Bond of Fire (29 page)

She waved hello, pleased she didn’t have to worry about Jean-Marie’s household being disturbed by unfriendly types. She didn’t want to think about her lover living in an armed community centered on Don Rafael’s
comitiva
, a very rare lifestyle in Britain.

Instead she slipped her fingertip between Jean-Marie’s belt and his jeans.

He groaned, his stomach fluttering under her hand. “Are you trying to make us crash?”

She wriggled her hips a little closer in answer.

The bike surged forward in response, swooped down the edge of the street, and up a steep driveway. A garage door popped open, and Jean-Marie brought the bike to a screeching halt inside. A half dozen other motorcycles, some classic but all expensive, formed most of the occupants. The latest Ferrari Gran Turismo sports car crouched in the corner, a wildcat ready to run free, next to the more massive bulk of a Mercedes S500, the fastest armored sedan in the world.

Smoke was still rising from the skid marks when Jean-Marie yanked off his helmet. His eyes were hot and deadly with lust, his mouth tightly controlled.

Her hands were shaking so badly, she could barely find the fastenings to her helmet.

Jean-Marie growled something under his breath in a language she’d never heard before and lunged forward. Within seconds, he’d undone her helmet, clipped it to the bike—and tossed her over his shoulder.

She shrieked in surprise and delight.

He fondled her ass, his thumb unerringly finding the center seam and using it to tease her pussy.

She squirmed.

He repeated the caress, lingering to draw out more of her heated cream over her folds and onto her thighs.

She wriggled again and moaned.

Hard muscle rolled under her stomach, and he kicked open the door toward the house, still stroking her.

Dear God, how could he remember so much of what she enjoyed? The slow glide up the long muscles, while teasing her just a bit? Not to mention the absolutely shameless fondling of her pussy, using the seam to masturbate her with her panties. If she’d known simple pieces of cloth could be used that way—well, she might have come naked to avoid being manipulated. Or maybe not, if she’d known she’d encounter him.

The door banged shut behind them, and soft waves of scent reached out to her—lemon and hibiscus, lavender and rosemary, roses and sage, plus others which were exotic and unfamiliar. Water rippled over stones and dripped into a pond. Small insects and birds sang to each other, while the city’s noises were impossibly distant. Hélène tried to lift her head for a look, but Jean-Marie chose that moment to knead her ass.

She moaned again, her eyes falling shut. Oh, please could he take her quickly before she grabbed him?

He rolled her off his shoulder and into his arms.

She blinked slightly and tried to form a question.

He stretched her out on a great wooden table, silky smooth and sturdy as a stone altar, nestled within a deep colonnade. Large woven chairs, covered by smooth, supple leather, ringed the limestone walls around it. Overhead, a circular, wrought-iron candelabrum hung below heavy wooden beams holding up long wooden twigs.

What a wonderfully private grotto for making love…

Pure anticipation sent fireworks through her veins and put a wicked smile on her face. She wiggled, testing her new throne’s potential.

Jean-Marie’s eyes flared, and he shrugged out of his jacket, then tore at his trousers. She tugged her jacket open and went for her jeans, fumbling at the buttons. Now—she wanted him now.

He yanked them down to her knees, opening her for him and braced his arms on either side of her, caging her. “Mine. You are mine.”

“Always,” she returned, equally fierce, and drew a single nail down his cheek. Crimson dripped in answer, enriching the air with blood’s wonderful salty perfume.

Their mouths mated, sealing their vow, tasting, devouring what they’d lacked so long. His hands slid down her sides, and he lifted her hips, his fingers harsh yet so very perfect. She arched her pelvis forward, begging silently, and his cock kissed her intimately, delved into her, plunged deep. She shrieked her approval and tightened herself intimately around him.

He shuddered like a lost ship finally coming into harbor. His arms tightened around her for a long moment before he started to move, slowly, then faster and faster. She threw herself onto him, seizing him, greedy for every taste, her every fiber needing proof they were finally together again.

Pulses built into waves, surging toward a crescendo. Fire ran through her veins, leapt from her breasts to her womb, tightened her lungs at the touch of his breath. Everything but him was a blur. All she could see, or hear, or feel was him and his desperate hunger.

He shifted slightly, changing her hips’ angle, and tucked her face against the base of his throat. Oh yes, please let her drink from him and taste his magical blood again…

He thrust again—and caught that perfect point.

