Dearly Beloved (9 page)

He really was a vampire.

They might not exist, but that didn’t change it. The guy was a true creature of the night. She didn’t need a relationship therapist to see they’d never suit. Courtney forced every emotion away, aimed for the most sarcastic and cold tone she could, and actually thought she managed it.

“Whoa. Down, Boy. It’s not what you think.”

He blinked and looked like she’d hit him. That was just at her tone. Courtney kept it up.

“I’m not going anywhere without you because we are wrapped in the same sheet. I’m not about to prance about stark naked. Are you?”

“My name is not Boy. It is Dominick.”

If she’d thought him dangerous before, she’d been mistaken. The look he gave her literally stopped her heart. He looked chiseled from marble and just as hard. His eyes weren’t warm, nor were they glowing. They were black and obsidian cold. Death-cold.

Courtney couldn’t control the shiver. She didn’t need to be a vampire aficionado to read that look. If he didn’t believe them mated, she’d be dead. History. Yet even now, with murderous intent covering him, he was still jaw-dropping gorgeous. Her mouth was bone dry and everything on her shook. He didn’t say a word, only reached over his shoulder to pull the end of the sheet loose before stepping back from her. Then he wrapped the rest of it about her, rippling bared chest muscle the entire time.

And he had on thigh-length skin-tight black swim trunks.

“Go below. Rashid will escort you.”

He jerked his head and another explosion rocked the chamber. The resultant chunk of stalactite barely missed spearing where Dom stood, ignoring everything as he kept his eyes on hers. She’d been right the first time. Domination wasn’t the name of any stupid boat.

He’d been mistaken. This mate of his was a remarkable woman. The more he was around her, the more amazing she grew. She’d be the perfect assassin: nothing to look at twice, and a complete mistake to overlook. It wasn’t any individual feature; it was the combination of them. She was well-formed. He got a very good example of that since she’d slid her way into his embrace hours earlier and stayed there. She had those greenish eyes, blemish-free skin, perfect lips, and this ash-blond hair that easily curled. She hadn’t dried it from her shower, taken after demolishing two burgers and a half pound of deep-fried potatoes, washed down with a couple of lagers. According to Rashid, she’d been humming to herself through most of it, too.

It wasn’t just her physical features. Nor was it the wondrous smell wafting from every portion of her. Dominick lifted the lock of hair curled around his finger to his nose and sniffed, and that got him jolted by electricity only she seemed to have. The sparks she sent were more than considerable. They were addictive. She wielded it without any effort right at him. He blinked on a sudden wash, blurring her image, and then forced the rampant emotion down.

This mating thing was overwhelming at times.

“We really have to stop this, you know.”

Her words lifted him from contemplation of his finger to meet her eyes. The moment it happened, he suffered a solid surge of primal arousal that sent his body into full rigidity. Dominick worked at controlling it, solidifying and tensing every muscle at his command, until it almost worked. He only hoped the moisture in his eyes wasn’t noticeable.

She wasn’t unaffected. Or the quick slip of her tongue to her lower lip didn’t mean anything. Nor did the instant tremble of her entire body where it matched to his. Dominick tightened a bicep to lift her; thrilled at the contact, and then suffered another semi-seizure of reaction all the way through him.

“I mean…uh…every time we’re together, the world is either exploding around us, or we’re in bed.”

Color touched the tops of her cheeks, her blush sending liquid fury racing through his veins, elongating his teeth and making him shudder with containing it.

Not yet
.

“Together. Uh…without clothes. Again. It’s a real…problem.”

“I do not see the problem.” His voice was lower, containing so much bass it reverberated through the chamber.

“Of course you don’t. You’re a guy. Sex and explosions is probably “Guy Heaven.”

“Guy Heaven.” He repeated.

“Ok. We’ll go slower. We need to communicate. As in…have a conversation. Do you think we can do that without adding explosions?”

Her breath was a curse of provocation, crippling him with every word as it slid across his chin, touched his chest, and then slithered inside to reach his heart. If he answered verbally, it might be a sob. He nodded.

“Good. Now…let’s move on. Can we have some meaningful dialogue without sex mucking up the works?”

“I do not know.”

The words shook and sounded sobbed. Dom bit down and got pooled blood in his lower lip from his own fangs. She gulped. He didn’t see it or hear it, but as close as he held her, and as attuned as he was to every nuance of her, he easily felt it. That righted his world. Not completely, but enough.

“Well…at least you’re honest.”

The slight air from her words seemed to cut right through him. Everything on him reacted. He had her gripped in his arms, his legs about hers and worse. They were hovering above the mattress. If he remembered any appropriate curses, he’d have used them.

“This…is not working. And you need…to let me go.”

She panted through the words. Dominick stopped the rotation that would have wound the sheet about them. Let her go? Never.

“I can’t even think…when I’m this close to you. And we still need to have a talk. Now. Please?”

The plea filtered through somehow, worked its way through his senses and cooled what felt like raging flames. Dominick lowered back to the bed and loosened his limbs, and somehow kept from grabbing her back when she slithered away from him to the other side of the bed. She gathered her legs and a prodigious amount of bedding to her in order to sit, facing him.

“Good. This might work. No. I think you’ll need to sit up, too. Come on, Dominick. It’s not like you’re a real Greek god, lying around, while you wait for a nymph or two to drop in.”

Dom regarded her for another moment, and then sat. He ignored where the covers slid but could tell it truly bothered her. He watched her flick a glance to his lap and back, while a blush infused her cheeks. He sucked in on his cheeks and narrowed his eyes, and somehow kept the hunger at bay. Barely.

