Vampire's Hunger (17 page)

She helplessly thrust her hips against his face, seeking out more of his touch. As he suckled her swollen bud, his fingers kneaded her buttocks. He brushed against the puckered rosebud of her ass, and she shuddered as her climax began to build.

He licked through her folds to her slick opening. His tongue swirled around and around, making her cry out. She gripped his hair, holding his head close to her, crying out again as he fucked his tongue into her sheath.

He moved back to her clit. One last suckle, and she fell over the edge with a scream. He brought one hand between her legs and slid two long fingers into her pussy, thrusting in and out while she moaned and quaked around him.

When she was finally still, Duncan wiped his hand across his mouth. He let her legs fall from his shoulders and she was content to flop onto the bed like a landed fish. He came up over her and kissed her, giving her a taste of herself.

Kimber tried to calm her breathing. He settled at her side, moving one thick thigh over hers, cupping her breast with his hand. His thumb swept languidly over her tight nipple.

She sighed and rested her hand on his forearm, feeling the muscles flex with the movement of his thumb. She closed her eyes, feeling sated and content for the first time in a long time. “Well, Mr. MacDonnough, I think you’ve about killed
me
.”

His low chuckle stirred the hair at her temple. “Just returning the favor, sweetheart.”

All she wanted to do was lie here in his arms and not face reality. But she couldn’t. She stirred. “We should go to Natalie and Aodhán.”

Duncan’s arms tightened around her. “In a minute. I want to hold you a while longer.”

Kimber settled down against him again and rubbed her cheek against his hair-roughened chest. It felt good to be in a man’s embrace again.

In
this
man’s embrace.

He was good and honorable, and in trouble because of her. “Tell me what happened with Maddalene,” she murmured. She couldn’t keep from touching him, though, rubbing her fingers lightly over the pectoral muscle opposite the one her cheek rested on.

“She wanted you here. She was disappointed when I came without you. When I told her to back off, she called me disloyal and punished me.”

At the complete lack of emotion in his voice, she propped up on one elbow and looked down into his face with a frown. “And you…what? Just stood there and let her whip you?”

He shifted a little beneath her but his frank gaze stayed on hers. “If I had fought her, it would have kept her focus on you. I let her vent some of her frustration.”

“By turning your back into spaghetti?” She scowled. “Don’t do that again.”

“I’m almost completely healed, thanks to you.”

“Thanks to me you were hurt in the first place.” She started to put her head back on his chest but he brought one hand up to her face.

“Don’t you even think to take the blame for this, Kimber.” His fingers beneath her chin were strong yet gentle. “Maddalene’s been working up to something like this for the past several months.”

“Why?” she asked. “I don’t understand any of it. What’s so important to her that she insists on my help? Who is this centuries’ old corpse she wants me to reanimate?”

“Her consort, Eduardo.”

“Consort?” She felt her eyes go wide as realization struck. “You mean he’s a
vampire
?” At his nod, she shook her head. “No. No way. Hell, no.”

The edges of his mouth quirked. “Kimber, you need to tell me how you really feel.”

“Smartass.” She smacked his chest. “She’s insane. With a human it would be difficult, but with a vampire? I don’t even want to think of the kind of energy it would take to reanimate something that wasn’t alive to begin with. I mean, actually, it would be re-reanimating, you know?”

“But could it be done?”

She stared at him. He surely couldn’t be suggesting… “No. Duncan, it’s too dangerous.”

“But could it be done?” he asked again.

“Why? Do you
want
me to do it?”

“No, of course not.” He stroked his hand down her cheek. “But unless we can convince Maddalene that there’s absolutely no way it can be done, she’ll keep pushing.”

Kimber bit her lip.

“Can it be done?”

