Enraptured (24 page)

“Sex.” The way he said the word caused the
hair on her nape to raise and a shiver to go through her. “Blood.
You’d have to become a vampire.”

The heat seeping through her body was doused
by those words. Her mouth dropped, she closed it again, before it
fell once more. Ian braced himself for her rejection, for her
recoil, or shouts of denial. She remained stunned into silence. Her
eyes drifted down to their laced hands; he thought she would jerk
away from him, but her fingers stayed entwined with his. He could
hear the rapid beat of her heart, see the pulse vibrating in her
neck. Her scent intensified as she continued to stare at their
hands before finally looking at him again.

“That’s such a huge commitment. It means
certain death.
My
death.”

“I know.”

“I barely know you.” And yet he was the only
person in the past four years who had shown her any kindness. He’d
risked his life for her, before he’d believed her to be his mate.
He’d protected her and cared for her; he’d listened to her and gone
out of his way for her. He was the best man she’d ever met, and he
wanted to spend an eternity with her. In some ways it all sounded
so wonderful, yet she couldn’t shake her lingering fear and doubt.
“What if you’re wrong?”

He rested his forehead against hers. “I’m
not. If we ever completed the bond you would never have another
doubt about what I feel for you, and you would know how much I love
you, all of the time.”

A breath escaped her at his ‘
I love
you’
. “The bond would make it so you could sense my thoughts,
my feelings, and we’d be able to communicate with each other
without saying a word out loud,” he continued as if he hadn’t just
completely rocked her world. “You’d never doubt how I feel for you,
ever
.”

He
loved
her? She leaned closer to
him, unable to ignore the lure of him, the physical pull he had
over her. Was it love? She didn’t know the answer to that question,
she kept telling herself she hadn’t known him long enough for it to
be love, but she’d definitely never felt this way about someone
before. She cared about him so much that when he’d mentioned her
becoming a vampire, it hadn’t sent her screaming out of here like
it would have two weeks ago.

“Does becoming a vampire hurt?” she
asked.

His eyes flew over her face. She hadn’t said
no and she hadn’t completely denied him. She still sat beside him
and hadn’t screamed at him that she would never become a vampire.
“I’ve been told it’s exceptionally painful,” he admitted. “But it’s
over quick.”

Her thumb caressed the back of his hand as
she contemplated his words. “I’m not sure about drinking
blood…”

“You’ll only ever have to feed from me. I
will keep you nourished.”

How was it possible that he somehow made
drinking blood sound tempting, or at least
his
blood? She
looked at the vein in his neck, was she actually considering this?
She shook her head, but it didn’t clear her of the troubling
thoughts filling her mind. “I see. I… uh… I need some time to
think.”

“I know.” He leaned forward and pressed a
tender kiss against her forehead. “But you have to know what you
mean to me, and there’s
nothing
I won’t do for you. If you
decide to walk away from me, I’ll let you go, but if you decide to
be with me, it’s irrevocable. It’s an intense bond that can never
be broken and I want it with you, more than anything.”

She lifted her head to brush her lips over
his. A sigh of pleasure escaped her when the heat of his mouth
seared into her. An eternity with this man sounded like a little
bit of heaven to her lonely soul. She may have only known him for a
short time, but he’d become the most important man in her life.

He pulled away from her reluctantly. “If you
don’t mind, I should probably take a shower.” He glanced pointedly
at the blood still staining his skin and clothing.

“Oh yeah.”

“Are you still going to be here when I get
out or am I going to have to hunt you down again?”

She folded her hands in her lap and lifted
her head to look up at him. A million witty retorts went through
her mind, but in the end she responded with the simple truth. “I
have nowhere to go.”

He stood, torn between washing the blood off
of himself or comforting her. She looked so lost and confused. A
part of her world, something she’d believed strongly in, had been
taken away from her today and he didn’t know how to make it any
better for her. “The hunters aren’t bad either. They simply have it
wrong,” he told her.

“What is it they have wrong?”

