Nightfall (19 page)

Quinn adjusted his position to slide one hand to her pink
slit, finding that hot button of nerves and rubbing and squeezing it. Stroke,
stroke, stroke. He saw the impending climax in her eyes, in the flare of heat
in her irises. Her gasp of breath. He was ready to beg when she finally said,
“Now. Hard and fast.”

He drove into her like a stallion mounting a mare, his
thrusts so strong the headboard of the bed slammed into the wall. Over and over
he plunged into her wet heat. With her ankles as leverage she lifted her hips
until he was sure he could drive straight through her body. The second he felt
her orgasm grip her and her breathless “Now, Quinn”, he let go, every muscle
spasming as his cock flexed and spurts of semen filled her.

He collapsed forward, grateful that Selene eased her legs
down, permitting him to do so. A sheen of perspiration coated his skin, his
heart trip-hammering so fast he thought it might pound its way out of his body.

With sex this intense, he’d expect to feel like he’d never
be able to move a muscle again. In that first second, he barely had strength to
ease himself from her body, but as he lay there he realized he wasn’t as tired
as he normally would be. He felt more like he had ten years ago, when he’d
already be thinking about the next way he’d take the buckle bunny lying next to
him.

“I think it’s best you censor some of those thoughts,” she
warned, her lips curving with that sensual set that suggested she was thinking
of ways to teach him just how to do that. His ass was still throbbing.

She pushed him onto his back. Drawing a line of kisses from
his groin to the hollow of his throat and then along the line of his jaw made
him go still, touched and aroused at once.

“Mistress,” he murmured.

She straddled him, leaning down to lick the underside of his
jaw. “Sleep now,” she told him. “I think you’ll find if you close your eyes,
you’re more tired than you expect. The second marking needs time to get fully
through your system.”

His eyes closed, and he found she was right. With that
signal that he was preparing to sleep, his body seemed to sink an extra inch into
the mattress. But just as he was about to tumble into the black void, the
whisper of her voice drew him back.

You make me feel safe, cowboy.

Did she actually say that? He wished he could get his
fucking brain to work, because he had a feeling he was missing something
important. Safe from what?

He must have mumbled something because she brushed her mouth
over his. “Not my body. My heart. I never thought to have that, yet here you
are.”

“Heart,” he said sleepily. “Safe with me.”

Her fingers curled into his chest.
I know. It’s yours
that isn’t safe with me. I’m sorry. But I promise I’ll do everything in my
power to keep and protect you.

That’s all any of us can do.
His mind drifted around
hers, a floating, dreamlike dance.
Human or vampire. Right?

Before he could hear her answer, he fell into a dreamless
sleep.

* * * * *

Selene stroked his chest. In the random swirl of his
thoughts as he drifted to sleep, she saw that he still wanted to take her to
dinner Sunday night. Then he wanted her to come spend the night at the ranch
with him. He wanted her to meet Annette, the housekeeper and cook, obviously an
important person in his life. She supposed it could be worse. He could be
trying to introduce her to his parents. What the hell was she doing?

She was trying to pretend she was still a human, where she
could conduct this relationship like that. She could block Quinn from the
thoughts in her head, all while fully monitoring his every thought without him
having any ability to stop her. Yet she’d kept her mind open when she’d second
marked him, and said the words that had just come into her mind, so sweet,
simple and true. So terribly dangerous. Even as she whispered them again aloud
now.

“You make me feel safe.”

She’d told him the truth, that she meant her heart. She’d
learned the heart’s safety was more important than physical well-being, because
physical power was an illusion. There was always someone more powerful who
could threaten the body or mind. But with the right person, the heart could
feel safe, inviolate. A rare, precious gift, one that made her afraid, but not
at all for herself. All for him.

Just before dawn, she retrieved his clothes from the bar to
put them neatly folded just inside the bedroom door. When she left him to
retreat to her cellar room, out of habit, she locked it. Though Quinn had keys
at his ranch, she didn’t expect he’d brought them with him and so she’d be left
undisturbed. She needed to keep sending him the message that everything was on
her terms.

