Dark Legend (14 page)

Gabriel avoided her enormous black eyes, the innocence there. Without emotion, it was far easier to face those around him, those who feared him. He was used to the whispers, to the way people moved out of his way. He was used to the fear in their minds and hearts. He was needed, yet never accepted.

Her small hand moved up his arm, a curiously intimate gesture that left him weak and warm inside. She was crawling inside him. Winding her way deep into his very soul. He was unprepared for that. He knew now just what a lifemate was. How important she was. Intellectually he had known Carpathian women were the light to their men's darkness. He had accepted Francesca and what must be between them. Their union meant not only his continued survival, but also guaranteed he would not join Lucian in the ranks of the undead.

For that alone he had respected Francesca. Wanted Francesca. He was totally unprepared for the jealous streak that made it difficult not to dispose of Brice. He was totally unprepared for the savage demands his body made when he was near her. More than anything, he was unprepared for his heart melting when she was sad or hurt or felt tired. He had not counted on his reaction to her at all. He wanted to hear her voice all the time, watch her smile, see the way her face lit up, her eyes so soft and melting, so beautiful. He thought about her far too much.

"Gabriel." Francesca's voice whispered over him like a soft summer breeze. At once he felt sweat beading on his body in reaction. "You asked me to leave this place and I should have, but please don't feel ashamed or embarrassed that you had to do such an important job in front of me. You think your talent less than mine."

"You save lives, I destroy them." Just the touch of her fingers was a miracle to him. The scent of her, clean and fresh and feminine. He had never noticed that about women before. The way they smelled; yet now she filled his lungs and he wanted to always have her there. "I am not certain killing is considered a talent."

"The undead are no longer alive. You know that. They have chosen to lose that which makes them live. Vampires are monsters without equal, merciless, living only for depravity and the rush of the kill. Without you to stand guard, Gabriel, there would be no way to hide the existence of our people. Even now, a small minority of humans hates the very idea of us. They have a society of people, professionals and others, who hunt us down to kill us. It seems to me that without you, our people would long ago have been hunted to extinction."

A small, pleased smile escaped before he could stop it. She had a way about her. There was no doubt in his mind why Brice wanted her. It wasn't because she was a healer, as Brice was. It wasn't because her Carpathian beauty drew males to her. It was the entire package. Francesca.
His
Francesca. "You give me far too much credit," he answered her softly. "Thank you for that. Thank you for making a difficult situation easy. I did not expect to feel this way." He flashed her another smile. "These emotions are difficult to control."

She tilted her head to look up at him. It should have been declared a sin to look as good as he did. He made butterfly wings brush at her stomach, made her heart somersault at the most unexpected times. His eyes could create a firestorm in her with just one smoldering, brooding look. He could melt a woman, any woman, at twenty paces. Francesca cleared her throat, trying hard not to blush, suddenly remembering he was more than likely a shadow in her mind, reading her all too intimate thoughts. "We should start for home."

"You want to walk or do you feel like flying?" He asked it gently, unwilling to influence her decision one way or another. She always chose the human way. She would have allowed herself to be struck by Skyler's monster of a father in order to preserve her way of life. Her image. He wanted her to accept that she was Carpathian. Wholly Carpathian. It was too soon for that, he knew, but a sign that she was weakening just a little would give him hope.

Francesca linked their fingers once more. "We have plenty of time before the sun rises. Perhaps we should walk and discuss further how to manage Skyler."

Chapter Six

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Francesca averted her eyes as they walked along the empty streets hand in hand. He was so intensely male, moved so fluidly. She found herself wanting to brush the waves of his hair, smooth the lines from his face. His mouth was so perfect. She glanced at him from beneath her lashes. Her lips tingled, softened, aching to feel his. There was the sound of his voice when he talked to her, soft, sexy, intimate as sin. Gabriel flashed a smile at her and Francesca felt her instant response. He brushed against her while they walked, the slightest of movements, yet it set her heart pounding and sent tiny tongues of fire flicking over her skin. Her palms itched to feel the hard muscles of his body, to run her hands over his chest, his belly. She glanced lower at the material stretched so tight. She ached to stroke and caress, to slide her mouth over him just to see his reaction. To hear his groan.