She cried out and tipped into orgasm. Stars burst over and around her, shot up through her spine.

She bit down hard, cleanly, and found his jugular. His rich, sweet, lifeblood flowed into her—brilliant with joy, salty with long-ago tears, complex as the bright flowers of springtime.

Her body locked, convulsed in ecstasy—and she clawed his back, instinct driving her now. Rapture pounded her, ran caroling through her.

Her mate, hers, at last.

He shouted and arched, twining himself around her to take her neck. His fangs pierced her, quick and sharp, like a stab of pure joy—tossing her higher.

His lips closed over her, joining them perfectly at last in three places. He drank, one pounding beat speeding through them both.

A deep pull of his throat muscles tugged at her, sent his cock deeper into her—and tipped him into climax. He jerked again and again, his seed filling her hotly from within while their blood satisfied every hunger of each other’s body and heart. Flowing like a river of life back and forth between them…

Sunset faded from the night sky, revealing the stars. An owl called from the oak and cedar trees blanketing the hillsides beyond the high limestone walls. Fireflies danced in the night air, and a white-tailed deer delicately drank from water rippling down the hillside through a carved channel.

Jean-Marie’s garden was so cunningly cut into the hilltop with its terraces and staircases, it was difficult to tell whether humans or animals were supposed to frolic amid the masses of native and Mediterranean plants. Flowers and fruit trees scented the courtyards and stairs closest to the house, before yielding to the forests and thickets bordering the canyon and river edging the compound. Every room had windows offering their own unique view.

Like the rest of his house, the bedroom was furnished in an eclectic mix of Old World and New World antiques. The chests had come from Spain and England, while the bed had been built in St. Louis for the riverboat trade. The rugs were Turkish, the coverlet was a flamboyant, handmade star quilt, and most of the paintings were seventeenth-century Flemish. Museum curators had offered him serious money to break up his collection, and he’d laughed. He’d gathered them together for their memories of good friends and—foolishly, he’d once thought—to amuse Hélène.

She rolled onto her back beside him and stretched lazily, clasping his bed’s antique, wrought-iron headboard. It was the start of their second night together, and they still hadn’t gone anywhere else. By unspoken mutual consent, they’d spent their time making love, not talking. Everything beyond each other and this moment could wait.

Would he ever be sated? Not of her. Any part of her, from her nimble mind to the blinding rapture of her blood to the smallest portion of her body.

He rolled his thumb over her foot, fascinated by how neatly her toes fitted together. Dear God, she was so damn beautiful with the delicate flush under her satin skin.

He felt, rather than saw, her look down at him. “Still trying to see if they bend in the right direction?”

“You are a
vampira
, after all, whose anatomy deserves the fullest investigation.” He gently ran his hand up her leg from her ankle to the back of her knee, finding the strong muscles and tendons under her smooth skin.

“Flatterer.” She chuckled, drawing her other leg up and turning onto her side to face him.

He pulled a face in mock dudgeon, teasing her back. She laughed a little harder, and he slid down the bed until his face was even with her hips.

“You left me.” Hélène almost sounded like she was pouting.

“Not really.” He spread her legs and slipped neatly between them.

“Again so soon?” An air of curiosity, but not raising an objection.

“Why not?”

“True. But you’ve pleasured me so much, I may not have much to offer.”

“Is that a challenge?”

He fluffed her outer lips with his tongue.

“No, just a statement of, ah, fact.” She purred, lifting herself toward him. A warm blob of cream slipped down her thigh toward him. He licked it away, and she trembled slightly.
Sweet, very sweet. Oh yes…

“Have something in mind, Mr. Texas
vampiro
?” Her voice was all too husky, and she gently kneaded his hair, while her knees embraced him.

His pulse speeded up, and his skin warmed. Good God, she smelled lovely—musk and sweat, salty and sweet, entirely Hélène as he’d imagined all these years.

“Just a little playing around, my dear firestarter.”

His tongue probed into her, delving deep for more of a taste, circling.

He muttered happily to himself and settled down for a feast. If he explored a little more—or maybe if he slipped his finger into her asshole to distract her and please himself…

She tugged at his hair, rather emphatically.

“Hmm?” He looked up at her, a bit amused. Sated she might be—but she could still offer surprises. He suspected she’d always find something new to amuse them in bed sport.

