Dark Studies (Arcaneology) (20 page)

“You look below the surface,” Aaron told her. “It may be the thing I like most about you.”

“What was below Iphra-El’s surface?” she asked.

“I had only glimpses. That’s one of the reasons I wish to read his journals. I want to see whether he felt and thought as I am beginning to.”

Was Lockhart listening? How could he hear this and not see Aaron as a person, someone he could identify with and feel compassion for?

In the concrete cube, with no outside stimuli, she could not hold on to any sense of time. They talked, fell silent, talked some more, the cycle turning around and around as if it might never end. It lulled her into a false sense of security. She had been staring at him for a while before she realized she’d shifted her weight several times in the last few moments. Angie’s skin flushed, and she knew it had begun. His control was starting to slip.

They shared a moment of understanding, then went on talking as though it was not happening. The conversation continued to flow, at first, but eventually faltered. A lost word here and there, a sentence that trailed off, a thought that slipped away before it could be articulated. Angie became more conscious of her own body with each passing moment. She felt the way her flesh had settled against the concrete walls and floor. The strands of hair that tickled her cheek. Each time she spoke, she grew more aware of the way her lips and tongue moved. She wanted to crawl across the floor to him. The only thing stopping her was the knowledge that they were being watched. Every time her muscles shifted in preparation to move, she looked at the flat glass eye of the camera, and revulsion swelled to dampen the arousal.

Angie stopped asking questions, afraid the rich tenor of his voice would erode her determination further. He fell silent. When she risked looking at him, he sat with his head bowed and his eyes closed. God, she thought, he was so beautiful. The contours of his face, his silky black hair…She jerked her gaze away to stare at the wall. The camera. Anything but him. Searching for some way to distract herself, her mind wandered to Steffen. His determination to protect her had caught her off guard, and she still didn’t know what to make of it.

Surely he understood she was just an actress playing a part for him. Yes, it felt very real, and on some level perhaps it was, but he should be able to separate the fictional Grace Hamilton from Angeline Devereaux. Yet could she honestly say the sessions had not affected her as well? Whenever she remembered the way he touched Grace, the intimate pillow talk, the passion that gripped them both in their pretend world, she couldn’t help but feel something for him. She needed to examine this more closely, but instead her thoughts slipped back to tangled sheets, the swell of muscle shifting against her, the sharp pain of his fangs piercing her throat, followed by his mouth pulling sensuously at the wound…

Damn it.

No distraction would keep Aaron’s influence away. It turned every thought onto one path, one that led her further and further from the control she was trying to maintain. It didn’t help that she’d slipped into a daydream about Steffen, someone who aroused her every time she saw him.

Think of something else. Like slugs. Or centipedes. Rotting garbage, stepping in dog shit, vomiting, anything. She tried to hold on to these images, but her attention kept drifting, so they slid from her grasp. She opened her eyes to find Aaron's fixed on her. So blue. Had he intentionally made them such an intense shade? He must have. Every detail of his body had been intentional, and each was perfect. Not just in appearance, either. The texture of his skin, the subtle scent that clung to him, the timbre of his voice, the taste of his—

Angie pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms tightly around them. Air stirred. There must be a vent, she thought. Looking up, she noticed small holes in the upper edges of the wall, about five inches in radius, not large enough to give them any chance at escape, but enough to let in fresh air. It hadn’t felt like this before, though. The breeze, delicate as dandelion fluff, shifted and teased her as if some intelligence directed it.

“Stop,” she said, realizing it must be him.

“I can’t.”

It felt like a lover’s breath traveling over every inch of exposed skin. She remembered that breath coming from his mouth as it hovered near her. The sound of it sighing in her ear as he moved within her.

“Damn it!” Angie surged to her feet and smacked the wall with the palm of her hand, trying to turn the arousal into anger, or at least to fight back with pain. She made a fist and punched the concrete hard enough to bruise her knuckles and scrape the skin raw. A second blow drew blood. She pulled back to strike again.

