A Dark Heart (23 page)

He groaned against her ear, a pleased sound, as he stroked her. “So soft
and wet and … sweet.” He pressed her leg higher, opening her to him even more,
slipping his fingers inside of her as he continued his gentle, insistent
rhythm, until she threw her head back and cried out, her body shuddering with bursts
of white-hot heat.

He kissed her exposed neck and brought a finger, wet with
her
, to
his lips. It was shocking to her – she’d not thought he could enjoy
that
– but arousing all the same to watch him as he licked it and groaned. For
a thrilling second his eyes glowed, as if the vampire in him were returning for
more, as if the taste of her had made him lose all control.

And maybe it had, at least on one level, for a tremor passed through him,
and she could feel his arousal pressing against her belly, harder and more urgent
than before.

“Let me taste you, Ana. I’ve wanted to for so long,” he murmured.

She nodded, overcome, and clung to him as he carried her across the room
to the small bed tucked under an alcove. He lay her gently across a rough
counterpane and climbed over her, his tongue trailing fire down her throat,
over her breasts, past her stomach, all the way to the place between her legs.
She started in surprise, but he calmed her with gently stroking hands. She’d
not expected … not
dreamed
such a thing was possible – but she
liked it. And
he
liked it, from the sounds he made deep in his throat as
he licked her and caressed her with tongue and teeth and lips.

This
was what she’d been waiting for.
This
was what she’d
wanted the first time. Or what she would have wanted if she’d even though such
an act possible.

Everything happened so fast, the flaming sensation rising again, then
cresting, sending wave after shuddering wave of bliss through her body. When
she lay limp and spent, barely able to form a coherent thought, he came over
her again, settling on top of her, kissing her arched neck. He seemed pleased,
grateful. Tender. And in no hurry, even though she could feel his desire for
her still hidden behind his trousers, pressing against her hip, hot, tense
shudders racking his body.

“You came so easily,” he murmured against her ear, sending renewed
tremors of arousal up and down her spine. “But I don’t want to hurt you again.”

“You won’t,” she said, pulling his head down to her lips.

“I wish, how I wish I could come to you as purely as you come to me,” he
whispered longingly against her lips. “I hate what I’ve been. What I’ve known.”

“None of that matters now.”

She took his face between her hands when he didn’t respond, making him
look at her, for she could tell he was falling away from her, back into his
past. And she
never
wanted that between them, especially when they were
together like this. She wished it were possible to love him enough so that all
of his nightmares burned from his memory. “Elijah. Come back to me.”

At length, he nodded and covered her mouth with his. He trailed his hands
down her body, as if to memorize every angle of her, and eventually brought the
shift over her head, so nothing separated them but his trousers.

“So beautiful,” he murmured, raking her with his gaze.

“Please, Elijah,” she begged, wrapping her legs around his waist, trying
to pull him down to her. Into her.

He worked the buttons of his trousers free and slid them down his hips,
his erection falling hard and heavy against her thigh.

“Please,” she murmured once more, as she reached for him impulsively,
wrapping her fingers around his hard length. He was velvet-smooth, pulsing with
life, and scalding hot.

A shudder passed through him, and he gripped her thighs, opening her
wide. At last, flesh to flesh, soul to soul, he pushed against her, and the
long hard length of him slipped inside of her, stretching her to the limit. But
there was no pain this time.

She gripped his shoulders as he began to withdraw, not wanting that heavy
fullness to fade. But just as he was nearly out, he thrust against her again,
this time fully, satisfactorily, and they both moaned. The next time he did it,
she met him with an instinctive turn of her hips, which caused him to cry her
name out against her shoulder in pained ecstasy.

Their bodies took on a slow, churning rhythm, and she clutched his scorching,
trembling body as close as she could as white hot, molten tremors shook her.
His thrusts came hard, faster, and she sobbed in wonder as she felt her body
tipping over the edge again. A pleasure, greater and deeper than before,
greater than any she’d ever known, began where their bodies joined, and spread
like wildfire through her blood.

