Sunrise in a Garden of Love & Evil (25 page)

She sure wasn't about to explain, so she tried for cool and supercilious again. "I'm supposed to fall in love with you because they approve?"

"No, but you might consider trusting me because they do." Gideon eased out another splinter. "Whatever happened to you in the past," he said, flicking the splinter across the sheets, "is over."

Ophelia stiffened, and fought to let the tension go. No use.

"Whoever fucked with you," he said, "is history."

Ophelia winced.

"In the interest of moving forward..." His eyes were fixed on her thigh. "You need to get rid of him. Give me some spit." He spread Ophelia's saliva over the tiny wounds. "He's fucking up your future. Dig him up or bury him, do whatever you have to, and then go forward with me."

Ophelia tried to lie still--
Control it
,
control yourself
--but her body and spirit curled away from him. "I don't want to talk about this," she whispered.
Please.

"We don't have to talk at all." He disappeared into the bathroom with the alcohol, cotton balls, and tweezers. Above the skylight, stars winked through quivering oak leaves. Gideon returned and stripped off his clothes.

Oh, good,
thought Ophelia, watching him with mingled relief and desire.
This I can handle.
She eyed his erection and licked her fangs.

Gideon brushed featherlight fingers past the bruises on both her thighs. "Is this why you didn't want to have sex, or was it just the embarrassment factor?" Without waiting for an answer, he slithered onto his belly and tongued her clit again. "You like this a lot," he said after a minute.

How could I not?
She realized with astonishment that she was whimpering. This adorable man was
good
. Incredibly, achingly good.

"And you get hot faster than any woman I've ever been with--"

Get on with it then, will you?

"And you come easily--"

Not if you're talking the whole damn time!

"And yet, you're not really relaxed." He pulled away and grinned at her. "I have an idea."

Ophelia gaped at him, throbbing in the cool air that had taken his place. "I don't believe this. You're a tease."

"Don't you just love it," Gideon said. "Fusion, that's the answer."

Five torturous minutes later, lying almost motionless under Gideon, his penis hard but quiet inside her, Ophelia was still fighting his ridiculous fusion idea. And him.

"It feels good," Gideon laughed. "You need to relax some more."

She squirmed. "Is it cheating to clench my vaginal muscles?"

"The point, my sweet one," Gideon explained as he kissed her, "is to sense everything. To notice every point of contact." He shifted his weight and trickled a toe along her foot. "Our toes tantalizing, our thighs pressed together. Our bellies pooled in pleasure. Your sumptuous breasts against my...uh, manly chest. Spread your arms." He laid his arms along hers and twined their fingers. "A thousand sizzling erogenous zones, feeding, spreading, firing together."

Ophelia groaned and thrust her pelvis against his.

"Patience." Gideon touched his tongue to hers and flickered over her fangs. "Relax and savor it."

"Why the hell can't you just fuck me?" Ophelia cried. "Forget the stupid bruises. I want to get jammed!"

"Some other time," Gideon said. "To night it's slow and easy."

"This is so slow it's almost dead," Ophelia growled, panting and heaving, but although she was strong, he was stronger. "Stop the sex guru thing and act like a normal guy. How many other women have you put through this torment?"

"None," Gideon said. "I read about it in some book, but I never wanted to merge with anyone until you came along."

A tiny, happy spark flared into life in Ophelia's belly.
He really does love me.
"It's a terrible idea."

Gideon touched his lips to hers and whispered hot and softly into her mouth. "Relax into me. Envelop me. Fuse with me, love."

"This is in
sane
," Ophelia moaned. Gideon's mouth came down hard in a demanding kiss with some blessed movement in it--
oh God, thank God
--and eagerly she kissed him back, pouring all the passion she didn't dare feel into that kiss, sucking him into her, sucking her into him.

"Oh," she said, whelmed in astonishment and delight, as the flare in her belly welled into exquisite light.
You really do love me.
She tightened her fingers against his and every muscle seared down her outstretched arms, down her arched back, down the quivering length of her legs.
And I love you.
He shifted his hips a thousandth of an inch and glory unimagined shot through Ophelia.
Finally.
She clenched her vagina around him, let go, and clenched again.

"Calm down," Gideon said. "We haven't fused properly yet."

"I can fix that," Ophelia snarled. She sank her fangs into his shoulder.

Gideon rocked hard against her, gasping and laughing. "Took you long enough."

Ophelia tried to retort, but the blood was too good and the fuck was too smooth. She closed her eyes and let the moving fusion be, one two three slick golden strokes. She withdrew her fangs, quivering with the effort. "Wait."

Gideon laughed, spilling pleasure through her with a slow relentless grind. "I thought you wanted to hurry up." His hot breath melted into a groan. He gripped her ass and rolled them over together, gazing up at her with heavy-lidded eyes, the breath hissing through his teeth. "Bite me again, Ophelia."

His hands traveled possessively across her ass and she writhed against them, writhed against the golden pressure of his penis filling her. "I can't talk with my fangs inside you." She touched her tongue to his and licked his mouth, licked her lips. She giggled.
I never giggle. What the hell has gotten into me?
"We need to talk."

Gideon ran his fingers up the crack of her butt, spreading their slick juices. "Talk later."

"But this is
important
," Ophelia mocked. She squeezed down onto him, buried her face in his aroma, caressed his neck with her fangs, traced his earlobe with her tongue. She drew slowly away until only the tip of him played at her opening. "Sex can wait."

Gideon slid a hand in between them and went straight for her clit. Ophelia shuddered out an ecstatic moan.

"You had something to say?" Gideon laughed.

Ophelia writhed speechlessly against his fingers.

"Or you could just shut up and fuck me," he said. "I never did go for too much talk."

