Ambrosia (Nectar Trilogy, Book 2) (7 page)

She brushed her hair out of her eyes and wrapped her body around his, feeling light and airy, feeling whole.

“That was…” she started but couldn’t finish.
Fucking amazing!

She looked at his face. His eyes were closed but he had a little smile on his lips. She touched the cleft on his chin and planted a kiss on his full soft lips.

“Your eyes kept changing colour. They were like disco lights,” she whispered.

His eyes opened. They were his usual blue. He frowned.

“We made it,” she whispered, “we survived.”

His expression relaxed and he let out a sigh. “We did.”

He pulled her closer, “A million tonnes just lifted off my shoulders,” he said.

If only that was the whole war.

“Talk to me. Tell me what was going on inside of you. Tell me what else I need to know.”

“Want a drink?” He went to get up.

“I’ll get it. Gotta wash up, anyway. You? Water, coke, grape?”

“Water.”

She pulled away and then spotted blood on her nails. She gasped and looked at them.

“Tristan!” she exclaimed, “Turn over.”

His back was scratched and bleeding in a few places, only lightly, but there
were
distinct nail marks.

“You’re bleeding!”
Oh shit!

“Shhh, it’s okay. Let’s go wash your hands.” He jumped up and guided her to the bathroom. He turned the taps on and soaped her hands up, rubbing them gently, rinsing them under the water.

“Tigress,” he purred in her ear. She felt the heat rise in her cheeks.

“Keep rinsing,” he told her, kissed her temple, ran his tongue from her clavicle up to her earlobe, and then he disappeared back into the bedroom.

She let the hot water run over her hands for a good 2-3 more minutes, scrubbing her hands and using her nails to scrape under her other nails.

Tristan’s blood? Wow, scary.

She went to her purse and pulled out a small bottle of hand sanitizer she’d always carried and saturated her fingertips with it, then went back to the washroom and got cleaned up, then got drinks from their bags and put extras into the mini fridge and then passed him a bottle and opened a can of grape soda pop for herself and guzzled half of it and then threw herself back on the bed, feeling exhausted.

She examined her nails again, “You okay?”

“So much more than okay.” His voice was husky. He leaned over and let out a little growl into her ear.

She smirked and lifted her leg up in the air and then examined the ankle.

“I only shaved a quarter of a leg. Either I need to finish or not wear shorts tomorrow.”

He touched the tiny, now lightly scabbed-over, razor wound.

“It was the perfect amount. I smelled it and rushed in here before I could stop myself and then I felt something in me, something lifting my confidence. I tasted it and it was a tiny amount but I felt stronger, yet I was in control and knew I could handle a real feed. I thought it’d push it back by drinking, that maybe that’s why it was so close to the surface, because I hadn’t fed from you. But I’m different. It’s all different. It’s not two personalities, I’m one. But I’m different. I have to get to know myself again. I can’t explain but I need to know my limits; right now I feel like a stranger to myself. Stronger but a stranger. Does that make sense? I don’t know what’d happen if you got your period but I’m closer to being in control now than I was.”

She ran her fingers through his hair and nuzzled in,

“At least we have time. Thank God. We’re going to figure this out, Tristan.”

“We are,” he kissed her forehead.

“Let’s run, Kyla. Let’s go out for a run. Now.”

“Really? I’m shattered.”

“I feel like a billion bucks. A hundred billion bucks.”

“I won’t be able to keep up. My body feels like spaghetti. That was a seriously intense session there, Mr. Vampire.”

