Dark Needs at Night's Edge (8 page)

P
erhaps I haven't been stimulating enough for you, vampire?” Néomi made her voice a breathy murmur. “And didn't I promise that I'd show you more than a garter if you could only see me?”

She tugged her skirt up slowly, making the fabric appear to bunch in her hands. “I have a bit of experience with what men like to…
be shown
.”

When she'd bared the tops of her thigh-high hose, she asked, “Still not stimulating enough? Maybe Conrad wants to see my panties instead?” Just before she revealed them, she floated into the corner, the one that was farthest from his vision. He'd have to turn fully to see her there.

“The line…the line…”
he muttered urgently.

He must be talking about some line
with her
that shouldn't be crossed. “Yes, Conrad, the line! Let's cross it! Or am I going to have to up the ante? Very well,” she sighed. “You drive a hard, hard bargain. But I feel overdressed anyway, and since you're so deliciously naked…” His body shot upright with tension, muscles bunching in his neck and shoulders. “Here I am, in the corner, unlacing my dress.” She made her voice drip with sensuality and her dress rustle as she removed it. “I'm doing it slowly for my vampire.
Oh…so…slowly.
”

Did he just growl?

She moved forward to dangle her dress in his line of vision. Like a lure for an animal, she eased it back toward the corner.

He gave a groan as if defeated and turned. His jaw slackened.

She stood with her back to him, peering over her shoulder, wearing only her garter belt, hose, and her tight black panties. “I knew it, vampire,” she said with delight.

His riveted gaze lingered over her face, descending to her back, her ass, and her legs, then slowly back up again. His voice broke when he rasped, “Turn around for me.” Had his accent ever sounded so heavy?

He was talking to her, the first person to address her in eight decades. She was trembling with happiness and gratitude, elated by the interaction—and helpless not to be excited by his heated looks. She faced him with her arms crossed over her breasts, not shyly, but provocatively.

He ran a palm over his mouth. “Y-your arms now.”

Standing against the wall, she removed one arm, then the other, raising them above her, appearing to rest them against the wall. With his gaze locked on her breasts, he clenched and unclenched his hands as if he was imagining squeezing them. She felt a thrill when he subtly rubbed his tongue over a fang, those red eyes smoldering like embers.

“Did you think I was bluffing?”

Never glancing up, he gave her a sharp nod, as if he didn't trust himself to speak.

“I never bluff. If it took baring my body to prove you can see me, then look your fill, Conrad.” When he finally raised his eyes to meet hers, she tilted her head and cast him a flirtatious smile. “But why have you ignored me?”

He said, “Because you're not…you weren't real,” then winced as if he found his comment idiotic.

He'd thought she was a hallucination!
Poor vampire!
He hadn't ignored her for any reason other than the need for self-preservation. “Do you want me to be real?” Drifting away from the wall, she sauntered toward him, her eyes holding his. He didn't seem to realize that he was easing toward her, leaving the spray of the water. “I'm Néomi,” she purred.

“
Néomi,
” he repeated absently. “Does nothing abash you?”

She shook her head, and her hair bounced over her shoulders and lower. When the locks swayed across her nipples, his gaze dipped once more. “And it's difficult for me to regret undressing when my vampire's giving me a look that makes my toes curl.”

He swallowed hard, his Adam's apple working. “I make your toes curl?”

She nodded. “Would you like me to come in with you?”

His brows drew together. “Why would you want to?”

She told him honestly, “Because right now you are my favorite man in the entire world.”

A half-naked ghost with high, plump breasts wants to get into the shower with him.

And he has no idea how to go about processing this. He starts sweating, his teeth grinding. He has no experience like this to draw from.

He was born and raised in a conservative culture. As an adult, he's never been wholly unclothed in front of a woman, certainly has never washed himself in front of one.

Yet this female is standing before him, clad in only her hose, garters, and a pair of wicked panties. They're black and lined with a tight band of jet lace that cuts up across the generous curves of her ass. Her breasts are proudly bared.

She's acting as natural as if he and she were wed.
I don't even know her last name
.

Unable to help himself, he rakes another hungry gaze over her body. She's surprisingly defined, her legs taut and strong. The lines of her form are lithe—a dancer's body, with softly flaring hips and a tiny waist he can span with his hands.

And those breasts…

He shakes his head. She's
too
pretty. A half-naked beauty dropped into his shower? Into his life? This simply isn't in keeping with his fortunes over the centuries. “You're probably not real.” When she grins, he curses his clumsiness with this. He wishes for Murdoch's ease with women—he never has before, even when he'd recognized at a young age that he lacked charm.

“Do you often see things that aren't real?”

“Daily.” But if she
is
real…“Come in. If you wish to.”

Her gaze holds his as she drifts toward him. She has sultry blue eyes, knowing eyes.
Hypnotic.
He finds his body arching toward her of its own will.

She floats into the stall with him. Inside, the water doesn't wet her, instead sparking off her like minuscule electrical flares, seeming like glitter.

A dream—an erotic one.
Can he really be naked with an almost nude dancer?
Enjoy it.

Bloody how?
He can't feel lust. He isn't erect. And…
she's a ghost!

