A Vampire's Claim (40 page)

She gave him a soft smile. “I’ll bet they tell them a story before they go to sleep. Tell me a story. Come up here. Let me put my head on your leg.”

When he obliged, sliding under her, she coiled her arms around his hips, her fingers stroking his buttocks in a very distracting way.

With her cheek pillowed on his thigh, he told her one of the Dreamtime stories, the story of creation, when the Father of All Spirits woke the Sun Mother and had her create all living things . . .

When he was done, she was quiet for a bit, her breath even, and he laid his head against the wall, his hand absently tracing her temple, that baby-fine hair that everyone seemed to have there, human and vampires. As well as every man he’d killed . . .

Shh . . .
Not asleep, obviously. She began to sing to him, this time in his mind, a peculiar but soothing sensation as she chose another lullaby, all about a cradle rocking in the clouds, carried along by the wings of angels, never to tip, always to have sweet dreams, of unicorns and birds, bright sunlight and sparkling water . . .

He was starting to rely on it, another coping mechanism, the way she had of drawing a curtain over his memories. “You can wander the train a bit if you get restless,” she murmured at last.

“I’m fine.” He wasn’t leaving her alone while she was sleeping in a strange place.

Another moment of silence. “Dev, you did what you had to do. And you did it for me. To protect me from having to swear loyalty to Charles. As well as to save your own life.”

“One of me for six or seven of them.”

“Who all tried to kill you. That was the point. To run you down and make sure you didn’t survive. Worse, they did it as a game.”

No. Men don’t play games like that. If they call them games, that’s just a ruse for what they’re really about.
Dev turned his gaze down to her, found her half-open eyes watching him. “Like having me take off your boots, right?”

“Mmm.” A light smile touched her lips. “There are places I could take you, where I could chain you up, and tease you to hardness, over and over, until you’d beg for the barest friction of a wet pussy against you. Make you mindless except to my commands.

Work you so hard I’d break down your mind, let all the shadows escape. After that, all you’d have is my commands to obey, nothing else, until you could get enough rest from the chatter in your head that you’d become the man you were meant to be again.”

The berth had grown much smaller, warmer, as his body warred with his mind over the unlikely words. He noted the faint sheen of moisture on her lips, and wanted to taste it. Instead, he curled his hand into a knot and stared down at her. “Promise me you won’t do that. Chain me up.”

She held his gaze. “I promise I won’t, until I know you trust me enough to let me do it.”

“I wouldn’t hold your breath for me to say those words, love. Nothing personal.”

“I didn’t say I’d be waiting for your permission. I said I wouldn’t do it until I know you trust me enough. That day will come, Dev.

And when it does, you’ll be scared, and furious, and gloriously violent, but you’ll also be yearning toward me, daring me to take everything, your heart, mind and soul, and make it part of myself. Then, when I unchain you, it won’t matter.” Her hand reached up, traced his throat. “The collar will still be there. Forever. It doesn’t take anything away from those you’ve loved before. Every experience you’ve had before this moment has made you who you are, what I want. What any woman alive would want.” Her fingers settled on his shoulder, the dangerous light weight of a spider, drawing his attention to the coolness in her eyes. “But which I alone will claim.”

Turning his head, he brushed his lips over her fingers. “I told you, I’m no one’s possession.”

“That’s only because you hear the word and you think of a loss of freedom. With surrender comes release, Dev. Remember that.”

When she slept at last, he was loath to move from his position. Feeling around in her travel bag, he came up with Walt Whitman’s
Leaves of Grass
. He wondered if she cared for it, or if she’d brought it from her library, suspecting he would find it enjoyable.

Taking him back to a time when his life was all about study, debating points of philosophy with fellow students, or playing English rugby. Of course, he’d also introduced his classmates to aerial pingpong, the chaotic Australian footy rules. In wry hindsight, he realized his knowledge of that sport had been good preparation for the battlefield. He’d just begun to teach Rob before . . .

As the train rumbled, he opened the cover and moved into Whit-man’s world, before he could get pulled into his own dark one.

