The Trelayne Inheritance Page 12

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  She’d reached his half open door when she finally seemed to sense his presence. He was further reassured that she was still more human than vampire, for surely she’d have felt him earlier if her dull human sense of smell and hearing were not still predominant. However, her sight was powerful enough. Glowing in the near dark, those lovely brown eyes widened, and he was gratified by her frightened gasp. Her gaze ran over his exposed chest muscles dusted with a smattering of golden hair.

  Pleased at the flare of lust she couldn’t hide, he gave her his brightest smile. “I’ve always known you were resourceful, but I didn’t think to add trespassing and property damage to your list of accomplishments. Should I fetch the constable?”

  He had to admire how quickly she recovered her composure. She leaned casually against the wall beside his door, crossing one shapely leg over the other. “You might have a difficult time explaining your attire if you’re turning me in as a thief. Besides, you invited me here.”

  Blood rushed to his loins. Her movement made the already tight breeches she wore stretch until he saw every supple outline of her leg–and where it joined. “I did n…”

  She smiled not-so-demurely back at him, her eyes glowing even brighter, but now with laughter.

  He admitted ruefully, “I’m a dolt. I did, didn’t I? This very night at the ball. But that doesn’t give you leave to damage my home.”

  “It was more fun than knocking.”

  This wasn’t going quite as he’d expected. He was supposed to be the one in control. She seemed…different. Bolder. Stronger.

  Maybe it was the clothes. Again, his gaze ran up and down her form in the tight breeches and the shirt that strained at her buttons. “You’re dressed for the occasion, I see. I admire your tailor.”

  “Henry Tynes chooses only the finest attire available in Brooklyn, New York.” She brushed off her tattered sleeve as if it were the finest silk. “Or so he yelled after me when I…”

  “…stole them off his wash line,” they said in unison.

  Her smile faded. “I really wish you wouldn’t do that.”

  “Do what, Angel mine?” He tired of the game and decided it was time to reach for the prize. He placed both his palms flat beside her head, trapping her in the warm circle of his arms. “Reading your mind is so much safer for both of us than obeying my instincts.”

  “Perhaps I prefer you obey your instincts.”

  He cupped her cheeks in his hands, his mouth unsmiling as he whispered, “That would take the decision out of your hands, wouldn’t it? How easy for you if I whisk you away to my crypt and mesmerize you into my padded coffin.” He kissed her hairline, his lips soft and tender upon her warm, flushed skin.

  She felt good.

  She tasted good.

  She smelled good.

  Good enough to make him wish that she were fully human, so he could take her and enjoy her without the duality of this dangerous game he played.

  But if she were less dangerous, she wouldn’t taste so sweet…before he’d finished the thought, his lips had coasted down the side of her face to her neck. He buried them in the throbbing hollow of her throat, scenting the rich smell of the blood that pulsed so close beneath her skin. His fangs grew at the thought even as another part of his anatomy swelled with a different hunger.

  He set her firmly back against the wall, his teeth clenched, and forced his fangs to recede back into their sheaths. But his erection remained, that part of him a bit less governable, even for a vampire who’d survived by his wits these last hundred years. “I shan’t tempt you, Angel. If you come to me, it will be because you choose to.”

  Setting her gently aside, he walked into his bedroom. His heart thumped with nervousness as he turned up the gas lamps. Would his bluff work?

  He almost sagged with relief when her quiet steps tracked his. He turned to see her curiously appraising his domain. She walked to his well. He automatically moved to stop her, but then he froze. It was time she knew the truth.

  Before he bedded her.

  She pulled on the rope and lifted one of his bottles of sustenance. She held it up to the light. He expected her to drop it in disgust, to cower from him or run screaming from the room at this proof he was a vampire who drank blood.

  To his astonishment, she merely twirled the bottle around against the light, noting its dark red color. She said judiciously, “It must not taste very appealing,” and let the rope drop back into the well. And she had the audacity to quirk an eyebrow at him, as if daring him to disagree.

