14. Alexander
14
ALEXANDER
E mily answered the door paler than she’d been the day before, and my immediate urge was to sweep her from the apartment and save her from the book. But removing her from it would only slow the rot. There had to be another method of saving her, other than to turn her into a vampire. I couldn’t bring myself to curse her with a fate worse than death.
“Alex,” she said, and her smile changed her face, from sickly to radiant. “I’m so glad you came to visit me.” Emily pressed a shaking hand to her forehead. “But I’m under the weather, I?—”
“Emily,” I said.
Her gaze snapped to my face again, and she touched her lips with the tip of her tongue. Even now, when she was at her worst, I wanted her. Worse, I wanted to protect her.
“Emily,” I said, my gaze scouting toward the kitchen where I had felt the ward with my magic. Ah. There you are. “Do you mind if I borrow a pen?”
“A pen?”
I patted my coat. “I forgot mine at home, and I wanted to write down my number for you. ”
“Oh, but I could just put the number in my phone,” Emily said, blinking at me.
“Yes, you could do that. But you could also, please, bring me that pen.” The minute the ward-item crossed the boundary of its protection, the magic would fail, and I would have free access to Emily’s apartment. And the book.
Except taking the book would break her trust and the relationship I had built with her. And leaving it would slowly make her even more ill.
Emily grabbed the pen on the kitchen counter and walked it over to me. The minute she gave it to me, the protection around her apartment ceased to exist. She sagged for a second then shook her head and smiled at me. “There you go.”
“I don’t have anything to write on,” I said, and stepped into her apartment.
I shut the door behind me and locked it.
“I think I have a notepad in my room. Be right back,” Emily said, and wandered off.
She wasn’t herself, and my gaze strayed to the book on the coffee table. I could take it now and leave, never come back, and condemn her to a slow death. She would feel better for a while, but then her health would rapidly decline. Further research had proved that removing it was the worst of the options. And the most necessary.
While she was in her room, I cast a ward of my own around the apartment, using my much harsher vampire magic. I was the ward item. The only way to get to Emily and the book was now through me.
After I was done, I walked over to the sofa, tapping the pen against my palm and considering the journal. So much strife over this book.
I extended a hand, hovering it over the leatherbound cover.
Footsteps were preceded by Emily, holding her notepad to her chest. “What are you doing?”
She had sensed that I was about to touch the book. “I remember you telling me about this,” I said, gesturing toward the journal. “A diary of a Frenchman.”
“Yes.” Her brown wrinkles. “But why are you … I mean?—”
“Emily?”
“Sorry.” She handed me the notepad. “I don’t know why I’m acting like this. I just don’t feel myself and—” Tears welled in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. “Nothing about this seems normal. About me being sick or you or?—”
“Come here.” I put down the pen and took Emily into my arms, pressing her to my chest and inhaling her scent. I couldn’t help myself, and that was beyond annoying. Touching her and keeping her safe shouldn’t be my concern when I had the book to worry about, and Sanguine Nox. I had sworn I would do whatever I could to get my revenge on him . That didn’t include falling in love with a mortal.
Emily trembled in my arms, and I wrapped her closer, swept up by the way she felt against me. She was fragile and perfect, and the beast in me wanted to tear into her throat even as I ravaged her body.
I ran my hands down her spine, pressing her comfy sweater to her back.
She groaned and clasped handfuls of my shirt, leaning against me. “I know it’s silly,” she whispered. “But I’m afraid you’ll try to steal my novel from me.”
“Your novel?” I pulled back and searched her face. “Emily, I would never steal your ideas.” Just your possessions. And your heart.
“You wouldn’t,” she said. “Of course, you wouldn’t. It was a silly thing to say. I don’t know why I even said it because I trust you, Alexander. I—” She stepped back, rubbing her arms. “I do trust you. And I want you.”
I gritted my teeth. “Have you had any visitors lately?” I asked.
Her behavior was strange, and it smacked of foul play. I didn’t often deal with mortals, but vampires were a common enemy, and they operated well in the shadows .
“Visitors?” She scratched her forehead. “I’m not sure. I feel like I’ve seen someone new, but I can’t remember.”
I moved toward her and grasped her head, running a quick wash of vampire magic over her. It was the most healing I could do, as I wasn’t particularly proficient at healing. My powers were specifically for destruction.
She shivered, but her cheeks pinked, color returning to her skin. She glanced down at her body and sucked in a breath. “Oh my gosh, I need a shower. You can’t see me like this, this sweater?—”
“You’re beautiful.”
Her eyelashes fluttered. “Alex.”
“I can help you,” I said. “If you want to shower.”
“Help me.”
