Department 57: Rubies of Fire (14 page)

“When I came to America, I changed my name. I really wanted to start fresh. I kept Templeton in honor of John, changed it from my maiden name of Gardiner. But I changed my first name. I was christened Ruby.”

His laughter joined hers, easing her pain.

Chapter Nine

They shared a shower, laughing and playing in the warm spray, and then returned to bed, where they lay holding each other in perfect harmony for a while. Resting.

He’d never brought anyone here before. Partly because he hadn’t owned this lovely house for long. His Talent of flashing without exhaustion was rare and precious, and Cristos had always warned him to take care who he told about it. The laboratories would love to get hold of him for their vicious experiments.

He saw Roz as woman first, vampire second. He didn’t know how she’d feel about that either. She seemed to think of herself the other way around. “I hadn’t realized before how much the name Ruby suits you.” He stroked down her flank, unable to resist the feel of her skin under his palm. “All fire and sparkle.”

“Thank you.” Mischief still making her eyes shine, she moved a little. Her breasts jiggled enticingly. Andreas usually went for the tall, skinny types, the small-breasted, tiny-waisted models. He’d wanted Anushka Baranski and until recently had hoped he could lure the sexy shape-shifter into his bed for a little playtime, but he’d given that up the moment his eyes had lit on Roz’s lush, enticing curves. Full breasts, a luscious bottom that reminded him of a ripe peach, smooth, silky skin. All he’d always wanted but hadn’t realized he wanted until he saw her.

She could call it what she liked as long as she didn’t leave him. He’d call it love, but he’d keep that part to himself for now. Give her a fair chance and not use words to bind her.

When he glanced up at her face, he knew she’d noticed his admiring gaze, which wasn’t surprising, since he hadn’t tried to hide it.

The surprise came when she reached for his hands and pushed them above his head. The movement brought her breasts to hang enticingly in front of his face, so he accepted the offering and lifted to take a nipple into his mouth, caressing it with his tongue. He loved her response, loved the feel of her nipple peaking against the roof of his mouth, and sucked harder.

She shuddered but drew a shaky breath to say, “My turn, vampire. Keep your hands there. Let me play.”

He would have given her the earth if he could, but she didn’t know that, not yet. For now he obeyed her instructions and let her play.

She curled one hand around his cock, smiling at his resultant groan, and gently massaged. Up and down, up, down.

Fuck, he didn’t know how long he’d hold out, especially when she licked first one nipple, then the other. She lingered to suck, as he’d sucked her a moment before, and made a sound of appreciation that nearly broke his resolve. But he’d promised. He gritted his teeth on the pleasure.

He hadn’t realized his stomach and hips could be so sensitive, and then she was there. Nearly. She paused to kiss his navel, curl her tongue briefly inside, then work down the line of hair that led to his cock.

“Please!” was all he could manage by then, and then it was short and breathy as if he’d run ten miles.

“Oh, don’t worry,” she murmured, her hot breath inciting him. “I’m there.”

The head of his cock bobbed just below his navel, stronger and longer than he could remember it being before. The only thought that prevented him coming when she just touched her tongue to the eye at the tip was the reminder that if he survived this, he’d be inside her sooner.

“Now, I’m begging you, now.”

She picked up his thought and chuckled, leaning back and smiling at him. “You call me beautiful. This, Andreas, is beautiful.” She spread some of the moisture over the tip before bending, mouth wide.

He felt the heat of her breath before he felt any touch. He was convinced he was about to die in the instant before she closed her lips around the head of his cock.

It had never felt so sensitive before, ever. He jackknifed, forcing his shaft deeper into her mouth, too far gone to apologize. He’d say sorry later, but she didn’t seem upset. Instead, when his ass cleared the bed, she slipped her hand underneath and cupped his buttocks. The sting of her fangs added to his mounting ecstasy.

He would die. He was certain. He didn’t fucking care.

But he didn’t die, and by gritting his teeth against the rapture shimmering through his body, he didn’t come.

She released him after one long lick right up his length, but she hadn’t finished. He nearly came from the wicked look she cast him when she pushed on his buttocks. “Over!”

