Unbitten (39 page)

Had she misjudged? Had something happened that she
didn’t know about? Was she taking something
personally that had nothing to do with her?

The only way to get any answers was to talk to Henri. She
took Drogo’s saddle off and began currying him,
already feeling a little better having decided on a course
of action. She leaned up against her horse and breathed
long breaths in and out, appreciating his size and letting
his smell comfort her. Drogo turned his head to watch her,
and then he curled his neck around her, tossing his head
just a bit, to let her know how much affection he had for
her.

Jo had a swipe of mud going along one leg, straw stuck to
the bottom of one boot, and her hair was sweaty and
sticking out so that she looked like a cartoon of a
disheveled person. She tried to smooth it down and then
swore, as she felt herself getting pink in the face before
she even walked up to Henri’s lab.

She was feeling embarrassed in advance. Embarrassed at
having to ask why he had turned away from her like that, so
cold, like she meant less than nothing to him. You
don’t kiss a woman like he had–twice!–and
then act like saying good morning gives you a bad taste in
your mouth. You just
don’t
.

She took off down the path, for once not noticing the birds
that flew up at her approach, or the shape of the clouds,
or any of the things that would usually take up her
attention as she walked.

Jo strode up the stone steps and rapped on the door, the
movement of walking up the path helping her embarrassment
fade in favor of anger.

The door slid open and Henri was right inside, facing her.

“Just what was that all about?” said Jo, her
face flushed with indignation now.

“What are you talking about?” said Henri,
trying to sound dismissive, but failing.

“This morning. You totally blew me off. Turned on
your heel and shut the door, all pissy-faced.”

Henri drew in a long breath, and then held it. He had not
been able to sleep, imagining Jo in bed with his brother.
He had barely been able to restrain himself from going to
David’s room and punching him in the face. He had
been in the grip of blinding rage and fury, even though of
course, as he kept reminding himself, Jo and his brother
had been together before Jo and himself had gotten close,
long before they had kissed. He was acting like a cuckolded
husband, and he had no right.

And seeing her blazing up before him–it made him want
her more than ever.

“Jo,” he said, and his features softened, and
his voice was warm again.

But she had learned not to melt quite so easily.

“So?” she asked, still angry. “What was
that about?”

Henri said, “Would you like something to drink? Have
you just had a long ride?”

“Yes on the ride. No thank you on the drink,”
she answered, not moving.

“Come sit,” said Henri, holding out his hand
for hers.

She did not give him her hand, but she did follow him over
to the alcove where the loveseat and a pair of armchairs
were. He sat on the loveseat and she dropped into one of
the armchairs, her eyes still wide open and questioning,
her face reddened both by emotion and the November wind of
the morning’s ride, her posture ramrod straight.

“This sort of conversation…it’s awkward
for me, Jo,” said Henri. He reached for her hand
again, and this time she let him take it, although it sat
in his hand like a dead fish.

Henri said, “It’s…it’s about
David.”

Jo looked down.

“He is not doing especially well, for one
thing,” said Henri. “But I suppose that is
beside the point. The point is…” but he could
not say the words.

Jo stood up. She looked towards the door.

“The point is, he told me that you were…that
he had been seeing you,” Henri said, his voice very
low. “I understand it is none of my business. But
when I saw you this morning, it was on my mind, and
I…”

Jo felt relief wash over her.

“Is that all?” she asked.

“
All?
” said Henri forcefully.

“I don’t mean I’m belittling it,”
said Jo. “I just meant, is there anything else the
matter?”

“That’s quite enough,” said Henri, drily.

“And, your…feelings for me?” Jo inwardly
cringed at having to ask, but she had to ask.

Henri looked down at the floor, and then into her eyes.
“I love you, Jo,” he said, simply. “That
does not change. That does not ever change.” He stood
up and walked around for a moment, needing to move to ease
the tension in his body. “That is why the thought of
you with David…”

“That’s completely over,” said Jo
quickly. “Over before you and I were…before
the show, before anything had developed between us, beyond
friendship, I mean. Ending with David–it was my
decision. And not a decision I agonized over,
either.”

