Under a Vampire Moon (33 page)

Tearing his mouth from hers, Christian began to nibble his way back down toward her breast, muttering against her skin, “It’s been driving me crazy all night that you had no panties on.”

Carolyn’s answer was to throw her head back on a cry as his hand reached what her panties would have covered. The movement almost overbalanced her and would have had Christian not quickly raised the hand at her hips to catch her.

Cursing, he pressed her hard to his chest. Her ear was against his thundering heart, but she heard him mutter, “Bedroom.” Then he caught her legs, drew them up around his hips, and caught her at the waist to lift her off the rail. Carolyn immediately crossed her ankles, clinging to him as he carried her across the terrace.

The soft strains of music reached her ears as he carried her into the house and Carolyn lifted her head to glance toward the music system. When she glanced back to Christian it was to find him staring down at her rather than watching where he was going. She had barely taken note of that when he lowered his head and kissed her again, his footsteps slowing. With one hand still on her bottom, helping to hold her up, he then found her breast with the other, and groaned along with her as he gently pinched the nipple. He started to walk again then, but then he sat down a second later, rearranging her legs so that she straddled him. Carolyn broke their kiss to glance around with confusion. They were back in the living room, on the couch.

She’d barely registered that when his mouth closed over the nipple he’d been pinching and his hand slid between her legs again. The double assault sent excitement and need rushing through her in a shockingly stark one-two punch. Carolyn cried out and nearly reared up off his lap, but the hand at her hip held her in place as the fingers of his other hand slid over her slick flesh, and then pushed up into her.

“I need you. Now,” Christian growled, letting her nipple slip from his mouth.

“Yes,” Carolyn gasped, riding his hand. He released her hip and she felt that hand brush against her inner thigh as he undid his jeans, freeing himself, and then his hands moved to clasp her hips, urging her down and pushed into her, hot and hard.

Carolyn clutched his shoulders, and met his gaze, eyes widening as he filled her. He just seemed so much hotter, harder . . . and well, there just seemed like so much more of him than in her dreams. Or her other dreams if this was one, she thought faintly as her body expanded to close around him like a tight glove. Robert had definitely had a teeny-weeny, she thought on a gasp as Christian filled her to the hilt. She could swear she could feel him pressing against her womb. He was pressing against something anyway, she thought faintly and then blinked open eyes she hadn’t realized she’d closed when he slid a hand down to touch her even as his mouth found her breast once more.

Groaning, Carolyn wrapped her arms around his head and began to move, using her thighs to raise and lower herself. The movement combined with everything else started an overwhelming chain of waves inside her and she groaned and instinctively began to move more quickly as those waves of pleasure built to unbearable levels, mounting one on top of the other and crashing through her head until she thought she would drown in the pleasure. She couldn’t hear the music anymore. Her ears were full of a roaring. Her vision was blurring to pinpricks of light. And then the roaring became a thundering and the pinpricks exploded and Carolyn screamed out, barely hearing Christian’s roar as what they’d been running toward found them and pulled her under.

C
hristian opened his eyes with a start to find Gia peering down at him from behind the couch.

“You really should have taken her to the bedroom,” she said gently. “She’ll be very upset if she knows the boys saw her like this.”

Christian glanced sharply down at Carolyn. She still straddled his hips, her chest pressed to his, he saw with relief. At least nothing was showing. Raising his head again, he glanced around. “Where are they?”

“I sent them to the kitchen until it’s clear,” Gia said solemnly.

“Thanks,” Christian said gratefully.

Gia shrugged. “I like her. She and I are going to be good friends.”

Christian smiled faintly and simply said, “I hope so.”

“Oh, we will,” she assured him. “So long as you don’t muck this up.”

Christian frowned.

“How did you handle the shared pleasure part of it?” Gia asked, her gaze slipping to Carolyn.

He glanced down at her as well before admitting, “I forgot all about that at first.”

“You didn’t let her touch you?” Gia asked, worry crowding her face when he nodded.

“But I distracted her right after. I don’t think she’ll remember.”