  He threw back his head and laughed. He laughed so hard he had to wipe tears from his eyes. “Pity the poor man who wins you to wife. He will never, ever, get the last word.”

  “Then it’s good you’re not a man, isn’t it?”

  His laughter faded. “You knew?”

  She nodded. “The evidence was there, but when I exposed your blood sample to air, it coagulated immediately. As did Alexander’s.”

  Slowly, he began to close the gap between them. “And still you came. Why?”

  She bypassed him and walked over to his bed. He stopped, knowing her evasion was as much against her own feelings as against him. A smile tugged at his mouth again when he read her obvious disappointment as she stared at his bed. So much for his concern she’d fear him when she discovered he was a vampire.

  “I thought you slept in a crypt,” she said, running her hand over his soft spread.

  “I was merely playing to your fantasies. But I can have one fetched if you prefer. It can be quite cramped, however.” Not to mention off putting to his own still manly instincts in the art of love. Lovemaking was a thing of joy and creation, and it had no place in a dark repository of death.

  She wandered the room, too curious to mind his gentle needling. As she approached the sitting area where his coat of arms was prominent above a chest, he decided she’d done enough exploring. He quickly caught her hand and kissed it. “Why did you change your mind and come to me, dressed so…seductively?”

  This was a test, too. To see if she’d tell the truth. He knew she’d ostensibly come to look for his lab, denying even to herself the real reason.

  She wanted him, too.

  And not because he’d mesmerized her. In this, at least, he wanted to be nothing but a normal man, though as a virtuous vampire, he had to have her in his bed before he could safely have her in his life. Nothing was more dangerous to a Watch Bearer than falling in love with a female vampire. Hence his urgency to use whatever means necessary to keep her human.

  He unbuttoned her sleeve and let his lips coast up as far as he could go before fabric stopped him. The moment he touched her, the barriers she’d tried to erect in her mind began to waver.

  She shivered, and he felt the mental bond between them growing stronger. He used that bond to his advantage, but still left the choice firmly hers. ‘Come to my bed, Angel. Not because I seduce you. Because you want to. Freely. Passionately. Because you know we were meant to be lovers from the moment we met.’

  She weakly struggled to pull her arm away. “No. I only came for the blood.”

  Planting a small love bite on the delicate hollow of her arm, he lifted his head to pinion her with his eyes. “Mine? Or yours?” He watched her closely. If she knew the truth of her heritage now she was already dangerous to him.

  Her astonishment blazed into his brain. “I already have your blood sample, but why do I have the feeling you’re talking about something else?”

  “Feelings can betray you, Angel. You’re quite right to listen to your head more than your heart.”

  “Very well then…my head wants to know why you took my blood and what you plan to do with it.”

  “Your head would be wiser to ask those questions of Alexander Blythe.”

  “I have.”

  “And were you satisfied with his answers?” He could see that she was not by the hasty way she turned away. He searched her mind, and softened at her genuine confusion and f
rustration. No pretense there. “Why do you think Alexander is studying blood?”

  “To further science.” She turned back to face him, lifting that indomitable chin.

  “Alexander Blythe has no love of science. He has no love of anything but himself.”

  “He adores Sarina.”

  “He only uses her, too.” As his familiar. “He’s using you also, Angel.”

  “As are you. But confound you both…why?”

  Almost, he wanted to tell her the truth. But she wasn’t ready for that. And she wouldn’t be until he’d finished his own research and found a way to stop her transformation from human to vampire. Since she was half of each, her blood, and only her blood, would provide the last clues he needed to finish his formula. He needed another sample from her this night.

  For a hundred years he’d been strong. He’d swilled cold, almost congealed blood from icy bottles instead of sipping the thick, warm, salty elixir from a throbbing vein as a typical vampire was meant to do. But he was not a typical vampire. He was born of the night, but never restful in it. Like an avenging angel, he was put on earth to rid it of predators and protect the innocent, but for the cost of his quest he gave up heaven. No home for him, no true love, no surcease. Until he trapped and killed the one who could not be killed. He’d lost count of how many vampires he’d put out of their misery over the years, but his most dangerous foe was still out there.

