Me.
I could tell by the way his gaze kept straying to my legs, my breasts, and my neck that he did still want me. He always had. No matter how long we'd been apart, how we'd fought, what he'd done, what I had, that one thing never changed.
He'd fight making me like him; he might even win. That he'd been able to push the dark side of himself back as far as he had, that he hadn't killed anyone in the month he'd been free, revealed how strong he was.
To do this, I'd have to slip beneath his defenses and seduce him—mind, body, and what was left of his soul.
I slid in close, brushing my unbound breasts against his bare chest, just a little, as if "oops!" it were an accident, and Jimmy tightened his lips, closed his eyes, his face going as taut as his body.
For a vampire, sex and violence, blood and lust, were all rolled together. Get him to lose control in one way, he'd be powerless to exert control in another. In the throes of passion, in the midst of an orgasm, he'd bite me. He'd done it before.
Guilt flickered, and again I shoved it away.
"I've been so worried." My free hand trailed up his forearm; I leaned in and let my breath trickle over his collarbone. Gooseflesh rose across his shoulder, and I licked him, then grazed him with my teeth.
"Lizzy, stop." He grabbed my shoulders and held me away, but he couldn't keep his gaze from drifting lower, catching on where my nipples must be thrusting at the thin, overwashed material of the shirt. Begging to be touched, calling out for one man to do the touching.
"Please," he whispered. "Don't make me."
Then, as if he were hypnotized, his hands slid down my arms, scooped inward and cupped me, lifting, kneading, thumbs rolling over the turgid peaks.
My head fell back as I offered my neck, my blood, myself. He buried his face in the soft mounds, his lips closing over me, taking cotton and flesh within. The heat, the pressure was both pleasure and pain. My hands tangled in his hair, holding him closer, urging him on.
I needed to feel his skin against mine, so I snatched the hem of the shirt, tugging it upward. The material got caught on his face; he released me as I whipped the shirt away.
But that tiny instant was my mistake. As soon as his mouth left me, sanity returned, and he stepped back.
"No," he muttered. "We can't."
"Since when?" I followed him. "This has always been the one thing we could do. Very well."
"I'll lose control—"
I snatched his hand and brought it to my lips, pressing a kiss to his palm, flicking my tongue across the center, then grazing the wrist with my teeth as I pressed my bare belly to his erection. "I like it when you do."
He tore away and crossed to the other side of the room, staring at the door as if he were trying to figure out how to break free. "What are you doing, Lizzy?"
He was too smart by half and far too strong-willed. But I couldn't give up now.
"I'll make you feel better."
"I'll make you feel dead," he muttered.
"You can't hurt me, Jimmy. Come on." I lowered my voice. "You know you want to."
"I've done nothing but hurt you," he said, eyes wide, voice desperate. "I—I slept with Summer on purpose. I knew you'd see."
"And I know you were ordered to do it."
He went very still. "Who told you that?"
He wouldn't remember I'd walked through his dreams. Dream walking was like that. The victim might think they'd dreamed of you, but they wouldn't remember when or what or why.
However, Jimmy was a dream walker, too, and he understood what those wisps of memory meant. Comprehension bloomed across his face, and he cursed. "You saw it in my head. Along with where I was."
I shrugged. What could I say?
"You walked on the brink of death just to find me?"
"You needed me," I lied. What was one more in a long, unholy line of them?
"Oh, baby, no," he whispered, and I nearly caved and ran away.
But I had nowhere to go, no way to leave, so I stayed and I lied a little more.
"I'll be with you all night. I'm the only one who can." That was true enough. "If you fight the bloodlust under the full moon and you win, maybe it'll be gone forever."
He tilted his head. "Is that possible?"
Doubtful, I thought.
"Anything's possible," I said.
God, I was such a Judas.
Jimmy sighed. "You forgive me for Summer?"
"There's nothing to forgive." Considering what I was about to do, the betrayal with Summer had been child's play. Literally. "You did it for me, Jimmy. That only makes you more of a hero in my eyes."
"Shit." he muttered. "And Manhattan? When I made you my slave? When I kept you prisoner and drank from you until you nearly died? Was I a hero then?"
"You were as much a victim as I was. The strega was at fault, not you."