A Vampire's Claim (43 page)

Don’t do that, Dev. Don’t say good-bye, bushman, when you haven’t even said a proper hello, by my accounting of time.

Two hundred years is young for a vampire, remember?

That twist of his lips again, and it punched her low in her stomach, that sensual curve of mouth. His hands went to her waist, finding the small of her back, the rise of her buttocks. She brought all her soft curves and willing flesh against the cotton, denim and leather covering his. No wonder the little girl was enchanted. He
was
a romantic figure with the stock whip coiled at his hip, the handle fitted into a slim pocket along the thigh, the knives on the other side. Reaching up, she took off his hat, raking her hand through his copper red hair. “Did you used to keep it short for her?”

“No. I kept it short because that was the way I was raised. She liked it longer, like this, though. She understood I needed it the other way, for the heat and dirt, all that. But she liked it like this,” he repeated.

Danny nodded. “So do I.”
Touch me, Dev. Kiss me. Hold me.

But she didn’t beg any man, so she held those thoughts in her own mind only, began to draw away, giving him a coy smile when his hands tightened, drew her back, close enough that muscled leg found the seam of her thighs and pressed, so he rode her on it as he leaned back against the door and brought his head down to nibble on her lips.

“Hold still, love,” he murmured. “Let me enjoy you. Give you pleasure.”

Was it to make up for his roughness before? Whatever his reasons, this was pure devastation of thought, everything given to her senses as he teased her mouth over and over with his. Lips, tongue, working intimately to explore her mouth, her lips, the wetness just inside them, the tender, moist flesh so like another part of her body. He eased up her sides, tracing her rib cage, sliding around to her back again to play in her hair, following it to where the tips teased the tops of her buttocks. When his hands formed a butterfly shape, the thumbs pressed together in her cleft, up against the sensitive opening, his other fingers spread out over her cheeks to grip with the right firmness.

He moved against her then, his leg insinuating farther so she held on to his shoulder and he took her off her feet, working her against his thigh, a delicious pressure to her clit that had her tossing her head back and giving him access to her throat for more of the magic of his mouth, moving down her sternum, his stubble scratching her breasts, his hair brushing her skin. She gripped his arms, the loose stuff of his shirt, undulating against the hard column of his thigh, rubbing his cock with her hipbone. When he turned his head to her shoulder, nuzzling the point of it with his lips, his pulsing artery was there, before her eyes, her mouth. He’d registered her hunger.

She brushed the offered area with tender lips, a thank-you before delicately piercing him, using only one fang so she could sip from the bite area. Feeling his cock grow harder against her, she knew how much it aroused him, she feeding on him, he serving her needs, even if he didn’t think of it that way. Giving something simple, life sustaining. No gray areas to consider. Just pure, red blood.

Hitching her up on his body as she drank, he moved them to the bed. As he took her down, she watched him fan out her hair with his fingers. This intense attention was an irresistible seduction, the way he looked at her, his only focus her. Whether he was doing it deliberately to force out other memories or not, the only thing she felt in his mind now was his absorption in her. She liked it, and pushed away her own discomfiting thoughts, not wanting to remember her reaction when she thought he’d been flirting and making friends with a town girl.

A stroke of sadness came with the thought. No matter how he denied it, he needed to have a family again. He needed that to heal.

Which meant, third mark or not, he wasn’t going to be hers forever, no matter how much she wanted him to be. When it came time to leave, she wouldn’t hold him. It was what was best for him.

But for now, she focused on this. Divesting himself of his clothing, he came down upon her on the bed, sliding his arm under her waist to move her up, adjusting her where her head could rest on a pillow. He entered her, slow, sweet, pulling everything in her yearning body toward that joining point, taking his body all the way down on hers so they were simply intertwined, their gazes holding, so much going on that wasn’t being said, even in their thoughts.

Dev might be right. A woman’s heart was a woman’s heart, no matter whether it rested in a human form or a vampire’s. It could break in either vessel. It just couldn’t kill the vampire, much as she might wish to avoid the pain. And it made her wonder if the desolation of having loved her father and never found a replacement for him was what had sent her mother walking out into the sun, that last dawn of her life.

