Hunger Embraced (The Hunger Series) (7 page)

He tugged at the waistband of my skirt until I lifted my hips and helped him shimmy it off. My thigh highs gave him no trouble as he rolled them down, placing each one in the corresponding shoe. God forbid I put a nylon on the wrong leg. He unbuckled my bra one-handed. A part of my brain that had detached itself from the rest of the gibbering mess wondered how he had gotten so good at undressing women. He stood, holding me as though I weighed nothing, and stepped into the tub. Feeding vampires—and not feeding my own Hunger—tended to keep my weight down, even with the massive candy eating habit.

When we sank beneath the water, I sighed. Warm, scented liquid flowed around us in a soothing cocoon. I took another deep breath and relaxed further. The shudders began to slow, and I closed my eyes as I leaned my head against his chest. It was a good chest, tanned just like the body parts I’d been lucky enough to see before and smooth except for a patch of blond curls right in the middle.

Daniel hummed under his breath, the sound reverberating through his chest and into my ear. He repeated the same song until the shivering stopped. His chest flexed against my cheek, and I curled my right hand around his arm, not wanting him to get out of the water. Water cascaded over my hair, and then I heard a popping sound followed by a cool trickle on my head.

Long, strong fingers began to massage my scalp with slow, thorough strokes. The shampoo smelled wonderful, and I didn’t protest when he lifted me up to get to the rest of my hair. He caressed my scalp until every last shudder had left me and I was practically purring. I let him push me back against his arm and rinse me off before starting over again with conditioner. I almost wished I hadn’t shoved him out the door of my apartment so quickly the other day. He cooked, he washed hair, grocery shopped, gave amazing, toe-curling orgasms. Yes, he did sneak jelly beans and needed schooling on the rules about personal boundaries, but wow.

“What do I have to do to get you to rub my whole body down this way?” It was safe to ask him since my eyes were closed and I wouldn’t see him if he rejected me.

“Hmm…let me think about it. I’m very expensive.”

I looked up at his face, and he winked. I giggled and blushed, butterflies settling in my stomach. I cleared my throat and snuggled my head back against his palm. “Well, let me know when you figure it out.”

“As my lady commands.” He rinsed the conditioner away and rooted around for something out of view.

He turned me to face forward and began to lather my shoulders and back with a sea sponge, stilling as he came around to the front of my body. I took his hand and guided it across my collarbone. The sponge dipped down over each breast and then below the water to my belly and thighs. Daniel wrapped himself around my body to reach my feet, but he managed to scrub every inch of me. The sponge disappeared over the ledge of the bath, and he leaned me back against his chest.

I perused what I could see of the bathroom. Everything about it spoke of a long-term residence, not a rented or borrowed property. In my missing father’s territory? He wouldn’t harm me, I was certain of that. But the permanence of this residence meant he and my father knew each other enough to have an arrangement of sorts. They might even be friends.

“Daniel, what—”

“Shhh. Tomorrow.” He kissed the top of my head again, wrapped his arms around me, and squeezed. “You’ve had a rough day. Talk later. Rest now.”

I looked over my shoulder at him and smiled. His eyes were closed, and when I looked hard I could see faint smudges beneath them and the slightest glow surrounding his body. A hand came up and pressed me back against his chest. “Rest. Let me hold you and rest. This, at least, I can do for you.”

I inhaled the delicious smell clinging to his skin, smiled, and closed my eyes. He was right; it had been a long day. A long, crazy day that had left me scared and confused and had ended with me sort of molesting everyone in my office. At least Shelly had been grinning when I’d left.

* * *

My body was on fire. It ached, it craved, it needed. I found myself with my hand on the doorknob and snatched it back, staring at the offending appendage as though I had never seen it before. There were male vampires out there. In the hall, the living room, kitchen, den. All of them waiting for me to choose.

But I couldn’t, I wouldn’t choose. I didn’t know anything about what they wanted, and the feelings they awakened were scary. Embarrassing. Arousing.

I turned my back to the door in an effort to ignore their presence, but it continued to pull at me. The window wasn’t that far away and the tree enticingly close. I ran across the room, threw up the window, and leaped from the sill for the nearest branch before I had time to think the decision through.