  Luckily, the killer thought he didn’t know Angel was half vampire.

  Max’s eyes strayed to Elaine’s picture beside his bedside. He remembered the last time he saw her, pleading, those lovely eyes so like Angel’s wet with tears. Reaching to him from her casket. The same casket he later had shipped to England.

  Angel’s eyes widened. “Mother,” she whispered.

  Immediately Max cast a veil over his tormented memories. This mental bond he shared with Angel was a two way road. Time to distract her.

  Brushing his hip accidentally against the table beside his bed, he knocked Elaine’s small portrait over face down. Then he caught Angel in the circle of his arms. “I’m using you for my own base ends, I admit.” He traced a light but searing trail down her arm, past the winsome curve of her small waist, to the fulsome poetry of her hip. He caught her hand and placed it flat against his chest inside the vee of his dressing gown.

  “No, I…” She trailed off, her fingers curling at the warm contact with his skin. He felt the titanic struggle in her mind between sensuality and rationality.

  “But that’s the beauty of this particular task. It takes two to complete it.” He lowered his mouth until his lips hovered above hers. “Use me, Angel. Well and long, right into tomorrow.”

  Even without his entree into her mind, he would’ve felt the moment of her capitulation. She went limp against him, pressing her cheek shyly to his chest hair. She rubbed her cheek around and the sensation was both sweet and sharp at the same time. But her words were even sharper and sweeter.

  “My mother was right. Tomorrow’s a gift, but today’s a blessing. I came here because of this.” She looked up at him with eyes that didn’t ask, or demand, or plead. Eyes that gave. And this time, it was she who hypnotically, wordlessly transmitted to him, ‘Vampire or not, I want you. I’ll let you into my heart and my body, but please be kind.’

  He stared down at her, his eyes the same shade as the flamboyant robe.

  The trust she placed in him would have made Max Britton feel guilty because he suspected she was a virgin. Guilty enough, perhaps, to let her go. But Maximillian, the last of the Earls of Trelayne, couldn’t afford such weakness. Reminding himself of that poor girl in the crypt and that he was the last line of defense against the Beefsteak Killer, Max the vampire quelled the scruples of Max the human. He swept Elaine’s daughter into his arms to carry her to his huge bed.

  Her hair spread around her shoulders in a silken fan. The contrast with her boyish clothes made him long to rip them off to reveal the curves of this magnificently feminine creature.

  Because he wanted so badly to take her, he forced himself to patience. He appraised her through half lowered lids, wondering what she saw in his eyes. Her own had widened as she stared up at him.

  He traced the lush, sensual curve of her mouth. “You don’t look like a dangerous woman.” But she was. Dangerous to all his plans, dangerous to his very life if she made him weak when he must be strong. Never drinking of a vampire’s blood was the first of many cardinal rules a Watch Bearer disobeyed to his peril.

  Yet if the Beefsteak Killer had come into the room at this very moment and told him to take her, be glad in her, all was going according to plan, he couldn’t stop. Every remnant of the human and every sinew of the vampire wanted to bond with this woman sent across an ocean to him. And only to him. A violent wave of possessiveness almost overcame him. He stared down at the pulse in her neck, longing to stamp her with his mark.

  One little bite couldn’t hurt…

  She wasn’t afraid. She smiled up at him and cupped his strong face in one hand. “You look like a dangerous man,” she replied softly. She lifted her arms to him and clasped his strong shoulders, bringing him down to her level. “But I’ve always had a taste for dangerous things.” And just like that, she kissed him.

  And just like that, she crept into his heart, too.

  Kisses had always been a means to an end. Excite a woman’s mouth and win her for a night. That had been enough for him.

  But Angel’s shy, awkward movements, her lips gentle upon his, her quickened breathing a soft feminine promise into his mouth, shamed him. This was not just a kiss. It was a bond, a beginning.