That doesn't seem to be stopping her. He can sense her energy, as strong as it's ever felt to him. It radiates off her in waves, slingshotting from her to him and back again.

“
Le dément
has a magnificent body,
n'est-ce pas
? So strong, virile.”

He feels that increasingly familiar heat on the back of his neck. “Do not call me that again.”

“So you speak French among all your many languages?” When he replies with a curt nod, she says, “Well, what shall I call you, then? Conrad the Mad? Conrad the Crazed? Or I could call you
my vampire
?” Softening her tone, she says, “I think you like that.”

How can she read him so well?

She murmurs, “If you can hear me, and you can see me, I wonder what else is possible. Perhaps I can…maybe I can try to feel you?” The yearning in her voice staggers him. “I feel nothing, you see. My hands pass through everything.”

She can't touch, and he can't get erect. But at least he still experiences pleasure—the tang of blood on his tongue, the exhilaration of a bracing wind.

“Maybe if I concentrate very hard, maybe with you…I could
feel
.” Before him appears a fragile, pale hand with shining dark nails. A petal lies starkly on the back of her wrist, then tumbles away to vanish. “Can I try to touch you?”

At least she asks this time. His voice a rasp, he says, “Do as you will.”

Her hand begins to tremble as she inches it closer to him. Electricity pricks his skin as she nears.
Can
she feel him? Does he truly want this? Yes, Christ, yes, he does. But it glides right through his chest. His skin tingles at the spot, making the muscles tense, but he has no perception of pressure.

She seems to sag with disappointment. Once more she attempts it, running her hand down his torso. He experiences the same electrical feel, which isn't
un
pleasurable.

“I suppose it's not meant to be.” Her tone is wistful, and this bothers him—he feels as if he's disappointed her.

After coughing into his fist, he says, “I could try…to touch you.”

In an instant, her expression brightens again. He's effected that. So easily?

“Where would you like to, Conrad?”

Before he can stop himself, he's peering hard at her breasts.

“Then touch them,” she murmurs, each sultry word like a stroke.

Her energy begins to make him restless. Strange urges rack him. He wants not only to touch her there, but also to kiss her flesh until she clings to him, to drag his tongue over her jutting nipples. Would she like that? Could he make her moan?

He needs to cage her in with his body, to keep her from getting away from him, and finds himself backing her against the shower wall. She could have floated through it, but she lets him surround her. He raises his knee beside her and his chained hands over her head.

Positioned like this, he gazes down into the loveliest eyes he's ever seen. As if a breeze has swept a path through the fog of memories and confusion, he feels clearer as he beholds her face. He feels centered.

Feels…feels…felt…

He felt clearer. Conrad felt centered. His very thoughts seemed to arise differently. They were more focused, each one distinct in his mind.

And Conrad wanted to understand
why
.

Was it her, or the drugs? What exactly was she to him? A suspicion prodded at his consciousness, but he pushed it away.

Her lids grew heavy, her breathing faster, as if she was losing herself in the moment. She was small and perfect. Yet even with his red eyes and scarred, hulking body, she looked at him…hungrily. Could ghosts feel desire?

Not only was she a ghost, a creature he had no experience with, she was a sensual female—again, a creature he had no experience with.

Conrad wanted to try to touch her—because she was both.

With an audible swallow, he eased his hands toward her mouthwatering breasts.

Had she arched to him? He covered their outline with his big palms, but he only experienced the same electricity.

He saw her lower her gaze, as though to see if he'd reacted. He dropped his hands, shamed that he wasn't hard. At that instant, he wished he could be. “You can't get me aroused.” He backed away from her, standing under the water. “I haven't been in three hundred years.”

“Do you not wish to be?”

“Do
you
want me to be?”

“Yes,” she began with a smile in her voice. “I was thinking that might be nice to see.”

He'd once been so proud. Now a creature who didn't even have a body made him feel shame. If he was blooded, his shaft thick with lust, what would she think then? “It takes a special female to tempt me back to life. I'm thinking one with flesh and blood. So you're not her.”

“You're speaking of your Bride?”

“Be glad you're not,” he said, but with this new clarity, he began to wonder.

Tonight Conrad had recalled what he'd once coveted, what he'd been filled with regret never to possess.

I'd wanted a woman of my own.

One to claim and protect. One to pleasure. As a mortal, he'd longed for this constantly. What if this female was
his
?

His arm injury ached under the spray of the water. If the curse of that mark was true…

Was this little ghost the one his life had been leading toward? He recalled the chills he'd felt when Nikolai had merely uttered the name of her home.

Conrad had been forced here, sensing it was the first step on a doomed path.
His dream…her doom
.

“You need to stay away from me.”
I have to escape this place
. “For your own good.”

Her brows drew together. “Vampire, I don't know if I can.”

Nikolai walked in then, Sebastian behind him. “What's going on in here?”

Conrad lunged in front of her, snapping his teeth at his brothers. Fury churned at the idea of her undressed and in the same room with them. His fangs sharpened with his aggression. To her he gave a half-growl, half-hiss over his shoulder. “Leave. Now.”

“But they can't—”

“I said
now
!” he bellowed, making her squeeze her eyes shut. She flickered before she vanished.