Night Unbound (16 page)

Krysta and Jenna returned to the subject of powerful women and stubborn men.

Starting the engine, Lisette tossed them all a wave and began the long ride home.

Wings tucked away, Zach listened to the night creatures sing their songs as he waited for Lisette to return. He had taken a chance and made himself at home. Mostly. Instead of perching on the roof, he sat on the front steps. His ass on the porch, he shifted his feet on one of the planks two or three steps below and rested his elbows on his knees.

It felt odd. Almost as if he were a guest. A
welcome
guest.

Frankly, he would feel much more comfortable pulling gargoyle duty, but thought Lisette might object if she caught him doing it again.

His lips quirked as he recalled the fury on her face when she had stepped outside David's sprawling home earlier, looked up, and seen him occupying his usual spot on the roof. It had been so hard not to laugh when she had pointed that accusatory finger at him and jerked her thumb over her shoulder, telling him to get the hell out of there.

She made him feel so much that was new to him.

All these millennia of existing, and he hadn't really begun to live until he had laid eyes on Lisette d'Alençon.

The faint rumble of a motorcycle reached his ears.

His smile widened. (He'd been smiling more, too, since he'd encountered her.)

Sitting straighter, he rubbed his palms against the soft leather covering his knees.

Would she let him kiss her again? Touch her?

His stomach fluttered with anticipation, then sank to the ground when she turned onto the long drive leading to him and he caught the scent of her blood. His smile vanished.

Her motorcycle's headlight flickered in and out of sight, brightening the brush and trees she passed. The engine slowed as she came around a bend and showered him with light.

Squinting, Zach threw up a hand to shield his eyes and rose. Down the steps he strode, his concern growing with each pace.

She parked the bike and removed her helmet. Her clothes were saturated. He had seen them so before, but usually it was with
vampire
blood. Nearly all of that which painted her now was her own.

“Lisette?”

She offered him a tired smile, swung her right leg over the back of the bike, and dismounted, her movements stiff. “I needed that tonight.”

“Needed what?” It looked as if someone had slashed her throat.

“To find you here waiting for me when I got home.” Her smile broadened the slightest bit. “And
not
on the roof.”

Bending, he whisked her up into his arms.

She sighed. “Thank you. I wasn't looking forward to climbing those steps.”

His heart skipped a beat when she rested her head on his shoulder and wrapped her arms around his neck, snuggling close. “What happened?”

“We came up against some of the new irritatingly proficient vampires.”

“We, meaning . . . ?” Hollow thuds echoed in the night as he climbed the steps and crossed to the front door.

“Étienne, Krysta, and I.” Reaching down, she came up with some keys, unlocked the door, and turned the knob. “Well, Étienne and Krysta did. Then Étienne summoned me to help them.”

Zach shouldered open the door and entered her home. “Why didn't you use the sedative?”

“They caught me on the way to the network. I didn't have time to pick any up before I went to their aid.”

Two beeps emanated from the alarm touchpad set into the wall.

He kicked the door closed.

Two more beeps.

Lisette punched in her access code and stopped the beeps. “By the way, I always leave the indoor motion sensors off when I set the alarm. Tracy does, too. Otherwise Richart will set the alarm off when he teleports in.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I want you to feel free to teleport inside any time you want to, instead of waiting on the front porch. Just listen first to ensure Tracy isn't home.”

He stared down at her.

“What?”

He shook his head. She didn't know how rare her invitation was. Or the trust it indicated.

“Anyway,” she continued, “Richart had some auto-injectors, but he and Jenna weren't able to join us until right after the last vampire fell.”

“Do you need blood?” He could feel her trembling.

“Yes.”

He headed into the living room and started to lower her onto the sofa.

“Not the sofa,” she protested. “I don't want to get blood all over it. I'll be fine, sitting at the kitchen table.”

How much blood had she lost?

Zach carried her into the kitchen, telekinetically drew a wooden chair back from the table, and gently lowered her onto it.

“Thank you,” she said with another smile.

Uncertain how to reply, he turned to open the refrigerator door.

