Chapter 15
Chapter 15
“T hat was good.” Tuesday sat up on the bed and looked over Ethan’s bare chest. The soft beige sheet barely covered his cock, yet exposed those gorgeous muscles that pointed to all the action. The window shades had darkened by half to subdue the setting sunlight, and a hazy pale light softened the air.
“Good?” Ethan whistled lowly. “What does it take to rate a great?”
“Are you competing for a better grade?”
“No. Just not sure I can live with a mere good.”
“Well...” She trailed a finger along the muscle that led to his crotch.
The sex had been amazing, and it had given her an idea. Together, they could do wondrous things. And if he thought she made him better now, he might be blown away at what a little bloodsexmagic could do for them. She’d already given him some of her magic. With the bite, he could become that much more capable of utilizing that magic. But...
“What would take this to great might offend you.”
“There’s nothing you can do that would offend me. Of course, I wouldn’t mind you trying. Over and over.” He winked at her.
“Very well. I’m going to ask for something. Something I’ve never done before but have been curious about.”
“Ask away. If it leads to great I don’t know how I can say no.”
She crawled on top of him and stroked the dark hairs that trailed up from his cock to his belly button. Leaning down to kiss his chest, Tuesday lingered there and licked his skin, which had cooled considerably. Sculpted from steel, he was a new plaything that she wanted to learn more about. And she would. In every way possible.
She pushed her hair over one shoulder. “Bite me,” she said. “Drink my soul, vampire. And in turn, let me feel yours in the thunder of your heartbeats as we climax together.”
Ethan pushed up onto his elbows. His eyes, colored like a rainy sky, held her gaze, searing into her irises so she could feel his thoughts. No fear, yet something made him pause.
“I thought we’d already discussed my nixing the blood-giving stuff.”
“I don’t need your blood. Heck, I don’t want it. Unless it’s for a spell. But now that you bring it up, you never did tell me what was up with that. You stopped talking after saying you killed someone. What happened that you’re such a freak about giving blood?”
“I’m not a freak.” He laid his head back on the pillow and closed his eyes. Still, he winced. “I killed someone I loved, Tuesday, by giving her a blood transfusion. And I won’t ever be responsible for another innocent’s death by doing the same. No blood from these veins for any reason. Ever.”
It was a heavy confession, and she wanted to honor it. Even if a few drops would never harm anyone. But who was she to judge him for something that obviously had hurt him deeply?
She stroked a fingertip over the faint spot below his left pec where she’d stabbed him with the alicorn. No scar, only a slight discoloration in the skin remained.
“This blood transfusion,” she said quietly. “I thought you said you weren’t trying to transform her?”
“I wasn’t. I will never make another vampire. Not unless it is my own child. The woman—she was human. I loved her, but...” He sighed and stroked a hand down her hair. Still, he kept his eyes closed. “It was in the nineteenth century in a little seaside village in Scotland. We were on holiday there, and she’d gone out for a walk in the sunlight, knowing that I was back at the inn buried under the covers, still sleeping. It had rained through the night and the grass was wet and slippery. She fell down a cliff and landed on the boulders fronting the sea. It was hours before I found her and was able to get her to the hospital. So many broken bones. And she’d lost so much blood. And yet, I’d read about blood transfusions, and the medical science behind the operation. I knew there was a possibility of saving her, so I offered my blood.”
“Was she your blood type?” Tuesday asked with surprise.
Ethan shook his head. “At that time, the doctors and surgeons weren’t aware of blood types. They performed the operation unknowing that the type of blood was important. Unfortunately, we were not a match, and after pumping four pints of my blood into her, she seized and went into a coma. She died an hour later.”
Oh, the poor man. “I’m sorry, Ethan.”
“I’d been with her for a year. We never fooled ourselves that we’d marry and have children. She knew I was vampire. Had no desire for the lifestyle, either. I did have a moment of thinking I could save her if only I transformed her. But I did not. I respected her choice not to become vampire. And yet, I killed her by giving her my blood.”