“Let’s hope not, but don’t let her touch you again. It could raise questions you can’t afford to answer right now.”

Christian scowled. “Well, I’m trying not to, but it’s kind of hard without tying her down.”

“So tie her down,” Gia said at once and grinned at his expression. “Like that idea, do you?” Chuckling, she moved away toward the stairs, saying, “I have some lovely silk scarves that will be perfect. I’ll get them.”

Christian peered after her as she started upstairs, and then turned his gaze back to Carolyn as she murmured sleepily and shifted against him. The small sound made his heart ache for some reason and he merely stared at her for a moment, wondering how she’d slipped into his heart so easily and quickly. It wasn’t the sex, which he acknowledged had been a hundred times more powerful than the dream sex they’d shared. That had been . . . well, mind blowing frankly. It had certainly fried his circuits and knocked him out better than a good bash to the back of the head. But that wasn’t how she’d slipped under his skin. It had happened before the sex. It was why panic had been clawing at his throat all day. His father was right, he’d been frustrated and panic stricken. Now he was just panic stricken. He could still lose her.

Christian carefully shifted Carolyn in his arms and stood up, grateful when his pants didn’t immediately drop around his ankles. Lowering her to rest against the waist of his jeans to ensure that they didn’t drop at an inopportune moment, he headed for the stairs, meeting Gia at the top. She set a bevy of colorful scarves on Carolyn’s chest and then moved past, murmuring, “Have fun.”

Carolyn didn’t stir again until he’d reached his room and set her on the bed. She stirred sleepily the moment he released her, shifting restlessly onto her side, her hand reaching out as if searching for him.

Christian smiled and moved back to close the door, then stripped off his jeans as he returned to the bed, his eyes moving hungrily over Carolyn in her rumpled leather dress. She was on her side, the leather cups still below her breasts from when he’d peeled them back, leaving the colorful array of silk scarves the only cover on her upper body. Her skirt was now up around her hips from their joining downstairs, baring her to his pleasure.

His gaze slid to the scarves, and he decided he wouldn’t tie her up while she was asleep. He didn’t want her to wake up and find herself staked out on the bed and freak. But he would once she was awake if she didn’t protest. The idea made him smile. Christian was erect before he even crawled onto the bed and began to draw the scarves off.

Sixteen

C
arolyn stirred from sleep with a deep moan, her body already arching to press her back into something warm, lifting her breasts into something else warm as passion roused her. Gasping as pleasure swept from her breast and out to every part of her body, she opened her eyes and peered down at the hand toying with her nipple.

“Christian?” she said uncertainly.

He chuckled by her ear, nipping at it gently. “Who else would it be?”

Before she could answer, he’d released her nipple to slide his hand down between her legs and Carolyn pressed herself back against him with a gasp. Feeling the hardness pressing against her bottom, she instinctively reached back to find him. But Christian gave off touching her to catch her hand before she could.

“No touching or I’ll tie you to the bed,” he growled.

Carolyn gave a breathless laugh that ended on a gasp when his hand then slid between her legs again.

“But I want to touch you,” she moaned, reaching behind her again. The moment she did, Christian stopped caressing her to catch her hand. He turned her onto her back, and then shifted over her, his mouth smothering her complaint as he forced her hand up above her head. When she felt something soft slide around her wrist and pull tight, Carolyn broke their kiss to glance up with surprise. A silk scarf was affixed to the bedpost and now attached to her wrist.

Carolyn turned back to peer at him with amazement, but his attention was on her other hand as he raised it and wound another scarf around it as well. Lowering his head, he peered at her and asked, “All right?”

She stared at him blankly and then whispered uncertainly, “I don’t know.”

“Say the word and I’ll stop,” Christian promised and then shifted down her body, his lips trailing over her skin, skating to first one spot and then another, stopping to nibble here and suckle there as he went.

