Dearly Beloved (2 page)

He rarely came up here at all, preferring the caves below. He’d carved large, impressive spaces into the rock before furnishing every single one as abundantly as anything above ground. Those corridors and rooms were his secret, and his alone. He’d personally designed each and every one for the solitude…and the dark. That’s where he usually prowled.

But not tonight.

He had to get away from that woman. She was maddeningly incoherent and impossible to interrogate. Even now she slept heavily, without a care in the world, locked in the room containing his bed and still she slept…as if Dominick Miklos St. Guis didn’t even exist. That was just wrong. Dominick was used to females who swooned at a look from him; stumbled over their words if he spoke to them; dropped things, ran into things, gaped with wide eyes. They had for centuries now. The appeal was always there and he’d never questioned it.

Until this one.

Now he was forced to deal with a woman who not only ignored him, but added insult by slumbering the night hours away. All the night hours. Despite whispering and cajoling and threatening, and even holding her, placing his chilled flesh against her warmth, he hadn’t gained more than a moan-infused breath or two from her; while he could have sworn each of her pulse beats were personally tempting him. He’d watched them thump along the line of her neck, her blood calling to him to her as surely as he stood right here and right now.

Amazing. And totally unprecedented. Dominick had never run across the like. He’d also been wrong about her form. That woman possessed lush curves she wasn’t amiss to shoving up against him, sending her very essence to seep out and linger along his senses, searching out and then toying with what had always been a solitary vampire, making him face the fact that women still did exist – and for more than a blood feast. She teased and tempted with every slipped breath, and then glazed her lips with a full flush of rose that had been more than this vampire could resist.

Dominick licked his lips now with the remembered taste of her mouth; tightened his knees against the odd weakness that afflicted them; clenched his fingers around the white painted iron of his railing. Every thought seemed filled with remembered contact with her. Every pore seemed tense and alert as if straining for more of it.

The Hunters had been very inventive when they’d hired and trained this woman. He’d need to alert Akron. But not until he broke her. It would be too humiliating, otherwise. Dominick didn’t handle humiliation well. He remembered that from his prior life.

He turned from contemplation of the scenery, opened the slit of panel that hid his entrance, and started down the long spiral of steps that sucked one down into the bowels of his home. Despite the tight rein he put on his own body, his pace quickened the closer he got to her. The woman.

o0o

“You ready?”

He existed.

Oh sweet dream! She’d fallen into a real fantasy. Or something along that line. Courtney rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, scooted up against the headboard, and dared her eyes to again look toward where Apollo lounged halfway atop the bottom of the mattress, while the rest of him supported the position from the floor. It didn’t look like a practiced pose but a sculptor would’ve had a field-day with the lock of black hair that tipped down right between his eyes, the frown putting slight furrows into his forehead, and his lips pursed in what was probably thought, but looked like a perfect kissing position. He seemed perfectly at ease, as if every day he sat with his arms folded and solemnity written all over that handsome face, while some naked woman lay spread in his bed for his delectation and enjoyment.

Wait a minute…naked?
Where the hell was her wet-suit?

Courtney’s eyes flew wide as she yanked solid fists-full of satin comforter to tuck with precision beneath her armpits. Then she assumed the exact same expression he was, although she was skipping the kissing portion. The bed was obviously well above the floor, it was canopied, designed with a flair toward Rococo if the amount of shell-work and cut-outs were to be believed, and it was massive. And private. And lit with a huge candelabra on her other side, shedding flickering light all through the enclosure. It was also quiet enough that when she swallowed, the popping sound in her ears was probably heard by him, too. That could explain the slight smile he gave before repeating himself.

“You ready?”

“What kind of open question is that?”

“You are not asking the questions here—.”

“I know. I got that part already. But you take forever to ask any questions, and then when you do, it’s an open-ended kind that could get you any answer. So, I just thought I’d jump in and assist. Do you have any food?”

He blinked rapidly. Eight or nine times. She lost count as the totality of his entire attention took her breath and then kept it from her. And her ribs were still hurting. That didn’t make any sense. Not much about this did. She’d been deep-sea cave exploring, using Shawn’s equipment. There’d been a large thumping noise, the shadow of a shark. She’d lost her air, then her consciousness. Somehow, she’d arrived in Mount Olympus with a Grecian god who’d forced her to drink some really excellent brandy. That seemed the total extent of her recollection. And nope. Nowhere in there had she hurt her ribs.

She probably needed to brush her teeth after the brandy and then napping hours away on this bed made of pillows. Courtney ran her tongue along her teeth and grimaced at the bacteria feel. She definitely needed to brush her teeth. She’d save that for after breakfast. Or brunch if she’d slept too long. Whatever this place provided, and whatever they called it, she’d be eating it.

“You know…food. Do they have room service here? Because I could really go for some breakfast. No wait. Coffee first. As black and thick as you can get it. Then food. Maybe some fried eggs, over-easy is my favorite. I’d like a couple pieces of toast with butter. And marmalade. I love that stuff. I could also manage a couple slices of bacon if they have it. What now?”

His expression had changed to complete blankness. He was still too gorgeous to continue to make words that weren’t garbled together into gibberish. The man probably had a very good idea of his effect on women. That just made it worse.

“How did you find me?”

“I’m sorry. Courtney Dwyer. From Washington. The state, not the capital. Of the US. We were never formally introduced when I arrived at…wherever we are.” She’d have put out a hand but that would release the comforter and that wasn’t an option.

“Answer the question.”

“What was it?”

He sighed. On that physique and with that countenance, it just created the exact same reaction with her, although she should have kept the slight appreciative note at the end of hers from being completely audible in the dead silence of the room.