The man was like a demented terrier. She huffed a sigh. “Possibly.” When he stared at her, she grimaced. “Look, I’ve been saying it can’t be done because it probably can’t. At the very least it shouldn’t. Especially now. With what happened to Whitcomb…”

She just wasn’t sure anymore. Generally speaking, vampires didn’t have souls, so the Unseen didn’t really latch onto anything within the body. It just filled it and became something…else. Something different. Dark. If she were more religious she would have called it unholy.

She shook her head. “I just can’t guarantee what we’d end up with. There’s something unbalanced in the Unseen, Duncan. I felt it with Whitcomb, and I felt it again when I was trying to save Bishop.” Tears sprang to her eyes at the thought of her friend, and she blinked them back. At some point she hoped she’d get to mourn Carson Bishop the way he deserved to be mourned, but now was not that time. “If I could somehow manage to reanimate Eduardo, it wouldn’t truly be him. It would be something I can’t control. Something darker. That much I do know.”

“Something darker than a vampire?” He lifted a brow, his expression reminding her of her bias against him and his kind.

She sighed again. “It’s the whole biting thing, Duncan. Well, biting and draining.”

“I’ve bitten you twice now, once in passion and once when I was injured, and I didn’t lose control. You can trust me, Kimber.”

And there was the heart of the matter. She’d been telling herself for months that she couldn’t trust Duncan, not with the stuff that counted. Oh, she trusted him to help her fight zombies, but she hadn’t trusted him with more than her physical safety. He was part of Maddalene’s cadre, and
she
couldn’t be trusted.

He was a vampire, the kind of creature that killed her parents. But he was also a man.

Her
man.

It was time for her to face her fears and beat those bitches down.

Chapter Eleven

A
fter a shower that was much longer than it needed to be because they couldn’t keep their hands off each other, Kimber and Duncan went back to bed and fell asleep in each other’s arms. She knew that he needed rest in order for his back to continue healing. She needed it because he’d bitten her again and while he hadn’t taken much, it had been enough to make her tired.

A while later movement in the bed woke her. She turned to her side to see him sitting up, rubbing one hand across his face. His dark hair was rumpled, giving him a hot bed head look. “Are you all right?” she asked, pulling herself up to rest against the headboard. “How’s your back?”

“I’m good. It’s fine,” he responded, sliding a hand around the back of her neck and tugging her close for a long, slow kiss. When he drew away, her breath rasped between her lips and her libido had flared to life again.

Damn. The man sure did know how to kiss.

“We need to talk to Aodhán,” he said.

She blinked. “Okay, I so wasn’t expecting that.” She leaned back to look at his face. “And I’m really doing my best not to start freaking out, but when we’re in bed together, naked and kissing, and then you go and say we need to talk to Aodhán, all sorts of kinky things start running through my head. He’s like my brother, so none of these thoughts end good for you.”

His lips twitched. One of these days she’d say something smartass and she’d get a full-blown smile from her dour vampire. It was her new goal in life.

“They’re here, too, by the way,” she added, realizing he probably didn’t know her friends had come along. He might have assumed they would have, because they wouldn’t have let Kimber go on her own. “They’re out in the living room.” She raised her eyebrows. “So, what exactly do we need to talk to Aodhán about?”

“It’s something Maddalene said, right before she took the cat to me.” He met her gaze. “She told me to ask Aodhán how she feels about males betraying her.”

She frowned. “What the hell would he know about it?”

“That’s what we need to find out.” He rolled out of bed and stretched. His back was completely healed, and only two long, thin scars criss-crossed his lower back. She hoped in time and with a few more feedings even those would fade away.

Her gaze drifted down. God, he had the best, most squeezable ass. It was a work of art, really. She reached over, intending to curl her fingers in those muscled buttocks, but he moved away before she could get him. She gave a little growl of disappointment.

“Get up and put your clothes on, sweetheart.” He walked over to a tall bureau and yanked open a drawer. Seconds later he’d tugged a soft-looking pair of gray sweat pants over his lean hips. A chest-hugging black T-shirt followed. “We need to get this sorted out and make sure Aodhán really is on our side.”

