned to her and held up one hand to halt her motion.
“Don’t come near me. I can’t hold…I won’t be able to…goddammit Gina, get the fuck out of here now!”
“Not until you tell me. I have a right to know.”
“Get out. I’m offering no explanations.”
“No. I’m not leaving, Deacon.”
He whirled on her and she held her breath. Gone was the beautiful man, replaced instead by a ferocious monster, fangs bared, red glowing in his devil-dark eyes. “You want to know? You really want to know?”
Fear froze her in place as he quickly approached. Deacon grasped her arms, his fingers biting viciously into her skin. “Once a year I need a virgin in order to renew myself. I fuck her, and then I bite her. Only I don’t stop with a bite and a taste of her sweet blood. I have to drain her completely. I kill a woman every year, Gina, so that I can live. That was your fate tonight.”
He pushed her away, his appearance returning to normal. He shook his head and returned to the window, placing his palms on the clear glass. “Get out. I won’t tell you again. If you stay, I will kill you.”
She believed him. Tears streamed down her face as her fear warred with a crushing pain she’d never felt before. Her life was what he’d wanted. Her virginity, and her life. Not her, not the person she was. She was a meal—a candy store for the undead.
Fighting back a sob, Gina grabbed her shoes and fled from the apartment, slamming the door and praying he wouldn’t take off after her. She hurried to the elevator, pressing the button once, then again.
“Hurry up, dammit.” Adrenaline fueled her need for flight, and she paced impatiently in front of the elevator door, watching her own reflection in the mirrored glass.
Then she paused, seeing the thin line of red leading from her neck to her breast.
Blood. Her blood. She reached up and felt the two tiny holes at her throat, waiting for the realization of horror at what had nearly happened to her.
But it didn’t come. She wasn’t afraid. God knows she should be, but she wasn’t.
Thoughts of Deacon wouldn’t leave her mind. Visions of him haunted her—his face, such incredible loss and sadness etched on his handsome features as he’d warned her for the last time to leave.
He needed to kill her so that he could continue to live. That alone struck a cold fear into her heart. By rights she should be dead right now.
But she still lived, and that was a revelation she simply couldn’t ignore.
Empathy replaced the fear. The logical part of her told her to run, and keep running all the way back to Seattle. He’d warned her—more than once. If she went back to him now, she could very well lose her life.
A sane person would grab that elevator and never look back.
She had to be insane, then. She couldn’t leave like this, knew instinctively that they weren’t finished yet. She found herself turning back toward the door to his suite. Her heart pounded against her chest as she put her hand on the knob and opened it.
That tiny voice in the back of her mind whispered over and over again. Get out, Gina. Get out now. Don’t go back in there.
She ignored it and entered the suite, tiptoeing into the bedroom. Deacon still stood naked at the window, his back turned to her.
A sigh escaped his lips. “Why are you back, Gina? I thought I made it clear what would happen.”
Call it instinct or some weird psychic connection she’d made with him, but she was convinced he wouldn’t harm her. She inhaled a shaky breath and walked toward him. He flinched when she touched his arm, tried to shake her off, but she grasped him more forcefully. “Deacon, look at me.”
He turned his head and stared at her. There it was again, that sadness in his eyes that made him look like a lost and lonely child. Her heart ached for him. She felt his emptiness deep into her soul. “Tell me what happens if you don’t kill me tonight.”
He turned his head once again to the lights of the city. “I die by sunrise.”
No. That wasn’t possible. His life force emanated strongly from him. “Are you sure?”
“This is the way it’s always been for my kind, Gina. I can tell you with certainty that it will happen. Now leave. I’m not as strong as you think I am and the need to take your blood is nearly overpowering right now.”
The longer she stood there, the more certain she became that he wouldn’t hurt her. Something else occurred to her, too. “Let me help you, Deacon. Drink some of my blood. It may be enough.”
“No. It won’t be. I’d need to drain you, Gina, don’t you understand? I won’t live through the night unless I kill you.”
The hopelessness of the situation destroyed her. She didn’t want to see him die. But she was unwilling to give up her own life to save his.
There had to be another way. At the very least, she had to try. He could have killed her easily, without another thought or word. Instead, he’d fought the demons raging inside him and was willing to sacrifice his life for hers.
Her heart swelled with a fierce determination, knowing it was now or never. “Deacon, I’m in love with you.”
He turned around and shook his head. “No, you’re in love with the man you see on your television screen each week. Believe me, I’m nothing like him.”
“I realize who you are. What you are. It doesn’t matter. We have a connection, and you know it as well as I do. Let me stay with you tonight. Take a little of my blood, Deacon.”
“I told you it won’t help.”
