Dalton, Tymber - Brimstone Blues [Brimstone Vampires 2] (Siren Publishing Classic) (12 page)

She picked one like the one he’d worn that day and slipped it off the hanger. Closing her eyes, she brought it to her face. It smelled like laundry detergent, not him.

Then again, it was one of the trace scents comprising her memories of who he was.

A calm peace settled over her. Now she knew what to do. She laid the shirt on his bed and undressed, going into the bathroom and running the shower. Stepping in, Taz wet her hair, washed with Rafael’s shampoo, used his soap, dried with the towel she knew had to be his hanging on the bar along the wall, and used his deodorant. Naked, except for the towel around her wet hair, she walked into the bedroom and slipped on his shirt, not buttoning it, pulled down the covers—

Right side.

The voice. But that was correct, wasn’t it? He slept on the right side of the bed.

She grabbed his pillow and pressed it to her face. There he was in her mind, in full color. She sobbed, lying on her side with his scent bringing him into clear focus. She didn’t want to cry anymore, but it was like he was right there with her.

“It’s okay.”

And his voice. Taz instinctively knew it had to be stress, or guilt, or a hyperactive imagination, but he
was
there. She pictured his blue eyes, and they looked just like Matthias’, his laugh, his smile…

She closed her eyes and trembled, wanting him there. She wore her guilt like a lead cloak, no escaping it. She would give up anything, even her own life, to have him back.

“No, Taz.”

She shuddered. She loved Matthias, but it was like she lost a soul mate when Rafe died.

“Sleep, Taz. Please.”

* * * *

She hadn’t revisited Rafe’s room in her mind, the one she created for him during the training exercises. She feared the sight of the emptiness would overwhelm her. In this dream, she was still curled up on his bed at the condo.

Rafe walked through the bedroom door. He lay down next to her, comforting, wrapping his body and arms around her.

“I love you, Taz baby.”

It felt so real.
He
felt real.

He held her, curled protectively around her. She felt his love and warmth and again, that connection to him she couldn’t comprehend. Why did she feel tied to Rafe in a way she didn’t with Matthias? It would have been sweet agony with him alive, but she would take that over this pain any day.

She rolled over to face him and kissed him, feeling him stiffen against her bare leg. His blue eyes bored into hers, and Taz knew if she could spend her life asleep and dreaming of him, she would.

He smiled, shaking his head. “No, sweetie. You have a life to live.”

“Love me, Rafe.” She kissed him, letting herself go, enjoying the feel of his arms and lips and hands. In this dream, he was suddenly naked, and without bothering to remove her shirt he slipped his cock inside her and made slow, sweet love to her.

It felt so real. Her fingers tangled in his hair, pulling his lips against her throat and wishing he could bite her. She knew that couldn’t happen, not really. His hand slipped between their bodies to find her clit. As they kissed, his skilled fingers slowly stroked her, playing with her clit even as he continued to fuck her. When he brought her over she wrapped her legs tightly around him as he thrust, his own orgasm not far behind.

Spent, she snuggled in his dream arms.

His voice sounded so clear. “Taz
sweetie, you need to rest. Go to sleep, baby girl. Let me take care of things.”

Eventually she drifted to a deeper slumber. When she awoke, she knew she was alone but felt better, comforted. If she closed her eyes, she could almost feel him pressed against her.

Taz looked at the clock, and with a start realized she’d been there two hours. When she sent out a probe, she didn’t sense Matthias anywhere.

She dressed, hesitating before removing Rafael’s shirt. He was just a little larger than her, so it fit comfortably. She pulled it off, donned her T-shirt, pulled his shirt on over it, and left it unbuttoned.

It felt right. She rolled up the sleeves and had another thought.

She returned to the closet and took several more and heard a soft chuckle somewhere in the back of her mind.

In the kitchen, she found a plastic zipper-top bag and grabbed his shampoo, soap, and deodorant. She ran her hands through her hair, and while it looked a little weird from drying the way it did, it wasn’t bad. She had a ponytail holder in the car. She could pull it back, and it’d be fine.

She remade the bed and took his pillow. She knew the scent would eventually fade, but for now it proved an invaluable comfort.

* * * *

Taz sat in the car, ready to leave, but something was different. She studied the MP3 player.

It was unplugged from the patch cable.

She didn’t remember doing that. She plugged it in and turned the player on. It set to the main menu, not on the album she’d been listening to.

What the hell?

She thumbed through the playlists and found a new one that wasn’t there before, she was sure of it.

Music for Taz.

A shiver ran through her.
What the fuck?
There was no one else around. Another fugue?

She glanced in the backseat. Rafael’s laptop case was there, but was it in a different position than before? She couldn’t be sure.

Did she sleepwalk? She’d had a damn good wet dream about Rafe, she remembered that much. But nothing about the MP3 player.

She wasn’t brave enough to investigate the new playlist. She wanted to get on the road. Picking a different playlist,
Driving Music
, she popped the garage door, backed out, and waited for it to close all the way again before heading north.