“Follow me in the car.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. I need to run and can’t leave you alone. Follow me in the car, okay?”

~~~

An hour later they were back at the motel. Tristan didn’t feel the need to sweep the room before relaxing, saying he smelled nothing new, and Kyla was relieved. She was spent. She collapsed onto the bed.

They’d driven to a highway back road and then he’d gotten out and jogged while she drove slowly behind him, with the blinkers on as he ran, praying no police would spot them. It was uneventful, thankfully.

“I’m getting’ a shower” he said, “Leaving the door open. Don’t go to sleep yet. If anyone knocks or anything odd happens, you come into the bathroom immediately, okay? Anything odd at all. I’ll be fast.”

“Okay,” she mumbled and yawned.

He leaned over and grabbed her chin, “Okay?” his eyes were dead serious.

“I said okay,” she was irritated.

“You don’t seem to understand the gravity here,” he growled.

“No, Tristan, gravity understood; I get it. Just leave the door open.”

She did not like his tone, nor the aggressive intensity coming off him. She grabbed his wrist and pried him away from her chin with a pointed stare and very pointed thoughts about being manhandled.

He took a breath, “You don’t know how dangerous it’d be if he got to you.”

“Uh, yeah, I can imagine. Do you want me freaking out while you’re in there? How’s that going to make you feel? Want me to come sit in the bathroom while you shower?”

“Yeah, I do. Shower with me.”

“Too tired. Just be fast.”

She curled under the blanket and flicked the TV on. She heard the shower turn on. He left the door open and the shower curtain open so he could see her.

“You’re drenching the floor!” she called, yawning, staring at his naked body.

Yum.

She fought sleep, watching his strong corded arms and large strong hands move up and down his sudsy body but even his personification of male beauty wasn’t enough to keep her awake after those earth-shattering orgasms and the fact that she’d had to drive behind him running for all that time.

By the time he got into bed a few minutes later, she’d been dozing. He got in bed beside her, smelling like soap and shampoo and toothpaste, and feeling all warm and hard. He cupped her between the legs and slid one, then two fingers inside as he tongued her earlobe.

He was being more possessive than ever. She imagined it must be because someone was after them and out to take her from him. Maybe it was the beast inside of him, too, the addiction to the nectar. She moaned, feeling so tired, but not able to resist. She arched back into him and parted her legs wider.

After a quick romp and a spectacular climax where he did all the work, she went to get up to go wash up.

“Need to pee?” He asked.

She shook her head, “No, just need to clean-up.”

“No,” he murmured, “don’t wash me away.”

“Mmm-kay.”

She sighed happily and nuzzled in and drifted off to sleep wrapped tight in his embrace. As they fell asleep, her thoughts drifted back to when he first started to explain what he knew of their bond. He’d said a woman with enchanted blood bonded to a vampire would fight to the death before letting another vampire feed from her.

After what happened tonight, after the idea of another woman with him and how it made her feel, what it made her want to do…would that turn Kyla into some sort of warrior if Liam Donovan
did
find them? She didn’t want to think on that now.

She was so relieved that they’d gotten the awkwardness out of the way --- feeding and making love. And that it hadn’t gone horribly wrong after all. It had been more than frightening when his eyes kept changing, like he was teetering between personalities. But it had gone okay. She fell into slumber with a small hope that maybe things would be okay after all.

“We make one another feel,” she whispered to him, rubbing her thumb pad up and down the cleft on his chin. They were in bed, lying on their sides and facing one another.

The sun was starting to rise and she’d woken up to him watching her sleep. She’d nuzzled into his chest, then looked up into his eyes and they’d stared at one another for a long time before they started to talk.

“I’m not whole if I’m not with you,” he answered, “I feel so much now.”

“Me either. And me, too. I used to bury my feelings, ignore them, run from them, do whatever I had to do to not stop and feel them. Not now,” she said, knowing that her emotions didn’t just impact her; they impacted him, too.

“Good. I feel your feelings. They’re amazing. You should feel them, too. What I like best about feeling your feelings is how you feel when you feel
my
feelings. Now,
that’s
incredible.” He traced her ear with the ridge of his thumb, “It’s like mirroring.”

“Mirroring?”

“Ever put a mirror in front of another mirror and it just reflects endlessly?”

“Yeah,” she smiled. She knew just what he meant.

“That’s what it feels like when you feel what I feel.”

“Some of them, my feelings, they aren’t fun, though,” she winced, “I’ve gone from pushing emotion away to obsessing about everything. I’m driving myself cuckoo.”

“It’ll get better. I promise to do my best to keep the seesaw leaning in the fun direction, as much as possible, okay?”

“Kay. What’s the plan today?”

“We get as much road behind us as possible. Tomorrow night we’ll be in Southern Nevada. We’ll stop there and stay the night.”

“Vegas?” Her eyes lit up and she sat up. Las Vegas had been something she’d always wanted to do. She loved the idea that many hotels had different themes so it was like you were in Paris, then in New York City, and then in Rio, and then in Egypt, and then medieval times and all in the same day if you wanted.  Shows, slot machines, doing the touristy thing. It sounded fun. Sounded normal.

“If you want. Some fun?”

“Uh, hello? Yes!” Kyla was excited.