I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough
. . . His hand drifted over her hair, down her back. How often he’d had thoughts about that, when he took his trips in to Elle’s place, or walked with the clan for a day. Or when crossing their tracks, he’d stopped to examine the different patterns of their feet, identifying who was heavier or lighter, who bore a burden and who did not.

Who was in good health and who might be feeling poorly. A way to connect, without being with them.

This the nucleus—after the child is born of woman, man is born of woman,
This the bath of birth, this the merge of small and large, and the outlet again.

Then, regarding women . . .
You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul.

“The gates of hell and heaven both,” he murmured, his hand resting upon her. “And when you possess our soul, we will follow you to either one.”
I know what being possessed is, Danny. I do.
He just didn’t know if he was that strong.

By my side or back of me Eve following, Or in front, and I following her just the same.

She shifted then. Moving with her, synchronized with her body as if he were the wind and her limbs the branches of a tree, flowing together, he brought her up into his lap. Leaning against the back of the sleeper, he let her dream on that way, her body laid out between his spread legs, her upper torso propped against his. One arm was hooked loosely at his waist, the other resting in her lap, her cheek pillowed on his abdomen. At this angle, through the curtain’s crack, he could see Uluru in the far distance—or Ayer’s Rock, as most of the whites called it—the vast formation of sacred rock. The sun was starting to spill out over it, an awe-inspiring sight, even at this range. He’d stood in its shadow, knew what had once rested there, so many sacred items and stories of the aborigines, many of those spirited away before others could remove them for museums, souvenirs. You had to protect what you treasured. Otherwise it would be taken away when you least expected it.

No, he couldn’t afford to be possessed again. But he was well aware the choice might no longer be his to make.

17

I
N some part of her subconscious, Danny was aware of the many hours he spent, letting her pillow upon him while he read. The rails clacked beneath them and the train halted and started again for the few stops along the way, a comfortable rhythm.

After watching him deal with the aftermath of Ruskin in his own stubborn way for the week, then seeing the darkness pour off him at Bob’s, she’d realized it was past time for her to lance the boil. The verses he’d found in the poetry to stir the things festering in his soul were the final sign. She let it percolate in her mind now, gave herself the luxury of a slow rousing while the brooding man remained oblivious to her state of wakefulness.

At last, with an easy movement, she pushed herself up on his thighs, nudging the book out of the way. Before he could greet her awakening, she’d curled her arms around his neck and teased his mouth open with hers, feeling a surge of need when he clasped her in his arms, his hand cupping the back of her head, taking over control of the kiss, making it deeper, more insistent, like the pressure she was feeling against her hipbone, the hard bar of iron at his groin.

“Good dreams, then?” he asked at last when she drew her head back. She noted his voice was thick, his arms not easing from her a bit, so she felt the tension of his biceps, the broad shoulders.

“Almost as good as the real thing.” She touched his mouth. “It’s time to give you that reward, Dev. I don’t want to wait until we get there.”

It took a moment to register, then she was surprised to hear the thought in his mind, see the charmingly embarrassed flush. She laid a hand on his cheek. “I will heal, you know.”

He cleared his throat. “I . . . One of the prostitutes I was with, she said it’s so awful for so many women because they don’t use things . . . of different sizes . . . to stretch themselves out first.”

“I will heal,” she repeated gently.

He shook his head. “It’s not that. I know that. I want you . . . to enjoy it. I don’t want to hurt you that way.”

“Don’t you?” She raised an eyebrow. “That first night, with the whip. You knew exactly how to do it without causing me pain, but you chose to give me that sting. You like it, giving out some pain, Dev. Making it part of the pleasure. You might have a drop or two of vampire blood in you somewhere.” Leaning forward to his mouth again, she stopped to breathe on his parted lips, her blue eyes lifting to embrace his green ones. “The key to making it pleasurable for me, bushman, is to make sure I’m so wildly aroused that I’ll tear the flesh off your bones if you don’t take me down.”

Dev swallowed. The power of his lust was rising, and the feeling of it washing over her was enough to heat her own skin, make her hungry for it. Make her hungry, period.