Henri sat down and took her hand again. He believed her.
And yet, some of the doubts were still nagging at his
scientific brain. She’s
human
, a voice
seemed to whisper in his ear.

“And what about you?” asked Jo, her voice still
sharp. “Have you been involved with anyone recently?
Have you been married before? Longstanding girlfriend?
Anything?”

“Not in…quite some time,” he said
quietly.

“But you have had girlfriends, right? No way
you’re totally inexperienced.”

Henri stopped himself from smiling. “No, not totally
inexperienced,” he said. “Just
not…recently.”

“And whoever they were, it’s totally over
between you? No lingering feelings, no promises that still
might be fulfilled?”

“No,” said Henri.

“Then we’re in the same place,” said Jo.
“No difference, really.”

“Except that David is my brother, and it was only a
few weeks ago.” He wondered intently whether David
had revealed his status to her, but he was not ready to
have to answer any questions about that himself.

Jo got up and sat beside Henri on the loveseat.
“David is not at all the man for me,” she said,
reaching up to put her palm alongside his face.

“You big idiot,” she said.

Henri had just the very inkling of a smile.

“You big, lumbering, idiotic idiot,” she said,
bringing her face right up next to his, breathing in the
fresh-cut grass and rose smell and nearly falling over, he
smelled so good.

He wrapped his arms around her with vampire quickness,
reminded himself to be careful to slow down, and lightly
touched his lips to hers, then not so lightly, relishing
the softness of her mouth, her wet tongue, her Jo-ness.

As he kissed her, he slid her coat off her shoulders. She
wriggled into his lap and felt his already rock-hard
erection, which made even more heat flood her body and
face.

“You smell like horses,” he said, smiling, and
putting his face just where her neck met her shoulder,
after picking a bit of straw out of her hair.

“Henri,” she moaned, as he kissed her neck,
sucking lightly on the skin, and then coming back to kiss
her deeply on the mouth again.

He was rocking his hips under her now, as she sat on his
lap, and she let her legs fall to each side of his, and
moved herself back and forth along his hardness, her hands
holding his face, eyes flickering open every so often.

They kissed for an extraordinarily long time. Jo was
relishing the present moment and the feel of his body,
savoring it, and Henri–Henri was thinking that he had
not been with a woman since around 1920, and he
didn’t want to rush a single instant of what was
promising to be an afternoon of more pleasure than he had
ever known.

Eventually they stopped kissing, and sat looking into each
other’s eyes. Jo was gazing at the flecks of gold in
all that blue, and running her hands through his thick,
sandy-colored hair, letting the curls roll into her palms,
then stroking his face.

She ran her finger along his high, prominent cheekbone, and
then down his Gallic nose, over his full lips, and then she
had to kiss him again, because every detail of how he
looked was so beautiful and arousing to her.

The kiss reached a point of feverishness where they were
tonguing and running their hands over each other with such
heat that it was clear to them both that they were not
going to stop with kissing, not this time, no matter how
many reasons they had both spent the last weeks compiling
for why they should stop. They remembered the reasons, as
they were kissing; they even ran through them in their
minds. But to Henri and Jo, in the moment of this fervent
kiss, all those well-considered reasons seemed completely
irrelevant. Stupid, really. Gone, in a puff of smoke.

Because their bodies touching, their lips, their
hands–it felt so strange and wonderful, like
something totally new and stimulating, yet at the same
time, an undercurrent of comfortable familiarity, as though
they had finally found home. Jo thrilled to feel
Henri’s usual gentleness fall away and a powerful
physical intensity take its place. His arms around her
gripped her so tight, his kiss so ardent–there was
nothing distracted, and nothing of the painstaking
scientist showing now. He was all alpha, and she loved it.