“Like I’ve told you, we’re not all monsters.
They don’t realize that just as you didn’t. The ones of us who are
killers should be stopped, the rest of us only want peace and to be
with our families.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“You kept trying to tell me that, but I
wouldn’t listen to you.”

Walking over, he knelt before her and took
hold of her hands. “There are always things we never want to hear;
things we have a difficult time believing.”

She squeezed his hands then released them.
She’d believed him to be a murdering, heartless bastard, but he was
the kindest man she’d ever met, far kinder and more selfless than
her. “Yes, there are. Will they come looking for us here?”

“Not if they plan to live.” A shiver went
down Paige’s spine when his eyes became the color of rubies. “Who
is it that keeps coming after you?”

Paige opened her mouth to blurt out
everything, but the words stuck in her throat. It wasn’t that she
didn’t trust him; she simply couldn’t bring herself to reveal that
horror to him.

She stared up at him helplessly; her eyes
shimmering with uncertainty. Ian sighed as she remained mute and
broken before him. Anger festered in him, but he kept his face
impassive so that she wouldn’t see it. He’d mistakenly believed
he’d been making headway with her. “I have to shower.”

She gave a brief nod, but her eyes remained
haunted. The idea of leaving her there, looking so vulnerable, tore
at him but he didn’t have a choice, he had to get this blood off of
his body. Walking into the bathroom, he turned the water in the
small shower on as hot as he could stand it before stepping into
the driving spray. He’d believed her when she’d said she would
stay, but he kept his senses honed on the other room just in case.
He’d have no qualms about dragging her to safety kicking and
screaming if it became necessary.

Resting his hands against the shower wall,
he bowed his head as he let the water wash over his aching muscles
and knotted back. The wounds may have healed already, but his
muscles were still sore from the pounding they’d taken today.

He stared down at the pink water running
down the drain as the blood washed away from him. He tried not to
picture her out there sitting on that bed looking so lost. What was
he going to do with her? He couldn’t simply let her go out into
this world, unprotected, with everything she knew? The idea of
letting her go caused his fingers to curl into the tiling and he
had to fight the impulse to drive his fist into it. She hadn’t flat
out told him no; she’d actually seemed to contemplate what he’d
told her, but he refused to get his hopes up. She’d hated vampires
for far longer than she’d known him.

She was a walking bull’s eye, and she would
be alone in the world if she refused him. He knew what she was to
him, but he couldn’t force her into something she wasn’t ready for,
not when she was trying to sort out her life and everything she
believed in. If she would only open up to him, maybe he could
better understand what drove her obsession. Maybe he could help
her. It was getting her to open up that would be the tricky part.
She was one of the most private people he’d ever come across.

He grabbed the small motel bar of soap and
scrubbed his skin as the water began to run clean. When he was
done, he turned the now warm water off and stepped out of the
shower. He toweled himself off, slipped on a pair of jeans and a
t-shirt. When he exited the room, Paige slipped by him and into the
shower beyond. He listened as she moved about and the water turned
on, but he sat on his hands as he fought the urge to go to her.

Steam followed her when she re-emerged in a
pair of loose fitting sweats and a baggy blue tee. He watched as
she mutely brushed out her hair before crawling onto the other bed.
The news she’d turned on before going into the shower, barely
registered as he watched her simple, mundane movements.

“Paige…”

“I need to sleep,” she murmured.

Though she doubted she’d be getting any
sleep tonight, not after the events of this day, and the
revelations that had unfolded. She’d believed in the hunters,
believed she could carry out her mission, and now she had nothing.
He believed she was meant to be with him for an eternity. She
wanted more than anything to trust in him, but all she’d ever known
was disappointment and betrayal.

She watched him walk over to the other bed,
pull back the comforter, and climb in. The sound of his breathing
drifted to her, if she stretched her hand across the two feet
separating them, he would take hold of hers, she was certain of it.
Instead, she forced herself not to think about him being so close
to her. Rolling over, she focused on the opposite wall. He switched
off the light and changed the channel on the TV.

