Deep Desire: The Deep Series, Book 1 (12 page)

“How reassuring.”

“
Duro,
” whispered Donte, and Adin thought he heard a smile in the voice. “Tough guy.”

“
Duro
e sciocco
.”
Tough and foolish.

Donte rose but Adin caught his hand. “Stay.”

“Adin?”

“Stay with me.” Adin pulled Donte down to the bed next to him. He held on to the large, elegant hand, interlacing his fingers with Donte’s. “Will you? At least until I fall asleep.”

“Yes. Better the monster you know, eh?” said Donte, sinking into the soft bedding and lifting his head onto an arm. “This is a very small bed, Adin.”

“I noticed.” Adin rolled onto his side. He couldn’t contain the grimace of pain caused by his bruised ribs.

“I promise anyone who touched you will answer to me.”

“That’s not necessary.”

“We can agree to disagree when you feel better, caro.” Donte lifted his free hand to sweep a lock of Adin’s hair from his eyes. “I am at war with myself, Adin. Part of me wants to touch you, and part of me holds back because you need your sleep.”

Adin smiled at that.

“What?” Donte asked.

“It’s official. I’m vampire catnip.”

Donte’s smile was genuine. “Catnip. Yes. That’s it exactly, Adin. Now go to sleep before you say anything even more silly than that.”

Adin let out a deep breath. “I will.”

He fell asleep, clutching one of Donte’s hands in his as the fingers of Donte’s other hand combed lightly through his hair.

When Adin woke hours later, the drapes were open again and the very last of the late-afternoon sun slanted through the window. He could see the sunset bursting with brilliant hues of every shade of red and gold. He rose to look out the window and realized that he’d slept the entire day away.

On the bureau, he found fresh jeans and shirts folded neatly, along with a jacket, socks, underwear and shoes. Boaz was nothing if not thorough. His laptop case sat on the nightstand where Adin left the tray earlier. He went stiffly through the motions of dressing, knowing how much worse it would have been without the shower and the medication, and went to find his host.

Adin found Boaz in the kitchen, humming while he whisked something together in a large bowl. Adin looked curiously over the rim, saying nothing.

“Frittata,” said Boaz.

“I’m sorry my actions got you in trouble with your boss.”

“I should have known better. He told me you might be considered a handful.”

Adin shrugged. “Where is he?”

Boaz jerked his head toward a pair of French doors. “Kitchen garden.”

“Ah,” said Adin, taking off in that direction. “I’ll find him.”

“Please remind him I need herbs if he’s planning to eat dinner tonight.”

“I’ll remind him.” Adin exited the French doors and found Donte right away, seated on a bench reading a book. He was wearing the same robe but also had on a fairly large straw hat and work gloves. There was a small basket and a pair of pruners abandoned beside him. Adin walked over to him and sat, shivering in the cool breeze. “Boaz said not to forget he needs herbs.”

Donte closed his book with a snap. “Did he send you to find me?”

“I was coming anyway.” Adin looked around. “This is a lovely home.”

“Yes, it is, although it’s not mine. I borrow it when I’m in town. The man who owns it spends very little time here. He prefers Toronto, Canada. Can you imagine? Of course he’s Russian and used to the cold.”

“Is he—”

“Like me? Yes, although not as old. Few vampires are as old as I am, at least, here in America.”

“America is a young country.”

“Right. Shall we find Boaz his herbs?”

“He said only if you plan to eat.”

Donte gave him a pointed look. “Only if I plan for you to eat.”

“Oh.” Adin looked back the way he had come. “Of course. Well. Thank you. I am hungry.”

“You snap off a bit of that,” Donte said, pointing to a rosemary bush. “And I’ll just get some of this basil and some thyme.” He snipped them triumphantly. “I take it he’s making eggs. That’s all he knows how to cook, but by all accounts he makes them rather tasty.”

“He said frittata.” Adin followed Donte back into the house.

“Eggs, by any other name.” Donte dropped the herbs on the worktop for Boaz, who was frying potatoes. Boaz nodded his thanks. “Come, and we’ll find a wine to drink with this.”

Adin’s cell phone rang. “Tredeger.”

“Adin.” Tuan’s voice. He waved Donte on without him and walked back to the French doors, exiting out
into the garden.

“Did you find
Notturno
?”

“Not yet, Adin. I’m calling about something else.”

“Edward?”

“No, he’s fine. He’d kill me if he knew I called you without him knowing. I’m holding the sketch you did of the guy from the restaurant. Good job, by the way.”

“How would you know?”

“I know who this is, and listen—”

“No. Wait. Edward and I were talking about me posing as a prospective buyer for the manuscript. If you were to find out who has it, I could—”

“Listen to me carefully, Adin, you need to give up on that manuscript.”

