Part 10 (2/2)

”I'm trying to protect you. That's all I'm trying to do.”

”And I'm... so grateful” She was only a few feet from the door. He was still by the bed. She was going to lunge fast to get past him.

He lowered his head, sighed, and let her see her chance while he wasn't looking at her. She ran for the door, but he moved, too, a burst of speed so fast that she collided with his chest.

”What? How did you...?” He put his hands on her shoulders, steadying her and also preventing her from backing away. Her mind was reeling, telling her there was no way he could be there.

He hadn't moved.

”Everything I magnified in my kind, Mary. Speed and agility, physical strength and stamina, and all the senses.

She shook her head firmly. ”No. I don't believe it. I won't believe it.”

”What's the alternative, Mary? That I'm insane? Some kind of deluded madman? Have I done anything up to now to make you question my sanity?”

”Please, let me go. Just let me go, Michael.”

Sighing, his heart breaking, he closed his eyes. ”I can't let you go. It's the full moon. He's out there.”

Great, she thought, so now she had to choose between taking her chances with maniac or facing a killer. Unless...

”Don't. Don't even think it. You know I'm not a murderer.”

”How? How could I possibly know that, Michael?” She was s.h.i.+vering now. The fear in her eyes, the hurt an confusion he felt beaming from them, was so real. And so was the caring. She felt so much for him-he could see it clearly in her eyes, in her mind. She didn't know why or how, but he cared about him. Deeply. Even now, after what he had confessed.

”I know,” he whispered. ”I know, Mary It's the same for me.”

She lowered her head. ”Stop invading my mind!”

”Shhhh.” His hand cupped her cheek, turned her face up to his, and kissed her.

His mouth covered hers, moving, caressing with his lips.

Heat pooled in his groin when her arms slid around his neck. He wrapped his around her waist, pulling her tight against his body, and his tongue parted her lips and explored her mouth. She tasted so good. His hips moved against her, and hers moved in reply. He burned for her, and though it made no sense to her, she wasn't even bothering to deny that she burned for him as well. She wanted him, and she didn't care what he was. His heart soared with that knowledge.

His hands cupped her b.u.t.tocks, holding her even closer. Then he slid one hand up her back, beneath the blouse she wore, skimming her back. No bra strap blocked its path-she wasn't wearing one.

He pushed her legs with his own walking her backward until she hit the bed. He lowered her onto it, breaking the kiss while his hands pushed her blouse up over her head and flung it aside. The laptop slipped off the other side, hitting the floor, and he didn't even look up. His attention was on her breast He bent to nurse at one and used his fingers to attend to the other. She lay there, writhing in response this sucking, the gentle nips and pinches that he made steadily less playful, steadily more forceful. She was moving her head now, from side to side on the mattress. Her body was hot, on fire.

He caught her hands in his, then lifted his head away, pressing her hands to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, guiding her fingers to her own nipples, and pressing tighter and tighter until she whimpered. Then he slid lower, his mouth working it's way over her waist and belly, this tongue dipping into her navel. He unfastened her jeans and tugged the off. Then he pulled off her panties, as well; his hands parted her thighs, and he kissed her there.

”Michael,” she whispered.

”Shhh. Let me make you scream.” He pressed her wide open with his thumbs and kissed her again. And then his tongue slider her, teasingly, easily, before finally driving inside. He ravaged her with his mouth, tongue, teeth, driving her to the edge of ecstasy-an then he rose up over her again, naked, though she had no memory of him undressing, and he lowered himself atop her while his hands guided her knees apart.

He slid into her, and a shudder moved through her from head to toe.

She locked her legs around his hips, arms around his shoulders. Her hands ran over his back, and he s.h.i.+vered at her touch. She was beautiful, and wonderful, and she was his. A fierce sense of possession overwhelmed him as he drove her higher. Her nails sank into his flesh as if se would never let him get up. She wanted him, all of him, something more than this physical joining. She told him so with her mind, with her body.

It was a primal need, one that was foreign to her. She could no more identify it than prevent the flood of her climax from was.h.i.+ng over her. He could identify it though. He knew what she wanted. It was the same primal instinctive urge that made her arch beneath him, tip her chin straight up and press his head to her throat. And he answered, parting his mouth over the skin there, biting down.

The stab of pain was brief, the ecstasy that followed blinding both of them as he tasted her life and her essence, taking it into him, making them one.

When her mind returned from the stratosphere and her body finally stopped shuddering with aftershocks, Mary found herself lying naked in Michael's bed, held in his arms, her head pillowed by his shoulder and chest, while one of his hands rubbed lazy circles over her back. Gradually she realized he was speaking to her, his voice soft and somewhat coa.r.s.e.

”I'll never hurt you No one else will, either, I promise you that. I'll die before I'll let anyone harm you. Know that, Mary. You have to know that.”

She blinked slowly out of her state of bliss and careful stock. She was in bed with Michael. He had just confessed to being a vampire, a theory that both the investigation agency and the local cop had apparently found to be perfectly believable.

He could move so fast that her eyes couldn't follow the progress. He could read her mind. And she thought he might have bitten her neck.

Frowning, she lift a hand to touch her neck. She felt two tender spots in her skin.

Was it possible, she wondered, that she had just had s.e.x with a vampire? Did she even care? She loved this man. He was still talking, rubbing her and whispering a.s.surances of his devotion. ”I knew the blood, the antigen, connected us, but it's more than that. I swear it's more than that. I've never felt this drawn to anyone. Not ever. Belladonna antigen or not.”

She blinked and lifted her head. ”Michael, explain to me how this... this antigen connects me to you.”

He met her eyes, his own seeming disappointed. And no wonder. She hadn't exactly responded to his pillow talk in kind. And he must be honoring her request that he stop reading her thoughts again, or he would have known what she was thinking. It was odd, but she was getting to the point where she could sense him when he was probing around inside her mind; it was almost visceral. But she didn't feel it then.

”Every vampire was once a mortal with the belladonna antigen,” he told her.

She frowned. ”So a person without the antigen...?”

”Can never become a vampire. Those with it have the choice. I was given that choice as I lay dying in a hospital bed, riddled with bullets, all those years ago. I chose life.”

'And... how does one become a vampire?”

He stroked her hair away from her face. ”Another vampire has to transform you.

He would first drain the blood, and then-”

”Drain the blood,” she repeated, going cold all over.

”It isn't as frightening as it sounds.”

”Perhaps not, but it was exactly the way the other women, all of whom shared the antigen, had been killed. By being drained of their blood. G.o.d, she felt as if she were being torn in half. How could she be so in love with him and yet so afraid of him? His power made him dangerous. But not to her. G.o.d, he could never be a danger to her.

”You shouldn't think about that, Mary. It's not something you need to even consider. Not now. You're strong, healthy. You will be for a long time yet.”

”I hope you're right about that.”

”I intend to make sure of it. It's the first night of the full moon,” he told her. ”And I plan to hold you close in my arms, safe and protected, until sunrise.”

There was nothing she could do-and nothing she wanted to do more than spend the night in his arms. Her questions could wait.

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