Dark Awakening (21 page)

“Open for me,” he purred, and the sight of him settled there between her legs, his silver eyes shining in the dark, pushed her that much closer to the dizzying edge of wherever he was taking her. She felt her legs parting for him, seemingly of their own volition. She felt boneless, helpless, completely under his spell. It felt lovely to give over control, if only for these moments. To feel instead of think.

The first time his tongue laved the sensitive nub hidden beneath her auburn curls, though, Lily couldn’t think anymore either.

Her body jerked up off the bed as his tongue flickered against the most sensitive part of her, alternating between rapid and lazy strokes, seeming to know exactly how to push her right to the edge of sanity and keep her teetering there.

“So sweet,” he breathed against her. “So very sweet.”

When he slipped a finger inside her, Lily came in a flash of blinding, intense light, her body bowing beneath Ty. And the fact that she could feel him watching her, could feel his breathing grow rougher as he watched the effect he had on her, only made the orgasm that much more intense.

And yet still, as the waves of pleasure ebbed, Lily knew there was so much more, if only she dared to reach for it.

He moved back up her body, positioning himself over her. Lily hooked a foot behind his legs, though, and flipped Ty onto his back so neatly she would have wondered if he’d wanted it that way, but for the surprised expression on his face.

“My turn,” she breathed, her heart pounding as her
pleasure went from ebb to flow, and she began her ascent again.

Ty’s hands went to her waist, but she swatted them away, feeling the dark thrill of the power she had over him. She slid up the front of him, their bodies now slicked with sweat, and Lily smiled over the fact that as cool as Ty often seemed to be, she could make him hot enough to glisten like this. He groaned when she pushed away his hands a second time.

“I need to touch you, woman.”

She rose up enough so that her hair brushed over his chest and regarded him with a sly little smirk. “You can—as soon as I’ve tasted
you
. Turnabout is fair play, you know.”

His eyes widened, and she laughed, low and throaty, as he realized she meant to turn the tables.

“Didn’t I tell you I wanted this to last? I don’t… I don’t think…”

But his voice trailed away as she licked her way down the front of him, and soon Lily was completely absorbed in the feel of him, the scent and taste of him. Her hands trailed over a chest as hard as rock, lovingly exploring every angle and curve of him. He smelled of candlelight, of smoke and darkness. She loved feeling his muscles bunch and jump the lower she got, until finally she reached what she’d been after.

He nearly came off the bed when her mouth closed around him.

There were no feelings of awkwardness, no self-consciousness as Lily gave herself over to the wonder of pleasuring Ty. He was wonderfully responsive, his body shifting and rising beneath her, and every broken moan was seductive music, each note reverberating deep within
her until she was quivering anew with need. At some point, his hands slid into her hair, but she didn’t push him away.

He tasted of the sea.

Finally, when his body had grown as taut as a bowstring, Ty pulled her away. “Now,” he gritted out. “Now.”

He was all lean feline grace and ferocity as they tangled together and rolled across the bed, each vying for supremacy. Lily’s blood pounded through her veins as she wrapped her leg around him, feeling him press against a place that seemed to have gone to nothing but liquid heat. She’d never felt so alive, or so free, as she did tonight in his arms.

He pinned her beneath him and drove hard into her in a single swift movement, filling her completely as he buried himself to the hilt. Ty hissed with pleasure, his head falling back. Lily could only open her mouth in a wordless cry, buffeted by intense waves of sensation. Her nails dug into his back as he began to move within her, sliding out, then pushing into her again with exquisite slowness.

Lily felt the aftershocks from it spiral all the way from her toes to the top of her head.

“Ty,” she sighed. “More.”

She fastened her hands on his hips, guiding his movements until the bed shook with the force of their lovemaking. She wanted it harder, faster,
now
, and told him so in breathless, barely coherent bursts of words that only seemed to make Ty hotter. His eyes, his skin, all burned with the heat of what they’d created between them.

Then she was rushing, rushing toward a shimmering point of light as everything in her focused on reaching that peak.

Her orgasm was a slow implosion of sensation, unfurling like the petals of some dark, night-blooming flower. Lily clenched around him, a tight, hot fist, as she went higher, then higher again, until finally riding waves of feeling that left her limp and shivering. Ty could only last through one such ebb before the next wave took him over the edge. He came with a hoarse cry, stiffening as he emptied himself into her. Lily could feel every pulse, every throb, and it only fed her own wild climax as she bucked against him once again.

He chanted her name like a prayer as they clung to each other, as Lily rode out the storm, trembling, welcoming all of it. Ty buried his face in her neck, but Lily could feel his own shaking and knew that at least for now, Ty was a man first and a vampire a distant second. She was in no danger from him—no physical danger, at least.

Had she thought he seemed invulnerable? Lily wondered as Ty raised his head and, sleepy-eyed, brushed her lips with a series of kisses as sweet as his others had been heated. He murmured something in a language she did not understand, but the words touched her heart because of the tone in which he said them. And she knew then that he might be an immortal hunter but that his solitude, which she’d sensed so often in their short time together, was a vulnerability all its own. She could only hope that what she felt, this new and surprising wholeness, was something he shared. For the moment, he certainly seemed to. But it couldn’t last. He’d told her it couldn’t last….

Stupid though she knew it was, Lily felt her eyes sting suddenly with unshed tears. She was a fool. But wasn’t it better to allow herself this little slice of heaven with the only man who’d ever made her feel this way, as short as
their connection was destined to be, than to never have it at all and always wonder how it might have been?

She truly didn’t know.

All she knew was that she was now in serious danger of losing not only her life, but also her heart, and to a man she wasn’t at all certain had a heart he would or could give in return.