“What?” Had he heard Tuan right?

“Give up right now. This minute,” Tuan insisted. “I know more about this than you think. I’m still trying to find the manuscript. But you need to leave it alone. Not another word. Whatever you do, don’t try an end run around me, because you’re going to get hurt.”

“Tuan, what the fuck?” Adin felt tears sting his eyes again. “You know I can’t just—”

“Adin,”
Tuan snapped. “I’m telling you this for your own safety. Let me handle the manuscript, stick with Boaz and don’t invite
anyone
into your hotel room.”

Adin processed this. “Don’t invite… Tuan, are you telling me you know what I’ve…?”

“I have to go. You
know
what I’m talking about. Just remember it and don’t screw up.”

“Tuan!” Adin heard the click on the line.
Shit.
Tuan knew everything.

Chapter Eleven

Having gotten a plate of food and a glass of wine from Boaz, Adin followed Donte into the dining room. He went numbly over his phone conversation with Tuan. Tuan knew.
He had to know. Why else would he…?
Donte stopped abruptly, and Adin walked into his strong back.

“What?” Adin looked around the impersonal room. The long mahogany table glistened, reflecting the light from a chandelier. It was large enough to seat twenty-four people. The room was magnificent, stately. Perfect for power dining.

“I hate this room.” Donte turned and headed back the way they’d come. “Do you mind if we dine elsewhere?”

“Not at all.”

“Come. I like the garden best.” When they arrived in the kitchen, Boaz was no longer in evidence and the dishwasher was running almost soundlessly.

Donte pulled his straw hat off a hook and seated it back on his head. He opened the French doors and indicated that Adin should go ahead of him. They walked together to the stone bench where Donte had been reading and sat side by side. Adin set his plate in his lap and placed his wine on the bench beside him.

“Perfect day,” Donte murmured. “Overcast enough to venture out, shady, not too cool. Look at that sky. What a sunset.”

Adin said nothing.

“Do you garden, Adin?”

“Not much, really.” Adin took a morsel of egg onto his fork and tasted it. Donte was right, Boaz knew his way around an egg dish. “I have a garden in Washington, where I live, but I’m gone too much of the time.”

“I think it’s the feel of the sun on my skin I miss most. Lying naked and warm, stretched out on the earth in the springtime.”

Adin soothed the burn in his throat by taking a sip of wine. “It must be hard.”

“I liked to garden. The irony is that I could have been a monk, charged with tending the herb garden, drying and storing plants for medicinal uses. Then my older brothers died, making me the heir, which was a dreadful stroke of bad luck, although you cannot know how many people congratulated me as though I’d poisoned them myself. As if I would have chosen to go back to San Sepolcro.”

Adin was silent, eating slowly. He waited for Donte to continue.

“I did busy myself about the estate.” Donte did no more than sip his wine and refill their glasses as necessary. “I cared for my father’s land and wanted to pass it intact or better to my sons. Now it is as if that was the brief introduction to an interminable passion play.”

Adin put his hand on Donte’s knee.

“I’ve told you more about myself than I’ve told anyone in centuries. I don’t really know why. You have a stillness about you that makes me confide.”

“Oh, I doubt that.” Adin laughed. “I don’t believe I’ve ever been called still.”

“Perhaps it’s because you’ve been pounded into submission, then.” Donte grinned. “Are you very sore?”

“No.” Adin shook his head. “I just feel foolish. It occurs to me that the world is full of frightening things, and I’m the last to know.”

“Oh, caro,” Donte said indulgently. “Surely not the
very
last.”

“How reassuring. Donte?”

“Yes?”

“Can you do that thing again? Make me see things the way I did in the cemetery?”

“Ah,” said Donte with a genuine smile, putting his plate aside. “You liked my little gift?”

“I did.” Adin wanted to share how much he’d liked it, but didn’t have the words.

“Yes, caro.” Donte swirled the wine in his glass. Adin put his plate down on the bench beside him as well and waited. “Nothing would give me more pleasure than to amuse you again.”

Adin held his wine and looked around as the subtle yet significant changes began to take place within him. The first thing he noticed was birdsong, notes of music he could pick out, coming from everywhere around him. He could smell the earth, mossy and cool beneath his feet, and the herbs, a hundred, maybe more, different types of plant material and flowers close all around him. Donte reached over and ran a curious finger down the side of his neck, and Adin almost moaned with the contact. He could feel his heart beating, feel the slow, steady rush of his blood through his veins. He began to sense Donte’s arousal, and although there was no answering heartbeat, his own sped up, and he knew Donte could hear it. He took Donte’s hand and placed it over his heart.