“I want to play, too,” she announced. Her mouth was bruised with passion, but one hand was tapping on the sheets. “I want your cock.”

Lust, which should have been long-since dulled into a pleasant haze, blazed back into life like a desert sunrise. His chest tightened, fireflies of life dancing over his skin faster than the heated sparks outside.

He came up onto his knees over her—and she grabbed his hip, her free hand cupping his balls.

He groaned—and looked down his torso at her. “I had been comfortable,” he complained mildly. “And completely willing to stay where I was for hours.”

“Are you
refusing
a blow job?” She sounded properly incredulous.

“Are you saying you don’t want me to go down on you?” he countered. He kissed the inside of her knee and gently nibbled the delicate pulse there.

“Jean-Marie!” Hélène arched, flinging her head back. Her voice was very husky, and he licked his lips in anticipation of her next reaction. Unable to stop himself, he teased her intimately with his fingers.

“You may have a point,” she admitted, panting. “Is this a scientific exploration? I thought we had done with odd behaviors and strange sights when you showed me all those iridescent hummingbirds.”

“True—but we’re not doing that. We’re simply having fun.” He slid his hand up her leg, bending it—and levered her onto her side.

“Ah—fun.” She dragged the simple word out, investing it with a wealth of sensuality. “You have such wonderful ideas,
m’sieu
—but only when you, too, participate in them.”

She opened herself to him, displaying the rich pinks of her intimate flower, bedecked with cream, frilled and heated, begging to be adored. But he couldn’t do her justice from a kneeling position.

He laughed at himself for having delayed and dropped down onto his side, facing her.

“Much better,” she purred and pulled him closer. She nuzzled the tip of his cock and rubbed her cheek against it.

He chuckled and rested his head on her leg, settling himself for a long bout of simply making love with no urgency to find orgasm.

Damn, how he enjoyed feeling her breath pass through her belly to tease his chest, the changing rise and fall against his nipples. He shifted, wrapping his free arm over her hip to stroke her back, enjoying the tactile perfection of the long, lovely curve of her ass and spine, even when he couldn’t see it.

Damn, the delight of hearing her catch her breath if he used his teeth instead of his tongue, or if he licked her to make her skin more sensitive then blew on her, exciting those newly awakened nerves. The sheer bliss of knowing she was here and she was his, every beat of her heart, every flex of her body as she rose to welcome his touch. Just as he groaned under her mouth’s enticement, her tongue’s delicate flicks and probes, her fingers’ spiraling grip.

He wrapped his hands around her thighs, gathering the rich curves of her ass into his hand, opening her. She was curved very sweetly like this, her rump fitting his fingertips perfectly—and comfortably. Delectably.

They matched rhythms almost immediately, at first very simply—a swirl of his tongue over her clit was exactly matched by her hand twisting his cock. They had time to explore, to add more complicated movements—an extra caress here, or a swirl and a stab of the tongue there—but always, always the beat of their lovemaking remained in sync. Passed from one to another like the sound of their breathing, like the musk in the air, the joy in their hearts at simply being together.

His blood began to beat faster, drumming through his veins with her every twitch, every convulsive flex. He stroked her mound, pressing down on it in gentle circular motions to put delicate pressure on her highly swollen clit. Even as fast as a
vampira
healed, Hélène had to be more alive than usual to a man’s attentions.

Her hips rolled to greet his hand. Musk clouded the air, blinding their senses.

He slid his hand forward and down, his thumb caressing her pubis, parting her curls. He circled the little bud, using her flesh to delicately caress it.

She moaned again and again, writhing under his mouth, sucking him down more and more strongly. Vision faded before the need to focus only on their hunger.

Ah, the broken little cries she was making, how her hips rolled and bucked under his hand, the trembling in her thighs that told of oncoming orgasm…

The hard pressure of seed building up in his balls as if he hadn’t come in days, the heady throb of blood through his cock…

To know they’d been together long enough, were sated enough he could take his time and enjoy her without rutting like a beast…

Her throat tightened around him, pulling him down deeper and deeper.

He thrust three fingers deep inside her eager flesh, finding the sensitive spot he knew—and loved—so well. She convulsed immediately, her thighs locking around his head in rapture’s joyous paroxysm.

Her throat tightened around him and pulled him deep, while she simultaneously pressed the sensitive spot between his legs. He bucked hard and came, falling over the precipice into climax so easily that thought meant nothing—and only sensation existed.