“Lily. Beautiful Lily,” Ty purred, nuzzling her hair as he wound himself around her and settled down to sleep. “My Lily.”

Yes, Lily thought, giving over to the simple wonder of being held by a man who had just made love to her, who had worshipped her body in a way she’d never before experienced. She was in deep, deep trouble.

And this time, she had no one to blame for it but herself.

S
HE WASN’T EXACTLY
sure where she was when she awakened.

That seemed to be a trend lately.

But she knew exactly who the arms wrapped around her belonged to, and that was quite enough for Lily as she slowly drifted up from sleep. Her rest had been deep, dreamless for the first time in a very long time, and she felt wonderfully refreshed. Her body felt pretty amazing, too, Lily thought with a languid smile. And that had nothing to do with sleep.

Ty’s breathing was deep and even against her as they lay tangled together in bed like a pair of kittens, and his heart beat slow but true. She could hear its eternal rhythm as her head lay on his chest. Her legs were tucked between his, and he’d pulled the blanket over them before they’d finally slept.

Well, at least, after the last time he’d awakened her with his purring and nibbling and licking and…

Lily felt heat suffuse her just at the memory. She was just as hungry for him now as she had been last night, before he’d even touched her. And for Ty,
hunger
hardly seemed an adequate word to describe the edge of what she’d felt coming from him; yet, as wild as their lovemaking had been, there had been a tenderness to it that had prevented Lily from seeing it as a purely physical act. He could have left her alone, but instead he held her in the dark while he slept. Even now, she could feel his fingers wound in her hair. There was so much more to Ty than what he presented to the world. So much more she wanted to know about him. If only they’d met differently, if only he were mortal and she were normal. If only…

Lily nuzzled into Ty’s chest, breathing in his scent, hiding from the truth. It figured that she’d finally met the perfect man for her, and he turned out to be a cat-shifting vampire with issues. And that was before she even started to take her own problems into consideration.

She lay there a while, as her euphoric sexual haze turned to brooding. She tried to get back to sleep but to no avail. Finally, she got so sick of herself that Lily decided she ought to get up and do something, even if that something was merely to hunt up some coffee and wait for her companion to wake up.

Make that companions
, she thought, wondering if Jaden had come back. Oh God, she hoped he hadn’t arrived during one of the louder portions of the night. Lily’s cheeks grew hot thinking about it, but there was nothing she could do now. If she’d been an accidental exhibitionist, so be it. At least the loft had screens, though that would have done nothing to muffle the soundtrack.

Gently, she set about extracting herself from Ty’s embrace.
At first she worried that he might wake up, but after a few minutes of struggling with dead weight, it seemed clear that vampires slept while the sun was in the sky, whether or not they wanted to.

Finally, she got her hair free, which was the trickiest part. Breathing a sigh of relief and rubbing a little at her smarting scalp, Lily drew away from Ty. She looked down at his sleeping form, giving herself a moment just to ogle him. He looked different when he slept, Lily thought, her eyes drinking him in. He lost the wariness he wore like armor, and his sharp, handsome face was so much more open, more innocent. In sleep his figure was loose, relaxed. And as she looked, Lily felt her heart begin to ache in a way she knew she could not assuage.

She forced herself to turn away and slipped out of the bed.

Lily pulled on some clothes from the open duffel on the floor, patting herself on the back for having so quickly picked up the art of dressing in the dark. Then she padded quietly across the floor and down the winding stairs.

A breath in the blackness below gave her pause, until she realized that Jaden must be on the couch. And as it turned out, the vampire who reminded her a great deal of a sexy, sullen rock star was a snorer. Light, but unmistakable.

Lily made her way down the stairs, worried once or twice that she was going to fall.

She felt only a moment’s guilt about fishing in Ty’s pocket for money. She was no thief, but he hadn’t exactly made it easy for her to pay her own way, and she desperately needed coffee. He’d mentioned letting her out in the light before they’d found other avenues to discuss, and a frou-frou latte sounded like heaven right now.

Then there was the other thing. He’d kill her if he found out, but it had to be done. He operated under his own code, Lily knew. And so did she. There were some things she just couldn’t countenance, no matter how hard she tried.

Even though there was the sound of breathing (and snoring), the place was a little too tomblike for Lily’s taste. She hadn’t realized how much she’d needed to get out of the apartment until she slipped out the door, grabbing the key from the small wrought-iron key holder hanging just inside of it and then locking up behind herself.

She strode quickly down the hall, feeling lighter with every step even though there was no hint of natural light until she hit the front doors; whoever had chosen this apartment had chosen well. The building was a cave. Then she was pushing through the heavy glass front doors and heading out into the sunlit world, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the brightness of it all.

After spending the last few days as a nightcrawler, it was like walking onto another planet. The sky was partly overcast, with clouds scudding across and intermittently obscuring the afternoon sun. There was a biting wind, and it smelled like a cold rain might be on its way in. Lily inhaled the scent of it, along with the smell of exhaust and the faint aroma of food. City smells, she thought and, after a moment’s indecision, headed right. She hung a left at the corner, following her nose, and after a couple of blocks found herself standing in front of a small greasy spoon called Santo’s. Just a couple of doors down was a coffee shop called Brewing Grounds, which she expected would be a great place to grab that latte.

But first there was the matter of what stood between them: a pay phone.

No one paid any attention to her, a pretty red-haired woman eyeing a telephone booth—which she felt lucky to find in the age of cell phones—like it was a hungry beast that might turn and attack her. However, Lily felt like every eye was on her. She’d been told not to involve anyone else. But this didn’t exactly count, and she didn’t want to cause her best friend any more hurt than was necessary.