Coldstorm (Heart of a Vampire, Book 7) (24 page)

A quiet stillness told him she wasn't there.

Worried she'd already headed to town, Matt started to turn. The air around him swirled, grasping at his shirt sleeves and tugging him toward the lake instead.

Her earth spirits?

With a haze inducing déjà vu, they guided him to retrace his earlier path through the trees. Again he emerged on the shore of the large lake.

Shadowed by the quickly darkening sky, water lapped the shore with inky ripples.

In the distance, Anca sleekly moved through the water. She swam laps horizontally to the bank in perfect lines, as if counting strokes in order to turn in the exact same place every time.

When, fifteen or so minutes later, she swam for the beach, Matt straightened. He raised a hand and stepped forward, to call out his presence.

Anca emerged from the lake. Water fell from her shoulders like a curtain. Her wet breasts glinted with crystalline droplets. Her dark nipples pebbled in the cooling evening.

Matt forgot what he'd been about to say. To do. Voices swirled around him, whispers of fate.

Everything on his mind fled. He couldn't think. Could only feel.

The air around him stirred, bringing her cherry blossom and wildflower scent.

He could do nothing except stand there while a throbbing need swept through his blood. Turned him iron hard with desire.

A consuming hunger.

Her smoky blue eyes widened when she saw him. Her bow-shaped mouth curved up in a sultry smile. Her entire countenance changed, as if a switch had been flipped on. She slowed, slipping closer to the sandy bank with a catlike sensuousness to her movements.

Matt's gut twinged. He cooled off a little with the realization that he didn't know if this was a charade or not. But even those thoughts quickly faded.

Inch by inch, the water revealed more of her dusky skin. Her narrow waist, flaring into wide hips that swayed sweetly. The dark curls between pale thighs. Her smile widened. Her eyes flashed with heat.

The flare of arousal tantalized the air.

His. Hers.

She wanted him, yes. But there was a struggle in the depths of her gaze.

One he knew well.

The back and forth over what was wanted, and what was impossible to consider.

Anca stopped only a few feet away and stared up at him. "You seem to be making a habit of spying on me while I bathe." Her voice washed through him, her old world European lilt thick with emotion, gaining a husky undertone.

His blood fired. He pulsed with desire. With need for this woman.

Anca's uninhibited pose remained so long he knew it for truth, not act. She truly didn't care she was naked. Struck by the thought, he was drawn to take in all her splendid beauty from head to toe.

"And suddenly I'm feeling underdressed for the occasion," she said, a hint of wryness overshadowed by the passion in her gray-blue eyes.

Matt wasn't completely aware of closing the distance between them. It seemed as if, between one breath and the next, he'd instinctively stepped forward to pull her close.

One revolving thought controlled him.

To taste her once more.

He brushed his mouth over hers, once, twice. Her lips, velvety soft, parted on a gasp.

Each deep inhale brought her wild cherry scent into his lungs. The touch of her wet, naked skin inflamed him. Matt eagerly sampled the taste of the heavens.

Anca dug her nails into his shoulders, drawing him closer. She kissed him back, demanding, a battle of unleashed lust.

She pressed against him and he fervently wished he wasn't wearing all these clothes. Could instead feel her, skin to skin.

The mere thought electrified every last nerve. He grasped the back of her head, her hair a wet silken waterfall through his fingers, and scrambled to clutch his shredding control.

Primitive instincts rose, making him shake.

The need to claim.

He groaned in surrender when the rush inside him overwhelmed him entirely.

He gave in to it all, unable to resist the  call between them any longer.

Though he hesitated at the rise of warmer things twining inside him, though he worried a little at the connection humming stronger between them, Matt could no longer stop.

He had to have her.

Now.

At last.

He drew his palms over her velvety skin, down her back. Molten heat filled his veins, forcing a ragged breath from his lungs.

Anca shivered under his touch, crying out delightedly when he grabbed her delightful ass. Kissed her harder.

Tasting.

Needing.

She moaned against his mouth, tried to draw even closer.