“Alright. Then we’ll hang out there for the night and then get back on the road the next day.”

“Or maybe a day or three or three hundred after that?” Kyla raised her eyebrows.

Tristan pulled her on top of him and kissed her forehead, “Maybe we should just get the whole Adrian thing over with. And besides, he’s waiting. Let’s not prolong the inevitable. We can go back to Vegas afterwards. Maybe find a little Elvis chapel?” He raised his eyebrows.

What the fuck?

Kyla’s heart skipped a beat. She chose to ignore that comment, unsure if it was a joke or what and definitely not ready to even think along those lines at this moment.

“Or…” Kyla pulled away and sat back up, “We avoid going to Adrian’s for as long as possible in case it goes horribly wrong.”

“Not very pragmatic to procrastinate, sweetheart.”

“I’m not CEO material like you, I guess. I’m totally fine with prolonging and procrastination where
this
situation is concerned.”

He laughed. He was trying to keep it light; so was she. The Elvis wedding chapel thing must’ve been a joke.

Must have.

But there was an undercurrent in the air trying to grab her and drag her back down due to her fear of the unknown.

She leaned over and started scrubbing his cheek with her nails, “When are you gonna shave this off, anyway? You’re quickly going from rugged and sexy to not too far off mountain man territory and I gotta say: not feeling it…”

She stood up, about to go to the washroom. He reached over, hooked his arm around her waist, and hauled her back onto the bed and pinned her.

In truth, he was totally sexy and highly fuckable with his unshaven face. Maybe even more so.

“Yeah, well you’re one to talk with your partly shaved leg, mountain woman! Maybe we should both just head for the hills and live in the backwoods with our hairy selves, huh?”

He planted a big wet raspberry on her belly. She squealed and tried to get away. He started to tickle her.

She squealed again, “No, no, no, don’t! I can’t, I can’t handle tickling, I can’t, I…”

He stopped for a second, “Oh…have I found another one of your weaknesses, maybe?”

“Eek!” She dashed off the bed but he caught her and pinned her on the adjacent bed.

“No tickling, please. I can’t breathe when I’m tickled, I---”

Something flashed in her memory, ugly scenes from a foster home. She pushed it back. Tristan must’ve felt it because he stopped instantly.

“You okay?” He was suddenly serious. She nodded and tried not to give that ugliness any further thought.

“Tickling is not my weakness.” She poked at his chest, backing off that bed and then backed up toward the bathroom.

“Oh no?”

He was smiling but she could feel that he was holding back, unsure about her reaction to the tickling. He stalked toward her.

“Dimples…” She poked at his naked chest again, accusingly, “Now
those
are my kryptonite. Show me those and you can have anything you want. Any. Thing.”

“Anything?”

He gave her a glowing gorgeous smile, dimples on display, then caged her against the wall beside the bathroom door and ravished her mouth with his. She raked her fingers through his hair and linked her leg around the back of his knee, grinding into him.

“You are insatiable!” He hoisted her over his shoulder and whacked her rear end before putting her back on the bed and hovering over her. His smile was so bright he lit up the room.

She fingered a dimple, “I’m sorry that I made you worry about me when I left. If it helps, I was a mess the whole time we were apart.”

“That helps,” he said sheepishly, “We need to talk about everything that happened.”

He laid down on the bed beside her and spooned her close.

“You’ve got stuff to tell me, too.”

“I will. You first.” He touched the back of her neck with his lips.

“Will you?” she asked, dubious.

“I will,” he answered softly.

“Sam reacted first. He turned gray and shot you as soon as I stepped into that cage. Why didn’t that ever happen before in public? Is that something I’ll have to worry about from now on?”

“Dunno yet. I’m guessing something happened after you bonded with me. Even before then. After the first time I fed, I think. But especially after the nectar.”

“So nothing will ever be the same.”

He shook his head, “Not likely.”

“I can’t ever have my period again. I need a hysterectomy to keep myself alive. I’ll never have babies. I mean, I never knew if I wanted kids but to know that I’ll never…” she choked up. Then she realized she’d said all that out loud instead of just in her head.

“Shhh, one day at a time.  It doesn’t make sense to just jump to conclusions.” He put his palm to her face.

Yeah, he might not want me to get a hysterectomy. If I stop my periods, the nectar stops.

She stared off into space for a minute.

He shook his head, “Don’t start that. If I haven’t proven to you by now that I love you…”

“Get outta my head.”

“Kyla. Baby. I hear you louder and clearer than ever. I can’t help that. And it’s not just in your head, it’s written all over your face, too.”

“I have to pee.”

She got up.

He gave her a skeptical look.

“I do! I was on my way there a minute ago. I guess you can’t read my bladder yet? Sucks to be you.”

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose so she huffed as she marched past him to the bathroom.

When she climbed back into the bed he was on the bed, eyes on her.

“So, Sam?” he urged her to continue.

“He shot you. Before you did anything. The second he saw me his fangs shot out and his face turned gray and he attacked you first, before lunging at me, even. He saw you as a threat.  I felt a gush of bleeding and then you reacted. But first he shot you and then you shot and hit him and he went down. Then you, you like…lunged for me. I tried to get away but I couldn’t. And then it got sexual.”

She took a big gulp of water, “Ugh. I need coffee. Badly. I won’t even try this in-room coffee. Can we?”

