Department 57: Rubies of Fire (12 page)

“Yeah, that. What’s with you keeping on your feet all the way upstate when most vampires can’t flash to the end of their own town without collapsing afterward?”

He glanced away, his expression almost sheepish. “I have no idea. I can just do it. That’s all. It’s not a family thing, that is, not specific to a particular family that I know of. Cristos investigated it as soon as I started flashing away to get out of trouble, and he couldn’t find anything except it’s a quirk, maybe genetic, something a very few vampires can just do.” He gazed down at her, grinning. “It made me a better agent. That’s for sure. Not many people know how easy I find it. Now you do. So that’s one more of my secrets. You tell me yours now. Why were they taking you home? Why were you so nervous? Why didn’t you just say no and tell them to fuck off?”

She swallowed. She couldn’t deter him, so she’d have to tell him. “They have a husband lined up for me.”

“So? They can’t make you, can they?”

“They might. I agreed. I was stupid, but at the time I didn’t care. I just wanted to give in, give up, and I thought it was a way to bring me back. They needed me, and they loved me.”

Puzzlement shaded his eyes, clouding his mind. He really didn’t understand.

“You don’t know all the story. Perhaps I should tell you.”

“Perhaps you should.” He looped his arm around her waist and led her toward a long, low sofa in the center of the room.

Only then she thought to look around her properly. “Tell me about this place.”

He laughed softly. “It’s a Frank Lloyd Wright-style house. I can’t afford the apartment I’d like in New York, so I have small, snug places—the ones the real estate people call studio apartments—and then I flash here whenever I can. I rent that rat hole because I’m between apartments. This was the only place I was confident to bring you without any danger.”

She tensed at the reminder of what could have happened. Vampires flashed from place to place, but they did it blind. They had a mental picture of where they were going, but if they collided with another person, or a piece of furniture they weren’t expecting, they could die. In these days of the Internet, flashing was a little safer; they could tap in to webcams for a live picture, but the situation had left them no leisure for that.

Andreas had saved them both. Himself from a severe beating, maybe even death, and Roz from a future she no longer wanted. When she told him, though, he might take her back and give her to her cousins.

Therefore, she wasn’t in any hurry to give him the information. She’d have to tell him sooner or later this evening, but because they didn’t know Andreas or his hideouts, they wouldn’t be able to find him.

One more time with him, that was all she wanted. Then she’d go back and face the music. Music she had made for herself. “How did you find this place?”

“The usual way. I went looking, once I’d saved enough money to afford it. My job pays well. I have no family, and I’m young in vampire years, so I’m probably what you might call poor, but I had enough for this.”

“You’re not poor in the ways that count.” She moved away, and his arm slipped from her as she toured the room. This place called to her in some strange way. She felt at home here, comfortable, as she experienced in few places before.

The subdued light cast gentle spots on certain parts of the room, leaving others in shadow. Lights came on above pictures hung on the walls, giving the room more definition. She stood in a long living room containing two comfortable sofas, one facing the windows, the other set against the wall for easy viewing of a large plasma TV. A tiny stereo sat on a shelf, surrounded by well-worn books—paperbacks, hardbacks, jumbled together in no particular order. The room was comfortably warm. As a vampire, she could adjust her body temperature to suit her surroundings, but there was no need here. No whirring noises betrayed a unit, but she guessed at underfloor heating. The polished floor held a few rugs but little else. Colors were rich but subdued, deep reds, ambers, autumn shades blending together to form a discreet harmony.

It was a room she could live in, breathe in.

“I like it.” She turned to face him. “Like” was an understatement, but it was the best she could do right now. She felt washed out, tired of fighting her family, her feelings, and herself. Just plain tired.

“I’m glad you like it. The room welcomes you. I welcome you. When I saw this house, I knew I had to have it.” He gave a short laugh. “I discovered later, from a friend of mine, that it was in a propitious position.”

“Let me guess. The Sorcerer, right?”

“Yeah, Fabrice. He’s more than a contact. He’s a friend. We’re the same age. We trained together. Remember agent training?”