“That wasn’t your fault. Medical science wasn’t advanced enough at the time. You could never have known.”
“I never should have offered in the first place. I should have let her be. She may have recovered.”
“You don’t know that. She’d fallen off a cliff? And you said she’d broken bones. It sounds like she would have died no matter what.”
“Do we have to talk about this?”
“Of course not. But I have one more question.”
“Shoot.”
“Did you love her like you loved your wife?”
He wobbled his head. “Love comes in many different forms. You know?”
“Not really.”
“Right. Sorry. There are many kinds of love. At least, from my perspective. I loved Anyx because it was something we learned and it grew between us over the years. A certain respect, and yes, sexual desire developed the love between us. But I would never call what we experienced a soul love.”
“Even after sixty years?”
“Even after. As for the woman who died, I did love her passionately, but again, it wasn’t soul-deep. And I’m okay with that. Whether we are human or creature or other, we love. It’s what we do. And I wish you could know love.”
“Well, I can love. I just can’t receive love. Not for long, anyway. And always to the detriment of the guy who might think he loves me.” She shrugged. “I’m fine.”
“I don’t think you are.”
“Do we have to talk about this?” she said, repeating his question.
“Not right now, no.”
“Good. And I’m glad you trust me to tell me about the blood thing.” She kissed his collarbone and laid her head on his shoulder. “I won’t ever ask you for blood. Promise. But...”
“You know when a person tosses in a but that means disregard everything I said before that word and only pay attention to what follows?”
Tuesday propped herself up over him. “There’s nothing stopping you from biting me. And it could enhance the magic I’ve already given you. Bloodsexmagic, you know.”
“I thought that was what vampires used to steal a witch’s magic?”
“It is, but if given freely, and if I control the hex...”
“I don’t want to get hexed.”
“You’ve already been thoroughly hexed by me, lover.”
He snickered. “Your use of the word has too many meanings to keep straight. I do like hexing you. But I’m not keen on bloodsexmagic.”
“Fine. I can deal. But that doesn’t mean you still can’t bite me. You know you want a taste. You’ve thought about it. Don’t deny it.”
“I have.” He stroked the hair along her cheek, and traced her neck where her carotid pumped in anticipation, but then dashed downward to tickle the ends of her hair across her breast.
“I dare you,” she whispered, unwilling to back down from the challenge.
Because it was a challenge between the two of them. She’d mentioned to him that fangs got her off, but he had initially been offended by her being a witch. It was an old and innate vampire hang-up. He’d lived through the Great Protection Spell when one drop of witch’s blood could destroy a vampire.
“I’m not poisonous,” she whispered. “Promise.”
“I know that. But you have to know I’ve never bitten a witch.”
“Understandable. But you don’t strike me as the type who would carry a centuries-old fear within you.”
“I don’t fear your blood. But I do think you’re a fang junkie.”
That was a term vamps reserved for humans desperate for more of the fang. But Tuesday didn’t take it as an offense. She shrugged. “Not quite a junkie, but I do love the bite. The orgasm is incredible. Much better than good.”
He smirked and humor danced in his eyes. He might buckle...
“You are cute,” he said.
She nodded, agreeing.
“And your blood smells different than most.”
“How so?”
“Old. Luxurious. Aged, like a fine wine.”
“You are not winning points by calling me old, buddy.”
“It’s the aged vintages that are always best.”
Ethan parted his lips and she watched as his fangs lowered. Beautiful weapons. Pearly white. Sharper than most animal incisors. Made for piercing. She tapped one, and then stroked it until the man’s hips rocked beneath her thighs. It was a unique way to jack him off.
“Taste me, vampire. Dive deeper into my world.”