Ophelia squirmed away from his devastating touch. "So that's how you did it."

Gideon splayed the hand across her hip and grinned up at her. "Did what?"

She slid off him and folded her arms. "Kept your bimbos from talking too much. You fingered them speechless."

"Shit." Gideon propped his head on his hand and frowned at her. "I'm a jerk, right?"

"You're a darling." Ophelia slithered up against him and kissed him. "You gave them the best time they ever had." She slung a leg across his hip. "But it has me really, really worried." She laughed, drunk with love. Insane.

Gideon rolled on top of her. "Uh-huh." He plunged his tongue into her mouth and scraped it on a fang. Ophelia moaned and bucked under him. His eyes burned dark and devilish into hers. "You sure do look worried." He chuckled and kneed her legs apart.

"Wait," Ophelia said, panting and gasping, drenched in euphoria and sex. "I'm not like your mother and sister, and I'm not a bimbo either. Usually, I don't talk all that much."

He nuzzled down her neck, paused at her armpit, trailed his tongue across her breast. "Could have fooled me." He laved the nipple and sucked gently.

She rubbed herself against his knee and moaned again as he traveled to the other breast. "I have to get more than the bimbos, not less. If I don't talk, will you never finger me speechless again?" Her laugher dissolved into a wavering cry as he drove deep inside her.

"The garden"--he panted, thrusting into her again--"and the finger, for you only, forever, when you marry me."

"All right," she whispered, arching hard against him, accepting him to her very core. "I'm scared out of my mind, but..."
I love you.
"I don't have any choice."

"Excellent." Gideon's voice broke harsh and breathless in her ear. He surged into her, golden sweet and demanding. "Now what about
my
perks?"

Ophelia settled her fangs against the sweet spot where his neck joined his shoulder. "Fuse with me, love," she said.

In the still gray light of dawn, Zelda braked her bike in front of Ophelia's porch and tried not to grimace at its occupant. After all, Joanna was half the reason she had come. "What are you doing here? Where's Ophelia?" She glanced at the house. "The kitchen light's on, but there's no truck in the drive."

Joanna Wyler stood slowly. Her face was puffy, and her eyes were red.

Wimp,
thought Zelda, and immediately felt a pang of remorse--or maybe it was just the toothache that had kept her up most of the night.

"I don't know," Joanna said belligerently. "She didn't answer the door, so I guess she's not here." She stuck out her chin and clamped her lips together.

Zelda had to give the girl points for effort. She tried to sound a mite less judgmental.
Embrace the vamp destiny,
Violet had drummed into her head over the years. If that included mentoring wimps, so be it. "Then why are you sitting on her porch?"

"None of your business." Joanna's lip quivered. "I've got as much right to be here as you. Ophelia's my friend. She doesn't hang up when I call to apologize. She doesn't beat me up."

"I didn't beat you up." Zelda motioned toward the rear of the trailer. "Let's go inside."

"You would have if Rick hadn't made you even madder," Joanna said, following her.

"That's probably true. I'm not saying you didn't deserve it, but I need to control my temper." Zelda stashed the bike against the wall beside the screened porch. "I apologize for losing it, and I accept your apology for being such a worm, and let's forget it."

"Okay." Joanna sounded wobbly and surprised. "Thanks."

Psyche came out from under the back stairs, complaining. Zelda shoved a wood shim between the screen door and frame, popping the hook open, and dug her keys out of her shorts to unlock the door. Psyche made straight for her food dish, and was followed in by Joanna. Zelda shut the door and put her hands on her hips, which were no curvier than the day or the week or the year before. Some things showed no sign of change. "But you still have to say who took those pictures."

Joanna looked hopefully around the room, as if Ophelia might be there after all. "That's why I came to see Ophelia."

"Okay," Zelda said sternly. "But you have to tell your parents, too, so they stop spreading lies."

Joanna clenched her fists and screeched, "That's what I'm going to do, as soon as I see Ophelia. Stop being mean to me!" Psyche yowled and Zelda rolled her eyes, and Joanna wailed, "Even the cat hates me now!"

"Feed her and she'll be your friend forever," muttered Zelda. "The cat food's under the sink." She made a pass through the trailer, stopping in the bathroom long enough to find the clove oil. "Maybe Ophelia left early so she could work while it's still cool. How long have you been waiting?"

"Forever." Joanna blinked at the kitchen clock above the window. "Two hours."

"Two hours ago it was still the middle of the night," Zelda said. "She always feeds Psyche before she leaves in the morning. Looks as if she didn't come home last night."
Looks as if she's sleeping with that cop, like Mom said she would.
Zelda flexed her aching jaws and tried not to feel abandoned. Ophelia deserved a nice boyfriend, but couldn't she have waited a few more days? "Why didn't you go back home?"

"I hate it there." Joanna fingered Ophelia's earrings, scattered around the open jewelry box on the kitchen table. "You don't understand. You have a mother you can talk to."

"Not necessarily." Zelda bit her tongue at this appalling disloyalty. The pain was apparently getting to her. With a heroic effort, she stopped herself from telling Joanna to keep her mitts off Ophelia's jewelry and set about rectifying her flub. "Definitely not at this time of day." She opened the clove oil and dabbed it on one inflamed gum.

Joanna dumped the rest of the jewelry onto the table. "Why not?"

"She's up till all hours at the club. Last night she didn't get to sleep till after four a.m. I couldn't go busting into her room at five." Zelda spread clove oil on the other swollen gum. "I've been up all night with a toothache. I came to see if Ophelia had a better painkiller." She flexed her jaw again, enjoying the cool intensity of the clove oil, knowing it wouldn't last anywhere near long enough. "Don't worry," Violet had said the day before, "just like that you'll sprout them, easy as pie"--but all things vamp were easy for Violet.