“I know, caro,” Donte whispered. “I can feel it. I can see the pulse in your throat.”

Adin was suddenly aware of the smell of Donte’s skin—faintly salty, faintly herbal. He breathed in the coppery, metallic scent of blood, and traces of soap and shampoo. Everything hummed and surged and teemed with life, and Adin wanted to taste it on his tongue, to bite into it and savor it.

“Donte…” he said, agitated, afraid of the vastness of the space around him, the depth and breadth of the feelings he was experiencing.

“Shh,” soothed Donte, catching his hand.

He pulled Adin to his feet and led him to a small private section of the garden. There he took him to the soft, mossy ground. “Adin.”

He pushed Adin onto his back as he shrugged out of his robe.

Adin worked the buttons of Donte’s shirt, helping him to open it and slide it off his back and arms, freeing his hands, which got stuck in the cuffs of his shirt until they were laughing as Donte shook it off.

Adin undid Donte’s buckle and loosened his belt, making short work of the fastenings of his trousers. Donte’s cock spilled hard and heavy into his hands. Its velvety length, the loose foreskin, and the way it throbbed under his sensitive fingertips all felt wholly new to Adin, even though he’d explored plenty of uncircumcised men. The slick glide of Donte’s penis in its delicate sheath, the way the darkly engorged head glistened when it emerged, was exotic and thrilling yet familiar all at once.

They wriggled and pushed, loosening Adin’s clothes, easing Donte out of his trousers, sliding and rolling until they were both naked. All the while, Adin’s senses assaulted him with sights and sounds and scents he’d never experienced before—until he was arching and gasping into Donte’s mouth, begging him, “Please, Donte…please.”

“Yes.
Adin
.” Donte asked, rocking on him, creating little wildfires all along his skin.

“Can you make me sick?”

“What?” Donte froze. Adin moaned at the loss pressure. “You mean with diseases? No, they cannot live inside the undead.”

Adin rolled them both and came up over Donte, kissing him and holding his hands. He inched his way down Donte’s body until he could bury his face in the dark thatch of hair behind Donte’s erect cock. Adin teased Donte with his tongue; he licked and sucked at the fragile skin and the rigid shaft beneath it until it was slick and juicy with spit and pre-come. Adin slid up Donte’s long, cool length and looked down into his face.

The thousand things Adin’s senses were telling him narrowed in focus to the one impossibly erotic sensation of a thick cock as he straddled Donte and held himself still. His breath left him as he let himself down and down, stretching and opening himself consciously, gathering Donte’s upper body into his arms. He pressed his forehead to Donte’s and allowed himself to feel the vampire’s powerful muscles ripple and shift as Donte rose to sitting and drove himself deeper still.

“Oh
fuck
, Donte,” Adin murmured and went boneless in his arms. He could smell the earth, see in the encroaching darkness, but most of all, every molecule of his body was alive to the nearness of his lover, and his blood sang Donte’s song in his veins.

“Adin,” Donte murmured as his lips brushed Adin’s hair. He crushed Adin to him. “Più amato.”

Donte’s breathless whisper stirred Adin, who rocked and squeezed and slid against him, reaching for the kind of pleasure only Donte could give. He couldn’t think beyond being close to Donte, devouring him. Before he knew it, he’d bitten down on the thick muscle of Donte’s shoulder while wrapping around him like a living pretzel.

“Caro.” Donte sighed against his skin. “Caro, I need you.”

Adin pressed Donte’s face against his throat and let his head fall back in total surrender. The second Donte’s teeth sank into his tender flesh, Adin shuddered into his climax. He cried out and jerked in Donte’s arms until Donte rolled them over and pressed him hard him into the ground beneath them. Surging into Adin one final time, Donte continued to lap and suck at Adin’s neck, and pleasure crept through Adin’s body like frost as he continued to quiver and tremble violently beneath the larger man.

“Ah,” Adin clung to him and cried out… “
Ah…Donte
, Mother of G—”

“
Adin.
” Donte smoothed the hair back from Adin’s sweat- and tear-streaked face.

Adin slipped into a deepening blackness that began in his blood, then coursed through his body and worked its way to his brain. “Donte, what’s happening to me?”

“Shh,” soothed Donte. “Shh, più amato,
fidati ti me
.”
Trust me.

“Donte…I feel…” Adin trailed off as oblivion claimed him.

When Adin awoke, he was back in the small bedroom he’d slept in during the day. He shifted, feeling the bed dip beside him. Donte’s face came into view. He lifted Adin’s head and held a bottle of water to his lips. Adin was still fuzzy-headed and limp.

