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  He released the hard, flushed tip of her breast from the almost-pinching pleasure of his fingers, and pushed his weight upward, bracing against the couch with his left hand. He practically lunged forward and sucked her nipple into his mouth, tonguing the tip and running circles against the pink paradise of her areola.

  "You fucking feel so good," she whimpered. He was still doing a number between her legs, two points of ecstasy pushing against her desire.

  He put his arms around her waist, and raised his body so they were face to face while she slid back and forth against his length, putting him exactly where she wanted him inside.

  God, she gripped him like a glove. Perfect. Fucking. Fit.

  Perfect fit for fucking.

  Their mouths met and his tongue penetrated in time with his sex, both of them groaning and breathing and grunting. He felt Marley clamp down against his erection, ready to milk him, and fuck yeah, she had it coming. Her climax slammed into her, streaked through her, laid waist to her muscle control.

  Sabian grabbed her hair, pulled her head back, and bit. He didn't think about what he was doing. His fangs and cock invaded with competing needs—one to withdraw and the other to deposit. Marley howled, not in agony or fear, but raw bliss as he took a long, strong pull from her throat.

  The rough sound of her voice and taste of her essence did it. He reared his head back, withdrawing his fangs even as he grabbed both of her hips, shoving himself up while pulling her down against him, fusing their bodies together. His hips bucked upward six or seven times as he covered her insides with a hundred years of yearning.

  She fell forward against him, thermal shirt still pushed up so her warm softness cushioned against his chest. She convulsed tiny flesh-quakes, and he laughed softly into her neck. After a moment, Sabian savored the silence under the blanket of her long hair.

  Marley became perfectly still. She didn’t even seem to be breathing. No, did he take too much?

  "I love you," she whispered. The words hung in the air like dust particles made manifest by a ray of sunlight—they just swirled around and danced with no agenda, performing for a still but ecstatic Sabian.

  He rolled so she was on her back, and he on his side, looking at her. Sabian was more than content to be crowded on the small couch.

  She turned her eyes to his, and said in a voice full of wonder, "Sabian, what…are those tears?" She wiped something from his cheek, looking at the red stain on her fingertips.

  "Just a little moved at what you said," he answered, putting her fingers to his lips.

  "Oh."

  He could push the issue, wanted to so badly. He wanted to bite tiny, bloody wounds, and lick them clean while she told him she loved him over and over. But he could feel her embarrassment. Maybe it had just been poor impulse control, and that was okay with him. She would love him if she didn't now. She had no choice in the matter, in fact.

  He nestled close to her, tightening his hold around her body. He was full-blown anesthetized, this time with Marley’s blood, and even though he was flying high, he was sated enough to do what needed to be done.

  "Well, are you ready? Because I absolutely, without a doubt love you." He looked directly at her with his literally bloodshot eyes.

  "Ready for what?"

  He didn’t answer her. Instead Sabian leaned in to lick and heal the wound he’d opened. He didn’t need to explain. She belonged to him. Hadn’t she just proven that? He could do whatever he wanted with her, and what could she do?

  This was it. He would do it, now, tonight. He just needed to know she was ready so she wouldn't struggle—that might arouse a more…demonic means of Embrace.

  "Can I have minute to clean up?" she asked with hesitation clear in her voice.

  "Alright," he said. He could use a moment to regain his own composure. Hard to Embrace the woman you love with no pants on. Lacked a certain degree of dignity.

  Marley grabbed a throw blanket that was draped over the couch, and got up to walk to the bathroom. Sabian rearranged his clothes, buckling and straightening when he heard Marley scream from behind the bathroom door.

  He shot across the room and opened the door to find her staring in horror at a river of red dripping down her legs. She turned her eyes to him. "What’s happening?"

  "Oh, it’s okay, Marley love, you’re okay. That blood came from me, not you."

  Her voice was weak as she looked between her legs again. "So it’s your blood?"

  "No, not exactly."