Ethan dashed out his tongue to lick her finger and she leaned forward, putting her breasts level with his mouth. Offering herself, waiting...wishing for the ultimate connection between the two of them. Because, she’d had it all thus far in life. Sex with so many different species. Bites, blood-sharing and even magic-sharing. But never had she had the bite at the same time as sex. It was a sacred act, and could actually enhance her blood bond with another.
He licked her nipple. And even after making love and having him touch and taste her for hours, she felt it as a new and exciting tingle that shivered through her system. She arched her back, then lifted her breast, putting it in his mouth.
And then the painful pierce of his fangs entered her body. Tuesday gasped at the sharp and intense intrusion. But she didn’t flinch or pull away as his tongue lashed after the blood that spilled over the curve of her breast and toward her nipple.
Cleaning it off, he then suckled at the twin pierce marks, drawing out her blood. The sensation was sweet, and wicked. Delicious and deadly. And when his fangs grazed her skin they raised shiver bumps in the wake of his formidable weapons.
“The other,” he whispered, and she shifted on her hands, tilting her chest so he could get a firm hold on her other breast.
The second piercing felt as painfully exquisite, and she shuddered, and put a hand to the back of his head to hold him there as he fed from her. Sensation soared through her body, coiling at her pussy and making her instantly wet again. He had penetrated her in a different way, but the feeling was beyond that of simple insert-tab-A-into-slot-B intercourse.
All of a sudden he flipped her onto her back. His strong hand clutched behind her head and lifted her neck to his fangs. With an animal fierceness, Ethan growled and sank his fangs into her carotid. One hand clutched at her breast while he fed ravenously from her pumping life. She could bleed out if he let the blood flow too long, and he might tease at that, but the vampire’s saliva was healing and wouldn’t allow such to happen.
“Oh, Ethan...” She twined a leg around one of his and let her head fall back, unsupported as he followed her down. “Fuck me now. With your teeth and your cock.”
As he shoved into her with his hard-on, Tuesday gasped because she felt that sensation as if...she was the one entering him. Ethan’s pleasurable groan ceased his sucking at her neck only momentarily as their gazes met. “You feel that?” he asked.
“I feel...what you feel?”
“Yeah, and...damn.” He slapped his chest. “That’s amazing.”
“We’re sharing the blood pleasures. Don’t stop. More!”
He dropped his mouth to her neck again and the tug at the wound ached as he touched a fang to it and allowed the blood to flow. And as he greedily took from her, he pumped his hips against hers, gliding in and out. One hand thumbed her nipple, pinching, squeezing, demanding.
Everything was different, and the same, and new, and familiar. The intense squeeze of her insides about his cock...she could feel that as if his steely hard rod was her own. The taste of her blood in his mouth—she experienced that sweet delicacy trickle at the back of her throat. And the coil of orgasm that mastered her core seemed to triple in intensity as it enveloped them together.
“I can feel what you feel,” he gasped. “Tuesday... This is... I’ve never known this before.” He hilted himself inside her and then reached down to thumb her clit. “Oh, Christ, that’s...wow.”
“Invoking a Christian deity’s name? You’re telling me.” She held him at her neck, and rocked her hips upward, meeting his thumb strokes with exacting movements to keep him right where she wanted him. “Give it all to me, Ethan. With my blood you’ve entered me. And I have entered you.”
“Is this witchcraft?” he said on a gasp.
“Call it bloodcraft. A kind of bonding that goes beyond the external. Our souls are touching.”
“Yes, that’s exactly how I feel it. Some kind of soul bond.”
And she didn’t want it to stop. But it really was too much. Her mind flew. And her body shuddered uncontrollably. Ethan’s teeth had left her neck, his tongue losing its pace lapping her blood. Together they had ceased to rock into one another for they’d become bound in an inner embrace that sparkled and held them at the edge of life and death.
Ethan’s jaw tensed. He growled, gasping then searching for the release. And with a flick of his finger across her clit, he surrendered and Tuesday fell into the strange but marvelous experience as her body released. Ethan bucked against her. She took it all in as the world moved through her veins and to her every nerve ending.