She could think of nothing else. Her breasts ached and between her legs liquid heat gathered in invitation. Her clothes felt cumbersome, far too tight. She wondered what he would do if she suddenly yanked her blouse off and offered him her breasts right there on the street. All she could think about was Gabriel. His hard body, his hands as they moved over her skin. The way he said the most beautiful things to her. The way he wanted to help a young stranger who didn't know what love was supposed to be. The way he had stepped in front of her body, shielding her before a brute of a man could strike her. Everything about him was extraordinary and she was consumed by a sudden need to hold him, touch him, kiss every inch of him.

A store appeared in front of them, deserted now, long after business hours. "My friend owns this store. She's given me a key and the code for the alarm. I just leave the inventory slip for her and she charges it to my account." Her voice was husky, sexy, a blatant invitation. "We can go in and find a few necessary things for Skyler." Her hand was shaking as she turned the key in the lock.

Gabriel watched her intently with his black velvet eyes as she punched in the code for the alarm system. The store was dark, deserted. The silence was broken only by their ragged breathing. She turned to him, her hand brushing his face. Her hand found his hair unerringly, fingers tunneling in the thick strands.

A soft sound escaped his throat. "Francesca, you have to stop before there is no going back for us. I am no angel as you often persist in thinking me. I can read every thought in your mind and what you are doing to my body is nothing less than a sin." His thumbs stroked caresses over her jaw, traced the outline of her lips.

"Really?" Her hands tugged at his shirt until it was free from his trousers. Immediately her palms slid over his bare chest, her fingers splayed wide to take in as much of his skin as she could. She traced every defined muscle, aching for him. "I've always thought sinning might be an interesting experience." There was invitation in her voice. Blatant seduction.

His hands bunched in her hair, drew her head back so that his glittering eyes raked her face. "I
hunger
for you, Francesca,
hunger.
You cannot touch me with your mind and your body and not expect me to react. It is like a raw craving in my bloodstream and I know it is there for all time. Do you know how many times I dreamed of you? How many times I woke in the night alone without you?"

"I did the same," she said softly, her eyes meeting his steadily. She did not flinch away from the concentration of sheer passion gathered in his gaze. "Gabriel—" She whispered his name, leaning forward to press her lips against his chest. Her mouth swirled heat over his pulse. "You talk too much when I need action." She lifted her head so that her dark eyes laughed at him. "You do action, don't you? My clothes are heavy and troublesome," she added as she leaned forward to flick his flat nipple with her tongue. She stood on her toes to press her swelling breasts tightly against his chest.

Gabriel couldn't bear even the thinnest of materials separating their bodies. He pushed her blouse from her shoulders, tossing it aside in the heat of the moment. His palms slid gently over her bare flesh, tracing the delicate line of her bones, the curve of her breasts. His breath escaped his lungs in a long rush as he cupped the soft weight in his hands, his thumbs stroking her nipples.

The  store  was  silent,  mannequins  staring  blankly through the racks of clothes. Gabriel drew her deeper into the interior of the room, away from the windows, into the shadows where they would have privacy from anyone walking along the street. The heat and hunger of the Carpathian mating ritual was upon him, brought on by his lifemate's erotic thoughts. She was beautiful, inside and out. It was exciting and arousing to know that she wanted him so badly, that she knew exactly what she wanted and would demand it of him.

Her lifemate. Francesca reveled in her right to touch his body, to be able to bring him to a firestorm of need so that he burned for her in the same way she burned for him. His touch on her bare skin was torment and pleasure. When he slowly bent his dark head to find her breast with the heat of his moist mouth, she trembled with an urgency she had never known before. Her fingers crushed his hair, holding him to her. "It's almost too much feeling, Gabriel. I don't know if I can take it."