She smiled, although not all the memories were happy ones. “Oh yeah.”

He moved closer to her, but slowly. “Cristos doesn’t let any of his agents use their Talents during training.”

She gasped, eyes wide. “None?”

“None. Well, mortals go through it, don’t they? So we had to. Fabrice is officially a consultant, but like all Department 57 ‘consultants,’ he’s been through the basic training program. As a field agent, my training’s been a little more…rigorous. I can fight during the daytime when I don’t have my vampire strength, and I can fight more mature vampires, using the mortal abilities. Your cousins, although mature vampires, were civilian vampires without that ability. They were taken by day, and their captors drugged them at night, when they were at their strongest, to keep them subdued.”

“Yes, they’d do that.” They both paused, giving the dead a respectful moment of silence.

“Do you do government jobs? I mean, purely government jobs, with no Talents involved?” she asked.

“Sometimes,” he said.

That seemed liberating to Roz. It had always been all or nothing, in the family or out. Neither had truly satisfied her. “How do you manage without a family?”

“I have friends, and I have a family, of a sort. Cristos fostered me. He’s the nearest I have to a father. The Department gave me friends and people I’m as close to as any family. It suits me.” He took another step, and a shadow crossed his face. She made the last step toward him, and he slid his arm around her waist. “I used to pray for a family sometimes, plead with God to give me a place to belong. Every vampire I met had a family. Perhaps they would come to claim me one day. Perhaps they’d discover the sigil that I should have branded in my brain. Roz, I still want that.” He whispered the last words and, as though their mouths were magnetized, lowered his head as she lifted hers. Their lips met, fused, clung.

But it didn’t feel the same this time; it felt gentler, as though they were kissing for the first time, exploring each other. He angled his head, and she strained up to him, but their lips moved softly. She savored the feel of his mouth, softly caressing, his tongue, exploring, stroking against hers, moving to touch her sensitive palate. She shuddered under his hands.

He lifted his head and gave her several sweet kisses before moving to her throat. She arched for him, the ultimate trust gesture of one vampire to another. He could drain her, and she would let him. His turn to shudder. He knew that much of vampire lore. But he didn’t stop, moving gently down to her collarbone, taking a soft nip near her artery to stimulate rather than to draw blood.

“I’ve never told anyone that before,” he murmured, his breath hot on her neck. “Cristos guessed, but I’ve never volunteered the information. I was always afraid, you see, of being laughed at. But not you. I knew you’d listen and not condemn.”

“How could anyone laugh at you?” It passed her understanding. “You’re strong, capable. You’ve made a life for yourself. You don’t need anyone.”

“Right now, I need you. More than I’ve needed anyone else.”

His words proved the ultimate stimulant, and when he straightened, they needed no more words. He kept his arm around her waist and led her up the open-plan staircase at the end of the room to the upper floor.

His bedroom and his sanctum. The bed, draped in a cream cover, bisected the long room, the echo of the one below, but soft carpet covered the floor, her feet sinking into it as he led her to the bed.

He lifted his hand, and the drapes closed. He smiled. “Technology,” he explained. “There’s no one to see us, but I want this to be entirely ours, as though we’re in our own private place. Contained in each other.”

She understood what he meant. She wanted to explore him, discover him, as she hadn’t before, and she trusted only him, as he trusted only her, to be this close.

So when he took her to the bed, they sat down at the same time. Their hands went to the other at the same time, and they continued the kiss begun downstairs. She leaned back; he followed, his mouth caressing hers. He tasted spicy, a flavor she would always associate with Andreas, and she needed to taste more of him.

She’d kissed him before, she’d caressed him, but then he had been a friend she enjoyed invigorating sex with. This time felt different. She let him in further, deeper than anyone except one other. He opened to her, and she saw the truth as she sank into his mind and he into hers, welcomed and ushered in by right.