“How did you find me?”

“I really hate to disappoint you, Apollo, but I didn’t actually find anything. And certainly not you. Not that I wouldn’t have been searching had I known how and in what direction you lay, but there you go. Hard to find something if you don’t know it exists.”

“What did you call me?”

“Apollo. I don’t know your name, and that just seemed appropriate. Why? Isn’t it right? Or are you Mars?”

He glanced heavenward for a moment before looking back at her. “Dominick. Dominick Miklos St. Guis.”

“Strange. I had you pegged as Greek.”

“I am.”

“St. Guis is not a Greek name.”

“It is from Normandy.”

“Seriously? I should have known the accent was French. So…you’re half French?”

“No. I am half Norman.”

“Normandy is part of France last I heard. But ok. I’ll play. I’m all for believing you don’t claim French ancestry. I’ve never been to Normandy but I don’t think the French are well-liked anywhere so I’m not surprised. Do they claim Scandinavian ties there? Don’t look at me like that. It’s painfully obvious. With your physique, what else could you be, but descended from Viking stock? The only other choice is Mount Olympus, and you pretty much vetoed that.”

Stupid, Courtney
. Her mouth just kept rattling off stupid things while her mind clouded with thoughts of intertwined limbs on the bed in front of her. For the life of her, she didn’t know where the instant perfectly focused view came from. Worse, it looked like he’d been involved in every step of her thought process and imaginings, and that had just loosened her tongue more.

“My mother was full Greek.”

“And she married a Norman. Imagine the potential lineage. Wow. Viking size and brawn mated to classic, perfect features. Stow that. No imagining necessary when the life-sized proof is sitting right there, looking at me.” Courtney bit her tongue at the end of that, but it didn’t prevent it from coming out exactly like that. Almost in homage.

“Who said anything about marriage?”

He skipped over the life-sized proof part.
Thank goodness
.

“Right. Marriage is optional. Always was, really. You know, I’ve heard children from love-matches are the most beautiful people on the planet. I’m not arguing that anymore. That’s for certain.”

Damn it!
Her tongue just kept gushing inane words at him. He didn’t even react to them. It was probably normal for him. Although…the more she spoke, the more his brow knit as he continued his unwavering look right at her. She started to amend that. It felt more like he looked all the way through her.

“Love was not involved. My mother was taken.”

“Taken? Seriously?”

He nodded.

“How on earth could a Norman guy manage to get to Greece and
take
a Grecian woman? And why would he want to? Aren’t there women in his part of the world?”

“My father was from the Norman settlement of Sicily.”

“Norman settlement. Oh come on. There hasn’t been anything like that for…I don’t know. Eight hundred years or so.”

He nodded. That was it. He just nodded. Then one eyebrow perked up slightly, and that little tiny thing sent her entire body into a shock-like motion of vibration. He might as well have tossed ice water all over her. If there was a hole big enough to sink into, she’d have done it. Right then and right there. And then, surprisingly, the entire view of coverlet started to rotate into a whirlpool of dark oblivion. It was perfect for losing herself in.

“Here.”

He dented the mattress at her side, an arm behind her back to lean her forward, while a cut-glass crystal goblet was being held to her lips. She hadn’t even seen him move. She took a swallow, gulped it, and then coughed with the reaction as brandy blazed its way down her throat again. That got her a smack of his hand on her back, and everything went into solid fire and agony.

“Oh, no. Stop. Please. Stop. You’re hurting me.”

She wailed it and he stopped. It still felt like he was bruising her just by the feel of his hand on her back.

“You did that before, didn’t you?”

“What?”

“Hit me.”

He shrugged, taking her with it. Heaven. Images of entwined naked limbs assailed her vision again and she blinked until it went away. She’d almost died, the god Apollo was holding her, he talked nonsensical heritage, she was in pain from his ministrations to save her, and she couldn’t seem to prevent erotic images from filling her mind? He probably knew the last part, too.

“You needed air.”

“I needed…air?” She still did. There didn’t seem to be any room to get it from how he held her right against most of his body, while he’d changed the motion of his hand to a caress all along her spine. That was absolutely delicious. He probably knew that, as well.

It wasn’t going well. It wasn’t going much of anywhere.

Dominick looked out over the same view and wondered where his ability to interrogate had gone. He wasn’t above torture. Never had been. Even if his target was a woman. Yet, with that siren sleeping now in the master bed that nobody ever used, Dominick was worse than putty in her hands. He didn’t know what was wrong with him and he really needed to ponder it. He rubbed at the slight bit of scar on his upper abdomen, evidencing her attack. Another hour or so, it would be gone completely. A finger-span higher and he’d have been eliminated.

He turned to look through the diaphanous drapery rippling slightly in the breeze. The woman was in his bed. Asleep. Naked, and slightly tanned all over, and plastered against his form as he’d carried her swiftly right to this room. All she did was sleep. Touching her had zapped some strange sort of current clear through every pore on Dominick’s frame and yet she experienced nothing. He’d been in a fury of motion to get her out of his arms before he acted on what could only be labeled lust, and what happened? The woman slept.

And worse.

He hadn’t been able to simply place her between his sheets. He’d had to join her, rub against her, and groan with annoyance over his own body’s reaction. He hadn’t been able to stay his teeth from elongating, either, nor the hum of vibration as he sliced the slightest scratch all along perfect throat skin. He’d barely managed to rein in the incalculable desire to feed from her. Somewhere in his mind something worked, putting such a leash on him he’d jerked back…right from the precipice of fluid he knew would be ambrosia. And what happened? She’d slept through all of it. She’d even been doing some sort of purring noise.