Necromancing Nim (40 page)

Finally he lay quiet, legs wrapped up in mine, my arms enclosing his wide shoulders as best they could. He was still inside me but softening, and he kissed my breasts as his body eased free from mine.

“Was that the way it was supposed to happen?” I hadn’t wanted to ask the question before, and it seemed ill-advised now, but I had to know.

“What?” Colin’s voice was barely audible.

“Sebastian. He just disappeared. I mean…it wasn’t like when a vampire is burned or staked or beheaded. There’s dust left behind then. Sometimes little bits of bone.”

Colin rolled his head toward me and frowned. “What are you getting at?”

“Well…what if…” I stopped. I couldn’t finish the thought.

Colin didn’t need me to. He shook his head vehemently. “Don’t even go there. I can’t afford…” His eyes squeezed shut. He didn’t have to finish his sentence either. I knew exactly what he was thinking. If we started hoping maybe Sebastian was still alive, somehow, we’d follow that trail forever. Best to let him go. It was how he would have wanted it.

We were silent then, for a time. I felt hot tears rolling down my face, but I couldn’t quite manage to cry.

“We could stay,” Colin said finally. “Just for the day.”

It was the closest he would come to admitting to his own exhaustion. So I stroked his hair and said, “Okay,” and fell asleep in his arms.

It was noon when I woke. Colin lay curled away from me on the bed, dead asleep, his skin chilly and still. I brushed a hand along his shoulder, then got dressed. Leaving him a note to meet me back at the hotel at nightfall, I slipped out of the silent house. Even the human inhabitants, there to keep up appearances and prevent anyone from taking advantage of the vampires’ daytime sleep, were dozing off over their books in the rec area.

I wondered if I needed to check in—or out—with anyone, but decided it was up to me what I did. Colin would know where I was going, anyway, since I’d left the note, and that was all that mattered. I made my way not to the tunnels but to the quad. I wanted sunlight, fresh air. To be away from vampires and tunnels that smelled like vampires.

The sunlight felt as good as I’d thought it would. I basked in it until my stomach began to growl, then I grabbed a to-go lunch in the downstairs food court at the Union, then went back upstairs to the room to eat. It wasn’t until I dug into the cardboard container full of lo mein that I realized exactly how famished I was. I didn’t fight it. My body needed nourishment, for obvious reasons, and I certainly wasn’t going to deny it. It seemed strange, though, to be devouring a container of lo mein, the flavors bursting in my mouth more brightly and intensely than they ever had before, with pain and loss still lurking so bright and awful in my chest.

I pushed back the thoughts. It was easier right now to be numb and enjoy a pint of crappy, greasy Chinese food and sit on the couch in the clean, bright hotel room.

When the lo mein carton was empty, I called Gwen. Maybe Jerry could fly us back to Colorado, if he was done visiting his son, or whatever he’d been doing out in this neck of the woods. She said she’d get in touch with him and find out.

“Does it have to be today?” she asked, which was a perfectly reasonable question.

“I think it would be best,” I told her. I didn’t want to stay here any longer than I had to. Not with Sebastian’s scent still detectable in the hotel room.

After I hung up with her, I stretched out on the couch. I was tired. Bone-deep tired, physically, mentally, emotionally. I wished Colin could come back sooner. I didn’t want to be by myself, but I didn’t have much choice at the moment. If he were here, I’d crawl into his lap, make him hold me. Maybe he’d even want to. Maybe I’d even kiss him and see what happened after that.

But he wasn’t here. All I could do was think about it. About his hands cradling me, touching me, about his mouth on mine. I folded my arms across my chest, trying to pull the feelings as close as I could.

I woke to the sound of an opening door. I jerked awake, sitting up straight on the couch, Sebastian’s name hovering on my lips. But of course it was Colin. I stared at him, my brain shuffling pieces back together in the slow realization that no one else would come into the room after him.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” I answered. “You doing okay?”

He nodded. His eyes were clearer, less haunted, and he seemed more like himself. “I guess. Got enough sleep, I think, if that’s what you mean. You?”

“Okay. Have you eaten?”

“Yeah, they had blood back at the house. I drank before I left.”

“Good.”

“You?”

“Lo mein.”

And thus ended the most boring conversation known to woman or vampire. Then again, it was ordinary. Comfortingly so. It made me feel like things could get back to normal somehow, some way. Or whatever our new normal proved to be. I knew it would be different from what it had been before.

Colin sank into the recliner and stared at the TV. It still wasn’t turned on. “When can we leave?”

“I called Gwen. She’s going to get in touch with Jerry.”

He nodded. “Good.”

He was silent for another long moment, sprawled over the recliner. It barely seemed wide enough to accommodate him. For a while, I thought he might have fallen asleep.

When he spoke, the sound of his voice startled me.

“Sometimes there’s that one person,” he said in a low mumble, “one person who’s everything you always wished you could be, who accepts you just as you are, and you’re sure that if you ever lose that person, you’ll lose yourself.” Again he was silent, then finally finished, “That was Sebastian.”

He pushed back to his feet and began to pack.

As it turned out, Jerry was ready to go home. Apparently his son wasn’t nearly as fun to be around as he’d remembered, what with being an arrogant college student at the moment, so he was happy to fly us back to Colorado. We headed to the airport at eleven at night, meeting Jerry and Gwen on the tarmac.

Gwen went straight to the heart of the most obvious question. “Where’s the other one? The nice one?”

I glanced at Colin, unwilling to blurt anything out in front of my sister. But Colin just said flatly, “He’s dead,” and even though Gwen opened her mouth a few times as if she was going to ask for elaboration, that was the last anyone mentioned of the matter.

The flight home proved uneventful. We made it back to the Jeffco airport, hitting a bit of turbulence on the way, but nothing to get too excited about. We swung by Eric’s to pick up Rufus, then Colin drove me back to my house and dropped me off.