After she flipped him, she slid her hand underneath to grasp his cock when he landed facedown on the bed. He groaned.
“You’re fucking killing me!”

“If you come, we’ll have to wait.”

“Wanna bet?”
He was certain once wouldn’t be enough. Or even twice.

What she did next he wouldn’t have believed would turn him on.

Andreas had never found men attractive sexually. As straight as anyone could be, something that had caused him the occasional pang of regret. He’d turned down several scenes he knew he wouldn’t enjoy but knew the other participants would.

But when Roz tongued him, he learned what he’d been missing. This time he did cry out, an exclamation of surprise and delight, wordless, ringing around the quiet room. She rimmed him, licked around his anus, so softly that he could barely feel it, but oh, fuck, oh Christ, he did.

She flipped him again. He stared at her, heavy-eyed with passion and could only voice one word. “Please!”

Lifting, she poised herself, holding his cock ready for her. He nearly wept with desperation, but she wanted this; he felt her pleasure flood him, flowing from her open body and her equally open mind. Agony. Ecstasy.

He fisted his hands to stop himself from pushing up into her sopping wet pussy. She wanted to take him, not the other way around; he got that.

She took him. His relief was almost unbearable. When he felt her close around him, absorbing him with one deep plunge, his groan came from deep inside, close to where their bodies joined.

When they were completely joined, his balls touching her backside, she leaned forward, stretching out on top of him. He curled his hand around her neck and kissed her, taking her with his mouth as thoroughly as she was doing to him below.

“Your turn.”
Her mind caressed his as her breasts caressed his chest. He didn’t need her to tell him twice, but turned so he was on top. She had another surprise for him. As he plunged deep into her welcoming body, he felt her curl her hands around his buttocks again.

“Oh yes, hold on tight!”

That wasn’t her intention. He realized why she’d licked him when she inserted the tip of her finger and twisted. “Argh!”

“Tell me if you don’t like it.” She hadn’t spoken until then, but their communication had been profound for all that. “We used to call it the French way, back then.”

Wow, they’d been wilder than he’d imagined back in the day. God, this was better, deeper. “Fuuuuuckkk!” The sound left his mouth as his body shuddered in response.

“So that means you like it?” Her mouth curved in a sexy grin, and he couldn’t bear not plundering her in every way he knew, so he took her lips, plunged his tongue inside, swept her up as she devoured him. He’d never been closer to anyone, never trusted anyone this much, or wanted anyone to trust him with as much fervor. Her finger, a tingling stimulation, drove him on better than anything he’d known before. He pushed, felt her pussy walls contract, knew she was climaxing, and felt like every dominant male since life began.

“That’s it, baby. That’s it. Come for me. I’ll take you there. Oh, yes!”

She arched up, would have thrown him off had he not been expecting it, her movements only driving him on, giving her no mercy, taking her release and making it his, their combined heat blossoming inside them until it became unbearable.

They exploded in a combination that was more than one plus one, brighter, higher, than either had known before.

Andreas knew nothing for minutes or perhaps hours. He had enough thought left to roll his weight off Roz, but he didn’t let her go. He doubted he ever would.

He opened his eyes to find her watching him. He smiled back and touched his lips briefly to hers.

“Want to shower?” What had started as a well-ordered bed, smooth sheets and all, had turned into a tangled mess.

“Mmm,” was her only response. “Can we do it in a few hours?”

It sounded good to him. Snuggling her close to his side, he closed his eyes.

Even sleeping was better with Roz.

* * * *

After changing the sheets and showering, they faced each other in the dark hour before dawn. She wore a robe several sizes too big for her. He wore a cheap suit, the artificial fibers gleaming in the cold glimmer of a table lamp. He reached out to take her hand. He would go into the DIB, and she would go home to change. But she didn’t want to leave him.

“Will George and Marshall still be there?”

“I doubt it, but I won’t go back with them. Not ever. If they take me, I’ll just come straight back.”

His smile held tender warmth. For her. After last night, they had grown closer, allowed themselves to link deeper. No more secrets.