As if her release had triggered his own, he lunged against her a final
time, shouting out her name. Then they fell against the mattress, and he kissed
her cheek, tucking her close, spent and entirely consoled.

“My love. My love,” he whispered.

Tears streamed down her face as she fell into a deep slumber, because she
knew unequivocally that he was hers at last. She had won, and her victory was
sweeter than anything she’d ever imagined.

ELIJAH ran
through a burning building, the one he was always running through in his
dreams. Red velvet curtains erupted into flames, the sound of whores wailing
deafened his ears. A man in his waistcoat – O’Connor, as it always was
– lay still, dead, facedown on the carpet, and for once Elijah stepped
over him, searching the ruins, his heart filled with dread.

At last he saw her, across the room, flames leaping between them. She
wore a blue dress with ribbons on her shoulders, and her hair was in braids,
but something was wrong. She wasn’t supposed to be there. The other, younger
girl in a pinafore should have been there with her dead brother, not this girl.
Not the girl he loved, the girl who saved him.

But he couldn’t save her. The flames leapt so high they made her
disappear. He cried out her name and started forward into the fire.

A shadow fell behind him, and a hand was on his wrist, holding him
back. He was caught. He turned and saw his captor, the cruel stranger with
yellow eyes and a dark smile. But then the face changed into O’Connor’s, and he
was laughing, his chipped tooth glinting in the flames.

Elijah tried to pull away, but the bastard’s grip was like steel.
Elijah raised his free hand, brought the knife that was suddenly there down on
the hand that held him, tearing the flesh of his captor open.

A searing pain arced across his face as he fell away, and his vision
went dark
…

He woke up with a cry, the scar on his cheek throbbing, his heart
thundering out of control. He sat upright and stared blindly across the room,
lost. The gray light of predawn filtered through the one ancient blurry windowpane
like an eerie fog. It took him a moment to recognize his austere flat.

Arms wrapped around him, warm and tender, and a voice sweet and soothing
murmured against his ear. “It was just a dream, just a dream.”

He wondered if he was still in the dream when Christiana’s lips –
Ana’s
lips – brushed his own, and her arms drew him down against the bed.
Against her.

He realized he was shaking.

“Not a dream. A memory,” he whispered.

But already the details were blurred in his mind as he sank into her
embrace. He found solace, just as she said he would, in the warmth of her, the
depth of her love for him. He wondered how he could have been so blind not to
take what she offered him long ago, not to trust in her love for him.

But he wasn’t free yet.

O’Connor was still out there.

She must have read his thoughts, for she raised her head to study him,
her green eyes heavy with worry.

 “O’Connor works for a very dangerous man, Elijah. This is bigger
than your vendetta.”

He ran his finger down his scar. “Ehrengard gave me this. And he gave a
demon like O’Connor the power to do what he did to me and countless other
children. He deserves to be gutted as he gutted Percy’s brother.”

“Ehrengard is not your battle.”

“I owe Percy…”

Something flashed behind her eyes and she closed the space between them,
kissing him hard, as if intent on shutting him up.

He felt himself flush, but tried his best to hang on to his wits. “What
was that for?” he demanded warily.

“You don’t owe Percy anything,” she said firmly.

“You don’t like Percy, do you?”

“
He
doesn’t like me. And I think he likes
you
rather too
much,” she said in a manner that he would almost classify as a pout. She arched
an eyebrow. “If you know what I mean.”

He
did
know what she meant, and he laughed in shock. She was
jealous of Percy. Whom she still thought was a man.

 “Percy does not … feel that way about me,” he scoffed.

She looked extremely skeptical. “He does. Trust me.”

What a tangle.

He thought about revealing Percy’s true sex to her, but stopped himself.
That was Percy’s story to tell if she wanted to, not his. He would not break
her trust in him any more than he already had. And he rather thought Ana might
become even more upset were she to learn that Percy was a woman. Not that it
made any difference to him. Percy held not the slightest attraction for him,
whatever her sex.