“I don’t care. I want it. I need it. Give me a little part of you to take with me, and…I know this is stupid, but I want you to take a part of me with you.” Her heart broke at the thought of not seeing him again, of his death. She had so many questions to ask him, so many things she wanted to do with him. There wasn’t enough time, dammit! This wasn’t fair!
He reached for her, pushing her hair gently away from her face. “A vampire’s bite is quite erotic. It can be somewhat overwhelming.”
As if she hadn’t already reached her maximum of overwhelming tonight? “Again, I don’t care. I want you Deacon. If it’s just for tonight, so be it. But I want to be with you. I want to sleep in your arms tonight.”
“You’ll wake up with a centuries-old corpse.”
She refused to give in to the incapacitating grief that threatened to drop her to the floor. They may only have one night together, but she’d give him all that she could. Tomorrow she’d deal with the consequences. Her heart shattered as she spoke the words her mind refused to acknowledge. “Then I’ll bury you in the morning.”
For the first time since she’d known him, the darkness in his eyes softened. “I wish this could have been different. I wish we could have met when I was still alive, when I could have loved you like you deserve.”
A sob broke through her resolve, yet she pushed it back, forced the tears away with the back of her hand. “Then love me right now, Deacon. Love me tonight and make it last for all eternity.”
He stepped forward and reached behind her, unzipping her dress and pulling it down her body. “I’d never tire of looking at you. Your body will be the last thing I see, the last thing I hold. You’re beautiful, Gina.”
Finally, she was able to believe him. “And your heart is as warm as any living man’s, despite what you may think.” She placed her palm over his heart, which strangely was beating powerfully.
He smiled. “It’s not like in the movies. I have a reflection, garlic and crucifixes don’t repulse me and all my bodily functions work.”
For the first time in a while she managed a grin. “Don’t I know it.”
He laughed, then pulled her body next to his, his burgeoning cock sliding between them. Arousal flickered inside her, hardening her nipples and making her wet for him.
“Tell me what I should do,” she asked.
“Just hold on to me. This will be quite intense.”
Gina fought back the fear that caused her body to tremble, and held on tight to Deacon’s arms while he brushed her hair away from her neck.
His lips caressed the spot he’d bitten earlier, and she shuddered at her need for him. When his fangs pierced her neck, she didn’t flinch. Warmth seeped slowly within her, like a slow flame gradually growing stronger. Her blood ran hot, then boiled as he embedded his fangs deep inside her vein.
She threw her head back and reveled in the sensations taking over her body. When Deacon reached between her legs to pet her swollen flesh, she groaned and dug her nails into his arms.
He bent her backwards over his arm, the suckling noises he made as he drank only adding to her excited frenzy. She arched her hips as he sank two fingers into her cunt.
“Fuck me, Deacon,” she begged, needing his cock inside her as much as she now needed his teeth in her throat. “Fuck me now while you take my blood.”
He growled against her throat, both licking and biting her simultaneously. Shifting her slightly, he raised her leg and positioned it around his hip. Without pausing, he plunged his shaft deep inside her.
“Oh, Deacon, yes!” she cried, sliding her hand into his hair as he pumped furiously inside her. The pulsing of her blood as he suckled her neck only added to her excitement. It was as if he fucked her everywhere. She felt him inside her, completely inside her, body and soul. Her life force merged with his as he drank from her, the suckling noises Deacon made at her throat propelling her toward ecstasy and shooting pleasure arcs straight to her heated pussy.
The dual erotic sensations of his teeth buried inside her and his cock thrusting faster and faster sent her over the edge. She cried out as the orgasm swept her away. She waited for the spiraling sensations to subside, but they didn’t. Her climax was continuous, growing stronger with every suckle of his mouth at her throat.
Barely conscious now, she wept at the extreme pleasure.
“I can’t take any more,” she begged, knowing she’d get no response. She felt dizzy, weak, the rapture so intense it was nearly painful.
But she didn’t want him to stop. Ever. If she died from this pleasure, then so be it, because she’d never felt anything like it before.
Deacon’s only response was a deep, dark laugh against her throat, then a loud groan as he climaxed, his body going rigid. The pleasure finally began to subside. Shortly afterward, he removed his fangs and lifted her into his arms.
Gina fought to stay awake, but she was too weak, her body floating on air. Her eyes half-closed, she lifted her hand to Deacon’s cheek and said, “I love you, Deacon. Now and forever.”
“Sleep well, my angel. I’ll always be with you.”
He kissed her, giving her his heart. She lost the fight, surrendering to the darkness surrounding her.
Chapter Six
Deacon woke, certain it was not yet near daylight.
Obviously it couldn’t be, he thought. He still lived. If it was daylight, he’d already be in hell.