While it was a rational decision, she knew more than logic
was driving the decision. She liked the idea that he was hers to command. Not
only like a Mistress, but like a vampire. She just couldn’t decide if holding
on to her humanity or relinquishing it all to her vampire side was the best path
for Quinn. Or if she’d damned him regardless.

God help us both.

* * * * *

Mid-morning, Quinn sat at his home office desk, booted foot
propped on an open drawer, staring at a stack of paperwork, unseeing. He was
thinking about the way they’d joked about the difference between Texans and New
Yorkers. Yeah, people up North talked and acted fast, and they could be as
sharp as they appeared. But his people weren’t any less sharp. They thought
things through, long and hard, from all different directions. Sometimes that
could take a piece of time. Sometimes it only took a blink, especially if a man
had had a lot of practice at having to make important decisions that might or
might not land him under a bull’s feet.

He was running through everything he’d heard in Selene’s
voice, seen in her body language when she talked about her life before. She was
tough, his Mistress, but he could tell until she resolved this thing with
Laurent and her past life, she was going to have to keep running and living
scared. Yeah, there wasn’t a timid bone in her body, but he could feel the
fear, way down deep, when she held him, and whispered those potent words,
You
make me feel safe
. There was too much sadness in it, as if she understood
the feeling was deceptive. Even worse, he could tell she thought she’d somehow
failed by marking him twice, looping him into her world.

Everybody needed somebody, and he was damn proud she’d
chosen him. No matter how fool crazy it seemed, he wanted that third mark too.
But first things first. He had an idea, and it seemed best to exercise it
during daylight when she should be fast asleep and couldn’t come traipsing into
his head ordering a cease-and-desist.

Yeah. Like to see you enforce that in the bright
sunlight, honey.

Picking up his phone from next to the steaming mug of coffee
Annette had left him, he dialed. Time zone was off by a couple hours, but Sam
got up with the dawn every damn day.

“I can almost smell Annette’s coffee from here.” The old man
picked up with that greeting. With Sam it could be caller ID or damn telepathy.
Quinn didn’t question it.

“She probably waves it in your direction out the kitchen
window. You know she was pretty taken with you. You probably could have tapped
that.”

Sam scoffed, affecting an old cowboy-western movie Indian
monotone. “You hold out forbidden fruit, white man. That squaw is heap big
trouble.”

Quinn grinned. “No argument there. She fussed nonstop about
you being here, but I could tell she missed you after you left. Think she liked
your throw-downs.”

“They were debates.”

“Sounded like chickens chasing each other around the yard to
me and the boys. So how’s it going up there in the middle of Nowhere, Nevada?”

“It’s been an interesting couple of years. Maggie and Matt
moved back east and the new neighbors are…stimulating.”

“No shit? I know they said they’d eventually head back that
way since Matt was from North Carolina, but they seemed real dug in. They were
a big help to you.”

“The new ones are as well. A goddess-in-training and her
angel mate.”

“Of course,” Quinn said dryly. “Couldn’t be your standard
couple, him a tax attorney and her a real estate agent. You have to train to be
a god or goddess? Who’d have thought?”

“Everything new requires a period of growth and learning. As
well as a lot of meditation on the right path to take.” Sam’s voice sharpened.
“Which brings us to why you’re calling.”

Yeah, that was Sam. He didn’t do a lot of chitchat, but when
Quinn had spent time at his campfire, he’d found he really liked those long
silences, filled with nothing but the crackle of the flames and the energy that
filled the world around them.

“So should I even ask my question, or have you already heard
it on the wind?”

Sam snorted. “You answered the most important question
before it left the lips of the universe, so your way is set there, for better
or worse. You might as well ask the other ones you have, since those answers
might help you survive your foolish impulses.”

“Are all shamans cryptic and patronizing?”

“We take a special course. It adds to our mystery.”

Quinn shook his head. He loved the old guy and missed him.
He didn’t know if Sam would give him a straight answer or tell him he was off
the rails. Which he very much might be. But if he could ask anyone, it would be
this man.

