Fire and Ash (Immortal Touch) (39 page)

Maybe he should locate his
old pocketknife and whittle himself a nice sharp wooden stake. He could keep it on him, hidden inconspicuously underneath his windbreaker because even in the spring, nights in Brightwood tended to be chilly. Just bide his time until the moment was right. At some point, he’d get his chance.

Yeah. It was a pretty good plan.
Maybe he’d get started on that right now. What else was a teenage vampire supposed to spend his days doing?

~*~*~*~

Sami spent Sunday with Ash.

He was in an unusually talkative mood,
entertaining her with firsthand accounts of events that occurred long before she was born. She was enthralled. He remembered the sinking of the Titanic…the start of the first World War…the Spanish Flu pandemic. He saw the beginning of Prohibition, the first “talking movies”, and was right in the midst of the devastating 1926 Miami hurricane. Witnessed the slide into the Great Depression. Once shook hands with Roosevelt at Rollins College.

It was
during the year of the hurricane that he contracted malaria which progressed into deadly blackwater fever. And though he was deliberately vague about the details, she discovered that during this illness, at the age of twenty-nine, he lost one life only to gain another.
How
it happened was a detail he chose not to divulge.

She
went back down to her room early Sunday evening to shower and change clothes, taking a few minutes to respond to emails from her mother and Kelly. By the time she returned to 1608, Asher was in the process of stacking filled syringes into a small plastic container. The familiar aroma of nightshade permeated the air in his kitchen. She’d only smelled it once before, but it was one of those distinct essences you never forgot. Like marijuana. Once you got a whiff of that, from then on you could always identify it.

“What are you doing with those?” she couldn’t
resist asking.

“They’re not for me, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“Good to know. That’s a lot of pharmaceutical.”

“
Yeah, it is. Well, I probably won’t need this much, but I’d rather err on the side of caution.”

“If I asked what you were planning to us
e them for, would you tell me?”

“
Sami, I believe that curiosity has often been described as lust of the mind.” He closed the lid on the container with a
snap.
“Why don’t you use that lust for more constructive purposes?”

Leaning backwards against the counter on her elbows, she crossed one ankle over the other.
“Are you driving all the way there?”

“Flying.”

“They’re never going to let you on a plane with that!”

“I think you’d be surprised what I can get away with.”

No doubt. “When’s your flight leave?”

“I’m picking
Kendall up at the airport tomorrow morning at nine. I’ll be leaving soon after that.”

“Is he one too? A vampire?”

“Yes.”

“
So do you know when your return flight…”

“You know, I’m hungry
- how about you?” Interrupting her cross-examination, he began to strip off his clothes while wandering off in the direction of the bedroom. Apparently he was done talking. Assuming he was changing for dinner, Sami followed behind, stooping to pick up the shirt he’d dropped carelessly on the floor. Why were men, even the non-human varieties, always such slobs?

“
Yeah…I could eat something.” She folded the shirt neatly and laid it on top of his dresser.

“I never said anything about eating.”
The wolfish grin he gave her sent her appetite right out the window, and all thoughts of flight schedules and messy rooms were instantly forgotten.

“Oh…”

“Come over here.” He stood in the darkness of the bedroom, not moving but waiting instead for her to come to him.

She walked
that way, but before she could reach him he suddenly said, “Stop.”

Halting
, she stood in front of him, just close enough that she could graze him with her fingertips if her arms were held outstretched.

“Now undress.” He crossed his arms over his chest, watching while she let her own clothes fall in a heap on the floor.
She stood there self-consciously, naked and completely vulnerable. Something had changed in his tone. Jekyll was being overshadowed, and tonight’s demands were likely to be more of Hyde. She was afraid…and aroused.

“Do you have any idea, Samara, what I will expect of you
once I make you immortal?”

Not sure what he wanted to hear, she
chose to state the truth. “No. Not exactly.”

“I didn’t think so. Your constant
interrogations are proof of that.” His eyes roamed leisurely up and down her body. “I think we’d better set you straight right now, before this goes any further. Listen up, because this is how it’s going to be.
I will own you.
Your body and soul will belong exclusively to me and I will use them both in any way I see fit. Whatever the hell I tell you to do, then you will
do
with no questions asked. If I tell you to jump off a bridge, you will do it. If I tell you to drop to your knees and kiss my cock in the middle of a crowded room, then by God you will do that as well without hesitation. Are you getting the overall picture here?”