This was a thought she didn’t want, couldn’t be having, not at this moment. But she couldn’t prevent the wave of feeling, as vast as the ocean so close to their door, when he leaned down, kissed her lips again and spoke to her in that tender whisper. “Gate to my soul, love. That’s what you are.”

She drew him down to her then, clasping her arms over his broad shoulders, pressing her face into his neck as his strokes began to quicken and her body began to lift to his, to demand, to come closer to that pinnacle where both of their unsettling thoughts would be swept away by the incoming tide. She would take it, even knowing that things washed away by tides had a way of returning, again and again. Marking the beach with their impression so they could never be forgotten as well as never kept, temporary and yet eternal marks in the sand.

18

A
NOTHER plus, he was a man quite comfortable with dancing. At the hotel, he handled himself handsomely in a waltz, his hand sure on her back, fingers supporting hers.

“So, did the aborigines teach you to dance?”

“Aborigines don’t dance.” He gave her a smile as he turned her. Most had turned out for the hotel’s entertainment, so the waxed and swept wooden floor was semicrowded. “They imitate animals or hunting scenes. They use music as part of the ceremonies, so people think it’s dancing.”

“You’ve participated in them?” She raised a brow.

He shrugged. “Because of my ancestor, I’m accepted as a member of a particular clan, the family descended from the aboriginal woman he married. But yeah, I’ve done my share with the men of the tribe. Done a passable bird, horse, camel . . .” He winked at her. “They said when I did the bird, I looked a bit frightening, this naked white thing flapping his arms and cackling at the sky. They weren’t sure I hadn’t been possessed by some kind of evil spirit instead.”

“You didn’t stay with them, though.”

“I’m welcome to walk with them on occasion, but they won’t let me stay with them. They said the white world has more need of a Gravedigger than theirs.”

Then that brief shadow passed, good humor returning to the hazel eyes. “I could imitate a bird for you, but I’d be afraid of offending my totem.” He flicked his eyes toward his chest, the raven they knew was concealed beneath his shirt. “His power might desert me.”

“Somehow, I doubt that.” Sliding her hand up to his nape, she played under his hair as they turned together. His hand was low on her back, and she supposed it was clear to anyone watching they were intimate with each other. She’d seen more than one woman’s eyes seeking wedding rings and tutting when they didn’t find any.

Bugger them. They’re just in a blue because their husbands can’t take their eyes off your bum.

“Behave,” she reproved, though her eyes twinkled. “You still haven’t told me how you learned to dance.”

He grinned. “Maybe it’s from sheep shearing. The key is keeping the sheep relaxed, so she’ll turn in your arms like a lady dancing.”

He took her smoothly under his arm and then back to him again. “When the shears run along her fleece, you keep one hand ahead of the blades to pull the skin smooth so you don’t cut her, and so you’ll cut the fleece even. I expect that feels like a soothing stroke up a woman’s back.” His fingers drifted along her spine. “ ’Course, you’re spinning her this way and that on her arse. May explain why my first few dance partners didn’t take well to me.”

She chuckled. “Care to walk on the beach with me after this dance?”

Dev nodded, gave her another stylish spin to maneuver her off the dance floor and made her laugh again. He liked the sound of it, relaxed and almost girlish. She stopped at the boardwalk to hold his shoulder and remove her sandals, leaving them tucked in the shadows as they continued down to the shore. She’d worn a proper sun-dress tonight, and he liked the way it bared her arms, the flare of the modest skirt that fell to her calves. She’d clipped her hair back with a barrette on her shoulders. She looked pretty this way, a young woman walking along the beach with a beau.

However, despite her attractive but relatively demure appearance, he noted her direct gaze was disconcerting to most. Whether consciously or not, parents had a tendency to move their children to the outside when Danny passed, hurry them along and steal a nervous glance over their shoulders as if they’d encountered a dangerous lioness who happened to look like the Cinderella of the fairy tales.

In contrast, when they went down the stairs to the beach, he automatically took her hand, making sure she maneuvered the rickety wooden steps safely, though she was lithe as a cat in truth and probably could have vaulted down them.