She laughed as he drew out the specially designed drawer she kept blood in and took out a trio of bags. “Sometimes you remind me so much of Roland.”

Closing both the drawer and the door, he returned to her. “The immortal who tried to choke me with a piano wire?” Zach set the bags on the table and drew out the chair catty-corner to her.

“He was only looking out for Marcus.” Sending him a contrite smile, she picked up a bag. “And, if you're going to blame someone for capturing and interrogating you, blame me. It was pretty much my idea.”

It had happened months ago, after Lisette had caught Zach secretly conversing with Ami.

He seated himself and scooted a little closer. “You were worried about Ami. I can't fault you for that.” And the
interrogation
had allowed him to speak to her directly for the first time.

She held the bag with one hand and sank her fangs into it. Her other arm rested on the table.

Zach didn't know how long it would take the virus to heal her wounds once her blood supply was replenished, but didn't wish to wait. Reaching out, he took her free hand in his own.

He heard her heart begin to beat faster at the contact, racing to match the increased thumping of his own. Raising her hand, still sticky in places with congealing blood, to his lips, he pressed a kiss to it, then covered it with his other hand.

Healing warmth grew within him and traveled from his body into hers.

Her breath caught.

He cursed mentally as his mind filled with an inventory of her injuries and images of the battle that had inflicted them.

His hands acquired a slight glow.

Face flushing, eyes wide, Lisette lowered the now-empty blood bag she held and stared at him. The tightness in her face eased as her wounds closed and healed. Yet her breath shortened.

The glow in his hands faded, as did the warmth. Once more, Zach raised her hand to his lips for a kiss.

“Did you . . . did you just heal me?” she asked, her lovely eyes now lit with amber.

“Yes.” Every cut, puncture, bruise, and abrasion.

“Is that
all
you did?”

“Yes.” When she continued to stare at him, he frowned. “Why?”

“Roland and Seth have healed me I don't know how many times over the centuries. David, too. But their touch . . . their healing warmth . . .
never
made me feel the way yours just did.”

“How did mine make you feel?” he asked, unsure what those lovely eyes reflected.

“Like I want to tear your pants off, strip naked, and explore the Kama Sutra with you.”

Zach stared at her, his body going rock hard as flames ignited within him. “My healing touch made you desire me?” He had never heard of such a thing.

“I desired you before you healed me,” she said without missing a beat. “Now?” Her heated gaze roved him like a pair of hands. “Now I want to lick every inch of you.”

His hands tightened around hers. All of the reasons he should keep her at a distance slunk back into the dark recesses of his mind as he imagined her doing just that and wondered how fucking fantastic it would feel.

A faint tremor shook her hand.

“You still need blood,” he whispered, struggling to keep his head.

She blinked. Something like hurt flickered in her eyes before she lowered them and reached for a second bag.

When she tried to withdraw the hand he held, Zach clung to it. “Lisette, that wasn't a rejection.”

She sank her fangs into the bag.

“I care about you,” he went on, floundering and searching for a way to make her understand. “Your welfare will always come first with me. Your safety. Your comfort. It's why I accompanied you to David's. And why I didn't pounce upon your offer, which I didn't even know was an offer, just now. Your hand is cold. I felt you tremble and knew you needed blood. If my timing was off . . .”

She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. “It was a pretty blatant offer.”

He shrugged. “I don't know what to say. I've never done this before and am clearly not well versed in it.”

She lowered the empty bag. “Never done what?”

He took the bag from her and set it on the table beside the others. “I was going to say court a woman, but I don't think endangering a woman's life, then asking her to continue to risk it by consorting with me counts as a courtship.”

She squeezed his hand. “You didn't ask me to risk my life. Aside from wanting me to pick up some of the sedative earlier tonight, I don't think you've asked a single thing of me.”

“You know what I mean,” he murmured. “Seth doesn't want you anywhere near me. You know the danger of betraying him.”

“And I told you it's a risk I'm willing to take to know more of you.”

“Why?” he asked helplessly.

“Because I've lived for over two hundred years and haven't felt this alive, this eager to greet each new night, since I was mortal. You make me feel things I never thought I would again, Zach.”