They froze together in that penultimate moment catching one another’s gaze and peering deep into their reflections. And in that moment the twosome had never known another being so intimately.
* * *
Tuesday slid out of bed and padded into the kitchen, where she pulled the orange juice from the fridge. She poured a glass then drank it.
“Tuesday...”
She turned toward the bedroom, but shook her head. She hadn’t heard Ethan call out to her audibly. Had she...?
“The bed is growing cold on your side. Come back to me.”
Touching her ear, she realized she’d heard him say that to her...in her thoughts. Like a dream, but only it was happening now while she was wide awake.
Let me finish my juice , she thought.
And then she heard him chuckle. Again, not audibly. She felt Ethan’s mirth warm her chest and it was almost as if she’d laughed herself. What was that about?
She set down the glass and teased the ends of her hair as she stared off toward the bedroom. They’d been so close in those moments when he’d been drinking her blood and fucking her at the same time. Truly, they had delved into some kind of blood bond.
Walking fast, she entered the bedroom and glided onto the bed beside Ethan. He patted the cooling side of the sheets, indicating where he wanted her.
“Did you just talk to me in my head?” she asked.
“I did.”
“Vampire persuasion?”
“No. I mean, I don’t think so. It was a thought that I sent to you, hoping you’d hear. I heard you reply when you were drinking juice.”
“We can communicate silently now?” She snuggled up next to him, fitting one leg between both of his as she nudged up her breasts to hug his chest.
He pushed the hair from her neck and studied where he’d bitten her. “It must be residual effects from what we just did.”
“Yes. I’ve never tried it before,” she said.
“Really, Miss Fang Junkie?”
“It was either the bite or sex. Never at the same time.”
“Wow, you do have a discerning bone.”
“Richard.”
“That was deserved. But you did say this would bond us and make us stronger together.”
“I did say that, didn’t I? It was a lark. I’ve heard it could work, but I was thinking more toward making us a powerful duo tracking the demon. I’m not sure how feeling one another’s pleasure is going to help that. Did you feel it all? When I did this...” She reached down and fluttered his forefinger over her folds and then pressed at the peak of them, igniting a twinge of pleasure at her clit.
Ethan sucked in a hiss. “Just the right amount of pressure and, ah, witch, you really fly.”
“Yeah? Well, I never knew what it could feel like to do this.” She gripped his cock and squeezed, and in reaction she felt her stomach tense and her loins sing. “That is so not bad. Do you think we bonded? I mean, I’ve heard that vamps can bond with others by sharing blood. I didn’t take your blood. And I’ve been with other vampires before. This never happened.”
“I don’t have an answer for you. It’s weird, but cool. Probably it was a soul thing.”
“Would that be okay with you? I mean, you said you’ve never felt soul-deep toward a woman.”
“It’s all right by me for now.” He clasped her hand and leaned in to kiss her neck, which sent a shiver down her spine. He breathed on her skin, which tickled as well. “Who knows how long it’ll last. Let’s go with it for as long as we have it, yes?”
“No arguments from this witch.”
She settled next to him, both of them staring up at the ceiling. Moonlight shone across a nearby rooftop and glinted copper outside the window.
“Tell me why you pulled a three-sixty from flying back to the States?” Ethan asked. “Was it just to fuck me?”
“That was one reason. But another was that this witch never backs down from a challenge.”
“Even if that challenge threatened to end you?”
“Oh, yeah. I could feel that bastard hold my heart, Ethan. He promised to rip it out should I go after him again. But bring it on. This witch is not about to run with her tail between her heels because some pretty demon wants to play pi?ata with my heart.”
“It’s dangerous for you to go near him. I’ve learned more about the demon’s curse. I stopped into the Archives while you must have been at the airport. CJ and I looked up Gazariel. I had no idea the curse originated with—”
“Himself.” Tuesday felt a catch in her throat speaking that name. “It’s something I’ve always known. Felt. But never articulated. Didn’t want to put it into words because I didn’t want to believe I was in any way connected to that asshole.”
