Alone (6 page)

Again that night I just about crashed face-first on my bed, exhausted but starting to feel like myself. Susan and I had actually gotten most of my office back to the way it had once been—but better—and most of my life put back together.

The next morning, I woke, starting to feel sore and worn down again, not much of a fan of that. At. All. I walked into the kitchen to make coffee, smiling when I saw it raining. It had been a pretty hot summer already and Omaha could use the weather. I opened the sliding glass door and smelled the air, loving the scent of rain.

Then I let out the most girlish screech when I saw someone sitting on my lawn chair. “Conall?”

“I’m sorry, I did not mean to frighten you,” he whispered, staring out into the woods. I studied him closely and realized he was
sopping.

“Have you been sitting out here all night?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

He turned and looked at me then and I saw the pain deep in his eyes. “I am not welcome inside. Because of what I have done, all the grief I have caused you, I am not welcome in the one place I have truly felt at home in so long.” I didn’t know what to say to that, so taken aback by the bluntness and emotion of his words. I didn’t think he’d ever been so open with me before. “Do you know what I wanted more than anything the first time I saw you?”

“My blood?”

“No, more than that.”

“No.”

“To kiss you. You were so beautiful. I’ve been sitting here wondering if I think you are more beautiful now or then when you were heavier. I am not normally drawn to heavier women, but the extra weight on you simply made you more voluptuous with extra curves. But I think it’s that you are more beautiful now because
you
are happier with the way you look. I can see it in how you stand. It’s in your presence.”

“Conall, come inside. You’ve got to be—”

“Did I force myself into your bed?” he interrupted, still staring at me. “I never asked you that again after you hit your head. I realize now that I’m being honest with myself it’s because I was afraid of the answer. Did I scare you so badly that I forced you to share your bed with a man you did not want to?”

“No, that’s not what happened,” I sighed, waving him into the house.

“You don’t want me in there. I frighten you.”

“Not like this you don’t,” I promised him. “If you listen to me and don’t shut out what I say and what I want, then you don’t scare me.”

“Okay.” He stood and there was a loud
squish
with each step he took. I rolled my eyes.

“Strip. I’ll get you a towel.” I hurried to the master bathroom and got him one of the big ones. When I got back to the kitchen, I realized he’d taken me quite literally. I’d only meant down to the boxer briefs. Oh no, Conall stood on the doorway to my porch naked as the day he was born, and wow, was that a sight to behold, all wet and just—
wow
.

I cleared my throat and looked away as I handed him the towel.

“You’re blushing,” he whispered as he took it from me, his fingers brushing mine. “You are attracted to me.”

“You being attractive was never the problem, Conall,” I chuckled, rubbing my hands down my shorts to dry them off.

“My being a bastard was?”

“You weren’t a bastard,” I sighed, moving over to the coffee and fixing it up the way I liked it. “You were overbearing. You didn’t listen to me. You were too much too fast. You did things your way and that wasn’t help.”

“Like firing all your people and hiring people you never would.”

“Yes.”

“Was yesterday better?” he asked, moving closer, his body near enough that I could feel the heat from it.

“Yes,” I answered, my heart rate picking up.

“Did you ever want me in your bed?”

“I wouldn’t have asked for it, but I didn’t say
no
,” I admitted, not sure that was a real answer, but it was the best I had for him. “You were too pushy off the bat for me, like I didn’t have the option to say
no
and I don’t like that. I don’t like feeling as if I’m backed into a corner.”

“What if I had asked if I could kiss you that night? Would things have been different?”

“I don’t know, Conall,” I sighed as I turned around, trying to stay calm as his naked chest brushed against my breasts in nothing but my night shirt, getting them wet.

“And if I asked to kiss you now? Would you?”

“I would want to but I wouldn’t,” I whispered, looking away.

“Why not, Nina?” I could hear the hurt in his voice and that was my answer.

“Because it wouldn’t be
just
a kiss. There’s always more to it with you. Everything is loaded. I feel like there’s some hidden meaning. If I kiss you, then I’m on the hook for more, and I wouldn’t know what that something else
is
and that’s not fair to me.”

He searched my eyes for a moment before he nodded. “I have given you that impression, that is fair and I can see that now. What if I swear that all I am asking for is just a kiss? After that I will grab some clothes and leave and I will still arrange to get the rest of my belongings at a later date like we originally discussed. That is all unless
you
decide you want more.”

“Conall, you just sat out on my porch all night and told me this is the place you felt most at home. It’s still not
just
a kiss,” I whimpered.

He smiled at me, taking my coffee from me and setting it down on the counter before slowly tracing his fingers down my cheek. “You have such a kind heart. All I have done to you and yet here you are worried about me and my feelings. What do you want?”

“I want to go back to those first few days when I liked you being here, even though I hated having Tim around, when I felt I could talk to you and you listened to me,” I admitted for the first time,
really
being honest with him. “I lied, I was writing then and I was writing like a demon, and I liked you in my bed, wanting to open myself up to you, trust you, but I was nervous because you were going too fast and taking over too much without asking me anything.”

“What cha—I bit you in front of people,” he whispered in horror, closing his eyes. “And then I scared you and yelled at you, changed your office. That was the beginning of the end, wasn’t it? I just kept making things worse, didn’t I?”