The mere possibility astounded him. “And you make me feel things I never thought I
could.
”

Her blood-streaked face filled with a tenderness he had never known as she stroked his fingers with her thumb.

Zach handed her another bag of blood.

Smiling, she took it. “Do you also take refuge in seeing to my safety and health when you aren't sure what to say or do next?”

“Yes.” As much as she risked for him, she deserved honesty.

Chuckling, she sank her fangs into the bag and emptied it. Her fingers warmed. The tremors ceased. She set the bag on the table.

“Do you need more?” he asked, ready to fetch it if she did.

“No, thank you. I'm good.”

Yes, she was. Too good for
him
.

Lisette watched Zach gather the empty blood bags and rise.

Her eyes widened as he turned away and walked in that long, languid stride of his over to the trash can to dispose of them.

He hadn't been lying. Or trying to make her feel better when his not “pouncing” on her offer had felt like a slap in the face. He really did want her. The evidence of it strained against the front of his leather pants.

Lisette didn't think she had ever desired a man more.

Grabbing the clean towel hanging over the sink, he held it under the faucet until the cool water ran warm. His broad muscled back, bereft of wings tonight, begged for her touch.

“Where are your wings?”

He shut off the water and approached the table. “I tucked them away once I arrived.” Seating himself once more, he scooted his chair even closer until their knees brushed. “I admit I did so because I wanted you to see me as a man.”

No problem there. “I've always seen you as a man.”

“A
normal
man,” he clarified. Clasping her chin in gentle fingers, he drew the soft damp cloth over her cheek, wiping away the blood that dirtied it.

The tender action touched her far more than flowers and chocolates would have. “I wouldn't know normal if it bit me in the ass. I'm not normal myself and never have been.”

A smile lit his usually somber features as he shifted his attention to her other cheek. “I wish you could understand how surreal this is for me.”

“How surreal what is?” she asked,
wanting
to understand.

“Sitting here with you in your cozy kitchen, the night's silence surrounding us. Talking with you. Touching you.” He found a clean corner of the cloth to apply to her forehead. “Seeing the warmth in your eyes when you look at me, the . . . affection?” The last was spoken with uncertainty.

She nodded. “At the very least.”

“I'm sure it all seems very unremarkable to you.”

Like hell.

“But every aspect of it is new to me,” he continued.

Every
aspect of it?

“Zach,” she began, then paused while he drew the cloth across her nose and upper lip. Her chin. Down her neck, a scowl creasing his brow as he cleaned the soft flesh the vampire had sliced open. “You said you've never courted a woman before . . .”

“Yes.” Rising, he returned to the sink, rinsed the blood out of the towel, and draped it over the center divider.

“Does that mean you've never . . . ?” How should she put this?

Swiveling to face her, he leaned back against the counter and rested his hands on the edge of it on either side of his hips. “Lain with a woman?”

Lisette nodded and awaited his response with bated breath.

“Yes.”

She stared at him. Zach had never made love with a woman. “You're thousands of years old.”
A stupid comment,
she mentally berated herself. Zach knew how old he was.

“That's correct.”

“How exactly does one go that long without . . . ?”

“Ask Seth,” he countered.

“Seth was married once and had children. You told me yourself.”

“But he has, to the best of my knowledge, remained celibate since the death of his wife.”

It boggled the mind. It really did. Both men were incredibly handsome and radiated sex appeal. They could've easily gotten laid every night of the year. In
any
time period.

“I've shocked you.”

“Yes,” she admitted.

He shook his head with a self-deprecating smile. “So much for appearing normal.”

“Normal is overrated,” she told him. “If you had slept with one woman per year, which is definitely below the norm by today's standards, you would have slept with thousands of women by now. That is
not
an appealing thought,” she concluded. “Guys may think it cool. But every woman I know would think it . . . gross.”

He shook his head. “You are forever trying to put me at ease.”

“I am forever prying and putting my foot in my mouth. I don't ever want you to feel uncomfortable around me, Zach. And . . . I won't lie. I'm also trying to distract myself from eagerly volunteering to be your first.”