  "Mine?"

  "No…not yet."

  As understanding came, Marley’s look of desperate confusion morphed into rampant horror.

  In a rush, he started to explain. "When I left, I had to feed."

  Her eyes opened wider in shock, followed swiftly by disgust. Did he smell jealousy coming off her skin? It was a distinct scent, and the thought cheered him, even though this was bad.

  "I only did it to protect you. You overwhelm me. I couldn’t deal with my thirst, and I wanted you so bad—to be inside you. I could feel emotion taking me places unsafe for you, so I fed. I had to."

  "But I thought you drank my blood before you left!"

  "I did, but not enough. I didn’t want to hurt you, so I left. I needed…more." He hated the desperation in his voice and knew this wasn’t the time to tell her what might have happened if he'd indulged while she was entranced.

  "So whose blood is it?"

  "Marley, don’t."

  "Whose blood?" she demanded. "Oh my God, Sabian, are you serious? You’re telling me you fucked me, and then came someone else’s blood all up inside me?" Then, after a quick pause, "Oh, no, no, no. My God, did you kill someone tonight?"

  There she was, standing in the bathroom, her inner thighs the color of raspberry syrup, waiting for him to confirm something she already knew. Of course had. He was a killer.

  Her surprise flipped his drugged consciousness into a sort of resigned state of annoyance. The shock of blood gushing out of her vagina—that kind of surprise he could allow for—but did she honestly mean to keep looking right through what her physiology told her from the moment they'd met on the trail?

  "Marley, don’t do this." He walked back to the couch, weary as he plopped down. He leaned his weight forward so his elbows rested on his knees and rubbed his face with his hands.

  She closed the door again. The shower turned on, and for fifteen minutes, he stared at a closed door. When it finally opened, Marley had a towel twisted around her hair and one wrapped around her body. Her eyes were swollen. She must have cried in silence, and another switch was flipped in his mind. Now he felt not annoyance, but heartbreak. His woman, alone, weeping because of him. Not okay.

  Marley didn’t say anything as she went into her bedroom, and shut the door again. This time she came out within five minutes dressed and groomed. She made eye contact immediately, and stood in the threshold of her bedroom door.

  "Could that blood infect me? Did you even think about that?"

  "Yes, of course I thought of that. I’ve thought of nothing but having you safe with me for more than three hundred years. My chemistry purifies any toxicity I take in. I promise you’re safe."

  And on that note, the time had come to turn the words into reality. The only real safety was through the Change. But hell, she was so volatile.

  Marley sat down on the couch. Her wet hair fell around her shoulder in ringlets forming as it dried. He brushed it aside and behind her back so he could see the bite wound. It was healing.

  "And I thought this would be the most damaging thing I’d have to explain tonight." He offered a weak smile, and touched the fading puncture marks. "I couldn’t help myself. You make me crazy."

  Marley looked at him, and he didn’t see stars in her eyes. More like disgust, horror, disappointment.

  "So you were with another woman tonight?"

  And listen to that. Jesus, it was jealousy. He fought to keep the smile from his lips.

  "My love, your heart was pounding in my
ears. I couldn’t stop myself."

  "Fuck you, then."

  "I…why?"

  "You go fuck another woman and tell me it was my fault because of my heart and you couldn’t stop yourself? You’re an asshole."

  "No, Marley, I couldn’t stop myself with you, just now. I wasn’t with her. I only drank, and believe me, there was no comparison."

  Marley rolled her eyes at him. Sabian willed his pit-bull temper down; it was as rare as never that someone in his world called him anything but the title he shunned. He was certainly never called asshole. God, this was his own fault for a thousand reasons, but the worst was the pendulum of drunken reactions. It was hard enough allowing the insult, but what was he supposed to do with the fact that all pissed like this, she was so damned…adorable?