They encountered another swagman a few feet away, up against the dune. He’d collected bits of trash off the beach and created a giant lizard made of wire, paper, string and other bits of debris, delighting the children and Danny. She circled it several times and made the old fella’s night, with her interest as well as the few dollars she gave him.

When another group of children came to see, they moved on toward the shore. Danny held up her skirt to avoid getting the hem wet, while the tide bathed her toes. He offered her his hand and she took it, wrapping her fingers in his as they ambled along in companionable silence.

“I’ve seen the world’s largest ball of string. And the world’s tiniest dollhouse. Why do you think people do that? Make things larger, or smaller?”

“Well, the miniature stuff seems easy to understand. Your own tiny world.”

“It always boils down to control.” She sent a smile toward him.

“Care for a swim?” he asked, nodding toward the ocean.

“No.” When he raised an eyebrow at her emphatic response, she grimaced. “Vampires can’t swim, Dev. Our bodies . . . there’s no buoyancy. We don’t float. We can walk along the bottom, but most of us don’t like getting our heads wet.”

Which explained how cranky she’d been when he’d tossed her into the billabong. She snorted. “I heard that. I was not cranky.”

“If you don’t like what you hear in my mind, my lady, you can always change the radio station.”

He drew her close enough to brush his jaw across her fair brow. Shaking her head at him, she bent to examine a shell. Her hair fell forward, baring the side of her throat, making him want to kiss it, blow on her nape. She tilted her head slightly toward him, telling him she was listening, still preferring to tune in to his channel.

“Why did Ruskin want to take your blood that night? Does it give him the same access to your mind as you have to mine?”

Putting the shell back down, she moved on, her footprints leaving a trail in the wet sand. “Yes and no. If he took just a small amount, he could locate me in his territory, have some sense of my thoughts or intentions. But more than that, and he can get deeper into my mind. It’s not as easy. I could block him in a way a human can’t, but it would take fairly constant effort. For instance, vampires have used a forced blood exchange, combined with torture, to find out secrets from other vampires. Council plans, family fortunes, et cetera. Most vampires in a territory don’t have a choice, and it was set up that way to help Region Masters and overlords enforce our tenuous order. But if you have a choice, you don’t willingly give a vampire access to your mind.”

“Have you ever?” At her wary look, he squeezed her hand. “I want to get at that family fortune. You know I prefer the finer things in life.”

“Idiot,” Danny muttered, though she didn’t know which of them it was directed at. She could trust him, she knew that. “Two. One was a first crush. He . . . I was a total bogan, about thirty-five, which is like a teenager to vampires. I did it in a flush of feeling, sure that he was everything, my whole life. My father killed him when he tried to make me do things for him by manipulating my thoughts.”

“How long did it take you to forgive your father for that?” He lifted a shoulder at her surprised expression. “Most kids, it would take them a while. They wouldn’t see anything but their feelings.”

“It was long ago, and there was nothing to forgive. My father saved me from disaster. It taught me an invaluable lesson.”

“Hmm.” He wondered at the flat tone of her voice, but let it go. “And who was the second one?”

Danny picked up another shell, held it up to the light, showing him the delicate lavender interior. It reminded him of the delicate shell of her ear, and he bent, nuzzled into it, seeking it with his mouth as she leaned into him. While she was still looking at the shell, he could sense her body humming with the contact, the way she pressed her hip against his thigh. “Her name is Lady Lyssa,” she said at last. “She’s the only direct line royal we have left. Used to be, vampires were in clans, headed up by royalty. Dukes, kings, queens. She was Queen of the Far East Clan. She’s very old. Over a thousand, some say, but no one knows for sure. You’ll get to meet her in Brisbane. Though I’m fond of Alistair, the Queensland Region Master, I admit she’s the real reason I’m stopping there.

She’s come to Australia to stay with Alistair for a couple months, and wanted me to visit if I came to the area.”

He glanced at her, amused. “So you and she are mates. Like for girly stuff. Shopping and whatnot.”

Danny laughed. “I’m not sure how she’d react to that. Oh, her servant is a monk.”