“Wow. I mean. Wow. This is so patently unfair. You should come with some sort of warning label or something.”

He lifted an eyebrow and waited.

“Maybe we should get dressed first. It’s hard to think of words.”

She licked her lips again. He pulsed in place. And then she sighed audibly.

“I mean it’s all well and good to hear of vampire stuff, but when it’s in front of your face. Well. It’s really different, you know?”

He waited a few moments while the sound of her words dispersed. He shook his head.

“They’re very sexy. Vampires, I mean. What am I saying? You’re very sexy. The vampire part just adds unnecessary mystique. I know. I’ll just tack on your age. You’re old. Way too old. Ancient, even. What was that about the Norman stuff? That was about eight hundred years ago. Maybe nine hundred. Right?”

“I am twenty nine.”

“Sure you are.”

She looked as skeptical as she sounded.

“Exactly as I was when turned. I cannot recall a moment of the past centuries anymore. How can I? I’ve found my mate. You.”

Hell and damnation
. He’d put inflection on the words that made her eyes widen while her lips gapped for breath. Her breath. Sweet. Sending tendrils of lightning that sparked right into him.

“Dom?”

She had the plea sound in her voice again. It chained him without iron. He made such tight fists about the sheet it shredded between his fingers. He locked every facet of his body as he shuddered for control. When he looked back up, she was watching him with unblinking eyes and the slightest whiff of fear. That wasn’t at all what he wanted. He wanted her fearless and challenging and spouting her words at him. And that finally worked at cooling urges and passions that no being should have to leash in.

“About…this mate thing.”

“Yes?” The word trembled.

“I’m not so certain there is such a thing.”

“There is.”

“How do you know though? I mean, you’ve had close to a millennia of time. Surely there have been women—.”

“Fate seals two as one. It has been this way since time began. You are my mate. It’s fated.”

“What if I think fate is just a by-word for weakness?”

“Weakness?”

The word angered. He added that to the emotions he held at bay. It probably sounded in his voice since she stiffened. That just added unnecessary ballast to the cravings since the sheet molded to feminine curves that were already making his world a misery of suffering.

“If things go wrong, it’s fate. If things go right, it’s fate. If you get cancer, it’s fate. If you’re healthy, it’s fate. If you get rich, it’s fate. If you end up homeless, it’s fate. See what I mean? It’s an easy thing to blame.”

Dom regarded her for a span of time that could have engendered hours or mere moments. “I am not weak,” he finally told her.

“Nobody ever said you were. Geez. Could you just put aside all the male macho nonsense and think here?”

“There is no thought involved. You are my mate. It is not optional. There is no choice.”

“There’s always a choice.”

He shook his head.

“So…I’m just supposed to up and accept that you’re claiming me and that’s all there is to it? I don’t get to say no?”

“You wish to tell me no?” The words were choked and guttural.

“Would you abide it?”

She didn’t know what she asked! Dom hunched into a whorl of frustrated need, digging gouges into the mattress with holding it back, playing at a facade that didn’t match one bit of it. She should be able to tell from the way the bed rattled.

“I do not know.” He finally replied.

“Wow. I mean…wow. Dominick, listen. It’s not as if we don’t click, like…supremely well. It’s amazing. Making love with you is…well. Uh. More than I can describe. I mean, I’ve never run across anything so patently male and sexy in my life. That’s not it. It’s just…we hardly know each other, and mating sounds a lot like domination, and that’s just not me, and…um. Would I have to turn into a vampire, too?”

He was on his hands and knees, having arrived in a blink of time to hover above where she’d fallen back, her hands on his chest, propping him from contact with bent elbows and stiffened arms. It didn’t work. His lips were on hers, pulling at her essence, sucking and tasting and drowning in the bliss, while his traitorous tongue spouted words he wasn’t even hearing.

“Ah…
Agapameni
. You do not understand. I cannot hold it. It is too vast. Too…large. I love you. I cannot help it. I thirst for you. I need you.”

“You’re right. We can talk…later. Much later.”

She mouthed the words along his neck, licking her way to a spot behind his ear. Dominick groaned in appreciation at the first flick of her tongue against his earlobe. And then he arched upward in supplication as she nipped at him. And then he lost all semblance of control. And took her with him.

Heat radiated off the tarmac in waves, alternately sucking life and moisture from every living thing that got to participate. Courtney shielded her eyes at the desolate section of dirt and scrub brush just off the asphalt. It felt like the cool cotton of her sleeveless top and shorts were already stuck to her and she hadn’t even exited the plane yet.

“Wow. He didn’t say we were going to hell.”

“We are just outside Grand Junction, Colorado, Miss Courtney. It is not hell.”

“Remind me one of these days to teach you about sarcasm, Rashid. I think you’d be a natural,” she replied.

“As you wish, Miss.”

Rashid waited at the bottom of the steps for her, a satchel in one hand and a purse in the other. He handed it to her once she joined him. It wasn’t hers. It was part of Dominick’s stash of female clothing and accessories, but it was nice to have a purse back, so she didn’t quibble over it.

“Where is Dominick anyway?”

“His Excellency is resting. He cannot go out when the sun is up.”

“That isn’t a sun, Rashid. That is a fireball from hell. It’s going to fry my eyes. Did we pack sunglasses?”

He set his satchel on the ground where it immediately gapped open, and without any searching, he found a pair and handed them to her. They looked military issue and unfeminine but they were dark. Rashid was a very efficient servant. No fun to talk to, but he was efficient.

“So tell me, Rashid-my-man, do we have some sort of transportation arranged?”

“Of course.”

“And…you’re going to tell me where it is?”

“We are early. It hasn’t arrived yet.”