“Yes. Every time I tried to talk to you, you treated me as if you were you dealing with a child throwing a fit so I just stopped trying. I stopped writing and it got worse and worse.”

He lowered his forehead to mine and sighed. “Oh, Nina. I am
so sorry
. I kept trying and
trying
to fix the mistake I made, making up to you for touching your office but all I did was make the mistake worse. I didn’t see. I thought if I hired you a better, more expensive web designer or editor, or graphic designer, you’d see how much you meant to me, how much I valued your work, supported you in every way.”

“Your plan backfired big time,” I chuckled, hugging him. “You got
so
angry with me, and that first night we met, you made it clear I really couldn’t say
no,
and at first, you made it sound like a joke but then after that it didn’t seem like a joke. And then Tim was such a snake I thought you had to know and didn’t care.”

“I didn’t know. I knew he skirted the line for me sometimes, but no, I had no idea how unscrupulous he was. I would never have allowed someone like that around someone as special as you.”

“Okay,” I whispered after a moment.

He flinched before slowly pulling away. “Okay what?”

“Okay, you can kiss me, but it’s
just
a kiss.”

“Then I better make it good,” he muttered and swallowed loudly. His lips brushed mine before he pressed ours together and then he slowly, delicately almost, pushed his tongue into my mouth. I moaned as his tongue carefully traced the inside of my mouth, but not in the sloppy way, as if he wanted to memorize every inch of me like he was never going to forget that moment. He finished the kiss with just the right amount of teeth, a slight pull on my lower lip as he moved away.

I was panting when he did, and Conall was hard as a rock behind the towel.

He swallowed loudly as he stared into my eyes. “I promised to go.”

“Yes, you did,” I agreed, testing him. He took a step back, nodding, and then another, bumping into the counter. He shook his head, looking like an adorable goof and almost tripping over the kitchen stool as he walked out of the room, glancing back at me as he did, like he was hoping I’d say something or change my mind.

Of
course
I did after a kiss like that. I just wasn’t saying anything yet.

I closed the porch door and headed to my bedroom. I didn’t need my kitchen flooded after all, and for once, no one was coming over—it was Saturday.

Conall was in the closet when I got there, picking out a shirt. I pulled off my own and pushed down my shorts before sitting on the bed. He heard it creak and glanced over at me, his eyes going wide as he dropped the hanger.

“Wh-what are you d-doing?”

“Going back to bed,” I answered, my voice going deep as I scooted back. “I remembered it’s Saturday. There’s no real reason to get up yet.”

“You’re naked though.”

“I am.”

“Nina, are you still making me leave?” he whimpered.

“Are you
asking
to stay this time?” I asked firmly, making it clear how he should play this.

He stepped closer to me, nodding. “Nina, oh my lovely,
lovely
Nina. Could I please, please,
please
stay and enjoy your wondrous hospitality and beautiful body?”

“If you swear to me you won’t ever, not
ever,
revert to the Conall that doesn’t listen to me again. You will
always
check with me before making decisions that affect both of us, and we will be
partners
, a team from here on out.”

“I swear to you on all that is holy, unholy, and everything in between,” he promised, making the sign of the cross and then kissing his fingers as he got into bed.

That had to break a few commandments at least.

“Then yes, Conall Brightmore, please stay and join me in bed.”

“You are a
goddess
,” he growled, diving between my legs. He attacked my mouth as he wrapped my thigh over his hips, his dick rubbing me in all the right places. “My human goddess. I have dreamed of you naked under me, my cock deep inside your wetness.”

“Oh the way you Brits talk,” I moaned as his hands fondled my breasts.

“I can do
so
much better if you like,” he promised.

“Please do,” I giggled.

“I’m going to make you scream, my Nina. I’m going to bury myself in your tight—”

“Wait,” I gasped when he went to push inside me. “Can you—”

“I cannot procreate or spread disease,” he answered my unfinished question.

“Then carry on.” I winked at him.

“Gladly,” he growled, biting me as he thrust into me. I screamed as I came so hard I almost passed out. Seconds later he kissed me with his blood on his lips, and I licked it up, feeling the energy and boost from it. It was rejuvenating and exhilarating, sending me into another blissful spiral.

But he was still going strong.

I would have thought my unused and unprepared body would have needed
something
before his very large dick could have entered me and moved so easily without hurting or splitting me in two… But apparently not. Probably another side effect of his miracle blood.

I really, really liked his blood.

“I know you are not mine, but I need one promise from you now that we are intimate,” he pleaded with me as he thrust into me harder and harder.

“What?” I gasped, barely having enough air in between my screams of pleasure to ask.

“No one else may bite you. Only I may taste you, Nina.”

I put my hands on his chest and pushed, not enough to shove him off me but as if hitting the
pause
button. He got the idea and stopped, blinking down at me.

I gaped at him as my chest heaved. “That’s
it
?”

“Yes, that’s all I ask of you.”

“Because I know so many other
vampires
that might want to tap a vein?” I scrunched up my nose and let him see that he was clearly insane.

He rolled his eyes and nodded, understanding my point. “We can smell each other on humans. It’s, how you say, an aphrodisiac. Once you’ve been with one of us, others will want to taste you as well like a clout thing that they could steal you from me.”

“Oh, yeah, no other overbearing vampires, I promise. Just you.” He smiled at me and went to lower his head, but I held up my hand. Conall got the idea and nodded. “I have conditions of my own as well.”