Henri’s cock was throbbing, of course. But that
wasn’t all. His fangs had shot down and they ached,
they wanted to tear into her flesh so badly. And when he
kissed Jo’s neck, her warm, flushed neck, Henri did
imagine sinking those pulsating fangs into her, finding the
artery, feeling her blood spurt into his mouth. He imagined
it, and he knew it would be electrifying to bite her, to
suck her.

But Henri had long experience in self-control and
discipline, and he was easily able to notice how amazing it
would be, and yet not allow himself to be tempted to do it.

He ran his tongue from her collarbone up to her ear, making
her shiver and tremble with mounting excitement.

“I’ve never met anyone like you,” he
said, his voice barely audible.

Jo’s eyes filled with tears again; this time, mostly
happy tears. “It feels like you really see me,”
she said, squeezing him tight, and pulling her face back a
few inches, so they could study each other’s faces.

“I do see you, Jo,” Henri said, cupping her
face in his hands. “And I need to keep
looking,” he said, smiling at her.

“Are you ready for me to take you to my
chamber?” he said, his voice gravelly and wracked
with desire.

When Jo smiled, her eyes full of warmth, he stood and then
picked her up, nuzzling her neck and murmuring to her, and
carried her behind the thick curtain and down the spiral
stairs to his dark chamber, where no one else had ever
been.

It was pitch dark. Henri asked Jo to wait just a minute,
and he ran back up to the lab and hunted for some candles.
Miraculously, he found some in a messy, disorganized
drawer, and some silver candlesticks on a messy,
disorganized shelf, and ran back downstairs, leaping five
stairs at a time, his erection making the front of his
pants stick out like a tent. A very large, capacious, ample
tent.

Henri wedged the candles into the candlesticks and lit
them. Jo looked very beautiful in the warm, flickering
light.

“Wow,” said Jo, looking at his pants. She
grinned.

“I’ve been dreaming of this, of you,”
said Henri, pulling off his shirt to reveal a broad chest
lightly covered with sandy hair and well-developed muscles.

“Wow,” said Jo, looking at his chest.

She was so distracted by looking at him that she made no
move to undress or even to touch him. The prospect of
making love to Henri was nearly overwhelming to
her–she already felt so close to him emotionally, and
she had never before experienced physical intimacy and
emotional intimacy at the same time with the same person.

Henri stood naked before her, his cock so erect it almost
looked comical. Almost.

Jo was mesmerized. She stared at his cock, at his chest, at
his face. She held up a foot so Henri could slide off a
riding boot. Then the other foot. She stood up and started
to unbutton her riding breeches, but Henri pushed her hands
away, knelt down, and unbuttoned them himself. He peeled
the breeches away from her skin and kissed her on the place
between her bellybutton and her mound. He was unhurried,
deliberate, managing somehow to keep his wild excitement
barely in check, but Jo could feel it. It felt to
her–in a good way– like being in bed with a
bomb that was going to blow any minute.

Jo was used to men tossing her down and ramming her when
they had erections that looked anything like Henri’s.
But Henri had other plans.

He pulled her breeches down to her knees, and kept kissing,
with an occasional nip and an occasional lick, all down her
thighs, the inside of her thighs which she opened for him
as best she could with her breeches still on, kissing on
her mound, on top of her panties.

Jo felt her knees go wobbly. She held fistfuls of his long
curls in her hands, pulling to keep her balance. He was
licking now, flicking his tongue right on her center, still
over the panties, and it was sending Jo already right up to
the edge. She wanted to steer his attention elsewhere to
prolong the pleasure, but she couldn’t make herself
turn him aside.

An instant before it was too late, Henri stood up, putting
one big hand over her mound and holding her there. He
growled a low growl.

“I want to take you so badly,” he said,
“but I don’t want to rush.”

“That may kill me,” said Jo, and they both
laughed softly, sounding to Jo like nickering horses.

He began to unbutton her shirt. He was going ridiculously
slowly, button by button, then a long pause as he greedily
looked at whatever skin he had revealed, and kissed it,
before going to the next button.

Jo felt like she was going to explode from being made to
wait.