Ascend (The Vampire Destiny Series Book #4) (13 page)

"Stefan...harder!"

His fingers tightened on my ass.  "How much more do you want?"

"Make me forget it all...make me only think of you…" I buried my head into the bed and the mattress muffled my cry.  The sound was keening and filled with desperation.

His answering growl rattled deep in his chest.  My hips rolled back to meet every deep plunge and I felt myself tightening around him, my inner walls pulsing around him.  Tumbling into ecstasy, my nails ripped into the heavy sheet covering my bed.  I heard the bed groan ominously under the force of our lovemaking as Stefan inched near his own climax.

   “Knulla!
Du
är för
jävla
perfekt
!
!” His fingertips dug into my flesh as his hips thrust erratically.  His orgasm was loud and powerful, his body crumpling over me, his heavy breath fanning over my shoulders.  For the first time, he made no effort to move.  He let me accept the comforting weight of his powerful frame as we laid in the silence of my old bedroom.

He withdrew and I immediately missed the connection, reeling at the emptiness I felt.  He rolled to my side and pulled me against him.  My fingers absently traced patterns over his chest.

“Thank you,” I whispered.  I snuck a glance up at him through my eyelashes.  “You’ve stood by me through everything.  You’ve never faltered once…and tonight…tonight you knew what I needed and you took care of me again.  I’m afraid I’ll never be able to live up to that.”

His stunningly sculpted face was peaceful.  His fingertips brushed my hair back from my forehead and the back of his hand swept down my cheek reverently.  “You never have to thank me for loving you.  There is nothing I would not do for you.”

I heard the truth ringing clear in his words.  “Stefan?”

He chuckled softly and leaned closer, his lips against my temple.  “Ask.”

“We’re going to be safe, right?  I hate being scared.”  My voice cracked.  “Even if it’s a lie, just tell me we’ll be alright and I’ll believe you.”

His mouth smiled against my skin.  “We will be fine.  I promise you.”

The bond between us hummed and I detected no deception in his words.  He honestly believed that everything would work out.  He’d move heaven and hell to keep that promise.

“Sleep, vackra.”  His gentle command was the last thing I remembered as my eyes lost their struggle to stay awake.

***

"You were watching me again," he accused lightly.  He hadn't looked up from his chore.  He was crouched down, sorting through yet another chest tucked away in the attic. His tight t-shirt stretched across the firm muscles of his back and his faded jeans clung to his powerful thighs. "Since I have met you, I have spent more times sorting through boxes and books.  It is bordering on becoming a bit of a joke. Your non stop eye fucking me is not helping matters."

"I can't help it," I answered guiltily.  I bit my lip, pausing.  "Stop looking so irresistibly sexy and I won't stare so much."

He snickered under his breath and rose to his full height.  He slid his hands in his pockets.  "I found nothing of interest.  What are we missing?"

I knew by his racing thoughts that the question was more of a musing.  He was growing frustrated.  He wasn’t used to not getting his way and it was showing.

"We'll find it.  It has to be here." I reassured him, absently rubbing the front of my jeans pocket.  Tucked safely away was the key from Garrett's book.  We had to find the journals.  Our past and future depended on it.

Turning back around to my box, I’d knelt back down and was digging when I heard his voice.

"You are convinced these journals will explain...our missing link?"

My hands stilled and I nodded swiftly, glancing over my shoulder at him. "Yes.  My mother told me...in the vision I saw you as a human.  And I saw myself...but not as a human.  I need to know what I am...who I am."

Stefan rubbed the toe if his boot on the attic floor.  His mind searched mine for the vivid memory of my vision.  "I wish I could recall that memory you have.  After the change, our human recollections fade when we do not actively attempt to remember them," he said bitterly and looked up, meeting my stare.  "I loved you then.  It was apparent in your vision.  I do not need a human memory to remember that kind of love.  I can feel that in my soul, my very bones."  He pressed his hand against his chest for emphasis.

The faintest of smiles tugged at the corners of my lips.   I stood up and brushed off my hands. “And I loved you.  Stefan, I don’t need reassurances.  I just want to know the truth.  The good and the bad.”

His mind whirled angrily.  His frustration filled the bond between us.  His eyes closed and he sighed deeply.  When they reopened, his mood had settled.

"We are miles from humans, yes? Perhaps you should see how fast you can move.  We should clear our minds and stretch our legs." He caught my lips with his own before taking my hand, leading me down the steps from the attic.  He stood on the porch, listening to the night sounds of the country, the wind dancing through the trees, rustling the leaves.  

“We should stay close to the house.  It feels like rain.”  Squeezing my hand, we took off in a sprint to the edge of the woods.  Once we'd reached the safety of the trees, we blurred through the heavy foliage at a speed I'd never imagined possible.

The moon was high in the night sky, illuminating our path as it slipped from behind a cloud.  Neither of us needed the pale light, yet I found it reassuring to see where my feet landed.  Rich green passed in a blur as my eyes easily focused on my surroundings as if I was walking instead of streaking through the trees, so fast my hair streamed out behind me like sails snapping in the wind.

As I glanced at him, our eyes met and his happiness seemed to radiate from within him.  My mother's words echoed in my mind,
"See, he loved you even then.  He doesn't remember the love you shared then, Josephine.  The key for you both to remember is in the journal."