“Stop.” Aaron rose and took a step toward her. “Please, Angie. Stop.”

“I don’t know what else to do!”

“It will only help for a little while and leave you feeling worse later.”

Oh, God, she wanted to wrap that voice around her like a warm blanket. It insinuated itself into her pores and vibrated along her nerve endings, lighting them up with the promise of so much more. She sank to the hard floor, afraid she would run to him if she remained standing.

“Joseph will be here any time now,” Aaron said, offering her some hope to cling to. “If we can just hold out a little longer.”

“Please stop talking,” she whispered.

He did not speak again, and she knew he was holding back as much as he could. It startled her when she realized she was on her hands and knees, inching toward him. He let out a muffled cry. She tried to flatten herself to the floor, to use the cold concrete as a sensory distraction, but her limbs refused to obey. Instead, she crept closer. Aaron strode across the room and crouched in front of her. She looked into a face gone taut with the last-ditch effort to reassert control.

Her voice came out harsh. “I won’t give them a show.”

“No,” he agreed. “If that’s what they expect, they will be disappointed. Do you trust me?”

She nodded.

The Fallen unbuttoned his shirt. Was this supposed to help? Angie stared at his naked chest. All she wanted was to press her face against that warm skin and find his nipples with her tongue.

When he shrugged the shirt off, he lowered it part way down his body, then placed his hand on her shoulder. Angie let him nudge her to the floor. Aaron eased himself on top of her and draped his open shirt across them both, covering them from the middle of his back to just above his knees.

“Be still. They won’t see anything. I promise.” Lifting enough to get his hand between their bodies, he unzipped his pants. “Your jeans. Push them down a little ways.”

Her hands shook so hard she could barely do as he’d asked, and he hissed a sharp breath in reaction to the movement. “That’s enough.”

She hadn’t gotten far, barely half way down her legs, which she could not open more than an inch or two because of the constricting fabric. It didn’t matter. Her thighs were slick with prolonged arousal. His cock glided between them and found its way inside her. She bit back a cry and shuddered, on the edge of orgasm.

Quickly, he curled his arms around her head and bent so his forehead rested against hers. “Shh,” he murmured. “It’s all right. They won’t see anything but my back. Just don’t move.”

Don’t move. As if it was that simple. Angie’s mouth formed a silent mantra of
“Please, oh God, Aaron, please, please,”
until he brought his down on it, not kissing, just pressing her into stillness. He held himself immobile, resting inside while she squeezed around him as if she could pull him deeper. His heart pounded against her breasts.

“Breathe,” he coaxed. “Slowly. Let the sensations flow through you. If you fight them, you’ll lose.”

She inhaled in little gasps at first but gradually managed to smooth it out. Instead of straining to get relief, she allowed herself to experience the frustration. The orgasm hovered around the edges of her senses.

“Let it come to you. Don’t reach for it.”

Lassitude spread through her. Bone and muscle dissolved into a pool of pleasure with ripples spreading in rings from the center where their bodies were joined. Ripples swelled to waves, but she remained still, letting them work their way through her and out. When the orgasm came, she moved nothing except the innermost muscles that spasmed around his cock. Aaron shuddered. His own orgasm traveled up the length of his shaft to spill into her, and that slight movement sent her over the edge again.

Humiliation flushed her face as she thought of the men watching. Nothing but his back, she reminded herself, they could see nothing but Aaron covering her, unmoving except for the rise and fall of his breathing. They knew, though. They knew what was going on.

She relaxed as the orgasm passed, but almost immediately the pleasure began to build again. He stayed hard inside her, and she realized this would not end anytime soon. They might lie here for hours, drunk with pleasure, and she would welcome every moment in spite of the cameras and the men behind them.

Their stillness prolonged it, drawing out the gradual rise of arousal for an eternity. A tremor passed down the length of his body, then release came again, contained deep inside, filling the dark silence between them.

