Something Wanton (Mystics & Mayhem) (13 page)

“It hurts,” I moaned, pressing a hand to my stomach as the hunger raging through me started ripping it apart.  “Nathan, please.  That smell… You’re killing me!”

I saw understanding dawn across his beautiful face, then, to my horror, he smiled.  Leaning forward, he
whispered in my ear, “You know what the great thing about being undead is, Ember?  You don’t have to breathe.”

W
hy didn’t
I
think of that?
I thought, wanting to kick myself. 

I immediately stopped breathing.  Unfortunately, it was too late to be helpful.  I had already breathed in too much of that scent.  It lingered in my lungs, feeding my hunger.  I could taste him on my lips.  His aura
hypnotized me, glowing with those little swirls of light that my darker side couldn’t resist.

“Drink the whiskey, Em,” he said, moving closer to me again
. 

I could see by the heat in his gorgeous eyes that he was
thinking about giving me an instant replay of that bone-melting kiss.  If he kissed me again we were both goners. Out of sheer self preservation, I started gulping down the whiskey in my hand.  It burned like liquid flames on its way to my stomach, but it was nothing compared to the raging wildfire that was waiting to receive it.

When the glass was empty, Nathan smiled smugly and stepped away from me before asking, “Better?”

And, oddly enough, it
was
better.  The whiskey hadn’t exactly extinguished the fiery ball of hunger burning in my gut, but it had…dulled it.  I nodded at him with a weak smile, still not daring to breathe, and he took my glass to fix me another drink.  As I watched him refill the glass with another dose of straight whiskey, I couldn’t help but wonder how many darklings became alcoholics to help battle their essence addictions.

Anybody know if they have demonoid AA meetings?

“Sierra didn’t tell me your hunger was triggered by the scent of someone’s essence,” he said as he filled my glass with another straight dose of whiskey.  “It would have made it easier if I had known.”

“
She doesn’t know,” I whispered, still trying not to breathe.  “I never told anyone.  Even Tyler...”

Nathan’s shoulders stiffened angrily at the mention of Tyler’s name.  I winced, closing my eyes and biting my lip hard enough to
draw blood.  I considered it a precautionary measure to keep me from saying anything else stupid.

My eyes widened in surprise when
Nathan turned back around to face me.  In one hand, he held my fresh drink, and in the other three syringes.  I held out my hand for the syringes, but he put my glass in it instead.  He parted my robe to expose my thigh and gave me my shots himself.  His hand lingered against the skin of my leg for a heartbreaking second once he was done, and I lifted my eyes to find that he was staring at his fingers against my thigh, the longing in his eyes so terrible that I felt my chest tighten in response to it. 

He looked up and caught me watching him and quickly
looked away.  He was back on the other side of the counter and taking his seat again before I could even pull my robe back over my exposed leg.  He reached for the drink in front of him, still not meeting my intense gaze, and drained the whole glass in one long swallow before refilling it.

“
Why three shots?” I asked, trying to get us back on speaking terms. 

“
You know why, Em,” he said with a tight smile. 

“Oh,” I said softly. 

So, he was trying to prove that, with enough Nexus, I could control my hunger on my own.  In other words, this whole lesson was for Sierra’s benefit, to prove her wrong.   

An uncomfortable silence fell between us as we sat there, staring into our drinks, lost in our own thoughts.  I couldn’t help but think about the look in his eyes a few minutes before. 
I had been so caught up in my own misery that I hadn’t even stopped to think how hard it must be for Nathan, losing me when I was sitting right across from him. 

For more than three centuries, he had waited for the chance to spend a lifetime with me.  Now he would never have that chance.  I wasn’t going to die and come back to him this time
.  He was stuck with half of his soul mate.  And I had a bad feeling that the longing in his eyes had been for the part that hadn’t come back.

“You did really well, Em
,” he said softly, interrupting my depressing thoughts.  “Even before I told you to stop breathing, you fought it.”

“I couldn’t feed on you
.” I couldn’t quite look him in the eye, so I concentrated on one of the ice cubes in my glass instead.  “You’re…”

“I’m what?” he said, reaching over to lay his hand over mine when my voice trailed off.  “I’m what,
Em?”

My everything
,
I finished silently.  “It doesn’t matter,” I whispered, pulling my hand away.  “Are we done here?”