He lifted his hands to the buttons of her blouse at the same time hers went to his shirt, and they unbuttoned each other slowly, their kiss breaking so they could concentrate. Before, they’d undressed in haste. This time they slipped each button free carefully, as though each action held meaning. When he undid the last button, he lifted his hand to touch her cleavage gently, trace the cleft, and dip briefly inside before pushing at the fabric of her blouse. They sat up to remove their outer clothing. He unsnapped her bra for her and slid the straps slowly down her arms, each touch increasing her sensitivity, making her yearn for more.

He didn’t hurry, but touched her as though each was his first, lifted his hand to her bare breast, cupping it, lifting it, and finally spreading his hand over it. Her nipple hardened. “Have I ever told you how beautiful you are?”

“I could say the same thing. I
am
saying it.” His chest, sprinkled with dark hair curling in on his nipples, covering firm, defined muscle, just begged her to touch. So she obeyed her instincts, smoothing her hand flat to take in as much of his texture as she could. His hard nipple prodded her hand and caught in the juncture between two fingers. She took it in her fingertips, rolled it gently.

He echoed her motion, pulling gently to peak her breast before bending to take it between his lips and touch his tongue to her sensitive flesh. She moaned lightly, gliding her hands over him, finding his body soothing and stimulating against her.

He tickled her nipple, flicking his tongue repeatedly over it, bringing her to a height of awareness she’d never experienced before, just from mere touches to her nipples. Except there was nothing “mere” about it. Sliding her hands down his body, she felt every rib, felt his powerful muscles tense and relax. Without taking his mouth away from her breast, he eased her down on to the soft coverlet. He didn’t attempt to conceal the lapping sounds his mouth made against her flesh, gently wetting and caressing her. He kissed around her nipple before moving on to the other one. She reclined, her hands on his back, smoothing and caressing, half of her longing to return to his belt buckle and hurry things along.

He knew—of course he did, with their minds merged the way they were. He lifted his head, glancing up and capturing her gaze. His eyes appeared hungry, but not starving as before. Permission was given and received. He lowered his hands to his waist and undid the buckle that had defeated her fumbling fingers a moment earlier. When she lifted her hands away from him, she knew a loss, as though her hands belonged on him and nowhere else.

“Let me. Please.” His low murmur broke into her mind. She trusted him to bring her, and himself, all the pleasure he could muster. Only she wanted to do the same for him. “There’s plenty of time,” he said. “All the time we need.”

There was. No one would find them here. This was the middle of a state in a “propitious situation,” which probably meant nobody could track them; anyone following them would be defeated by ley lines and, for all she knew, modern technology.

She let him take charge because she sensed his need, his yearning to do so, but she was no passive partner. He slid his pants down his legs, dragging his underwear with them, then turned to do the same for her. He took his time, undoing her pants carefully, kissing every inch of flesh revealed by the slowly lowered zip.

When he realized she had gone commando, his low groan fed her need for him. He wanted her. She smiled, pure, feminine power over her man. “I heard the commotion from the bathroom, so I didn’t waste any more time. I threw on the first clothes I touched.”

“But you stopped to put on a bra.”

“I’d already put that on.”

He smiled, an intimate sharing, then closed his eyes. “You smell so good. I could spend all night down here.”

“Don’t.”

“Maybe not
all
night.” He bent, and she forgot what she meant to say when he touched his tongue to the edge of her cleft.

“Andreas!”

“Sweet,” was her only answer as he shoved her pants aside to reach her. He slid them down her legs and returned immediately to her, this time opening her with his thumbs, staring down at what he’d revealed. “You’re erect. Beautiful.”

No one had ever described her in that way, but her clit strained for his touch. She didn’t have to tell him what she wanted, but she did anyway. “Andreas, kiss me there, suck my clit. Please.”

“You don’t have to say please.” With a suddenness that made her gasp, sucking air deep into her lungs, he dived in.

The strong pull sent waves of pure want through her entire being, making her shout her need, and before she quite realized what was happening, she climaxed, the waves shooting inside her, her whole body contracting around him, answering his strong suction with pulses of easement.

All too soon it ended, but he didn’t stop, continuing his caresses, pausing to lap at her, tracing her deepest creases with his tongue, plunging inside her pussy.