“I banish you from my soul, my body and mind.”
I wanted another stroke like that so bad, I’d have said just about anything. So I repeated his words and was again rewarded.
“Give me protection; give me peace.”
I asked for the same, though I had little hope of actually getting it. I thought that was the end and lifted my hips, drawing him ever deeper. Jimmy cursed.
“Hold on. One. More. Thing.” Sweat dripped from his forehead onto mine. “Ci è niente che possiate fare che mi renderà l’arresto che lo ama.”
“Latin?” I asked. “Since when—?”
“Just say it,” he managed between clenched teeth. “Hurry.”
The orgasm rolled between us like a thunderstorm across the horizon. He tried to stop it, but it was too late. I felt him pulse, and I tightened around him. As the winds broke over us, I whispered: “Ci è niente che possiate fare che mi renderà l’arresto che lo ama.”
The last word left my lips, and the candles died with an audible puff. Silence fell like a cool dark sea. We were both damp with sweat—the scent salty yet somehow sweet.
“Is that good?” I asked. “Or bad.”
He rolled to the side, keeping hold of my hand as he always used to, and we both stared at the ceiling where the light of the moon now flickered and danced all alone.
“I don’t know,” he said.
Jimmy turned his head; I turned mine. Our noses brushed, and I was nearly overcome with the urge to kiss him and not stop kissing him until we made love for real, though what had just happened had felt more real than anything had for a long, long time.
“The only way to know if the spell worked is to take off—” With one finger, Jimmy traced my neck just above the collar.
The urge to kiss him, the warm, fuzzy, maybe-he-still-loves-me feeling vanished in a wash of cold sweat.
“You want to go first?” he asked.
“Why don’t we take them off together?”
“No,” he said quickly. “If the spell didn’t work, one of us has to stay sane enough to wrestle the control back on.”
I swallowed, discovered I suddenly couldn’t talk, and settled for a nod.
Jimmy sat up. “You first or me?”
I sat up, too. The moon cast just enough light to see the glow of his eyes but only the shadow of the rest of him.
I held out a hand. “Two out of three? Rock, paper, scissors?”
“Sure.”
We began to count—one, two—swinging our fists up and down.
“Wait!” Jimmy stopped mid-three and so did I. “Does the winner go first or does the loser?”
That was a toughie. Being the first to know you were free—partially—of a bloodsucking evil thing was good. Then again, being the first to go bugfuck and try to kill the other, only to be forcibly latched back in to an embarrassing, bespelled control, was bad.
“I can’t decide,” I admitted.
“Okay.” Jimmy bit his lip for a second, scowling—a little boy faced with an impossible problem—then shrugged. “Winner should always go first.”
“Works for me.” This was basically the toss of a coin. Fate would decide. Or God, depending on what you believed. Either way, it was out of my hands.
We played the game as we had when children—fast and furious, no time to think, to reason, to plan a strategy.
One, two, three—I won. One, two, three—he did. One, two, three—
Jimmy’s eyes met mine, and his lips quirked. “Congratulations.”
“Ass,” I muttered.
“Sticks and stones,” he returned. “You still have to go first.”
“Fine.” I tugged on the catch. After a minor struggle—for obvious reasons the thing wasn’t easy to remove—the collar loosened and tumbled free.
I watched it fall to the bed, the paste jewels catching the moonlight and turning every color of night. The control bounced on the mattress and lay still.
I waited for the change to rush over me.
CHAPTER 28
“Wanna tear out my throat?” Jimmy asked. “Bathe in the blood? Drink me so dry I blow away on the next stiff breeze?”
“Not right now,” I said. “Maybe later.”
He reached for his cock ring.
“Hold on.”
“You wanna do it?” He lay back on the bed, putting his arms behind his head. “Be my guest.”
“Don’t screw with me now, Sanducci. I am in no mood.”
He sighed and sat up. “Figures.”
“Shhh.” I tilted my head, listening, waiting for the voice of evil to whisper . . . something. I didn’t think it was there, yet still I . . . “Sense it,” I said.
Jimmy’s temporary lightness fled. “We’ll never be free of the vampire, Lizzy. I told you that when you insisted on becoming one. We can put it beneath the moon”—he met my gaze, holding it—“but you know what that means.”
“We’ll be even more bloodthirsty on that single night.” If such a thing were possible. “I wish there were a way to know for sure.”