His hands tightened on the edge of the counter, knuckles whitening. “You want to be my lover?”

“Yes,” she answered without hesitation.

“Because I'm a virgin?” He still couldn't seem to comprehend that
he
appealed to her, not what he was or wasn't or would never be.

“Your first or your five thousandth, I just want to be with you, Zach. Is that so hard for you to understand?”

His expression yielded the affirmative answer he wouldn't voice.

Rising, Lisette approached him slowly and held out a hand to him. “I appreciate your cleaning my face, but I need to take a shower and wash this grime off. Come with me. You can wait in my bedroom, keep me company in the bathroom, join me in the shower, whatever you wish. Whatever will make you happy.”

A moment passed.

Straightening, Zach placed his large hand in hers and accompanied her from the kitchen.

 

 

Lisette led Zach down to her bedroom in the basement. The sheets on the bed were rumpled and still carried his scent.

“As I said,” she told him. “The choice is yours. No pressure.” Releasing his hand, she began to remove the small arsenal of weapons she carried.

Zach picked up one of her daggers and examined it.

“Are you skilled with weapons?” she asked. He had said as much, but she had never seen him use one and knew he could kill just as swiftly without them.

He nodded. “The Others thought it best to prepare.”

She set her shoto swords on a wooden chair, stained many times over with the blood of vampires from similar disarm-ings. “Prepare for what? Seth?”

He shook his head. “Seth wasn't as powerful back then.”

“Then, what?”

He set the dagger aside and helped her tug off her coat.

She pursed her lips. “Is this one of those things you can't tell me because all hell will break loose if someone reads my mind and spreads the word?”

“Yes.”

She sighed. “That sucks.”

“I don't like it any more than you do.” His brow furrowed as he neatly folded her coat and draped it over the back of the chair. “Keeping secrets never bothered me until I met you.”

She gave him a teasing smile. “So it's all my fault, is it?”

His face lightened. “I can go with that.”

Laughing, she unfastened her belt, drew it through the loops, and dropped it on the chair with her weapons. “You haven't said what you learned tonight when you spied on the Others. Are they still searching for you?”

He nodded, face sobering.

“And?” she pressed.

“They are determined to capture me.”

Not what she had been hoping for.

“Fortunately, concealing my presence from them truly
has
become second nature,” he continued. “They received not so much as a hint of my whereabouts while I was unconscious and have no idea where to look for me.”

At least there was that.

“They don't know I've sought refuge with you. They don't know who you are or that you've helped me.” Something new entered his gaze. “Nor do they know what you mean to me.”

That got her pulse jumping again.

She started to ask what the Others would do to him if they caught him, but—considering the night she had had—decided to save that unpleasant reality for another time. Instead, she turned her attention to her shirt and began unfastening the buttons along its front. Her heart fluttered with a sudden hint of nerves as his gaze shifted to the pale flesh exposed as the fabric parted down the middle.

Ethan was the only man who had seen her naked in the past century. Lisette wanted to be bold like the women of this time, but . . . as sheltered as her upbringing had been over two centuries ago, she was surprised she had even had the temerity to flirt with Zach upstairs and lure him down here.

She shrugged the shirt off, wishing vampire blood didn't coat so much of her skin or stain her lacy white bra red.

Zach's dark brown eyes turned a dazzling gold as she lowered her fingers to the button on her pants. She heard his heartbeat quicken, saw his hands curl into fists as if he fought the need to reach out and touch her.

Down her zipper went. Then she pushed the soft material down to her ankles and stepped out of it, facing him in only her bra and panties.

“You're beautiful,” he whispered.

“So are you.” Stepping closer, she rose onto her toes and kissed his cheek. “Remember, no pressure.”

Turning, she strode into the adjoining bathroom.

 

 

Zach stood as still as a statue, frozen by the sight of Lisette, barely clothed, strolling away from him. His hands burned with the need to touch her. His skin tingled where her lips had brushed him.

He didn't breathe again until she entered the bright tiled room and left his view.