I had to be out of my mind, but she was sick, and I could tamp down on my base desires if it meant helping her. Perhaps, it was the guilt that drove me, but I took Emily by the hand and led her down the hall and into the tiny bathroom.
The tiled space held a toilet, basin, and shower with a glass sliding door. I opened it and switched it on, running the water warm rather than hot.
“Alex?” She leaned against the wall, still shivering from fever even though I had hopefully cleared her mind of whatever spell had been put on it.
“Come,” I said, holding a hand out.
She took it, and I drew her into my arms, holding her tight to my chest. Gently, I swept the auburn hair back from her face and cupped it in my hands. “I am going to help you clean up,” I said. “Is that fine with you?”
Emily wet her lips again. “Y-Yes.”
“Good.” It came out gruffer than I had intended it to, but she didn’t flinch away.
This would be difficult for me but necessary for her.
I reached between us and grasped the hem of her sweater. “Lift your arms above your head. ”
She did as I’d commanded, and I stripped the sweater upward, finding her naked underneath. Her breasts were tipped with perfect pink nipples that puckered against the sudden cold. I dropped the sweater onto the floor and held her by the hips, my thumbs pressing into her pale skin.
This was torture. She was stunning, curvy in the right places, her body responding to my touch.
“Alex,” she whispered, lust in her voice.
No. Don’t do this. It will only complicate things.
And I wasn’t sure I could fuck her without biting her as well. Her throat worked, and the light scent of her desire drifted from her skin.
“Hold still,” I said, gruffly. “Grab the towel rack if you need to stay upright. Or my shoulders.”
And then I slipped my fingers into the waistband of her comfortable pants and stripped them down. Naked underneath that too, as if she hadn’t had the will to put on underwear.
I swore under my breath.
“What’s wrong?” Emily asked.
“Nothing.” Everything was right about her. The slight dip at her hips, the softness of her skin, the smell of her sex as she grew aroused for me. I brushed my fingers over her calves up to her milky thighs then stopped myself.
“Into the shower.” I helped her get inside, and she slumped against the wall.
I stripped off my coat, keeping my buttoned shirt and pants on, even though they did nothing to hide my arousal, and got into the shower with her.
“What are you doing? You’ll get your clothes wet!” Emily murmured.
Even when she was sick, on the verge of passing out, her main concern was for my clothing.
“That is the last thing you should be worried about,” I said, and helped her stand upright .
I washed her hair first, then moved down toward her body, lathering the soap of her skin, taking extra care over her breasts.
Emily gasped and moaned, and the scent of her became unbearable. My fangs lengthened in my mouth, so I kept it shut, breathing through my nostrils, though it did little to help calm me down. “Alex, you don’t have to do this.”
“Do you want me to stop?”
“No.”
I brought myself to my knees in front of her, gently tapping her thighs apart, I washed them gently, then moved my hand up to her sex.
She moaned and trembled, her gaze filled with lust for me. The temptation was too much, and while I couldn’t take her, I could at least pleasure and comfort her while she was ill. And much like with our kiss, I could pour some of my strength into her.
I moved my fingers over her hot, soft mound, my jaw clenched at the sensation of her wet flesh.
Emily grabbed for the wall, and I looped an arm around her waist, holding her upright, as I found that hard button of pleasure between her legs. Gently, I circled it, toyed with her, until she panted and clawed at my sodden shirt.
“Please, Alex. Please.”
She was begging for release, and I couldn’t deny her. I brought her over the edge with deft fingers, plunging them inside her, working her body like an instrument attuned to my touch and mine only.
Emily broke apart beneath me, crying my name out in a way that drove me to the edge. My erection demanded that I take her now, my fangs pricked at my bottom lip, desperate for a taste of her.
Once she was spent, I rose and carried her out of the shower. I wrapped her in a towel then stripped off my shirt and tossed it aside.
Emily groaned and hugged me, her hands on my pecs, moving down my abs, toward the line of my pants. “Please,” she whispered. “More. ”
I grunted under my breath. “I can’t give you more tonight, Emily.”
“I want you.”
“And I want you,” I said. “But you’re sick, and when I take you for the first time, you’re going to be healthy enough to participate.”
“I can participate now.”
I dried her then brought her to her room and laid her down on her bed. “Sleep now,” I whispered, and kissed her forehead.
Emily murmured softly and curled up in bed, tired from the constant drain of the book and sated by her orgasm. The gentle scent of satisfaction was adorable.
It was a bad idea. Even as I moved back to the bathroom and dried off my clothing with my crimson magic, even as I walked out of the apartment and shut the door behind me, I was aware of the danger I’d put us both in by touching her intimately.
Now that I had felt her beneath my hands, I would do anything to have her as mine. Almost anything.