I ran at his side, my mind reliving the memory of being with him when he was human.  I had been with him for months and my feelings and my need for him only grew stronger with each passing day.  I couldn’t help but wonder what our bond would be like in 50 years…or 100.  I’d still not adjusted to the idea of eternity.  It was mystifying to think in 100 years we’d still be standing together, our love growing stronger.  I worried that our connection to one another would deepen, meshing us together until we were unable to be apart, even for a moment without feeling the crushing blow.

He stopped abruptly and turned, crashing his lips against mine with a brutal intensity that he'd never used before.  I clung to him just as fiercely, only dimly realizing that he'd brought us to a clearing.  All of the emotions that I'd been trying to force down grew too great to bear. As I broke our kiss, I sobbed into the night.  He crushed me to him, holding me tightly as we sank to the soft grass.

I must have sounded like a wild animal. There weren't words to express what I was trying to say, but throaty wailing and half-choked cries escaped my throat as I tried to tell him what I needed him to hear.  All the frustration from the last few months unleashed with no end in sight.  He caught my face in his hands and leaned down, his lips ghosting over my brow, his softly accented voice a whisper. "Do not worry about what we cannot change.  Many would be envious of what we share, the bond we have.  And I will be here beside you.”

Stefan had been expecting me to snap.  And selfishly, I let him comfort me.

My outburst ebbed and we sat wrapped around each other.  Our foreheads pressed together and I stared into his blue eyes, seeing the same fear and concern reflecting back to me.  We were both tumbling over and over in the slipstream of fate, grappling to hang on to each other.

His lips crushed mine again, and I opened myself to him as we poured out our fears and desires in wordless communion. His hands gripped me roughly, his lips and tongue desperate against my own. My hands clawed against his flesh, as if I were trying to pull off pieces and bring them into myself.  I couldn't bring him close enough, couldn't hold him tight enough to my heart.

Our desperation began to merge into passion, and I was swept up again in my need for him.  It began to rain, the drops streaking our faces like tears in any other circumstances. I wound my fingers into his hair, melding myself to him.
His mouth moved along my neck, and I whimpered as he nipped at me with his teeth. I felt an urge to possess and be possessed by him that I had never felt before.  If I could have climbed inside his skin, I would have.  My hands moved feverishly against his chest.  I stroked muscles that I'd already memorized, following with my teeth and tongue as I made my way along his body, tasting and touching him. The rain enhanced his natural scent, and I buried myself in him, practically wallowing in his arms. And it still wasn't enough.

We didn't need to speak.  The bond between us had exploded, blowing any remaining barrier wide open.  I could decipher every emotion flooding from him.  His lust and passion was strongest, but the undercurrent of love was powerful.  I felt the strings that tethered me to the world begin to loosen.  Gravity ceased to exist, and Stefan was the only thing that was keeping me from flying away into nothing.

The sky opened up and rain poured over us. It did nothing to stop the desire coursing through me; I was consumed by fire. No need for blood had ever been or could ever be as strong as my need for him at that moment.

He gave and I took.  I offered and he accepted.  Without him I’d lived a half-life; with him I found my true existence.  I gave myself willingly to him, feeling as if my soul opened up and I found hope there, in the center of everything where I couldn’t tell where I ended and he began.

My fingernails raked down the sculpted muscles of his back, my hands gripping his ass and pulling him into me.  He wordlessly answered my request, his lips demanding more.  I pulled my mouth from his and I cried out into the clearing, the rain washing over me. As if on instinct, words fell from my lips that were foreign to me, yet strangely familiar. "Vilja muna orr elska."

I wanted and needed him to be willing to remember our love.  I told him in the only way I knew would make the biggest impact.  I spoke to him in his ancient language.

His entire demeanor changed.  His strong hands laced through my wet hair, his blue eyes boring into mine. A flash of recognition shadowed his handsome face.  "It was you.  Minn sal, minn if. Minn muna hjarta ykkarr."

"Stefan...it always has been," I whispered.  When my fingers touched his skin, his flawless pale skin began to glow as the night on the rooftop in New York.  I let my hands trail over the features of his face, mesmerized by the white light that illuminated us "It always will be."

His voice was barely audible, yet filled with emotion and wonderment. "Min mystiska gudinna. Du är verkligen fantastiskt ... du är mer.”

I climbed him like a tree, wrapping my legs snugly around his hips.  "I want to feel you.  All of you."

His eyes were transfixed on mine, our bodies lighting up the darkness like lightning flashing across the night sky.  Our lips met again and every nerve short-circuited and for one brief moment, I could feel my silent heart come to life and beat a single time.

Our trembling bodies lay in a heap on the wet grass, rain pouring over us.  Stefan's face was buried in my neck, his heavy frame draped over me.  I held him tightly, physically and emotionally spent.  We could have been in the clearing for minutes or hours; time had no meaning. My fingers drifted through his wet hair aimlessly, his massive body shielding me from the pelting downpour.

The sound of Stefan's voice brought me out of my almost trance-like state.  "You spoke to me in my native tongue."

"Hmmm?" I murmured.  “It was how you used to speak to me.  The memories…they come and go.  Something about this moment, this setting seemed familiar in some way.”

Stefan was silent and non-committal.  I could feel his apprehension about uncovering his past. 
Our
past.