We both hesitated on the porch. I think we both wanted to say something profound, but I couldn’t seem to string the right words together in my head, and Colin also stayed silent. He brushed my cheek with the back of his hand.

“Do you want to come in?” I asked.

His thumb stroked over my lips; he smiled softly. “Yes. As a matter of fact, I do.”

“Then come in.”

I led him through the dining room and into the living room. He trailed behind me almost like he didn’t know where he was going. Almost like he was nervous, in fact. That was adorable.

I was nervous too, which wasn’t so much adorable as annoying. I couldn’t figure out what to do with my hands. You’d think we’d never seen each other naked.

“Do you um…want something to drink?” I finally ventured.

“No,” he said and kissed me.

And it was new and different again. There were so many flavors of Colin it could be forever before I sampled them all. That was okay with me

He picked me up and carried me into the bedroom and laid me down like he wanted to be sure I was spread out on the bed just right. Then he assessed me a moment before lowering himself to the edge of the bed, one leg tucked under him. I wondered what he would have done if I’d had my arm in the wrong place or something.

He reached over and traced a finger along my temple. “We don’t have to,” he said quietly. “We could just…”

I smiled. Surely that charming hesitance was a put-on, meant to wear down my defenses so he could have his evil way with me. If so, it was a wasted effort; I was pretty much on board with the evil-way thing. “We could. But that would be boring, don’t you think?”

“It’s a fair point.” He bent forward to kiss me again, one hand braced against the mattress by my head. It was a slow, smoldering kiss, exploring every inch of my mouth. He didn’t touch me anywhere else—just kissed softer and deeper and then harder and deeper until I was lost in his taste and the steady rhythm of his tongue.

We both still hurt. It would be some time before that hurt faded, and we both knew that. But what we had here, this warmth and this magic—it was ours, and we never would have found it without Sebastian.

So it didn’t feel like a betrayal when Colin’s fingers slid under the edge of my shirt, inching it up over my belly. He gently wiggled the jewelry in my navel, then bent his head to lick over and around it. The metal tapped against his teeth; he caught it and tugged it a little, making me gasp.

I felt his chuckle against my skin as he kissed me just above the jewelry. He lingered there a moment before he walked his mouth up higher, drawing my shirt out of the way as he did. Finally, he reached the edge of my bra, and before I could move to help him get it off me, he unfastened the front clasp with his teeth.

Okay, that was impressive. I wasn’t impressed for long, though, because, with the bra out of the way, he closed his hand over one breast and his mouth over the other, and there was no point trying to think about anything at all after that.

He had an excellent tongue. It was limber and wiggly, and he damn near wrapped it around my nipple while I clutched at his shoulders. The muscles bunched under my hands, and I gripped tighter. He needed to be out of his shirt. Like now.

I moved one hand toward the middle of his chest, trying to find buttons. I found one, managed to maneuver it to the buttonhole; then his teeth tightened where his tongue had been playing, and my whole body jerked under him. It didn’t hurt. Well, yeah, it did, but in a way that I never wanted to stop. He could have bitten me anywhere and I would’ve had the same reaction. And I do mean anywhere.

His hand brushed mine, and he took over undoing his shirt. A few moments later it was off him, and he tossed it aside. All this without letting my nipple out of his mouth. The sharp tugs and pulls as he moved made me writhe under him, and I started making weird squeaking sounds. Most unflattering.

Finally, the vise of his teeth eased. My nipple ached, free of it, and I wanted him to bite it again. He didn’t. He didn’t even bite the other one, which he’d been entertaining with tweaks and rolls from his fingers. Instead, he traced his mouth up to my collarbone and then to my neck, where he sniffed lazily behind my ear.

I turned my head, letting him nibble where he would. It shouldn’t have been a surprise that he’d enjoy using his teeth; it was more of a surprise that I enjoyed it when he did. I wondered if he wanted to bite me.
Of course he does, Nim. Don’t be dumb.
He lipped my neck, though, and licked as if he were taking my pulse with his tongue.

“You can if you want.” I heard myself say it but didn’t remember deciding I would. After the words came out, I bit my lip, wondering why I’d spoken.

I knew why, though. Because I craved feeling his teeth in me as much as I craved his tongue and his cock. It was a sickness.

But, quietly, he said, “No. You had enough of that for a while.”

“Colin—”

He laid a finger over my lips. “I’m not being bossy. You need some recovery time. Trust me on this one, okay?”

I nodded. It was hard to argue when he was actually being reasonable and considerate. He pressed his lips again to the side of my neck.

“Believe me, when you’re ready, I’m more than happy to.”

Thus placated, I close my eyes, grabbed him by his hair and kissed him senseless.

Until I was senseless anyway. It was hard to tell about him.

After a time, during which I examined every millimeter of his mouth—seriously, if there had been gingivitis in there I would have known about it—he shifted his body so he lay over me, propped on his elbows. He had pants on—this was not an acceptable condition. I reached down to unbutton and unzip and remembered I still had pants on too. Also unacceptable.

We proved to be an efficient tag team at pants removal, and it wasn’t long before I wrapped my legs around his waist and he settled between my thighs.

I tugged on his ear. “Tab A, slot B,” I said, because I am subtle and inventive with language.

He chuckled. “All in good time.”

“Now is a good time.”

“Your impatience flatters me.”

“Your cock-teasing annoys me.”

He nipped my nose. “Then do something about it.”

So I did. I grabbed his dick, which was more than ready, and put it where I wanted it.

Still he held back, sliding in slow. I’d never get used to the difference in body temperature, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to. There was something awesome about that cool glide. It made everything inside me shiver. It was too bad he warmed up so quickly once he got inside.