“Forgive me, Adin. I was thoughtless. Please drink.”

Adin pushed himself to sitting and took the bottle Donte offered him. “Don’t be an idiot, Donte. I’ll be fine.”

“Yes, tough guy, you will be fine,” Donte mocked. “You have been beaten, drained and fucked senseless, but heaven forbid you allow me to take care of your delicate human ass.”

“Shut up.” Adin laughed.

Donte shrugged. “Sometimes you are like a child.”

“What about you?” Adin gasped with outrage. “I am Donte, the apex of the—”

Donte’s mouth came down on Adin’s. As he pulled away with a sigh, he laid his hand on Adin’s chest. “Your heart always dances for me. That is a very enticing thing, Adin.”

“Come here.” Adin caught Donte’s face between his hands and drew him in for a kiss.

Donte’s phone rang. He broke free with an effort, smiling at Adin in a way that made his toes curl. He held up a hand and took the phone to the doorway.

“Fedeltà,” he said, slipping out the door. Adin heard him speaking Italian in hushed tones. He couldn’t hear exactly what Donte was saying, and when he returned, Adin couldn’t read what was in his eyes either.

“Bad news?” Adin asked, concerned when Donte remained silent and still beside him, all teasing and play gone from him as though it had never existed.

Donte shook his head. “Nothing you need worry about, caro. Finish your water, please.”

He slipped back into the bed and slid down until his head rested on Adin’s thighs. Adin, still sitting upright with his back against the headboard, took the opportunity to run his hand through Donte’s thick, dark hair.

“So soft.” Adin drank and then put his empty water bottle on the nightstand. “Who was on the phone, Donte?”

“Just sleep, now. The world will be a different place tomorrow.”

Adin slid down and nestled into Donte’s shoulder. They lay side by side, staring at one another for a long time. Adin slipped his hand to the small of Donte’s back to draw him closer. Donte sighed against his lips.

“Adin?” he whispered, his lips slipping past Adin’s ear.

“Hm?” Adin murmured sleepily.

“Forgive me, caro,” Donte said and struck, his teeth sinking once again into the tender flesh at the base of Adin’s throat. Adin struggled to push Donte off him. Donte’s sudden attack shocked him. His hand slapped against the nightstand as he felt frantically for the light device Donte had given him. Donte reached for his arm and pinned it to the bed.

“Stop. Wait!”

He gasped as he felt his skin tear. Donte growled, a feral snarl that froze Adin in place even as Donte increased the pressure against him and held him fast. It was only a moment more before Adin lost consciousness again.

When the first rays of light slanted across his bed from the east window of the room, Adin pulled on a shirt and jeans and staggered to the bathroom. He caught sight of himself in the mirror and for a half a second failed to recognize his pale and discolored face.

“Donte!” he called, rushing to the hall, which made his head spin. He walked along leaning against the wall, propping himself up, his bare feet hardly registering the cold of the tile floor.

Boaz was in the kitchen, grinding coffee.

“Where is Donte?” Boaz refused to meet his eyes. “Boaz, answer me!”

“He’s gone, sir.”

“What?” Adin fell into one of the chairs at the small rustic kitchen table, trembling slightly.

Boaz took a seat across from him. For a time he was quiet, his dark gaze on Adin, whose hands gripped the edge of the chair he sat on as if it would throw him if he let go.

“I believe he got a call last night indicating where he could retrieve the manuscript, and he’s gone after it.”

Betrayal feels cold.
“I see.”

“I don’t think he wanted to—”

“I quite understand, Boaz. He did mention that he wouldn’t let anything stand in his way.”

“I don’t believe it gave him any pleasure.”

“Ah, yes.” Adin rose to his feet. “The
pleasure
was all mine.” He began walking, determined to get to his room, throw his things in a bag, and quit this place as soon as possible.

“Dr. Tredeger.” Boaz chased after him.

“Get ready to take me back to the hotel, Boaz.”

“But Mr. Fedeltà—”

Adin closed the bedroom door in the smaller man’s face and locked it. Leaning against it, he was dizzy and short of breath, and equally determined not to let Boaz see him like that.

“Just get ready. I’m packing. I won’t interfere with Mr. Fedeltà’s pursuit of his prize.”

Boaz said grimly, “Yes, sir.”

“And Boaz!”

“Yes, sir?”

Adin steadied himself against the door, his heart pounding and his eyes strangely wet-feeling against the back of his clammy hand as he wiped them. “Call me ‘sir’ one more time, and I will kick your tiny Lebanese
fucking
ass.”

Adin lurched away from the door and began shoving his belongings into one of Donte’s large, high-thread-count pillowcases.