A tender bud of female temptation.
With a crook of his finger he had her on her feet and walking toward him. Her eyes were blank of emotion beneath his compulsion, but she readily went to her knees and reached for his belt buckle.
Dara wouldn’t mind. She was too ill to satisfy his needs.
And as long as he remembered to take four or five of the shivering mortals back to satisfy her strange cravings, she would be happy enough.
The female wrapped her lips around his aching cock and Gaius allowed the nagging sense of . . . wrongness . . . to melt away.
Chapter 18
The Ozark Mountains
Nefri perched on the edge of the bed with Santiago seated directly behind her, his legs bracketing hers as he ran a brush through the thick strands of her damp hair.
It was the sort of casually intimate moment that most lovers shared.
Except for her.
She never indulged in love play. It made her feel exposed. Even more exposed than the actual act of sex. After all, sex was a primitive need that could be shared between complete strangers.
This . . . this was true intimacy. It took a level of faith she was never comfortable offering.
Until tonight.
After hours of pleasure, she’d fallen asleep wrapped in Santiago’s arms, only to awaken to his wicked kisses stirring the hunger she had thought sated for the next century.
It wasn’t until she could sense the sun setting that they’d at last made it to the long overdue shower.
Now they were forced to wait for Baine to either reveal his secrets or tell them to go.
Something that should be making Santiago nuts. He wasn’t a patient sort of vampire (understatement of the century). He should be snorting and fuming and threatening to castrate Baine for forcing him to sit around and wait for the dragon’s decision.
Instead he calmly ran the brush through her hair, his prolonged silence as uncharacteristic as his lack of irritation.
“You seem . . .” She searched for a word that wouldn’t rub against his pride. Men were so sensitive. “Pensive.”
She felt him shrug. “I’m a pensive kind of guy.”
She made a sound of disbelief. “You’re the least pensive man I know.”
“I’m not sure if I’ve been insulted or not.”
“No. I like your ability to listen to your instincts.” She shifted so she could study his guarded expression. He was dressed in a gray sweatshirt and jeans that had magically appeared in the armoire along with jeans and a lovely peach cashmere sweater for her. His hair had already been brushed and braided, emphasizing the sharp angles and planes of his achingly handsome face. “And your heart.”
“Like, hmmm?” He smiled with decadent promise, the tips of his fangs visible. “How much do you like me?”
A shiver inched down her spine. Her instant reaction was downright indecent.
“Well enough.”
The dark eyes smoldered with a rising heat. “I think I can make you like me better than well enough.” His head dipped downward, nuzzling at the sensitive spot at the base of her throat.
Her hands lifted to press at his shoulders. She had to stop him now or she’d be lost. “Santiago?”
“Yes?”
“What were you thinking about?”
The tip of one fang scraped down the line of her collarbone. “You want to discuss it now?”
Of course she didn’t. She wanted to close her eyes and drown in the melting heat. But if she allowed herself to be distracted, she knew she’d never discover what was troubling him. “Yes.”
He reluctantly pulled back, regarding her with a brooding gaze. “Why did you leave last time without even saying good-bye?”
Nefri froze. Oh . . . lord. That wasn’t what she’d been expecting. If she had, she certainly wouldn’t have pressed him.
Now she turned to stare blindly at the hand-carved dressing table that had been a gift from a grateful Persian king. Or at least the illusion of her table. Anything to avoid his unwavering gaze.
“Because I was afraid if I saw you again I wouldn’t have the courage to leave,” she said, her voice so low only a vampire could have picked up her words.
“And that would have been a bad thing?”
“My people needed their clan chief.”
“And what about what I needed, cara?”
She clenched her hands. Okay, she hadn’t told him the full truth.
A part of her had fled because it was safer to scurry back behind the Veil and forget about the vampire that made her feel as vulnerable as a foundling.
But, she truly had needed to return to her people.
They’d been deeply disturbed to realize that Gaius was a traitor who had taken advantage of their secluded clan to acquire the skills to assist the Dark Lord in ripping apart the barriers between worlds.
“What do you want from me?” she demanded.
“Everything.”
She frowned. Did he expect her to turn her back on her people? To walk away from her responsibilities?