Sliding his belt free, she unbuttoned the front of his trousers. As he watched her, she reached in and teased his thigh above the hiked-up edge of his boxers. “Ease these down,” she whispered. “Just to the tops of your thighs. I’m going to prove my point.”

“Danny—”

“You think it’s lust that makes what’s between us bearable, addictive.” Her gaze glinted. “Take your trousers down.”

A muscle flexed in his jaw, but he complied, shifting her weight as he did so. It kept him hobbled, she knew, because he still wore his boots, but she was going to use that right now.

“Now, spread your legs for me. A few inches.” She was still lying halfway over one thigh. When he obeyed her, she let her gaze drop to the delectable outline of his testicles, straining against the seam of the boxer shorts, and from this angle, she could see the flesh color of one of them, the full ripeness of it, revealed by the open leg.

“Pain and pleasure. They go together,” she breathed, and bent her head.

As she pierced the femoral artery in his thigh, he arched up against her mouth, his breath drawing in sharply. She caught the rich blood in the back of her throat, savored its rapid pump, even as she placed pressure above to slow it down. She wanted time to linger, enjoy, let her lips nuzzle his flesh. Her hair and the shell of her ear were so close to that erect organ that her other hand found, clasped and began to tease it with slow strokes, up and down.

“Jesus, love.” His hoarse groan, the sudden grasp of her hair in hard fingers, told her that pleasure had kicked in, dragged the pain with it. She would make sure they’d intertwine the same way their bodies would, very shortly. By the time she finished her meal, his upper body was jerking, movements he was fighting to rein in, but emulating the rhythm his body most wanted.

Taking his hand, she brought it down and placed it on the pressure point she’d been holding, even as she took the time to make sure his blood was clotting. His heart was beating fast, his throat working, a reaction to the dangerous precipice. But as a third-mark, she could almost drain him and he would live, as long as he received her blood in a prescribed time.

Then she rose, surprised when he caught her wrist. “Where are you going?” His green eyes devoured every part of her, his voice a low growl.

“Wherever I want to go, bushman.” She gave him a teasing smile and, with a quick, easy movement, freed herself. Her gaze lowered to the hard length of him, now trying, with success, to point up along his belly, stretch beyond the waistband of his shorts.

Going to her small carry-on, she withdrew the warm oil and sat it on the built-in shelf, the bottle vibrating with the clicking of the train. “You can use me gentle, bushman, or throw me down on the bed, use me like a whore who likes it hard and rough, pour all that fury and pain you’re carrying into me.” She gave him a steady look as she slid her shirt off her shoulders, then took off her trousers. Then the scraps of knickers, leaving her naked to him. “Time to draw off the poison, Dev. Give you a rest from it.”

“And you think one good arse fuck will do that? Christ, you have a high opinion of yourself.”

Dev was startled by the sudden flood of his anger, but she’d pointed so easily to that darkest part of himself, the desires any other man would have suppressed. And she’d done it without reading minds, he was almost sure of it.

“I don’t know, Dev. Will it?” She took a step back, away from him, toward the berth, a glittering light in her blue eyes. In the dim light, with the curtains drawn, they were almost black.

“Unbraid your hair. I want to wrap my hands in it when I fuck you.”

She cocked her head. “You’re my servant. You do it.”

Yet when he leaned forward to yank off his boots, get the bloody trousers off so he could go after her, she beat him to it. Putting one lithe pale leg over his knee, so she was practically sitting in his lap in the confined space, she straightened his leg, took hold of the toe and heel and pulled. The rounded cheeks were like two curved flower petals in his face, inviting touch. He ground his teeth together, everything in him drawing together like a coiled spring. A snake in the sand, waiting to strike.

As soon as she removed the trousers, he whipped up off the long seat, seized her by the waist and turned her, bringing her facedown on the lower berth, his body insinuating behind her, close enough that the jut of his cock pressed against her arse, though separated by the straining thin cotton of his boxers.

“You don’t move,” he said, his voice not his own. A way he’d never talked to any woman, but needed to now. But even as he got the boxers halfway off, she’d slipped away from him, her laughter torturing raw emotions in him.