The Elemental Mysteries: Complete Series (54 page)

She began to feel tears prick the corner of her eyes, and she lay her head on his chest to stare at him.
 
She heard one soft thud as his heart gave a beat before falling silent again.
 

“I thought I was in love with him, Jacopo.
 
I think I still am.”
 
She blinked away tears.
 
“But I don’t trust him anymore, even though I want to.”
 

Suddenly, his expression creased into a slight frown, and he no longer looked like a boy, but the hard man who had killed to get her back.
 

“Oh,” she whispered, “there you are, Giovanni.”
 

She sighed and decided she didn’t really want to read, so she curled into his side and fell into another dreamless sleep.
 

Beatrice woke to the feel of a hard body beside her, and soft lips traveling over her neck.
 
She sighed and arched toward it, purring in sleepy pleasure when a large hand cupped her breast.
 
Though her eyes were closed, she could feel them roll back as a mouth traveled along her collarbone, a hot tongue licked up her neck, and she felt the gentle scrape of teeth behind her ear.
 

His mouth dipped lower, searching, and she could feel her heart begin to pound.
 
The lips grew more urgent and a low rumble issued from the body next to hers.
 
Beatrice’s eyes suddenly blinked open when she felt the scrape of pointed teeth again the pulse in her neck.
 

Giovanni must have still been sleeping, but his body was hard and pressed into hers.
 
His hand caressed her breast, and his other arm pulled her closer as they moved against each other.
 
She was overwhelmed by the pleasure of his touch.
 
Her skin hummed with the transfer of energy, and she could feel the brush of amnis wherever his bare hands or lips touched her flesh.
 

“Gio,” she whispered softly.
 
“Gio, I—” She broke off with a quiet moan of pleasure at the feel of his lips teasing behind her ear.

Giovanni’s hand left her breast and moved up to cup her cheek.
 
His thumb brushed against her lips before he wandered back down her body, touching places she had dreamed of for months.
 

“Tesoro,” he breathed out, along with a string of sleepy Italian she didn’t understand.
 
They rocked against each other, and her eyes rolled back when she felt his teeth nip at her neck.
 

Bite me,
she thought, unable to say the words aloud.
 
Her heart pounded as his hands and mouth drove her into a frenzy of need, and she reached up to grasp his shoulder as he moved over her.
 

“Do it,” she whimpered, unable to contain her desire as his lips teased her skin.
 
“Please, Giovanni.”
 
She felt his mouth close over her neck, and his tongue teased her rapid pulse.

Beatrice thought, in the back of her mind, that it would hurt, at least a little.
 
But though she could feel the quick burst as her skin gave way to his fangs, a wave of pleasure overwhelmed her, and she shuddered in his arms as his mouth latched on to her throat and sucked.
 

She cried out in release, and she sensed Giovanni rouse to full consciousness.
 
He hesitated for only a second before instinct took hold, and he drew from her vein as his hands clasped her to his body.
 

Every pull of his mouth was answered as she arched into him, and she could hear soft growls of pleasure as he drank.
 
Her hands dug into the hard muscle of his back, as his soft lips worked her neck and his hands stroked her skin.
 
She was lightheaded, but had the feeling it had less to do with blood loss than the aftershocks of pleasure that coursed through her body.
 

It was probably only minutes until she felt his fangs retract and his tongue sweep over her skin, licking the last drops of blood as his body shivered, then fell still.
 
He hid his face in her neck and lay next to her, silent and unmoving as a statue as her heart rate evened out.
 

“Gio?”

“I am…sorry, Beatrice,” she heard him whisper.
 
“That was—”

“It’s okay.”
 

“No, it’s not.”
 

“I wanted you to,” she said, pulling his ear until he looked at her.
 

His green eyes were worried.
 
“You did?”
 

She nodded and lifted a finger to the drop of blood at the corner of his mouth.
 
She wiped it away, and he caught her finger in his mouth, licking off the last trace of her as his eyes closed in pleasure.

“That wasn’t a good idea,” he murmured.

“When was the last time you fed before tonight?”

“In Greece.”
 

Her eyes widened in surprise.
 
“You haven’t had any blood since we’ve been here?
 
Not even after you fought?”

“Pigs.”
 
He curled his lip.
 
“There are mostly wild pigs in the valley.
 
And I don’t drink from the humans out of respect for Isabel and Gustavo.
 
They don’t allow it in their clan.”
 

“So even after the battle at Lorenzo’s—”

“No,” he whispered and lifted a hand to her cheek.
 
“I’m sorry I took advantage of you.
 
It won’t happen again.”
 

She snorted.
 
“I don’t remember fighting you off.
 
If I had wanted you to stop, I would have yelled at you.”
 

“You didn’t worry I would lose control?”

Beatrice took a moment to think.
 
She hadn’t worried about him losing control for a second.
 
She had actually been more afraid he would wake up before he bit her, and stop the wave of pleasure that had begun with the feel of his mouth and hands on her body.
 

“No.”
 
She blushed.
 