~~~

When they got back with coffee and pastries she took her period prevention pill and he urged her to continue.

She sat on the bed and he pulled her down against him. She put her cheek on his chest.

“It was sexual for me because of what you were doing but for you, it seemed like it was just about the blood. I’m sure I was about to die. You were going down on me while choking me and drinking and then you let me go and you made this roaring sound and then grabbed me and I could swear you were going to end my life but I told you I loved you and your eyes changed and your temperature began to rise but I didn’t know if it was the tranquilizer. You passed out.

You passed out and I didn’t know what to do but I looked at Sam and thought, ‘I can’t make
him
not kill me with nice words and nice thoughts’, so I ran. I ran because I was afraid of him and afraid of you because I didn’t know what stopped you. I know I wanted to be what stopped you, but I didn’t know if that was naïve of me to think that way so I just left. I didn’t know what I’d do, how I’d get over you, how I’d even survive without you, and with the possibility of getting killed by another vampire and I’ve been in the pits of despair and with serious withdrawals or something, but that’s---”

He cut her off by tipping her chin up for a soft kiss, then said, “I heard you, heard your voice from far away. I must’ve been unconscious but you said you loved me in my dreams. You had this bright aura and I could feel your emotions stronger than ever but I thought I was dreaming and then it all went black. I woke up and you were gone and I had all kinds of blood on me. I couldn’t feel you.

There was gnawing inside me, this overpowering urge to inflict pain because I couldn’t find you or feel you. Sam almost took the brunt of it but he talked me down. I knew he went off. He and I talked it out. He said as soon as you stepped out of the panic room the aroma was like meat cooking to a half-starved half-crazed man. His instinct kicked in and I was the threat he had to remove to get to you.

Just like I reacted reflexively to the barrier between you and me, the locks. He talked me down… I came close to ripping his throat out, he convinced me he could help, that he wouldn’t come near you until he could get some of that tonic from Adrian and test it. I can read intentions, I can taste lies, even more now than before. I didn’t taste any lies with him. I’m still being cautious but I believe him.

And anyway, I don’t think you just walked out, Kyla, the more I think about it, I think you shut down. I should’ve been able to feel you. You were still in the city when I woke up, I checked everything out when I started to look at you and timing-wise, you weren’t that far. You were in the city for a few hours after I woke up before you caught that flight. If you weren’t sleeping I’m pretty sure you found a way to turn it off. Or maybe my body turned you off. I don’t know.”

“I didn’t sleep. Not for two days. And I
was
numb, Tristan. Scared and numb.”

He cuddled her close, “Okay. We’re gonna figure this out. I will. I will stop at nothing.” Their eyes locked.

“Nothing,” he repeated and ran his thumb across her cheekbone.

They stared at one another for a beat and then he said, “Let’s get going.”

They passed the maid as they left. She was pushing her cleaning cart toward them and when she saw Tristan her mouth dropped. She looked at him with sexual hunger but it was as if she’d never seen him in her life. Kyla felt anger rise in her. Tristan threw an arm over her shoulder and hauled her closer,

“Easy, princess; keep those claws sheathed.”

Kyla made a “grr” sound as they passed the woman on the way to the front office to check out.

He chuckled.

~~~

“Tell me about Kovac Capital,” Kyla suggested. They’d been on the road for a few hours and she figured it was a good time to learn more about him, about his life, more about the obstacles they were facing.

Tristan was driving, looking handsome as always, with his strong hands on the wheel, hair blowing in the breeze, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses. He was wearing cargo jean shorts, sandals, and a black t-shirt.  Kyla wore a racerback apple green A-line sun dress. It was hot out. Her curly hair was up in a messy bun and she had flip flops on her feet.

“It’s a company. It makes money. I’ve got a pretty traditional-looking executive position.” He shrugged.

“Traditional-looking
, looking
being the operative phrase? You said you also work to keep vampires secret. I’m sure you have stories you could tell. Close calls?”