He throbbed in aching anticipation. Before he lost it all and took her here and now—up against a tree, on the ground, his lust didn't care—he stepped back, giving them both a moment to breathe. To try to think.

Desire ringed Anca's smoky eyes with crimson lust. The tips of her white fangs glinted between her reddened lips.

She followed him, step for step, stealing the little air he'd managed from the distance, and kissed him again.

Greedy. Hungry. Hot and wet.

M
att's aura blazed with lusty desire.

An answering need had risen within Anca, roaring through her. She pressed against his hard body and forced him back until a thick tree trunk stopped him.

Kissing him, tasting him, having him touch her, drove her impulses. She couldn't stop.

Didn't want to stop.

This man made her feel so very much. From anger and aggravation, to hot melting desire. And worse, a flutter in her heart.

The stunning connection between them blazed, all encompassing.

She grabbed the hem of his t-shirt and jerked it from his jeans. She shoved it up, revealing his muscled stomach. His chest. It was a scramble of tangled hands to rip it over his head.

Then his strong arms closed around her once more. He drew her close, naked skin to naked skin. Matt devoured her mouth, nipping at her lower lip, her tongue. She drank deep of his whiskey taste.

An urgency pushed her harder. She wanted more of him. And she didn't want to wait any longer.

The top button of his jeans slid undone between her fingers. She trailed a hand over his rippled stomach.

From deep inside her came a demanding need to join with him. A rush of irresistible hunger. She moaned softly, heat turning her muscles weak.

He drew back an inch.

Their breathing came ragged and heavy. Her head spun wildly.

"Anca." Matt nipped along her jaw, then licked the line of her throat. He eased her back another step to merely look at her. "You are beautiful, you know that?"

She didn't really think of herself as such.

A Judge. A warrior. Romani.

Beauty was a small surface thing, and one she used to her benefit, to get her job done. She put on an act of youthful innocence to force people into underestimating her.

Matt tipped her head back until she met his honeyed gaze. "What's wrong? Is there something bad about calling you beautiful?" His brow quirked up.

"No. I'm just not used to hearing things like that, I guess."

Shadows crossed his face. He kissed her with soft butterfly brushes of his lips on hers. "That's a shame. It's something you should hear more often."

A realization dawned. That she didn't have to act or pretend around him. She'd unconsciously stopped putting on her usual show shortly after they began working together.

When exactly?

She didn't know.

But she'd let her guard down. She'd let her defenses fall too.

Her heart thunked hard and heavy. Emotion swirled through her soul. Lit between the two of them.

"You're thinking too much." Matt brushed his mouth over her temple. "If calling you beautiful makes you overworried, I best not describe how deliciously sexy you are." The reverence in his voice pushed the ability to think, or worry, far, far away.

All she managed to utter was, "Thank you?"

His eyes lit and he tipped her backward, over his arm. "You have nothing to thank me for. Yet." A daring grin curled his mouth irresistibly. "But Lady, you will soon."

He nuzzled the valley between her breasts, brushed his scruffed jaw over her skin. In a blink, Matt whirled them around and leaned her back against the tree.

Cupping her breasts, he lavished first one nipple, then the other, until they throbbed achingly. His every caresses left her gasping for air on panted breaths.

"So sweet." His voice was a husky rumble sending vibrations over her skin.

She slid her fingers through his hair urging him on.

Matt nipped her skin with one of his fangs, softly to not draw blood. Pulsing need rushed along her nerves. When he drew a nipple into his hot mouth, she moaned, hands fisting in his dark locks. He chuckled, the sound more sensuous vibrations.

He danced a hand over her stomach, then lower, teasing between her thighs with flitting touches. Matt watched her, heavy emotion darkening his eyes from honey to coffee. A thick band of red encircled his irises.

Something inside her melted into a puddle beneath the onslaught of his expressive gaze and his overpowering desires. Her heart thumped heavily, her breasts rose and fell with each raggedly drawn breath.

Overwhelmed, she let herself fall into all he made her feel.

Matt trailed light kisses down her stomach. Laying his hands on the inside of her thighs, he knelt before her and nudged her legs apart.