Chapter Nine

Taz stopped for the night north of Memphis, paid cash for a hotel room, and used her vampire charm to make the clerk accept her fake name without needing to see her ID.

No sign of Matthias in her mind when she checked for him. He hadn’t doubled back to find her.

She turned on her BlackBerry, then immediately went into the settings and shut off the tracking feature. There were several missed calls and two voice mails.

Robertson’s voice nearly broke her heart and will. “Taz, sweetheart, please call. We’re very worried. Matthias is practically beside himself. We understand you’re upset and overwhelmed, but please let us help you. We love you.”

The second was Matthias, left that evening. “Taz, I love you. If I did something to upset you, I’m sorry. Please call me so I can talk to you. Whatever you need, I’ll do it. I just want to make sure you’re safe.”

She saved the messages and turned the phone off again. She didn’t want to risk it ringing and breaking down and talking to them. Her next task was to go through her digital camera. Fortunately, Rafe’s laptop had a card reader that took her camera’s card.

Browsing through the pictures brought a sad, wistful smile. Taken by a waiter at their dinner that night in Yellowstone, Rafe wore a playful, teasing smile. In the last picture they looked at each other, their foreheads touching, like two long-married lovers instead of people who’d met that morning.

Taz touched the screen. She didn’t delete the pictures from her card. Instead, she saved copies to the hard drive and kept the original files on the camera card as backup. Then she shut down the computer.

She grabbed her keys and ran downstairs, grabbing two of the several photo albums from the trunk of the Mustang. She couldn’t handle reading his journals yet. An hour later she sat, alternately crying and laughing as she looked through the pictures. They spanned decades, yet Rafe, Matthias, Robertson, and Albert hadn’t aged a day. How could she have missed that Robertson never seemed to age?

He was family. Well, the closest thing she had to family with her parents dead. He’d been like a dad to her even while they were alive, practically raising her while her famous parents were gone all the time.

She closed the albums and neatly stacked them on the dresser. Now what to do about the mysterious new playlist?

Taz curled up on the bed with Rafael’s MP3 player. She navigated to the playlists, with titles like
Driving Music, Work Music, Booty Call
—that would be interesting—and then finally, toward the bottom, the new one.
Music for Taz
.

Her heart pounded. With trembling fingers she thumbed the control and scrolled through the song list. Romantic ballads, a few up-tempo love songs, sultry jazz numbers.

She powered Rafael’s laptop up again and located the MP3 software. There were the playlists, the newest one,
Music for Taz
, created that afternoon while she was at Rafael’s house.

While she was asleep.

“What the
fuck
?”

She stared at the screen. It must have been her. Yet she didn’t remember doing it. She didn’t even know
how
to do it, because his MP3 player was a different brand and used different software than hers.

She curled up on the bed with earbuds, listening to the playlist, tears falling. She loved Matthias, there was no doubt in her mind, but the emotion in the songs made her think of Rafe and his life cut short. Of who he was, the man she never truly got to know. The man she felt like she’d known her whole life.

At some point Taz fell asleep. The shadowy figure in her mind reached out and touched her. She couldn’t see his face and wondered if it was the same one who came to her when she was shot by the demon in Yellowstone, the one that encouraged her to hang on and pull through. Was this the source of the phantom voice in her mind? The one who seemed to know things?

The one who sounded like Rafe?

“I’ll always be here for you, Taz. As long as you want me, baby girl.”

Dropping into a fitful sleep, she dreamed about Rafe and the boardwalk, watched him walking toward her, kissing him…

* * * *

In this dream, their boardwalk kiss went uninterrupted by Matthias speaking in her mind. She and Rafe stood all alone on the boardwalk. Rafe pulled her to him, his stiff cock rubbing against her through their jeans. She tangled her hand in his hair, wrapped her legs tightly around him, and pulled his lips to her neck.

“Take me, Rafe,” she whispered as he nuzzled her flesh. “Do it.”

“I can’t bite you like this, baby girl. I wish I could.” She shivered at the feel of his breath against her skin. “You’re not mine to have.”

“I want you.”

“I know, sugar. Close your eyes.” She did, and then they were in the bed in his Yellowstone cabin. He slowly undressed her, kissing every inch of her body as he bared her, loving her. He worked his way to her breasts. His sweet, hot mouth engulfed first one nipple, his tongue flicking against her and turning it hard. Then he moved to the other one, repeating the action and sending throbbing waves of aching need straight to her pussy. Her clit throbbed in time with each stroke of his tongue until she begged him to move lower.

Even knowing it was a dream, she didn’t want to let him go, wanted to feel his body against hers as long as she could. When he finally bent between her legs, he glanced up at her with a savagely amused smile.

“Like this?” he asked. Then his lips and tongue found her clit. He closed his eyes as he took his sweet time, his delicious mouth doing things to her in this dream that she never experienced with him in real life. She closed her eyes and let herself go, enjoying the release he brought her. When she finished, he propped himself up on his arms over her.