“Do you know anything about vampires?” A cowboy asking about
a vampire. What the hell must Sam think of that?

The old man chuckled. “Would you like to narrow it down?
That’s like asking whether I know about cars.”

“Still driving that ’68 Chevelle?”

“I will do so until the close of time.”

“Yeah, not sure the warranty stretches that far.”

“Quinn, I like talking to you, or not talking, when it is
time for us to enjoy company. You have a purpose in calling, and it’s
important. Let’s get to it.”

Quinn cleared his throat. “I’m seeing one. Dating one. Sort
of. A vampire, I mean. She’s in some trouble.” Briefly, he gave Sam the
details. “Goes without saying this is just between you and me. I’m just
wondering…how does she get out of this? I get the feeling she’s no more than a
kid in that world, so for all that she stays about three steps ahead of me on
everything, I’m thinking you might have some insight…or know someone who can
give us some.”

“So you don’t doubt what she is.”

“She didn’t leave me much choice.” He thought of that speed
trick, the slamming against the wall. But deep down, she’d been right. He’d
already known.

“Has she marked you, Quinn?” Hearing Sam know exactly what
the problem was kind of confirmed all of it, gave Quinn a lightheaded sense of
passing into a different dimension. He settled himself down with a firm
admonishment to focus.

“Twice. She won’t give me the third, so she says.”

“But you’re thinking you want that. You understand what that
means?”

“Can we talk about me after we deal with the important
stuff?”

A significant pause, then Sam spoke again. “That was a
potent answer to the question, Quinn. A vampire’s servant always thinks of the
vampire first, their own well-being secondary. You have always been a hard
worker, a man who cares deeply for those who matter to him, and will do
whatever is needed. I can give you some advice, but do not proceed on it
without that third mark. She’ll know you need that as well, or she’ll go
alone.”

“She’s not going alone.”

“You also have much to learn about a vampire, even a young
one.” Sam’s voice held grim amusement. “Are you aware that the vampires have
divided our world into territories, and each territory has a vampire overlord?
Groups of territories are under Region Masters, and the whole structure is
directed by a Vampire Council. There are not many vampires, but because of
their power and nature, they operate in a feudal way. Each territory overlord
demands tithes from vampires in his or her territory and in turn the overlord
ensures they are all complying with the rules of the Council to ensure the
safety of vampire kind, for everyone’s mutual benefit.”

“How do you know all this? Never mind. You’re going to say
something like ‘how do I know the sun shines or the rain falls’. You have a
goddess and an angel next door, after all.”

“If you are going to answer your own questions, you could do
so silently, so you’re not interrupting,” Sam retorted. “What I was going to
say is, if she is in trouble and fleeing one overlord, your only solution,
albeit an uncertain and dangerous one, is to seek asylum in another territory,
petitioning
that
overlord for protection and advocacy. Does she have any
skills that could benefit the Texas overlord in any way?”

“We have an overlord?”

“Have you been paying attention? Yes we do. Or rather, the
vampires in this territory do. Answer the question.”

“She’s a hell of a bar manager. She was making the other guy
big bucks running several of his places up in the New York and New Jersey area.
She’s already turning my place around and she’s been here less than two weeks.
Do they have some kind of compulsion thing?”

He knew he’d just taken a ninety-degree detour, but Sam had
a way of bringing out those subconscious concerns, pushing them right to the
top of the list. “I mean, I’ve never fallen so hard and fast…but I want it to
be real, Sam. I want it to be real like I’ve never wanted anything in my life.”

Another silence before Sam spoke. “When I first met you,
Quinn, I felt strongly that the energies surrounding you were taking you toward
an otherworld path, but the path was not clear for a long time. Your
subconscious knew it too, for I sensed you were preparing the ranch not just
for yourself, but for someone else as well, even when you did not see it.
You’re a man who enjoys his solitude and quiet spaces, but the right person is
a complement to that space and solitude.”