With a predatory smile, he tasted her, his mouth and hands wicked on her flesh. Weak-kneed, Anca could only hold onto his shoulders as he made love to her with his mouth.

Wave after wave of pleasure lapped at her, until he drove her over.

Her cries of release shattered the lake's still and silent twilight.

Matt grinned. "Definitely sexy. Definitely delicious."

Still trembling, Anca shoved at his jeans. She pulled his zipper down with a raspy
zzz
. His eyes slid half closed. She felt her every move watched, felt his shock and awe. Her own.

She slipped her hand beneath the waist of his jeans. Under silky boxers. Crisp hair tickled her palm. She caressed his velvety hardness, curled her fingers around him.

Matt groaned, a ruble of sound that made her tremble. He pressed into her touch, kissing her hungrily until her head spun.

Wrenching away, Matt stepped back, leaving her supported by the tree.

He jerked off his hiking boots, then his jeans and silky boxers.

Standing as naked as she, Matt allowed her to look him over. From head to toe, the man was made with a warrior's steely strength.

And yet when he returned to her, it was with gentleness.

Matt laid her on the soft ground. Rose over her. She stared into his eyes, realizing the trembling she felt wasn't just her own.

The emotion and desire blazing between them was overpowering.

Consuming them both.

Matt thrust deep inside her. Magic exploded around them, raining a shower of sparks over their skin.

The budding threads of connection between them solidified in a knotted weave.

Feeling Matt on a level she'd never experienced with anyone, Anca took him in, welcoming him deep. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she pulled his mouth to hers.

He kissed her so sweetly, opposite the driving thrusts of his hips.

He captured her gaze, neither of them able to look away.

She felt so much tender emotion from him, from inside herself, it settled over her in a strange sense of vulnerability. As if on some level, like their understanding of one another's painful pasts, she also understood the softer things so clear in his look, his touch.

Then he kissed her again, scattering such thoughts, pushing her to live in the moment, in the wickedly wonderful way he made her body sing.

Another orgasm rushed through Anca, breaking down her every last defense. The rosy warmth of deepening bonds washed over her every sense. Matt stiffened above her with a low guttural cry of release, holding her tight, close, protected.

Her heart near bursting, Anca couldn't control herself, between the combined rush of emotion and the waves of pleasure.

Her last remaining shields fell.

For him.

Her deepest magics exploded, sparking the air around them.

Matt froze.

Passion disappeared beneath a sudden wave of coldness.

He stiffened, inch by inch. His hands tightened, until his fingers dug into her skin almost painfully.

Matt drew away, leaving Anca wrapped in ice.

With sharp, controlled movements, he got to his feet. For a long minute, he silently glared down at her.

She scrabbled to sit up. Couldn't look away. The cold penetrated her, numbing the sudden wound.

She knew exactly what he'd felt. What conclusion he'd come to. It was there in the way he looked at her. Like she'd just become a stranger.

And a despised one at that.

It was the look she'd known would come. The one she'd begun to dread. But she hadn't expected the pain ripping at the soft things waking inside her.

His gaze red fury, Matt demanded hoarsely, "Tell me I misread that magic just now." His tone turned almost pleading. "Tell me you're not a Judge."

She could only look at him, horror churning her stomach.

An achy bleakness turned their earlier passion to poison.

Matt grabbed his jeans and jerked them on, then cradled his shoes and the rest of his clothes against his stomach, hunched over and shaking.

He backed away, never looking away from her, as if she'd suddenly attack. When he spoke again, rage filled his shout. "Tell me you're not a fucking Judge, damn it!" His accusing gaze pierced her.

Anca tried to speak. Had to swallow past a tightness in the back of her throat. When she managed words, they were a near inaudible whisper. "I cannot."

Shutters blanked Matt's expression. Shirtless, his jeans riding low on his hips, the button and zipper still undone, he somehow pulled a cloak of righteous fury over himself.

For the first time in more than four centuries as a Judge, Anca regretted that part of herself. She wasn't quite certain what had been happening between them.