Ignoring what it was urging, he pushed her up until her feet left the ground. Her bra hooks were there for the popping, so he did away with the stiff garment. Discarding her panties took one more rip. Then her beautiful, female body was naked under him. Well, naked but for the stockings and garters. His cotton T-shirt was soft as silk from his aura. Knowing this and hungry for more contact, he rubbed his chest across her undulating back.
Evidently, doing this out in the open excited her. Her pussy clutched him as she moaned and writhed harder.
“Christian,” she said. “I don’t—” Her hips nearly took his head off as they twisted. “I don’t think I can hold back at all.”
“You can,” he growled, uncertain he could himself.
He took the hand she’d flung onto his hip and placed it back on the car, manacling both her wrists in one hand. Stretching them above her head got her going, too. She liked being at his mercy as much as he enjoyed having put her there. Her insides quivered, hot cream flooding over him.
“I want to watch you,” she pleaded. “I want to know what this does to you.”
“I’ll turn you. When we come, you’ll be facing me.”
She moaned a protest, but he couldn’t let her have her way in this. He wanted to be good to her, wanted to be sweet and tender. She hadn’t said she still loved him. If he gazed into her eyes . . . If he saw that all she felt was lust . . . He didn’t want that knowledge to change how he treated her, but he was afraid it would.
So he pushed into her from behind with her hands held captive and her throat letting out helpless mewls of bliss. Though he was dressed and she was naked, to his heart it seemed the other way around. He squeezed her pubis with his free hand, but only fingered her clit lightly. In and out he moved his penis, pulling, pushing, feeling every inch of each motion on those sensitive vampire nerves. Despite it nearly killing him, he forced himself to be as patient as the ocean under the cliffs nearby.
“Chris,” she moaned.
“Grace,” he answered, licking the salty bend of her neck.
She shuddered under him, breathing hard.
The top of his head was floating on the edge, the sting of pressure in his balls epic. Her round little ass was both a cushion for his rocking and an ideal means for her to torment him with her squirms. The hold he had on her wrists didn’t prevent her hands from clenching.
“Christian,” she hissed between her teeth. “If you push into me one more time, I’m going to go.”
He believed her. Her energy had that quality of being ready to burst its seams. With a tortured groan, he pulled his hard-on out of her warmth. They both panted for a moment, their aroused bodies adjusting to the denial of what they most wanted.
“Release my hands,” Grace whispered.
He released them, bracing his arms on the car. His body temperature was so unnaturally elevated that his palms fogged the black finish. Grace wriggled onto her back within the cage he’d formed. Her eyes went wide when she saw his face.
His wish that he could claim her forever must have been written there.
“I’d chain you to me if I could,” he admitted. “I’d never let you slip away again.”
She touched the center of his chest where his heart was thudding in slow motion. “I’m here now, Christian.”
This was all she could promise, all any lover could. She feathered her fingertips along the sides of his neck, bending her legs until the soles of her feet were supported by the side of the car. He looked at what her white garters framed: the flushed wet beauty that was her sex. It meant the world that she didn’t try to hide herself. He saw he’d prepared her well for this finish. Her muscles were twitching, as eager as his to join. Despite that eagerness, her hands were infinitely gentle—always his heart’s downfall. Within their lush frame of lashes, her eyes shone like stars. Whatever she felt, it was more than lust. That he’d bet his life on.
He leaned into her, his pulsing tip returning to the sleek welcome of her folds.
“Oh, God,” she breathed as he found her opening and gently pushed.
Entering her was like coming home, a paradise designed just for him.
“Don’t close your eyes,” he said.
She didn’t seem able to obey. Her neck arched as he lengthened his penetration, the change in angle changing what she felt. Her hands slapped onto his rear. Little spasms from her sheath rippled up his shaft, causing him to inhale sharply. His fangs ached like they were burning as his cock tried to swell half an inch longer.
“Oh, God,” she gasped again.
“Open your eyes, sweetheart.”
Her lashes fluttered upward, her knees shifting higher on his ribs. His lips were peeling back in preparation for biting her, an involuntary reflex he couldn’t control just then. Grace didn’t seem to mind the predatory display, though it dismayed him. Maybe she saw that. Tears glittered in her eyes.
“I’m staying with you,” she said. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He reached her end and pushed once, hard, the extra pressure causing her to cry out.
“Soon,” he snarled, so close he could barely understand himself. “
Soon.
”
He dragged his prick halfway out of her, and then his instincts completely snapped their leash. His head swung down to her neck even as her hands came to cradle it. His jaw widened, saliva flowing. She pushed her pelvis up him, and suddenly his hips were whipping in and out by themselves. The immediate explosion of sharp sensations did them both in. Christian growled and bit her, pulling in one hard swallow as the climax burst. It was as huge as he’d wanted, as long and as mutual.
He couldn’t hear Grace’s thoughts, but—by God—he could feel her pleasure. It propelled his own to stratospheric heights. His toes curled in his boots, his thigh muscles bunching to sling him even deeper inside of her. He stopped sucking only when her heart gave a tiny skip. He licked the wound closed with a conflicted groan. Her blood had felt like love running down his throat.
“I’m okay,” she slurred before he could ask. “Just a bit dizzy.”
“I took too much.”
“Only what I wanted to give.”
He checked her aura. She seemed no more weakened than she ought to be. Her index finger traced the line of his lower lip. “You’re a worrier, you are.”
“Ha,” he said, unsettled by how easily she saw into him. “There had better be food in that fridge of yours.”
“Cold pizza,” she said as he swung her into his arms. “And, thanks to you, I won’t feel guilty eating it.”