A scrape of bark on my fingers and a plunge to the ground resulted in a sharp snap and line of pain from my leg to my gut.

A face appeared above mine, saying something I couldn’t hear over the roaring in my ears. I crushed my lips to his before he could pull away and let some of the terrible gnawing in my body, the endless ache and burn, flow through him. Couldn’t he feel what I felt? Didn’t he know the horrible hunger that scorched my veins?

The dream skipped forward as it often did to the end where the boy I’d had a crush on since the third grade lay next to me, nothing left of him but the snippets of memory I stole and a mummified husk of his young healthy body.
My father and the vampires who had come to my house stood in a loose semi-circle staring at me as I lay half naked in the grass and sobbing.
That was the important part anyway. The part I couldn’t forget. To lose control of my Hunger meant I would kill again.

* * *

When I woke up, I was on the right side of a bed. Not my bed. The thought rang clear through my mind. Not my bed. Daniel’s bed? The spectacularly soft, cotton sheets matched the buttery cream paint on the walls. A lush, light blue comforter tangled around my legs. I stretched my arms up to the head of the bed, clutched the top edge of the headboard, pointed my toes toward the far side of the room, and groaned when my spine popped from top to bottom.

I laid there and tried to make sense of the jumble my thoughts were in. Having sex two times in as many days with vampires should have left me feeling pretty rotten, but instead my muscles were supple, not that I was ready to get up. Like I’d had the best rest of my life and been given a massage while I slept. Thankfully the dream of running barefoot in the dark had stayed away.

The Hunger had fed on Adrian. My king.

“No…not king…”

I pinched the bridge of my nose with my thumb and forefinger, trying to ignore the voice in my head. I’d heard it off and on over the years, but recently it’d been growing stronger.

Since the morning Daniel showed up outside my apartment.

I was still naked, and the last thing I remembered was falling asleep in the bathtub. With a very tall, tanned, and muscular Daniel, who was blond everywhere. A strange tattoo decorated his left pectoral, and it hummed against my cheek when I rested against it. I remembered now the first time I had seen him and the flash I’d gotten from his mind of running my tongue over it. I wanted to stroke it with my fingers, see if it had really vibrated, and explore the curving lines in every way I could imagine.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood. My feet sank into the thick pile of the rug, and I scrunched my toes. A dark wooden armoire stood on the far wall, the clean simple lines reminding me of Shaker furniture. I opened the drawers, being nosy, but they were empty. A closet dominated the opposite wall, and I opened both doors, not figuring on finding anything, but hoping for a stash of extra clothing Daniel might have stored. The cool hardwood floors matched the hallway, and my feet were getting cold. Nothing again. Damn.

I turned around and wandered to one of the two windows. A nighttime sky dotted with stars and an unimpeded view of Lake Erie stretching to the horizon met my gaze. There was nothing of a personal nature anywhere in the room. No photos, none of the clutter that spills out of pockets and onto dresser tops. This must be a guest room. I didn’t know if I was depressed or relieved to find myself in the guest category.

What did I care what he thought? He probably didn’t think about me farther than the fact we kept running into each other and sex stuff kept happening. Although he’d admitted he’d been following me at lunchtime. Why? And he’d accused me of having “conquests” the other day. I sure as hell didn’t think of it that way. A conquest implied I desired them, sought them out. Hell to the no.

Not only did I not have conquests, there was no way I was going to accept some guy who called himself my king. As if. Maybe Mr. Darkly Handsome Spanky Pants could be scared off with T.T.B. intervention. After all, Daniel had not been happy to see him there.

“Yes…Daniel…”

The impression of a sharp-toothed smile in the dark flitted through my head. I shivered, wondering if I was finally going nuts.

Questions swirled through my head. I bet Daniel had answers. I returned to the bed and tossed the comforter back all the way to the bottom of the mattress, intent on making a toga out of the top sheet. I had it half pulled out when I noticed the small pile of clothing on the corner of the bed.

Oh, look at that. Daniel had left me a present of a pair of sweats and a huge T-shirt.

