Wings of Fire (21 page)

He was afraid his words would be offensive to her, but she nodded. She leaned forward and stroked a hand along his back so that her fingers rippled over his scars. “Fiona has suffered more than I ever did,” she murmured. “Like I said, I had three months of being struck by cotton balls and all the while she was a D and R slave.”

He nodded. She didn’t seem quite so distressed.

“Thank you for not coddling me,” she said. “I don’t want to be coddled. I know I’m not strong like you, but I’m trying. I want to be stronger, Antony, I really do. I want to be of use, but I also know it’s going to take some time for me to adjust to everything.” She slid her hand over his shoulder and down his arm, all the way down. He shivered.

She turned his wrist to face her. “This freaked me out at dinner. This is what set me off.”

He leaned forward. “Damn, I’m so sorry but I thought you enjoyed it. In fact—”

“I did,” she cried. “I loved … taking your blood.” Color flooded her cheeks. Was she going to start weeping? “I don’t know if I can explain it but it just became so real while I was sitting next to you that I’d entered the world of the vampire. I guess I felt claustrophobic.”

At that he smiled. “In a building with ceilings fifty feet high, you felt claustrophobic?”

She squeezed his arm. “Yeah. I did.” Then she laughed, a long trill that warmed his heart. Afterward, she leaned forward and rested her head on his forearm.

He shifted slightly and stroked her lovely dark brown hair. It wasn’t fine but coarse. He’d pulled her onto his lap at the Ambassadors Festival, the night Havily had been abducted by Crace. He’d held her close then. She’d gone through so much during that time without being ascended yet. Then she’d lived for three months as a prisoner. Now she was here, ascended, bearing fangs, confused, distressed.

“I can really see how this must feel like just another prison to you.”

She released a heavy sigh. “Yes, it does, but thank you for understanding or trying to.”

“I do understand and you’re right, I sometimes feel like a prisoner of this war.”

“So what do we do?” She remained leaning on his knee.

He kept stroking her hair. He wanted to hold her, to kiss her, but he also didn’t want to disturb this time with her. “Well, I start training you to do battle, and after that, let’s bring Fiona home. I think that’s our first duty, Fiona and the rest of the D and R slaves.”

She lifted her head and looked up at him as though seeing him for the first time. “It is that simple, isn’t it. We take one step and then another—”

“—and we try not to let the horror catch up with us.”

“That’s it exactly. Yes, I felt exactly like that. I was sitting there and then I realized,
Now I’m a vampire.
It turned me upside down.”

He smiled because he’d just realized something himself. “You turned me upside down. I was going along splendidly, behaving myself, except at the Blood and Bite, of course, and the next thing I knew I was smelling tangerines in my villa. Just out of a shower, still dripping, and there you were. The most beautiful woman in the world standing in my kitchen.”

She smiled. “The most beautiful in the world?”

“Yeah.” His voice had dropped an octave again.

She met his gaze, and something flickered in those amethyst depths. “You dropped your towel.”

He nodded and shrugged. “I dropped my fucking towel. Have I apologized for that?”

“There was never a need for an apology, Antony.” Her voice had gotten very low as well. “I had never seen anything so beautiful. I thought I was looking at a god.”

He leaned close and dragged his lips across the line of her cheekbone. “Do you know what I remember about that day?”

“No, what?”

“I remember that you put your hand to your neck and stroked your skin, right about here.” He used the knuckle of his forefinger to touch her throat. “Do you remember?”

She nodded. “Uh-huh. I do. My vein was throbbing.” She drew back. “Right here, pulsing like it was waiting for you.”

He leaned a little closer lowering his knee so that she was forced to move into him. “Is your vein waiting again?”

He could smell a thick wave of tangerine rise from her body, flowing around him, drifting heavily into his nostrils, his sinuses, his brain. There wasn’t a lot of room to maneuver, sitting the way they were, but he balanced on his hip, slid an arm around her back, and held her in place as he dragged his fangs across her throat.

Here,
he sent directly to her mind.

“Oh, God, yes,” she murmured. He felt her fingers now on his throat. As he drew back, her lips parted and he saw her fangs. Oh, shit, he was so in the wrong position to have his cock start demanding attention.