G
race consumed two slices of pizza and a tall glass of orange juice, but once she’d filled her stomach, she was done in. Seeing Viv laid out in that hospital bed had brought up memories she’d rather have let lie. She visited the bathroom, washed up, and brushed her hair. When she came back to her room, Christian was stretched out on his side on her bed, his head propped casually on his hand—pretty much like he belonged there.
He’d stripped off his white T-shirt, giving her a lovely view of his lean and muscular torso tapering into his jeans. Though his body was at rest, the way his sexual organs filled up the crotch intrigued her.
Unlike her, he didn’t look the least bit ready to yawn.
“Shank of the evening for you, I guess,” she said.
He smiled and patted the mattress. “I’ll watch over you while you sleep.”
That sounded so good to her she sighed.
She crawled up, burrowed under the covers, and snuggled into him. His arms came around her as if they belonged, too.
“I won’t let go,” he said.
Her heart gave a little crack, but it wasn’t breaking. It was letting him in. He was her safety, not because nothing bad could happen, but because he truly cared for her.
“I do,” she mumbled against the smooth muscles of his chest.
“You do what?”
“I do love you back.”
He went very still beneath her, and her lips curved up in a smile. Her heart wasn’t cracking now; it was singing. This must be what joy felt like. She thought she’d relish a chance to get used to it.
“I’m glad,” he said after a moment, one hand moving to pet her hair.
“Better be,” she retorted, then let a wall of sleep tumble over her.
C
hristian was no more a mystic than his father had been. By now, however, he’d met a ghost, become a vampire, and encountered at least three of his old associates reborn. Four, if he counted the similarities he sometimes saw between Roy and Hans. He wondered who else might have come back without his recognizing them. His doughty comrade, William? His best friend, Michael? Or had Michael switched teams to become the angel who’d guided Grace to him? Michael
had
been a mystic, caring but superstitious, his conscience pricked by his failed attempt to join the priesthood.
Christian found it both odd and warming to think of him watching out for Grace. Why he’d do it mystified him. Grace wasn’t Michael’s sweetheart; she was Christian’s. But maybe that was the point, that your friends’ happiness mattered. One thing he knew: immortal life could be peculiar.
Christian shook his head at Grace’s ceiling. Moonlight poured in through the panes of the French windows. He’d have to draw the curtains before morning. Spare himself getting drunk or roasted before his lover had breakfast. Though Grace would wake more energetic—and likely starving—for the moment, she lay on his chest like a runner felled by a marathon.
The smile that had been tugging at Christian’s mouth spread across his face. She loved him back. She knew what he was, she knew what he’d done, and she loved him back. He couldn’t doubt she knew her own mind. The Grace she’d grown into since returning to her own time was a deliberate soul.
“Peculiar,” he said aloud. Life was peculiar and wonderful. His eyelids grew heavy with his relaxation. Maybe he’d sleep with her for a few minutes.
If he hadn’t been so dozy, he’d have had more warning. As it was, it wasn’t a rush of threatening thoughts that alerted him, but an unpleasant buzzing along his skin. Half a second after his eyes snapped open, an intruder with a machete crashed through the French windows. The man was dressed in a black silk turtleneck and knife-pleat trousers, like Cary Grant playing a cat burglar.
Apparently, this burglar wasn’t accustomed to breaking doors. He tripped over the wood he’d cracked, nearly losing his large cleaverlike weapon.
“You’ll never hurt her again,” the intruder vowed in dramatic tones. “Not when I’m done with you.”
His theatrics would have been funny if he hadn’t been swinging that blade toward Grace.
Christian caught his arm before the strike could connect, then smashed him back against Grace’s large English-style armoire. The crack of his skull on the mahogany was satisfying, as was his cry of pain when Christian squeezed his wrist bones hard enough to cause his fingers to go numb and drop his weapon.
“You’re out of your mind,” Christian growled, shoving the man again. “Trying to kill your daughter in front of a witness.”
“What?” George Gladwell said with his jaw dropping.
“Mmph.” This came from Grace, who was struggling up in bed, half asleep.
Christian kept his attention on her attacker. His voice came out low enough to sound inhuman. “You’re the one who’s never going to hurt her again.”
He had his palm spread flat on her father’s slightly concave chest. One push with his vampire strength would snap his miserable sternum. He wanted to do it with a nearly sensual longing.
“Don’t!” Grace cried. “That’s not my father. It’s Montgomery Dare, the star of
The Wild Frontier
.”
“Yes,” said the man whose heart Christian was on the verge of crushing. “She’s the woman who stole Vivian’s love from me. She’s the woman who left
her
for
you
.”
“You’re a TV star?” Christian said.
“A movie star,” the man corrected with a sniff. “I’m just doing TV temporarily.”
Christian slapped his hand over the man’s forehead, gripping his temples to prevent him from evading his eye lock. His fury wasn’t softened by the man’s true identity. He’d have enjoyed hurting Grace’s father more, but any man who’d harm her would do. That being the case, he shoved into her attacker’s mind with a ruthlessness he rarely exercised. Inside, he found a tangle of pride and fury and delusion. Ironically, the distastefulness of Dare’s thoughts was a better deterrent than any plea for mercy. Grimacing, he attempted to paw through the snarl more delicately.
Once he’d identified what was pertinent, he pulled back and shook himself.
“He’s the sniper who tried to kill you,” he said to Grace. “He learned to sharp-shoot in Korea. And he’s the person who beat Viv up.”
“She broke up with me,” the man exclaimed. “None of the other stars she was dating cared a fig about her. They only cared about looking younger when she was on their arms. I loved her. She should have loved me back.”