He was melting with pleasure, orgasm floating both around and through him, while supple fingers stretched him wide, drilling a pleasure point hidden inside. He rocked back and forth, unable to say where rapture began and ended. But the joy of taking her lover’s cock very deep, welcoming it into moist caverns…

He fell onto the pillows beside Hélène afterward, with barely enough strength to draw her onto his stomach. Conversation took longer to arrive.

“Did you feel that?” he asked cautiously. What words could he use for describing how it felt to embrace a man?

“Finger fucking me—or being deep-throated?” She drew a tiny circle on his chest before looking up at him, her green eyes wide with wonder. “Who’ll say it first, you or me?”

“Cónyuge.”
He rolled the word over on his tongue and began to grin. Hell, he’d always known he adored her, no matter what it would take to claim her.

“My
cónyuge
,” she echoed and leaned down to kiss him. He immediately hungered for her again, his tongue surging into her to discover the tastes and shapes of her mouth. Their lips melded, allowed them to savor the sheer delight of finding and holding their perfect match. His dearest love in his arms.

Hélène came up for air finally, her head pillowed on his shoulder. After all the dreary centuries of being alone, of being regarded with fear and tolerated only because she was a necessary weapon—it was pure bliss to have Jean-Marie as her
cónyuge
.

To feel his contentment at holding her continuously for so long, the joy of his release drumming through her, the shattering tumult of his seed when it bored up through his cock in a white-hot fervor…To know all of his sensations, his emotions just as surely as she knew hers in the same instant when she was vaulted to the stars.

Perfection. Especially when thought returned, bringing the realization that they were
cónyuges
, a pair who could share every thought, every emotion, every physical sensation. Who wouldn’t want such joy every minute of every day?

Delightful as lying in his arms was, she couldn’t resist an intellectual puzzle. “I didn’t share your sensations in the kiss. Why not?”

“You were trying too hard.” He hugged her reassuringly. “The
conyugal
bond only happens when you completely relax, since it can never be forced.”

“Well, that’s useless. How can we practice it?” Shit, how the hell could they depend on it in a duel?

“It’s why it’s so rare,” he corrected, sounding abominably calm. “Sometimes it grows stronger during stressful situations.”

She snorted in derision and sat up. “That’s damn chancy unless we get the SAS or your SEALs to design the training course.”

“Hey, I’m the one whose
esfera
has two pairs of
conyugal
duelists, remember?” He gently tapped her cheek. “That gives me some claim to expertise.”

She brightened, reminded of her hopes for the future. “Three pairs of
conyugal
duelists, please: Don Rafael and his
patrona
, your
adelantado mayor
and his geologist, and now the two of us. Since Don Rafael and Doña Grania killed the Russian assassin a week ago, he should readily accept another male and female team. That duel’s the talk of the European
esferas
.”

“Two pairs, my love.” Jean-Marie’s face darkened, and he rose to his feet. “There are only two pairs of
conyugal
duelists in Texas.”

What was he worried about? She was free from obligations to Britain, and she’d come openly and in peace. She’d fully satisfied
vampiro
travel customs. All she had to do now was be introduced to Don Rafael and become part of his
comitiva
, hopefully part of his
mesnaderos
. Plus give him the photo of that long-ago Mardi Gras, as a token of her goodwill.

After all, she was a firestarter, someone who
patrones
had been trying to recruit for years—contract with Great Britain or no contract.

“I’ll swear fealty to Don Rafael as soon as we’re introduced.” Her voice died away.

Her beloved was shaking his head. “It will make no difference. Only Don Rafael’s
hijos
live in Texas.”

“That’s insane. No
patrón
is that narrow-minded!” Jean-Marie shot her a barbed glance, wordlessly reminding her Texas had its own laws. But surely even his
patrón
wouldn’t overlook basic military facts. “Wouldn’t he want to have a firestarter serving him?”

“You know how often
esferas
usually change hands. A firestarter who wasn’t completely loyal to him would be too great of a threat.”

She stared at him, opened her mouth to argue—and met blue-steel eyes above a square-set jaw.
Ouch.

Jean-Marie was reporting someone else’s logic, which he wouldn’t—or couldn’t—change. It made sense, in its own brutally harsh fashion—and she shuddered to think of the experiences which had made its owner so inflexible.