  "I’m saying, Marley, I couldn’t stop myself with you. But that’s okay because I didn’t take it too far this time." His hand had strayed from her neck to her chest, palm covering her heart. His thumb dipped into her cleavage, and he felt her sudden intake of breath. Terrified or not, disgusted or perfectly at ease, she was just as affected by his touch as he was hers.

  "Marley, there’s something I want to do, something I'm going to do. It’s a way to make you mine and kill your worries permanently."

  She looked at him like a person waiting to hear biopsy results. The look was full of anxious expectation, fearing the worst but allowing just a sliver of hope.

  "You scare the living shit out of me," she said.

  Chapter Fourteen

  "Sabian, I need to know. You killed someone tonight?" Marley asked again.

  God, she was determined to know, wasn’t she?

  "Yes." No sense denying it or drawing out the horror any longer. So she knew. So be it. The sooner she understood his nature, what would become her nature when he had his way, the better.

  "My God," she whispered, but her eyes stayed locked on his.

  "I’m a vampire, Marley. We are real. We walk among you every day."

  He expected her to scoot away from him again, or draw back in disgust, but instead, she nestled closer to him. Her emotions were hot and cold, and there rarely seemed to be a transition—they simply froze and melted with no warning. Once again, her neck was within biting distance. He would only have to cock his head to the right a bit, lean in, and take what was his. There was a period of silence between them, she leaning against his chest and shoulder, and he struggling, unbeknownst to Marley, to push his compulsion to shred her skin beneath the surface.

  That was the hardest part. All the love in the world couldn’t extinguish the urge to feed. Period. And for Kindred, those most beloved tasted best, satisfied most completely. Sabian would never not want to tear her apart and lick the fucking carpet if he had to in order to get every last drop. But when he turned her, she’d feel the same for him, and they could make bloody messes of each other until kingdom come.

  Sabian could hear the ticking of the cheap wall clock hanging in the kitchen, and wondered if she registered the fact that she couldn’t hear the beating of his long dead heart, even with her ears so close to his chest.

  "Is something wrong?" Her voice sounded as though she was afraid to hear the answer.

  "Why?"

  "I think….well, I think you stopped breathing. And your body is, well, not relaxed. Did I do something wrong?"

  "Yes."

  She drew a sharp breath, he didn't hear or see, but rather felt her struggle to push the tears that were threatening back down to the deep. She couldn’t really believe she’d transgressed, could she? Two minutes ago he was the asshole, and now she was on the verge of guilty tears?

  Sabian pushed her away from him, and turned her so that she was looking at him. "The only thing you've done wrong is being here with me, too close, too tempting." He felt a tingle in the pit of his stomach. She had to understand, so he commanded her senses and forced this into her brain. "I want inside you again, do you understand me? I need to taste you…every part of you." His eyes slid, full of hunger, across her body. Before he could stop it, a growl erupted from his diaphragm. "God, you have no idea what you do to me."

  Marley stabbed right through to his center with a puppy-dog look that he was helpless against. The vulnerability in her eyes, the desperation to believe what he said. He grabbed her under her jaw with both hands, and kissed her hard, dominated so she was forced to swallow the reality of his need.

  "Understand," said Sabian when he broke the kiss, "it’s been a hundred years I’ve waited. Living in this body, seeing and tasting in shades of grey with no color or flavor, and then you explode back into my world. I can't lose this moment, and the closer you are, the harder it is for me to stay focused. I need to do this and I just don’t know if you are ready." He searched her eyes, still gripping each side of her face in his trembling hands.

  She looked at him for a moment, and then said, "It doesn’t matter what you say or what you do. I’m not sure I have control of myself anymore." She smiled, and placed her hands over his. "But I’m just going to go with the flow. You should try to do the same. Relax a little."

  He dropped their hands. "Do you have any idea what you’re asking?"

  "Yes, I’m asking you to turn the intensity down a smidge. I don’t know if I’m ready for any of this, but do you really want to do a pros-and-cons list right now?"

  "I don’t think you know what it means to ask me to relax."