“No, we’re just getting started, actually,” he said, leaning back on his stool.  When I just gaped at him like a fish out of water, sure I hadn’t heard him right, he smiled.  “I was just waiting for the
Nexus to take effect before we give it another try.”

“What?” I asked, horrified.

“Well, don’t sound so happy about it, Em,” he said, chuckling.  Leaning toward me, he gave me the kind of seductive smile that would have stopped my heart if I’d still
had
a heartbeat.  “You know, you used to like it when I kissed you.”

“I wasn’t in danger of using you as a snack then,” I squeaked, terrified more by the rush of excitement I felt as he kept smiling at me that way than of actually putting myself through another round of fighting the demon inside me. 

“
Do
you still want to use me as a snack?” he asked with a sexy little grin.

“Yes.”

Still smiling, he got up and grabbed the bottle off the counter behind him.  Walking around the island, he refilled my glass again and set the bottle, still open, next to it.  I didn’t know if I wanted to run or melt when he slipped his hand around my neck to pull me closer.

“I hope you’re good at holding your breath then,” he whispered against my lips.  “Because I’ve got two bottles of whiskey and your new supply of
Nexus should be here this afternoon.  Looks like it’s going to be a
very
long day.”

Sierra was vehemently opposed to Nathan’s methods.  In her opinion, he was setting me up to fail in the cruelest way.  When Nathan refused to stop his ‘lessons’, she packed her things and left in protest.

“But, you can’t!” I’d cried when she came to tell me goodbye.  “You haven’t taught me anything!”

She smiled sadly.  “You’re stronger than you think, Ember.  You’re going to be fine.”

“But…but…” I stammered, trying to come up with a reason—
any
reason—for her to stay.  Finally, I just begged.  “Please, Sierra.  Please don’t go.  Don’t leave me alone here with him.  I’m afraid.”

She dropped her bag and pulled me into a tight hug.  “I know you are.  I know you’re scared.  And I’m scared for you.  That’s why I can’t stay.  He won’t let me help you, and I can’t watch him destroy you.  I’m sorry, Ember.  I truly am.”

Before I could plead with her anymore, she pulled away and fled from the room.  I stared after her, too stunned to even call out her name.  As much as I had disliked her at first, we had formed a tentative kind of friendship in the days since our lesson on stasis.  And then, she was gone.  Like Kim and Blake.  Like Grams.

Like Tyler.

Despite the fact that his stubbornness had cost me another friend when I so desperately needed one, Nathan was relentless with our lessons.  For the first couple of days, it was all very controlled.  I would meet him in the kitchen, he’d pour us a drink, I’d hold my breath, and he’d kiss me senseless until the demon inside me started going nuts to get a taste of the essence that, while I couldn’t smell it, I could see just fine.  When I couldn’t take anymore without feeding on him, he would retreat, give me my shots and some time to cool off, and start the process all over again.

It was the most exquisite form of torture ever concocted.

After Sierra left, Nathan started springing his attacks on me randomly.  I would be lying on the couch, flipping through infomercials at three in the morning, and he would lean over the back of the couch and kiss me with no warning.  Or I would be making my bed and turn around to find him standing behind me, eyes full of heat and aura lit up like a neon sign.

I got
real
used to the taste of whiskey, thanks to Nathan Ashley.

I have to admit that the lessons were effective.  After a week, my demon was easier to fight.  After two weeks, I had more control than I ever would have thought I’d have
around Nathan.  True, the beast still roared every time he got within five feet of me, but it was doing so from a steel cage I had no intention of ever opening again.

But while I was getting the hunger under control, all was
not
gumdrops and lollipops.  When Nathan wasn’t kissing me to ‘teach’ me, he went back to treating me like I was diseased.  It was like once our lesson was over he flipped a switch and became as cold and distant as he’d been since day one.  Every time he reverted back to being Cyborg Nathan, he broke my heart again. 

I
n a move borne of sheer stupidity, I decided it was time to find out just where I stood.  Of course, if I had known that I was standing in a pool of
quicksand
I might not have been quite so eager to jump into the deep end.

To my credit, I planned Nathan’s seduction carefully.  I took three shots of
Nexus and spent most of the afternoon without taking a breath in preparation.  I took another shower, letting the hot water calm me and loosen me up a little and then dabbed on Nathan’s favorite perfume. 