“There might be danger for you if they find out we’re involved this deep,” she continued. “If they’ve found me someone else, they’ll want me to go back, and when I refuse, they’ll want to know why.”

“You’re worth fighting for.”

The determination in his voice made her blink. Sure, she knew he liked her, more than liked her, but fighting a whole family for her might not work that well. “They’ll be after revenge too, for killing Gardiners. Family honor demands it.”

“That I can help them with, if they want, but the Department wants more than revenge. We need to find out what these people know, strip their minds if we have to.”

“Even if it means pissing off the family?”

He shrugged. “After what I saw last year, I can’t bring myself to care too much about that. We’ll take all the information we can, use whatever it takes, then wipe their memories. But with your kin after them, we could offer them a deal and find them new identities. Use the Gardiners as a threat.”

He drew her closer, and she went, nestled against him to take what comfort she could. “We have to know, sweetheart. But if your relatives run amok and destroy them in a bloodbath, who’s to know what’s behind it all? Who is behind it all? If it goes deep? It could take us years to flush it all out, if we can. Each laboratory links to another, and we want them all.”

He kissed the top of her head. “Let’s fight day by day, and together.”

“Together.” She looked up with a smile, and he took her mouth in a long, tender kiss before lifting his head to gaze into her eyes.

As she dressed, she brought up the subject of Ellie. “Do you think the same thing happened to her as happened to you? Someone wiped her memories and set her loose on the streets?”

He paused and put down his coffee cup. “Probably. We were both discovered on the streets of New York, but at least I knew what I was.” He dragged a shirt off the hanger. “Poor kid.” He smiled softly, and Roz felt him remembering. “There’s a strong bond between us.” He met her gaze. “Not like ours.”

“She thinks so.” Roz buttoned up her jeans.

He quirked a brow. “She’s too young. She can’t be more than sixteen.”

“Sixteen-year-olds can be very intense.”

He frowned. “She’s a child, Roz, a little sister.”

Roz reached for her T-shirt. “Andreas, think of the difference in our ages. She can realistically expect to be ready for you in two years, maybe three. There’s hardly any difference at all between you, in vampire terms. I’ve seen the way she looks at you.”

Alarm filled his eyes, his mind, and he crossed the room, reached for her free hand. “Do you think of yourself as too old for me? Is it too much?”

Instantly she shook her head. “No, no way. We’re…linked, in a way I don’t quite understand.”

He stroked her palm with his thumb, unable to stop caressing her, touching her. “I don’t want to make you into something you don’t want to be. Would your family laugh?”

“Not at all. My father was a couple of hundred years older than my mother. It didn’t matter one bit, not to them and not to the family.”

He sighed in relief. “We have enough to face without that. I don’t want to cause you any problems with your family.”

She smiled wryly. “Oh, you’ll do that all right. But it’s about time the Gardiners were shaken up a little.”

Chapter Ten

Roz wanted to stay at the country house and never go back. She felt an air of timelessness there, completely lacking in New York, a city she usually loved. She enjoyed the bustle, the big-city feel, the way she could be surrounded and yet totally alone.

But she wasn’t alone anymore, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to be. The thought disturbed her. Since John died, she’d tried not to get involved with any man, taking good sex for what it was, never tempted to read more into it than that. But last night with Andreas, she had gone further. His tender lovemaking had drawn out more than she’d realized, and it was too late. She admitted a fondness for him, but didn’t dare attribute more. Too early in the relationship, too painful, not enough in common.

Even to herself these sounded like feeble excuses.

Walking up to the Department, she noticed security measures had increased. Sorcerers stood by the entrances, scanning everyone who came in, Talent and mortal, swiftly moving from one mind to the other. No one seemed surprised or alarmed, even the mortals. This enclave where Talents were accepted prosaically took some getting used to after years of careful concealment.

Inside, her senses picked up anxiety and an alertness unusual even for Department 57. As soon as she entered, Diane walked swiftly up to her. “Fabrice is gone.”

Roz frowned. “Gone? Where?”

“We don’t know,” came a deep voice from behind her. Cristos. “He’s been kidnapped. I’ve called an emergency meeting. You can bring Andreas up to speed later. I need him to stay where he is.”