It was unsettling to imagine that Percy might have feelings for him, though.
But in a far corner of his mind he already knew that she did, and that she had
for a long time. He just hadn’t wanted to see it any more than he’d wanted to
see Ana’s love for him.

“Percy is a friend,” he said, realizing for the first time that this much
at least was true. He’d never called her a friend in his morphine-clouded mind
before. She’d always been an associate, a fellow soldier in the war against
O’Connor. He’d not allowed himself friends.

“Well, don’t let your
friend
lead you into trouble. O’Connor is
one thing, but Ehrengard is quite another. Let Percy pursue his own revenge.”

He nodded, though he knew that it might not be possible to disentangle
his pursuit of O’Connor from whatever nasty business Ehrengard was involved in.
But he
wanted
to. He just wanted it to be over once-and-for-all, no
shadows left, so he could enjoy mornings like these without any dark thoughts.
Without nightmares.

“I want to stop O’Connor, but I’ll not put my life at risk again, Ana,”
he said firmly. “I’ve too much to live for.”

“No more morphine?”

“Never,” he said fiercely. “I have you now. I’ll not let you go.”

She kissed him gently, grinning. “ You can’t imagine how happy those
words make me. But none of that really matters at the moment, does it?”

He searched her face, felt her soft hands rub his chest, his stomach,
felt her breasts brush against his sensitized skin as she moved against him.

“No, I suppose it doesn’t,” he said wonderingly, seizing her by the
thighs, pulling her on top of him, kissing her until they were both breathless.
He still couldn’t quite believe this was real, holding Ana in his arms – waking
up with her after a night spent
making love
.

He’d never made love before, had scoffed at the idea as euphemistic
twaddle. He’d not scoff anymore.

Being with Ana was a deliverance. He loved the feeling of her draped on
top of him, a warm, fragrant blanket, her long unbound golden hair cascading
over the both of them. He never wanted to move, would happily remain entwined
with her for eternity.

“I want to do wicked things to you,” Ana whispered into his ear, making
his blood sing.

 “And you always get what you want?” he teased breathlessly.

“Always,” she said, squirming on top of him, driving his cock crazy.

He propped himself against the headboard, eyeing her lazily. “And what wicked
thing do you want right now, my Lady?”

She shrugged, sitting astride him now, her body bathed in the warm light
of dawn. He felt the softest, dewiest part of her pressed against his belly,
watched her rose-tipped breasts sway slightly as she leaned forward, chasing
his lips. Molten blood rushed through his veins, straight to his groin.

His nightmare and the cares of the outside world were immediately and
completely forgotten. The Most Beautiful Woman in London had taken residence in
his bed, after all. Like some avenging angel, she had flown into his flat,
taken his confession, tossed aside his demons like so much flotsam and jetsam,
and made him love her, as he had longed to do.

Now, of her own accord, she reached down between his legs and took the heavy
length of him in her hands. His desire rose, hard and fierce, from her
unexpected touch, and he couldn’t help but catch his breath with astonishment
at her boldness. He burned so hot so fast his fangs popped out and his vision
went bright. He would have cursed himself for ruining the moment, if not for
the wide, pleased smile on her lips, and the spark of fire in her own verdant
gaze.

She even held up her other hand – the one not teasing him to
madness – to his lips for him, and before he could even process what he
was about, his fangs had pierced the fragile flesh of her inner wrist, and he
was taking giant, ungraceful sips of her blood.

She cried out, but not from pain, and began to move her hips against his
body.

Bloody hell.

He’d nearly forgotten that she
liked
his vampiric hunger for her,
liked it so much he could smell her arousal, feel the slickness of her against
his belly as she moved. He still had trouble believing it, even after last
night – he had trouble thinking about
anything
as the healing effects
of her blood ripped through his body like wildfire. It was agony. It was bliss.
The only thing better than taking her blood was being inside of her.