Kimber frowned. “How can you even ask that?” She got out of bed and pulled on her clothing. The floor was cold against her feet. “Can I have a pair of socks?” she asked, and added, “Aodhán doesn’t have to prove anything.”

“No?” His deep voice held a hardness she’d heard before, and it usually pissed her off because he was being stubborn and autocratic with her. She didn’t want him turning that attitude on Aodhán. He yanked open another drawer and tossed her a pair of white athletic socks.

She sat on the bed and pulled them on, then hurried across the room as Duncan opened the bedroom door and headed down the hallway toward the living room.

“No, he doesn’t.” She trailed him, grabbing onto his T-shirt to try to slow him down. It was like trying to stop an elephant by yanking on its tail. Didn’t work worth spit.

The smell of cinnamon and cloves was still present and she saw flames burning brightly in the fireplace. The room was a little on the cool side, but pleasant enough in the area near the fire.

“Who doesn’t what?” Aodhán asked from his sprawled position on the sofa.

Natalie was at the dining room table, eating Chinese. She looked up. Before Kimber or Duncan could respond to Aodhán’s question, Natalie said, “Did you know they have a chef here? So the human groupies who live here can be well-fed.” She looked at Duncan. “If you’d told me Maddalene had a five-star chef here, I would’ve been here six months ago. God, this is so good.” She forked another bite into her mouth.

Kimber felt Duncan tense up. “Who brought that?” he asked.

She wasn’t too thrilled, either. At least one more person possibly knew that there were humans in Duncan’s rooms.

Natalie gave a nonchalant wave. “That cutie patootie Atticus,” she said around the food in her mouth. “He said not to worry, that he told the chef it was for Maddalene’s attendants. Nobody ever questions a request from the queen, apparently.” Her eyes widened. “Man, that Atticus is something else. Talk about gorgeous.” She fanned herself with her hand. “He’s an eyegasm for sure.”

Aodhán grunted. “He’s also a bloodsucker. He’s probably just trying to fatten you up, did you ever think about that?” When she gave him a one-fingered salute, he turned his attention back to Duncan. “Who doesn’t what?” he asked again.

“You don’t have to explain yourself,” Kimber responded, more for Duncan than for Aodhán. She scurried around her back-to-being-a-pain-in-the-ass vampire and went to stand next to Aodhán.

The fey warrior scowled and rose to his feet. “Explain myself about what?”

Duncan folded his arms across his chest, his entire stance aggressive. “Maddalene told me I should ask you how she feels about men betraying her. What do you have to say about that?”

“Duncan, don’t be such a—” Kimber began.

“Look at his face,” he interrupted.

She glanced at Aodhán. Color rode high on his cheekbones and he wouldn’t meet Duncan’s eyes. “Aodhán?” she asked, turning to fully face him. “Are you…” She swallowed. “God, are you involved with Maddalene?”

His fierce gaze shot to her. “Hell, no.” He drew in a deep breath and blew it out on a sigh. “Not anymore.”

“When exactly were you involved with Maddalene?” Duncan’s terse voice radiated anger. “And why am I just hearing about it?”

“It was a long time ago, before you ever met her. Before Eduardo even.”

“But she and Eduardo were together for almost three hundred years.” Duncan let out a low whistle.

Aodhán dipped his head just a little, as if he was ashamed. “It was five hundred years ago, give or take a few years.”

Duncan raised an arrogant brow. “It must have been something if she’s still mad about it.”

“Are you kidding?” Aodhán’s lips thinned. “She holds onto grudges better than a sponge holds water.”

“Maybe somebody should just squeeze her,” Kimber muttered. “I know I’d like to pop her head like a pimple.” She wondered for a fleeting moment if Duncan had ever been Maddalene’s boy toy then pushed the thought away. It didn’t matter. She knew he wasn’t now. He wouldn’t take her to bed if he was shtupping the queen. He was more honorable than that.