A door opened. A faucet turned. Water struck tile in a hot waterfall. Tendrils of steam slithered past the doorway, then ducked into the bedroom, seeming to beckon him with a curling finger.

Zach slowly approached the doorway and entered.

Lisette's delicate bra and panties lay discarded on the floor.

Through frosted glass, he saw her slender form. Head back, elbows aimed at the ceiling, she combed the cleansing water through hair that now tumbled down to her hips in a curtain of black silk.

Zach's pants, boots, and socks swiftly landed beside her bra and panties. Grasping the handle of the shower door, he pulled.

Lisette's chin dipped. Her arms lowered. Moisture-spiked eyelashes framed eyes that flared bright amber as they met his.

Stepping into the cocoon of steam, he closed the door behind him.

Blood no longer stained her. Water had already rinsed it away, leaving flawless alabaster skin dotted with clear, shining droplets that raced each other down her curves.

Neither spoke.

Zach closed the distance between them until he could feel her warmth. He settled his hands on her waist, heard her heart begin to pound. As he slid his hands up her sides, over the faint ridges of her rib cage, he still found it hard to believe that he was here with her, touching her, skin to skin, nothing between them.

Her perfect breasts beckoned. Zach cupped one in the palm of his hand, heard her breath catch as he smoothed a thumb across its taut peak.

Touching his chest, she slid a small hand up to curl around the nape of his neck and drew his head down.

He eased even closer, his erection brushing her stomach and sending a shock of pure pleasure through him the same instant her lips met his.

Everything he had endured up to this point . . .

The millennia spent locked in a stark and lonely existence.

The confusion that had gripped him when he had lost faith in the path he had chosen.

The torture to which he had been subjected when he'd turned his back on the Others.

It had
all
been worth it for this moment.

Thousands of years of control began to slip away as Zach curled an arm around Lisette and drew her against him. So warm and soft and enticing.

She rose onto her toes, wrapped her other arm around his neck, met his lips with increasing hunger. It felt so good. Everywhere her long, lithe body pressed against his, he burned with delicious heat. And the more she touched him, the more he wanted to explore.

He hated to abandon her breast, but needed to get closer to her. And closer. He couldn't
get
too close and crushed her against him, his thoughts full of nothing but
needs
and
wants
and
must haves
. He slid a hand down over the beautiful ass she hid too often beneath her long coat and squeezed.

Moaning, she arched her hips against him.

While Lisette wasn't a short woman, Zach still towered over her at six foot ten and couldn't reach and touch and taste everything he wanted to.

Turning them, he lifted her up and pressed her back against the wall.

 

 

The cold tile against her skin didn't cool Lisette's ardor even the slightest. It seemed as though she had wanted this for months.

Wrapping her legs around Zach's waist, she ground her core against his erection.

He groaned and dragged his lips from hers, scorching a path down her neck to her breasts. First one, then the other, he tongued and nipped and drew on hard. There was nothing tentative in his explorations. No uncertainty or any of the timidity that had plagued
her
the first time she had made love. Zach was bold, his touch firm, his hands aggressive as they roamed her bare body.

And she had never wanted anyone more, never felt such intense heat and need.

“Zach, please,” she gasped. “I need you.”

He raised his head . . . and Lisette was mesmerized by the intensity in his golden gaze. He had no difficulty supporting her with one hand as he positioned his hard cock at her entrance.

Wet and desperate for him, she held her breath, waiting.

When he plunged inside, a cry of pure pleasure escaped her. Zach was a big man, filling her with such delicious friction that she nearly came from the first penetration. All the way to the hilt he pressed, then ground against her as if he wanted to go even deeper, get even closer, rubbing against her clitoris.

Lightning crackled through her, heating her blood even more.

Then he withdrew almost entirely and plunged inside again. And again. Driving into her with hard, powerful strokes. His hands once more roving and exploring. His lips and tongue tasting . . . everything.

All Lisette could do was hang on and try to breathe as the pleasure and pressure continued to mount. Her fangs descended as they sometimes did when she experienced strong emotion. Her legs tightened around his hips, urging him on. Her fingers clutched his hair.