He rose up on his knees and caught her around the waist with his hands. He drew her close and kissed her. “Will you come to bed with me?”

She nodded, “Uh-huh.” Her lips were still parted, the tips of her fangs calling to him.

He whispered, “My vein throbs for you as well.”

***

Parisa rose to her feet, Antony with her. She dipped down to pick up her shoes. He slid an arm around her shoulders and guided her into the adjacent formal living room, then down the long, long hallway to his master suite. The house smelled sweetly of his rich sage mixed with leather and the musk of his skin.

He didn’t say anything.

The trouble with walking such a great distance was that her mind had time to fill up with images again, but not ones that involved Antony’s throat or her newly created fangs.

Her thoughts started moving around, gnawing on problems she couldn’t solve right now, fretting over just how hard it would be to learn to do battle or to protect herself, worrying about … pregnancy.

She stopped in her tracks and turned to him. “Condoms?” she asked, her cheeks warming.

He nodded, then he smiled. “Come on. We’ll be okay.” He urged her forward with a tug on her arm but she still couldn’t move.

The trouble was—and this was so wrong,—she didn’t want him to use a condom. She wanted to feel him just the way he was, all of him, inside her.

“We don’t get diseases,” he said, “of any kind, in case you were wondering. No herpes or HIV.”

She hadn’t been wondering, but, “Good to know. That means me as well now.” Huh. Yes, there were definite advantages to ascension. She started walking again.

They reached the doors to his bedroom, a beautifully carved double set that had to be at least twelve feet high. He had his hand on the knob when she touched his wrist. “I had my period three days ago.”

She looked up at him, knowing full well that her cheeks were now flaming. Would he take the hint?

But his eyelids dropped a good half inch and a soft growl sounded deep in his throat. “You sure that’s what you want?”

The only thing she was sure of right now was that she just was about to die of embarrassment. She barely knew Antony. They’d only had sex once not counting mutual self-pleasure for three months, and here she was discussing contraceptive methods. And here she was saying she didn’t want a bit of latex to interfere with her pleasure. Oh, God.

She put her hands on her cheeks and squeezed her eyes shut. Okay, maybe she was being childish. She drew back her shoulders and met his gaze. “I want to have sex with you, we’re fairly safe right now, and I don’t want you to wear a condom.” There, she’d been brave and said exactly what she wanted.

He threw the door open, caught her up in his arms, and carried her to the bed, pausing only to kick the door shut. He tossed her on her back at the foot of the bed. Her legs dangled over the edge.

“Now,” he said, dipping down low and planting a hand onto the mattress on either side of her head. “Tell me how you want this. You’ve been through hell. Let’s see if we can make your life a little better.”

She writhed under his gaze, his dark brown eyes glittering in the dim light. The sun was on the wane, but the shutters drawn almost three-quarters created a twilight in his bedroom.

She smiled up at him and slid her hand along the side of his cheekbones. His face was almost sculpted, the bones strong and pronounced. He was so beautiful. She hadn’t been kidding when she said he looked like a god.

“First,” she said, wondering how she’d gone from completely embarrassed to ready to tell him exactly what she wanted and in what order, “I want your clothes off. I want to look at you.”

He smiled then grinned. He pushed away from the bed, drew up to his full height, waved a hand, and that was it, clothes gone.

Oh, yeah … ascension. She sat up and pushed at his abdomen. “Move back,” she commanded. “I want to see you.”

His smile remained. He stepped away from her and moved in a slow circle, his hands spread wide. Her gaze traveled up and down over a hard warrior body. Shivers moved along her shoulders and back, over her legs. He was lean, muscled, with broad shoulders angling to narrow hips and long powerful thighs. He was covered in fine black hair that made the tip of her tongue tingle as certain thoughts drifted through her head.

When he returned to facing her, she dropped her gaze to his cock and to his heavy, rippled sac. Pubic hair covered a good amount of his groin. He was partially thick so that he hung long, broad, and just off to the right … as though with a touch or two, he would spring up, making all sorts of promises.