Peace, for just a moment. Then it began again.

And again.

She didn’t know how many times it happened. Consciousness drifted, disorienting and dizzying. When her head began to clear, the first thing she became aware of was pain. The muscles of her thighs were cramping, and every place her body pressed against the concrete ached. Aaron raised his head to look at her. The tension had drained from his face, leaving lines of sorrow in its wake. He had at last gone soft. She was so tender from the constant barrage of sensation that she choked back a cry when he slipped out. Beneath the shelter of his shirt, he eased away a few inches and fastened his pants.

It took a while to work her jeans back up. She was ridiculously weak. He didn’t move off her until he knew she was decently clothed, then he rose and helped her stand. Angie winced as the pain of muscles, joints, and bones sharpened. Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to stretch until the cramps eased and the aches began to fade.

“Bring water.” Aaron raised his voice to make certain he was heard. “And food. If she’s to be my only sustenance, you must see to her needs.”

There was no answer. Aaron led her to one of the walls and sat, leaning against it, then drew her onto his lap where he could cradle her in his arms. It was more comfortable than the hard floor, and the best he could do. He pressed his face into her hair. “I’m sorry, Angie. Heavenly light, I’m so sorry.”

“Why?”

“I know how much you value your free will. I’ve seen how fiercely you react when it’s threatened. And now I’ve taken it from you.”

“You didn’t have a choice either,” she murmured. “They violated both of us.”

His arms tightened. “Sleep. You need rest.”

It might be nothing more than self-delusion, but she felt safe with him holding her. Angie drifted into dreams.

A harsh rasping sound brought her swimming to the surface of awareness. Aaron’s body tensed against hers, and Angie opened her eyes to find him staring at something behind her. She turned. One of the walls was moving. Concrete slid ponderously to one side, opening a gap that widened inch by inch. The light from their room glinted on something on the other side of the gap, a sort of grate that stretched from floor to ceiling, made of silvery metal bars. Something banged against it, followed by a cry of pain and rage. The wall continued its slow slide. Light from their little cube of concrete gradually suffused the other room to reveal what lay inside.

The creature looked more animal than human. It was as pale as paper, with deep circles under its eyes, and skin stretched so tightly over bone that its face was barely more than a skull. It huddled in the center of its room, naked and trembling, and when it opened its mouth she saw fangs.

A vampire. One that had not fed in far too long.

Chapter Eighteen

By our very nature we cannot help but loathe vampires. Are we really so different, though? Both races feed on humans. Do the Fallen cause any less harm, in our own way?

—Aaron White, as quoted in
The Terrestrial Lives of the Fallen

by Angela Clark, PhD

The metal was not just silver in color, she realized, it
was
silver. It formed a barrier between their rooms, and as she looked more closely, she saw the grate continued along every wall of the creature’s prison, and the ceiling as well, forming a cage. Now she understood why it had no clothes. They had not given it anything to shield it from the silver if it should try to break free. With a barrier of fabric between metal and skin, the vampire could have easily battered through the bars, but without that protection, the pain would be debilitating. It was the same as trapping a human in a room made of electrified fencing.

“What have they done to her?” Aaron sounded furious. “This is beyond cruel. It’s torture.”

Angie looked at the vampire and realized he was right about the gender. The way she crouched had hidden the contours of her body. The creature raised her head and hissed. She stared at Angie with desperation. They had starved her to the point of madness.

Then the grate began to rise.

Pure terror washed through her. Angie scrambled to run as far as she could, until the concrete stopped her from going any farther. She clawed at it, and the pain gave her focus.

She forced herself to step back, away from the fear.

Objectivity brought cold reason and a veneer of calm. She turned to see the vampire on the floor, at the very edge of the rising grate. The creature’s body radiated tension.

Why was it only looking at her?

“Stay behind me,” Aaron said.

“What are you going to do?” What
could
he do? He was stronger than a human, but no match for a vampire, especially one on the verge of frenzy.