“The grand high asshole of all assholes.”
“Exactly. A super Richard.” She lifted her head to find his gaze. “Just because I’m primed for the challenge doesn’t mean I’m not also freaked the hell out. I can’t do this alone. And I know you can’t do it without me.”
“But now you’ve made me into some kind of magical tracking device. So maybe I can?”
“True.” She smoothed her hand over his abs, where she’d drawn the spell and gifted him her magic. “Of course you can, but... Can we do this together?”
“You’ve no reason to seek the demon, Tuesday. It means nothing to you to get back the Final Days code. You’re free to leave Paris. I mean that. I don’t want you involved if the expense means your life.”
“Seriously? It means everything to me if the result of having the code enacted means I’ll be smothered by angels when they fall. I am affected by this, Ethan. This is kind of a world-saving venture, and I do live in the world.”
“You’ve got a point.”
“I don’t understand why Gazariel would give such a devious weapon to the vampiress. He seems to thrive living amongst the mortals. And without them, he would be left with the angels and...Himself. The very last being I imagine he’d want to associate with. There’s something we’re missing.”
Ethan rolled to his side and absently stroked his fingers along her hip and up her stomach. “So you’re in?”
“All the way up to my tits.”
“They are nice tits.” He squeezed one of them then gasped. “Man, that feels ten times better than when you pinch mine. Yours are so sensitive.” He leaned forward and sucked one into his mouth, groaning with the shared pleasure.
And Tuesday closed her eyes, wondering when she’d lost her way. This man was only supposed to be a quick fuck and then she had planned to dash back to the States. Yet every part of her wanted to stay near him, to not lose contact with him. It was as if, with the bite and the sex, they had again bound themselves to one another with a stronger bond than even her magic could manage.
And the word love kept bouncing against her brain cells. Well, she didn’t have to worry about that. The man couldn’t love her. He could, but then it would explode and he’d leave or call her a bitch and hate her forever. True love was the key to breaking the curse? Never happen in her lifetime.
“I have a sort of plan,” he said, rolling to his back again.
Missing his heat at her nipple, Tuesday laid her palm over the wet peak. “Tell me.”
“First we need to capture the demon. Even if Anyx is with him. I have to add measures to contain her as well. If she’s been gifted the book she could be attempting to decipher the code right now.”
“So we need them both.”
“We do.”
“And then what?”
“Then we twist the screws to his thumbs.”
“Literally? You know, I’ve seen people tortured with thumbscrews. It is so not pretty.”
“I’ve seen it too. Metaphorically, we’ll twist the screws by threatening to send Gazariel to Daemonia.”
“Really? He would not like that place very much. They’d chew up a fallen angel and regurgitate him over and over. And over.”
“You knew he was a Fallen One?”
“He told me. Creator of Vanity, remember? Just like the curse has always been inside me, and I’ve sensed it was birthed from the Big Bad Dude, I also felt the demon’s ethereal ties before he cursed me. But how would you put him in Daemonia?”
“I know a reckoner.”
“Good to have one of those guys on your contacts list.”
“Exactly. So our first step is to track the demon again.”
“All right, but I’m hungry, and I probably need another shower after all that sex. Want to share the water?”
“Go get it warmed up for me.”
“Aha! Yeah, I don’t think so, vampire. Why don’t you go warm it up for me?”
Ethan sat up and gave her a mock bow. “Your beck is my command.”
“Damn right it is. About time I get to tell you what to do.”
“Stuart, start the shower.”
And as her lover wandered into the bathroom, Tuesday decided that indeed, it was her turn at command. His plan to capture the demon hadn’t worked. He was emotionally stalled by the vampiress and he didn’t realize that weakness.
Now it was time for the witch to take control.