It took her a few minutes to figure out where she
was when she woke in the middle of the night. Nothing around her
looked familiar; there had been no light or power in the cabin, but
images flickered across a TV screen. Then, the happenings of the
day crashed over her. Her father had found her again, somehow, and
now he was recruiting vampires to help him. Terror curdled in her
belly like month old milk. She didn’t know how he always managed to
locate her, but she knew now she’d never escape him. She’d been
living under a false sense of security with the hunters; she’d
allowed herself to believe she had the upper hand and that when she
encountered her father again it would all be over, and she would
walk away the winner.

She’d been delusional and lucky she hadn’t
gotten herself killed.

Rolling to the side, her gaze fell on the
clock on the table next to the bed. Two thirty blazed back at her
in vivid red numbers. She’d actually managed to sleep for four
hours straight; she must have been far more tired than she’d
realized. It was rare she slept more than two or three hours at a
time. Sleep meant being vulnerable, and that was one thing she
couldn’t afford to be.

Beyond the clock, Ian’s azure eyes met hers
in the dim light. Her breath caught in her throat as he gazed at
her. Her fingers curled into the pillow. He hadn’t moved, hadn’t
made any sound, but there was something so magnificent and sensual
about him that heat pooled within her belly and spread lower
through her limbs. This man was brutal, fierce. He was everything
she’d been trying to fight, yet all she wanted was to run her hands
over his flesh and feel his body against hers, inside of hers.

The yearning was so strong she almost threw
back the covers, slipped out of her bed, and crawled into his. She
wanted to feel anything other than this extreme sense of
hopelessness. She knew he was the only one who could do that for
her.

“Why were you with them, Paige?” he
inquired.

“Who?” she asked.

He could smell the heightened lust drifting
from her body; the increased beat of her heart sounded in his ears.
Blood flooded his cock causing it to harden and lengthen against
his stomach. He forced himself to stay in his bed. He’d already
been rebuked enough by her; he didn’t feel like getting his pride
stomped on again tonight.

“The hunters, how did you know they
existed?”

She pulled the worn bedspread closer against
her shoulders. “I didn’t. Not until a couple of years ago, and then
it took me a while to find them.”

“Who is it that keeps coming after you?”

His question caused memories to tumble
through her mind. She shuddered and pulled the blanket closer
against her. She could keep fighting him, keep trying to hide her
past from him, but she didn’t see the point anymore. And she was so
tired of fighting, so tired of keeping him at arm’s length. So
tired of bearing this cross all by herself. The last person she’d
revealed her secret to, Nabel, had promised to help her and guide
her, but he’d only told her lies. Ian didn’t offer her those
promises, he didn’t have to; he would be there for her for as long
as she needed him. This man across from her was many things, but a
liar wasn’t one of them.

“My father,” she admitted in a whisper. She
held her breath as she braced herself for his response.

His eyes didn’t flicker, his breathing
didn’t change, but she sensed a subtle stiffening of his body. “How
did he become a vampire?”

“I don’t know how. I don’t know when. My
mother and I fled from him when I was seven, and he was still
human. He was a vicious, drunken bastard who often mistook my
mother for his punching bag. One night, he came home and I had
colored on the wall with a marker. He cracked three of my ribs, and
broke my arm before my mother succeeded in pulling him off of me.
The next day she packed a small bag for me and we fled to a
battered woman’s shelter. We spent a couple of years moving around
before she finally felt safe enough to settle down in a small town
in Vermont. I was nine.”

Anger festered inside Ian’s chest; his teeth
grated together. He forced himself to remain outwardly relaxed
around her. “What happened after that?”

“I got a life,” she said with a small laugh.
“At first it was difficult because I kept waiting for it to fall
apart, and for us to have to run again. But after a couple of years
I began to settle in, relax, and I made friends.
Good
friends. I had fun. I had a boyfriend, I went to prom, I graduated,
and I was going to college. It was all so good and then…”