  An end…of his lonely searching for a human female worthy to be his helpmate, not just his bedmate. It was up to him to keep her human. For the life of a vampire was not life; it was eternal death. And if his research were successful, after he obeyed the blood oath he’d made to his last brother and killed the Beefsteak Killer, he’d forsake the life of a vampire, too.

  But for now, the first step in keeping her safe was to own her, possess her, mark her. With every primitive instinct clamoring in him for release.

  He unbuttoned her shirt, surprised to find his hands shaking. The buttons gave up their purchase with little pings of gladness, revealing soft, scented skin in the low cut chemise. He buried his mouth in her revealed cleavage. The lurch of her heart against his lips made the last of the wide world outside recede.

  He unlaced her chemise with his teeth, feeling his fangs unfurling at the luxurious brush of her soft skin. She smelled so good. New life, new hope. No tinge of death or decay as he’d so often scented in vampires.

  One of the silken threads tangled. He patiently worked to unknot it at first, but he grew frustrated to see the lovely rounded flesh only half exposed. He ripped the ribbon loose, fabric tearing.

  She laughed. “Ah, finally you act true to type. The rake, or the vampire?”

  He didn’t smile back. Her breasts had tumbled free, ripe and round and tasty, pouting for his attention.

  Bending his proud golden head, he accepted the invitation. Her eyes widened at the touch of his mouth. She squirmed at the first contact, her hands restless upon the back of his head, trying to bring his mouth up. But he resisted her wordless demand, refusing to suckle her nipple. His nimble tongue did a dance of desire around the aureole instead, laving her skin, then barely scraping with his fangs in the same path.

  She threw her head back, a live thing of desire beneath him. Finally he gave her what she asked for and suckled the point of her pebbly nipple. Her muffled groan of pleasure made him look up to see her face, still suckling softly.

  He saw only the long arched neck, the pulsing carotid vein that carried the life he longed to share with her. She could drink of him, then he’d drink of her…

  He scrambled to the side of the bed, his hands clasped between his knees. Why was the urge so strong? Usually in the early stages of coitus he had little trouble controlling himself.

  �
�Don’t stop.” Soft arms snaked around him from behind. Her small hands reached to his waist and unfastened his robe.

  He made a token effort to stop her, but her hands were faster. They reached down and fastened on the proud red head that was proof of his desire.

  It was his turn to groan. He sank back against her shoulder as she caressed him. She was a novice in the art, pulling a bit too eagerly, but the touch was still bliss. He covered her hands with his, showing her how to slow and fondle. His voice was rough with laughter. “I’m not a cow with udders.”

  “But I can milk you.”

  Shocked, he turned to look at her.

  She blushed. “Females talk, too.”

  Enough turn about is fair play for him. He ripped off the remnants of her shirt and chemise, leaving her bare to the waist. He clasped both her breasts in his hands. “What else do females say?”

  “To avoid blond rakes…” When he kneaded her, firm and fecund, in his palms, she gasped.

  “And I should avoid dark vixens who have no idea of their power over men.” He calmly began unbuttoning her breeches. “I guess this means we’re both idiots.” He pulled her breeches down her long legs. When the dark vee of hair at her thighs was revealed, he closed his eyes in pain, feeling his manhood and fangs ache at the root.

  She kicked her breeches off and stretched, luxuriating in her nakedness before him. “We’re only idiots if we walk away.” She reached up to him, her smile sultry, her eyes glowing with a tiny tinge of red even in the candlelight. “And your bed is much too comfortable for that.”

  He stared down at her, alarm bells ringing in his brain, but his body didn’t want to listen. She was quite bold for a virgin. Ergo, maybe she wasn’t one. That would certainly make things easier. He swept his gaze over her again.

  The tiny warning bells went dead quiet as his manhood leapt in response.

  With extreme effort, he mastered his instincts and made do with a complete caress, up one side of her lush, sensual body, down the other instead of spreading her legs like he longed to. He’d never wanted a female so much, but then he’d never lain with a female with vampire blood, either.