I saw him lift his head from the book he was reading on the sofa when I walked out of the bathroom, his superior vampire sense of smell picking up that scent like a radar.  Hiding my smile, I walked into my bedroom and closed the door.
  I painted my fingernails and toenails a pale pink that always made me feel pretty and girly and then tried to figure out what to do with my hair.  After putting it up and taking it down ten times, I just left it alone, letting the curls fall where they would.

When it came time to get dressed, though, I ran into a roadblock.
  I was usually more interested in comfort than seduction when I went shopping.  Somehow, I didn’t think jeans and a t-shirt were going to be enough. In the end, I pushed everything to the side until I found the stuff Kim kept buying for me—all of which showed more skin than I considered decent.  Passing up the tops that would show my scars, I finally found an obscenely low-cut, slinky, shimmery white blouse that was so paper thin it was practically transparent.  I paired it with my favorite jeans, and finally forced myself to walk to the mirror.

“Not bad,” I told my reflection, taking the whole outfit in with one long look.  “If you crawling into his lap half-dressed doesn’t do the trick,
you’re pretty much screwed.”

I thanked God that darklings couldn’t blush when I walked out of my room and saw the way Nathan’s eyes flared wide.  I pretended not to notice the hungry look he was giving me when I walked past him on my way to the kitchen, but I
definitely
noticed.  Grinning, I poured a drink for me and another for Nathan and then took them back into the living room only to find Nathan watching me like I was a dangerous weapon that someone had just trained on him.

“I thought you might like a drink,” I purred with a smile when he just kept staring at me.

“Thanks,” he said, sounding slightly hoarse. 

“
You’re welcome.”  Leaning over so he could get a good view of the pornographic amount of cleavage I was showing off, I plucked the book from his slack fingers.  Sitting down next to him, I pretended to examine it.  “I’ve read this.  It’s pretty good.”

I looked up to find him studying me, a
smile pulling at the corners of his lips.  “What brought all this on?” he asked, waving at my top. 

“Every girl likes to dress up now and then, Nathan.”
  He arched an eyebrow and I shrugged.  “It makes us feel pretty.  It’s the same reason why we wear make-up and spend hours on our hair and paint our toenails.”

Pretending to demonstrate, I placed one of my feet in his lap—making a point to place it
strategically
.  Nathan choked on his drink and jumped like I’d burned him.  I had to force myself not to laugh.

“Oops,” I
murmured, moving my foot slowly down his leg.  “Sorry about that.”

“I think I need another drink,” Nathan said hurriedly, moving my foot out of his lap and standing up so fast you would have thought
the sofa was infested with man-eating bugs.  As he walked away, I would have sworn I heard him mutter, “Or maybe the whole damn bottle.”

I managed to hide my smile until he was gone. 
The second he was out of sight, I turned my glass up and drained it.  I counted to ten and then got up and followed him.  He was standing at the counter, his hands braced and his head down, taking deep breaths.  With a smug smile, I walked over and touched his shoulder.

“I guess I need another one
too,” I said when he swung around to face me.  “Would you mind?”

“Sure,” he croaked, taking my glass. 

“Thanks,” I said softly, running my hand down his arm as I turned to leave.  “I think I’ll go turn on some music.  It’s too quiet in here.”

“God help me,” he
half moaned, half whispered.

“What was that?” I asked, smiling at him over my shoulder.

“I said go ahead,” he said, clearing his throat and turning back to the drinks.  “I’ll be there in a second.”

I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing when I ran back into the living room.  Nathan’s iPod was already plugged into the stereo system, so I didn’t waste time going to find mine.  Before I turned on the music, I turned the lamps down low. 
I smiled at the effect the low lighting had on the room and bounced over to the stereo system and pushed play.

The
song that floated out of the speakers was so perfect that I took it as a sign from the universe that I was on the right track.  It had a slow, bluesy beat to it that I loved immediately. I started swaying to that beat, letting it surround me, fill me up, the way only truly good music can. 

I was so lost in the music that when I heard the sound of glass shattering behind me, I nearly jumped out of my skin.  I spun around to find Nathan standing just inside the doorway, a glass of whiskey in one hand while blood dripped from the other.