  "Then by all means, enlighten me."

  The worst part about it was her smile, winning and gut melting, and not in the least aware of what enlightenment meant.

  "If I were to just ‘go with the flow,’ you'd be pale and shriveled in my arms in under ten seconds."

  Now the smile was frozen, plastic.

  Knowing he had her attention now but wishing she didn’t have to be repulsed at the same time, he said, "If it suits you, I’ll hang on to my intensity just a bit longer. Okay?"

  "Will you please just tell me now?" she asked.

  "Tell you what?"

  "Tell me what you did to me." It was spoken softly, and without authority, but it was a command if ever he’d heard one.

  "I didn’t take care of you," he answered after a moment of consideration. He just wasn’t ready to give her the gory details. Hell, he thought. He’d already let the conversation get too far before getting on with what he needed to do. The moment was lost, and he knew it, so Sabian got up and started toward her front door. "I can’t do this. You have no idea what it’s like to…remember."

  Marley looked at him in exasperation. "It doesn’t have to be so hard."

  "I killed you! You trusted me, you died terrified, and I got drunk off your blood. Do you get it now? You died in my arms!" His eyes were glowing, and his fangs shot out before he could regain his composure. "Can you live with that, like I’ve had to? Can you still tell me to relax, that it doesn’t have to be so hard?"

  "I’m sorry."

  He stood a few feet from her, between the couch and the door, and stared hard at her. "You didn’t answer my question."

  "What?"

  "Can you live with that?" Everything depended on what she said right now.

  "What choice do I have? You were right." She heaved a sigh. "I can’t walk away from you." She didn’t look him in the eye, but he could feel the shame of broken promises. Marley was not a woman willing to define herself according to her feelings for a man. But he was no ordinary man, and she’d said what he needed to hear.

  "Then let’s do this and be done with it."

  "Do what?" Then, finally, it was obvious she understood what he meant to do, and her eyes widened in horror.

  "Every day I hesitate is another day something might take you away from me again." He turned his body fully toward hers, no longer stuck between heading out the door and sitting back on the couch next to her. "I’m going to make you safe. You will be mine forever."

  Shaking her head, she said, "You can’t do this. You can’t talk to me this way. I don’t belong to y
ou. Stop." She held out her hand, palm out.

  "Stop?" No, he wouldn't. As he continued toward her, he could see her anger, but it was secondary to her fear. Sabian understood something about Marley: this was a woman who didn’t show, acknowledge, or deal with fear. She was a woman who used anger as a butterfly stitch to hold her fear in, keep it from oozing to the surface.

  "Yes, Sabian." She threw up her hands in the air, frustration coming off her body in a jitterbug. "God, how is it you don’t get it? Stop calling me your property, your woman. I don’t belong to you. I am mine. You can’t do this to me. I’m not yours, get it?"

  Sabian's eyes narrowed, and with the metabolism of her blood well underway, his emotions were difficult to manage. "But you are." It was a statement of inevitability. "Please don’t upset me. I need to be calm for this."

  "And if I say no?"

  "You don’t have to understand or agree to make it so."

  "Don’t mistake passion and curiosity for undying commitment, Sabian."

  "Our commitment has been your death before, and still that commitment remains because I SAY SO!" The volume of his voice was so loud and unexpected Marley jumped. "And believe me, woman, I will bring truth to the undying part, once I change you."

  She shook her head, and said, "No." Now there was no attempt to keep the fear from her voice, and God help him, he was instantly hard at the thought of terror-seasoned blood in her veins.

  "Marley, like it or not, you belong to me. I’ll do everything in my power to do right by you, but I will not abide another conclusion." A fire was burning in his eyes of terrible intensity, and electricity arced at Marley. "Understand me here, right now. You are my woman, have always been mine, and there are ways to make it just as permanent to you as it is to me. I want to give you a choice, but I don’t have to, and the sooner you accept it, the sooner we can move forward."