“I didn’t worry about that.”
 

He nodded, and leaned down to place a soft kiss on her mouth before he drew away and rose to leave the bedroom. He grabbed a change of clothes on his way out, and when he came back, he carried a glass of water and a plate of fruit.
 

“You should drink something, and have something to eat.”
 

“Will you need to feed again?”

He looked at the floor when he answered.
 
He had changed into a pair of loose pants and a t-shirt before he returned to the bedroom.
 
“It depends on how long we stay.”
 

“Oh.”
 

“I don’t need to drink as much here as I do in more modern places, and your blood is very rich, so it should satisfy me for a long time.
 
I also drank quite deeply.”
 

She paused and nodded a little. “I guess I taste okay, then.
 
Good to know.”

He coughed a little, and his eyes roamed over her body but did not meet her gaze.
 

“You taste…rather wonderful, actually.”
 

She bit her lip and tried to contain a smirk.
 
“I wonder if I should put that on my resume.”
 

He tried to contain a smile for a second before bursting into laughter.
 
He finally met her eyes and fell into bed next to her, covering his face with a pillow.
 

“Are you embarrassed?” she asked incredulously.
 

“Yes,” came the muffled response from under the pillow.
 
“I acted like a newly sired vampire, totally out of control.”
 

“You didn’t hear me complaining,” she said with a blush.
 
“And before I fell asleep this afternoon, I was thinking about finding a marker and drawing a big curly mustache on your face.”
 

He lifted the pillow and frowned at her as she picked at the plate of dried apples and apricots.
 

“You wouldn’t.”
 

“I didn’t, but I thought about it.
 
Don’t you feel a little less immature now?”

He cocked an eyebrow at her.
 
“Quite.”
 

Beatrice sat up in bed and began to nibble the fruit and sip the water as he watched her.
 
“What were you really like?
 
When you were new?”

He rolled over and lay on his stomach, crossing his arms under his chin.
 
“Do you really want to know this?
 
It’s not pleasant.”
 

“Have you ever told anyone?”

He shook his head, still watching her as she ate.
 

“Then tell me.
 
Even the ugly parts.”
 

He paused for a moment before he continued to tell his story.
 
“My uncle was murdered in 1494, though I didn’t realize it at the time.
 
Andros had been watching us.
 
He had decided that while my uncle would not suit his purposes, I would.
 
He influenced one of the servants to put arsenic in my uncle’s food, so he wasted away.”
 

“How old were you?”

“Seventeen.”
 

She tried to imagine him at seventeen, and her hand reached out to stroke the shorn hair that covered his scalp.
 
She smiled when he moved into her touch.
 
His eyes closed, and she could almost imagine him purring like a cat.
 

“He came to the door only hours after my uncle had died and took me.
 
I was confused when I woke.
 
He had taken me far away, and I was very disoriented.”
 

“Where were you?”

“It was an old Greek settlement in the south of Italy.
 
Crotone,” he said the name with disgust.
 
“He had made a kind of school there.”
 

“He was Greek?”

Giovanni nodded, and she continued to stroke his hair.
 
“He was around twenty-five hundred years old when he made me.
 
A contemporary of Homer’s, or so he claimed, I never knew whether he was lying or not.
 
He was…crazy.
 
Obsessed.”
 

“With what?”

“
Areté.
 
Aristos.
 
Virtus
, to call it by its Roman name.”
 

“Explain to the non-genius in the room, please.”
 

He chuckled, rolling over and grabbing her hand which he placed over his heart and covered with his own.
 
“Essentially, the perfect man.
 
He wanted a child that personified the utmost in human potential.”
 

“That must have been quite the ego stroke.”
 

He shook his head and looked up at the ceiling, absently tracing the outline of her palm on his chest.
 
“No, I wasn’t perfect in the least.
 
I was the raw material.”
 

“You mean—”

“He had to create me, before he sired me.”
 

She frowned.
 
“I don’t understand.”
 

His head tilted back as he looked at her with sad eyes.

“Andros held me captive for ten years while he molded me into what he thought was the perfect man.
 
He schooled me, trained me, drilled me to be the most perfect example of humanity he could create.
 
It was…not pleasant.”
 

Suddenly, Giovanni rolled up and knelt in front of her, pulling off his shirt and watching in silence as she stared at him.
 

“Do you think I’m handsome, Beatrice?”

She blushed, but looked into his eyes when she answered, “Yes, of course.”
 

“Am I strong?” He crawled toward her on all fours, getting inches from her face.
 
She took a deep breath, inhaling the faint smell of smoke that always seemed to linger on his skin.
 

“Yes.”
 

He leaned into her neck, taking a deep breath before he whispered in her ear, “You smell like honeysuckle, did you know that?”

Her heart was pounding and her body reacted to him instinctively.
 
She leaned toward him and felt his lips brush her temple before he sat back.
 

“Do I look like a statue?
 
That’s what he wanted.
 
He wanted a perfect…specimen to turn, one who excelled physically, mentally, who had strong character.”