His hands were shaping her body, pushing aside her clothes while his palms and fingers lingered and savored, stroked and caressed. "Yes you can, you were made for this," he whispered softly. He bent his head lower to lick her flat stomach. "You were made for me." Easily he lifted her to the top of the counter, seating her on the edge. "You were made for long nights, Francesca, long lazy nights of making love." His hands caressed her thighs, and he pressed his palm to her hot wet core, smiled when her body clenched and she shuddered with pleasure. His head dipped lower so that his silken hair brushed her sensitive thighs and a soft moan escaped her throat.

Francesca cried out at the first touch of his warm breath, the first lap of his tongue.
"Do you know what you taste like?"
He asked the question softly, intimately, in her mind. His voice scorched the inside of her mind as his tongue was scorching the core of her body. She could feel her body winding tighter and tighter, pleasure building in force and intensity so that the release rushed over her with such power she could only clutch his hair as wave after wave swamped her.

"Gabriel." She said his name, breathed his name, drew the masculine scent of him into her lungs.
"Gabriel."

"We are just getting started, beautiful one," he answered softly, raising his head to smile at her.

He was so handsome, so perfect for her, Francesca could feel tears burning in her throat. There in the night, the night that called to something wild in them, he looked at her with eyes burning with desire. Hot. Urgent. Demanding. She had waited so long for his eyes to look at her like that.

And then he was driving sanity from her mind, replacing it with frenzied passion. Francesca could think of nothing but having his body buried deep within hers. Once more his palm pushed against her sensitive core, and then he slowly inserted his finger, all the time watching her face, watching the pleasure wash over her as her tight sheath clenched around him.

"It is not enough." There was a smile in his voice; he bent his head to taste her again even as his finger slowly eased out of her. Two fingers stretched her, pushed deep so that she gasped with pleasure. "And that is not enough." There was pure masculine satisfaction in his voice, on his face.

She could feel it again, the hot pressure, molten lava building and building until her entire body was in danger of imploding. He pushed into her, caressed, stroked, his tongue teased and danced. "This is what I want, honey, more, come for me. I want to see it on your face, I want to know you feel it, too." His voice softened, went husky. "Come for me, my love, just let go."

With a choking cry she let herself be taken over the edge, her body clenching and spiraling out of her control. His mouth heightened the effect, bringing her an endless orgasm that seemed to go on forever and yet was not enough. She closed her eyes and just gave herself up to pure feeling, to the beauty of his hands and tongue in her body doing slow, merciless things that only made the fire hotter. She was writhing now, her hips unable to stay still beneath the assault on her senses. Then he added his mind, thrusting deeply into hers, picturing things he wanted to do before he did them, so that she could feel her body through his mind, the silken heat, the clenching, tight muscles.

Francesca could feel Gabriel's mounting desire, the way his body burned and ached, hardening to the point of pain. His hands were becoming rougher, more demanding, and she reveled in the thought of his own loss of control. "I want you inside me, Gabriel," she murmured softly, a demand. "I want your body in mine. I don't want you to treat me as if I might break either." She said it deliberately, knowing what it would do to his body, knowing he was caught up in the same storm of fire as she was.

She looked beyond him to the bank of mirrors, saw his perfectly formed masculine body, the defined muscles, the long shiny hair, and her body fragmented again, an explosion of such force it rocked her, shook her, so that she cried out with the fury of it. "Gabriel, now, right now."

"On the floor, where I can go deep, I want to be so deep inside you, you will never get me out." The admission was torn from him as he dragged her from the counter and laid her on the thick carpet. He followed her down, needing her so much he was thick and hard and aching with urgency.

Francesca lifted her hips to meet him as he surged forward, penetrating her, filling her, her body slick and wet and hot, coiling around his tightly. Her breath escaped; his left his body. The rush was addicting and complete. Gabriel caught her hips in his hands, and set a rhythm, using hard, sure strokes that drove deeper and deeper to find her soul.