“Oh my God!” I cried, running over to him.  “Are you okay?”

“Not even close,” he muttered as I pulled him into the kitchen and pushed him onto one of the stools at the island. 

He watched me in silence as I grabbed the dishtowel off the counter and wet it in the sink.  When I walked back over to him, though, he actually flinched away from me.

“I’m not going to
hurt you
, Nathan,” I told him, grabbing his hand and trying to unfold his fingers.  When I couldn’t get them to budge, I arched an eyebrow at him.  “A little help would be appreciated.  I don’t drink blood, remember?  You’ll be perfectly safe.  Now, stop being childish and open your damn hand.”

He sighed and opened his hand and I used the towel to wipe away the blood.  That done, I started picking shards of glass out of his hand.  Once I was sure I’d gotten them all out, I wiped away the blood again and watched as the tiny cuts in his palm healed. 

“All better,” I told him with a smile.  Then, on a whim, I leaned down and placed a gentle kiss in the center of his palm.

Nathan’s ironclad control snapped like a twig.

Faster than I could blink, he had lifted me onto the counter in front of him.  My head hadn’t even stopped spinning from the sudden change in position when his lips covered mine.  And oh. My.  God, was that kiss hot! 

Nathan had caused me
to tingle with his kisses, to melt, even to burn.  But that kiss was like a bomb going off, like a volcano erupting.  It was deep and hungry and so full of raw need that it was almost violent in its intensity. 

Feed!  Feed feed feed feed!
my demon roared at the top of its lungs as the worst hunger I’d experienced yet ripped through me, causing me to moan.  Taking that as a
good
sign, Nathan deepened the kiss as his hands started roaming up my back.  The delicate fabric of my shirt didn’t stand a chance when he balled his fists in the material and I heard an ominous rip. 
Do it now!  While he’s already out of control!

No!  Not him! 

I jerked my head to the side to break our kiss and pushed Nathan away with everything I had.  He took one look at my eyes, at the awful glowing hunger in them, and his lips curled up in the coldest smile I’d ever seen.

“That’s what I thought,” he said softly. 

He moved away from me so fast that I had to catch myself to keep from falling off the countertop.  He leaned over the table, his hands gripping the edge so hard that he was actually breaking off pieces of it.  He was visibly shaking…and judging by the glowing evil gaze he finally threw at me over his shoulder, I didn’t think it was with desire.

“What the hell are you playing at?” he growled when I just stared at him in astonishment.

“Excuse me?” I whispered, watching him like I’d just walked into the room with a starving tiger as I hopped off the counter.  “Nathan, I—”

“I should have known when I saw the shirt,” he said with a cruel smile, turning around and leaning against the table.  “Ember would never wear that.”

I just stared at him, too horrified to speak.  He thought it was
all
the damn demon?  Really?  Had I been so bad at the whole seduction thing as a human that my own boyfriend couldn’t tell the difference? 

“You’re really good,” he said, tilting his head to study me through narrowed eyes.  “
Kissing my hand was a real stroke of brilliance.  Only Ember would have done that.  Then, I guess you know that, don’t you?”

I started backing away from him
as a giant chunk of the soul I had left withered up and died, shaking my head like I could make what he’d just said go away.  I had been trying to get back a little piece of what we’d had.  I had wanted to find some way back into his heart.  But in that moment, I realized that I had been hoping for something I was never going to get.

“I’
m done.”

“
Already?” he drawled.  “You’re not giving up that easy now are you?”

“
I’m done waiting for you to see me,” I told him in a broken voice.  “The shirt?  I wore it for you.  And I kissed your hand because I love you, not to lure you into a trap so I could feed on you.  And yeah, I’m still working on the whole seduction thing, but I thought it was the best way to find out how you felt about me.  It worked, too.  I know
exactly
how you feel about me now.”

For a second
he just stared at me, and I saw a shadow of agony in his eyes when he realized that he really was talking to
me,
not the demon.  He took a step toward me then, but I held up my hand to keep him away.   

“
I’m
right here
.  I’ve been right here all this time.  I thought if I just gave you some time, you’d finally see that I’m still the woman you loved, but you can’t.  All you see when you look at me is the darkling.  That’s all you’ll ever see.”