She had seen him stroke himself through her voyeur’s window. But she wanted to see him do it now in front of her.

“Touch yourself,” she whispered. She still sat on the bed, her feet flat on the floor, her white, flowered dress fanned around her hips.

He smiled, a small crooked smile, and his eyes looked knowing and very dark. He drew close, maybe a foot and a half away. His hand wrapped around his thick stalk and in a slow languorous movement rubbed himself from stem to stern and back.

“Closer.” Again she spoke in a whisper.

He moved to stand just inches away.

She put her fingers on his hand as he pumped. Then she leaned close and kissed the back of his hand. He stopped all movement and, groaning softly, let his hand fall away. Now she was kissing what she had wanted to kiss from the beginning.

She drew back and stared at the beautiful, broad head. She ran her thumb over the tip. He was wet. She leaned forward and licked the tip, the aperture where good things came from. Then she took the head in her mouth and sucked. He almost filled her.

“Oh, my God,” he whispered. As he groaned the room filled with sage. Shivers poured over her shoulders, tightening her breasts and working like fingers down her abdomen and lower.

She planted her hands on his hips and moved in, taking as much of him in her mouth as she could until he hit the back of her throat. With her fingers, she played up and down with what remained outside. When she cupped him low, he hissed and pulled himself out of her mouth.

She looked up at him and smiled.

“It feels too damn good.”

She nodded.

His eyes swam with fire. His fists were clenched at his sides. “What would you like to do next?”

The question felt like chocolate mousse after an already rich meal, decadent, unholy, way-too-much, and yet perfect. She smiled again. A ripple of possibilities sped through her mind. As she picked one idea up and set it aside, then another and another, she stroked his thighs, carefully avoiding his raging erection.

Choices. Choices.

She looked up at him, way up. “Take your
cadroen
off. I want to feel your hair, all of it. I’ve been craving my hands in it more than I can say.”

He lifted his arms, swelling the muscles of his chest and upper arms. Her heart sped up. He
was
a god and right now he was hers as he released the
cadroen
and let his hair spread over his shoulders, down his arms, and down his chest.

She rose to her feet. “Now sit down so I can do this right.”

They traded places as he sat down. She turned into him and moved between his spread legs. He was a banquet, oh such a feast, but first—his warrior hair.

She drifted her fingers from the top of his head all the way down past his shoulders and over his chest. She lifted her hands and thrust her fingers into his hair just below his temples.

She had wanted this from the first time she had voyeured him after a shower. She couldn’t explain how his hair made her feel, but it was as though something essential lived there, a reflection of who he was, certainly of his warrior status.

She took a large portion and wrapped it around her hand. Then she loosed her grip and the strands eased, separated, and flowed over her fingers. He had very fine hair, so different from her own. She grabbed another thick portion, pushed her fingers through, and dragged downward until she hit a snag. She withdrew. She kept tugging, stroking, playing until he groaned and his lips found her in a surprising kiss. She hadn’t realized how close she was.

She opened her mouth to gasp and his tongue filled her. “Oh,” she murmured, leaning against him.

She suckled his tongue and his arms glided around her back, his erection still firm and hard against her abdomen. His hips rocked, and she felt that sturdy length glide up her abdomen. He kept thrusting his tongue and gliding his cock as he pushed the fabric of her dress around.

She drew back. Her lips felt swollen. “I want my dress off.”

He put a hand to her shoulder and folded the dress off. She had a glimpse of the white and splashy flowers appearing on a chair near the blinds.

She smiled. “That’s a great trick.”

His hands were on her shoulders and he pushed away from her. He growled as his gaze drifted over the rest of her clothes, red lace underwire bra, red lace panties, no stockings.

“I’m smelling sage, lots of it,” she whispered.

He made a sound like a grunt and grabbed her around the waist. He rose to his feet and lifted her to kneel on the bed. This put her breasts, in a most fortuitous happenstance, right at mouth level. She giggled. He scooped each breast out of her bra to rest in large mounds on the underwires. She drew back just out of reach of his mouth.

He looked up at her, uncertain, but she shook her head. “I didn’t say you could do that.” But her look dared him and begged him at the same time.