Carolyn bit her lip, her hands instinctively grabbing at the ties binding her as he made a meal of her, nibbling her collarbone, licking his way down between her breasts and then laving the undersides of each before suckling at her nipples. Carolyn gasped, torn between uncertainty and pleasure and Christian continued down, skipping over the leather dress gathered around her waist to find and follow her hip bone, making her writhe as something between tickling and pleasure trickled through her.

“Oh,” she gasped as his lips trailed their way farther down. She raised her head and watched, wide-eyed, as he began to duck between her legs.

“Oh . . . er . . . Ohhhh!” Carolyn cried, tugging hard on her ties and arching on the bed as pleasure shot through her like a bullet, hitting seemingly every nerve in her body. Carolyn wasn’t aware of trying to close her thighs, but felt Christian press and hold them back. She wasn’t aware of much after that except for the building pressure. It was a rough sea pounding against the shore of her brain in wave after crashing wave, stirring up mud so that she couldn’t think of anything but what she was experiencing. It left her panting and unable to catch her breath, and then he rose up, caught her hips in his hands to raise her off the bed, and thrust himself into her. Carolyn tugged frantically at the ties, screaming as he pushed her over the edge to where the deep dark water closed over her head.

C
arolyn opened her eyes to a cool room lit only by the light coming from the bathroom through the half-closed door. She knew where she was at once and lay still for a minute, enjoying the heat of Christian’s chest at her back and his arm around her until the need to relieve herself forced her to slip out from under his arm and ease off the bed. She paused then and peered down at him, marveling at his beauty. Strong, handsome, his trouble-free face looking so damned heartbreakingly young in the dim light.

Biting her lip, Carolyn turned and tiptoed to the bathroom. She slipped inside, closed the door, and then turned confronted by her own reflection in the bathroom mirror. It brought her up short, her need to pee forgotten as she stared at herself. She still wore Gia’s leather dress, though it was more of a wide leather belt around her waist at the moment, revealing breasts that weren’t as perky as they had been at Christian’s age, and thighs she swore she could see cellulite on.

But the true horror was from the neck up. Her hair was a disheveled mess around a face that looked horrid in the stark light. Her mascara had left dark bruises below each eye, her foundation was caked in some places, and missing in others where it had been rubbed off, and her lipstick was half eaten off and half smudged onto the skin around her lips. She looked . . . like an old tramp, she judged harshly.

“What are you doing here?” Carolyn whispered to her reflection and watched as her eyes glazed with a fine sheen of tears until her vision blurred. Sucking in a shaky breath, she moved to the sink, turned on the taps, grabbed a washcloth, dampened it, and began to scrub viciously at her face until her skin burned with the effort. Then she tossed the cloth aside and turned off the taps before risking another look at herself. She hadn’t miraculously washed away the years. She just looked old and blotchy now to her jaundiced eye.

Carolyn turned away and began to tug at Gia’s dress, pulling the cups back up into place and the skirt back down. Once she had it covering her as decently as it would, she paused to catch her breath and glanced warily to the door, listening for sounds from the other room. When silence met her ear, she sucked in a breath and moved silently to open the door.

Christian still lay asleep where she’d left him, but Carolyn didn’t count on that continuing for long. This was the first time she’d actually been awake before him. Each of the five times she’d woken up before this, she’d been stirred to consciousness by sweet words and gentle caresses as he took her again and again to such extremes of pleasure she fainted at the end. They hadn’t spoken other than gasps and moans after the first time she’d woken when he’d tied her up, and they’d hardly talked then. She had no idea what he wanted from her, or what this was all about, and she was afraid to find out.

Carolyn slipped from the bathroom and crossed on tiptoes to the hall door. She listened briefly, but when she didn’t hear anything, eased the door open, cast one last glance at Christian when he murmured sleepily on the bed, then slid out, and hurried along the hall and down the stairs as if all the hounds of hell were on her heels. She didn’t bother about shoes or anything else, but headed straight out the front door and burst into a run that didn’t slow until she’d hit the turnaround and started down the road toward her own villa. She eased back to a jog then, but continued forward, slipping around the side to the terrace and the French doors to her room.