I tightened the drawstring sweat pants around my waist and glanced down at the shorn leggings. I traced the snipped fabric with my finger.

He had shortened them for me.

No, no, no. Do not start giving him brownie points. He was the enemy! He withheld information and couldn’t be trusted. So what if he knew how to use scissors.

The shirt was a different story. The lower hem hung down almost to my knees. I looked like a child playing dress up, but it smelled wonderful. His detergent tried to erase his scent with the fresh clean bite of citrus, but ocean spray and a crisp breeze after a storm clung to the fabric.

I refused to think about why I liked the shirt so much or the memories his aroma aroused. From now on, he was T.T.B. and nothing else. It didn’t matter if he’d tried to co-opt the name. I was taking it back and using it the way it was meant to be used—as a distancing device. He was just another vamp looking for food at the Miranda drive-thru.

I jerked the door open too hard and glanced up and down the hall. I could leave now, call him later, and grill him over the phone. I didn’t have to look at his gorgeous body and knowing eyes to get answers.

Soft strains of classical music spilled down the hall, the strings accompanied by pounding bass rhythms and a Middle Eastern vocalist, all blended together into a marvelous wall of sound. The floor vibrated and every step enclosed me deeper in the spell being cast by the soaring notes of a violin and a woman’s undulating voice. I was encapsulated, and some of the tightness in my chest lightened. If I listened long enough, I’d be able to fly far above the earth.

I opened the door directly across the hall, hoping for a bathroom. It turned out to be a linen closet with sheets, towels, and extra blankets folded in precise piles. My towels never looked like this; maybe he moonlighted at a Bed, Bath, and Beyond. I snickered, tugged a towel from the middle, unfolded it, and shoved it back in a nasty ball right on top.

I turned to the left, moving deeper into the music. The next door I tried was a bathroom done in shades of brown, tan, and green. Score! I really had to pee.

I played with the no-touch faucet and soap dispenser for a minute before washing up and then used one of his monogrammed towels to dry my face and hands. Every fine line and wrinkle had disappeared. My hair, although sleep rumpled, shone with red highlights, and my normally hazel eyes had lightened to a color closer to green than brown.

I finger combed my hair, messed up his neat arrangement of bath products in the glass block shower stall, and sniggered. All this neatness was really getting to me. The thought of Daniel going around straightening everything gave me a silly grin.

I found Daniel sitting cross-legged in the middle of the living room floor with his hands resting palm up on his knees. If he breathed, I couldn’t tell. There were candles lit throughout the room, illuminating his beautiful skin and hair.

Tendrils of the slight glow—Daniel’s light—waved around his body. All the muscles in his face and neck relaxed, and it made him appear so much younger.

I wanted to run my fingers through the hair that fell across his forehead when he leaned forward and inhaled. The tattoo on his chest pulsated slightly in the soft light, and I wondered again what it meant. The simple, clean lines of a sword, hilt up, with an infinity symbol of some kind threaded around it in shades of black, gray, and white seemed so familiar to me, as though I had seen it somewhere before and should know what it meant.

He didn’t seem too inclined to move anytime soon, so I wandered into the kitchen to find something to eat. The microwave displayed 12:45. Wow, talk about a power nap.

The cabinets didn’t have any food or tea, but I did find a leftover pizza in the fridge and a half-empty bag of dark chocolate, peanut M&M’s buried in the cabinet above the stove behind some Tupperware.

Someone cleared their throat behind me. I spun, bacon in one hand and a frying pan in the other. Daniel stood in the doorway looking around like he’d never seen his own kitchen before. So some of the doors were open, and maybe there were a few dishes on the counters. But it wasn’t that bad.

“Can I help you find something?” The question sounded more like “Let me clean up the mess you’re making before I lose my mind.”

“Don’t you have any tea?”

He crossed to a tall, skinny cabinet to the right of the fridge and retrieved a metal tin and set it on the counter, then filled a teapot and set it on the stove to boil. A delicious aroma wafted from the tea leaves.

“What were you planning to do with the bacon and pizza?” He moved through the room putting things away with practiced efficiency. I could tell he wanted to take over bacon-cooking duty, so I purposefully moved to block his view.