Stunned, Sami froze.

“You have about two seconds to fucking answer me!”

“Yes! Yes…” she managed to whisper.

“Tell me right now - are we going to have a problem with discipline?”

“No.” She shook her head, eyes wide.

“Then we have an understanding?”

She nodded.

As if by magic, Hyde gave way to Jekyll and Ash opened his arms to welcome her into them. “Come here, then.”

She obeyed,
though still unsettled by his unexpected outburst. It was beyond her comprehension how anyone could pull a one-eighty so fast.

He ran his fingers carefully through the thick waves of her hair.
“That’s my good little girl. You just need to be reined in sometimes, don’t you? Taught how to behave. You know what your problem is? You’re too spirited. I think we need to work off some of that misplaced energy. Beat some of that stubbornness out of you. What do you think?”

She looked up at him
, speechless.

“
What’s wrong? Are you afraid?”

She nodded wordlessly.

“Well, I would tell you that I have no intention of hurting you, but that wouldn’t be the truth. I love hurting you. And let’s face it, if I didn’t think you liked it just as much, we wouldn’t be where we are now.”

Where she was now
…living as a pathetic shell of her former self, hopelessly obsessed with someone who expected nothing less than her complete submission. And still - even after everything - she would change nothing. She didn’t want her former life. She only wanted him.

He grasped her bottom to grind
himself against her, and she bit her lip to suppress a shamelessly wanton moan. Her body was alive with every emotion that had ever been awakened within her, all trapped together to form chaos and she welcomed it, wanted it, whatever nameless thing it was.

“You know, Sami…for optimum pleasure, pain should
typically be delivered with a gentle hand.” His lips trailed soft kisses along her neck and cheek, pausing beside her ear to breathe his warm breath into it. “
But not always.
”

In a flash he lifted her up by her
arms, slamming her against the wall with brute force and his mouth crushed hers, his tongue reaching places it had never been before. Her legs automatically found their place around his waist and she cried out in ecstasy at the feel of him plunging inside her, even while his fingers bruised her flesh as they held her pinned against the wall. His movements were wild and bestial, and he ravaged her with more force than he ever had before and every deep, violent thrust was sheer sweet agony.

When he’d had enough of that she was flung savagely to the floor, the back of her head banging against it painfully, and while
continuing his vicious assault he growled, “You’re about to be defiled in every sick and perverse way imaginable. I plan on violating every part of you until you forget you ever knew dignity. And do you know why?”

“No,” she whimpered.

“
Because I can!
”

Something in those three words instilled angry rebellion within her, and
she sank her teeth into his shoulder with all the force her jaws would allow. Hard enough to draw blood…and even then he only laughed. “That’s it, baby -
fight.
Release that energy. Let me have it.”

So she did. She fought. Struggled, bit, scratched, hit, kicked, tore at his hair and the more she gave the more he wanted. He
wanted
her to hurt him. He loved it. It was exactly what he craved.

In
the end, when he’d finally satisfied his barbaric appetite and they lay in a tangled heap across the bed, she forced herself to face the fact that his insight was a hundred percent correct. She did like it.

A lot.

And in the cool darkness of the quiet spring night, he held her close and whispered to her words never meant for mortal ears. Secrets known only to him.

She had no way of knowing just how meaningful they were.

~*~*~*~

The sound of a twig snapping behind him reached Dane’s ears, but he didn’t turn around to see who was approaching him. He didn’t have to.
Some new intuitive part of him could sense that it was the agile redhead.

“H
ey.” Eva motioned to the huge fallen pine he was straddled over, long legs dangling. “Mind if I sit for a minute?”

“Free country.”
Without looking up at her, he continued whittling away at the narrow end of the two-foot length of white oak.

With a leap, s
he balanced herself on the tree in front of him. “Your mom told me you were out here.”

“Great.”

“So…what are you doing?” Her eyes fell on the piece of wood in his hands and he had to force himself not to snort in derision at the strange look that entered them.

“
New hobby. Woodcrafting.”

She watched the knife’s sharp blade as it sent thin curly shavings falling to the ground. “
We all need a pastime, I guess.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Especially now.”

He didn’t answer.

“You know…with all this time on our hands.”

The knife continued scraping against the oak.

“Dane, would you at least look at me please?”

Without lifting his head from his work, he raised his eyes to meet hers.
He expected to see annoyance there, but she only looked sad.

“I came by because there was something I wanted to say to you.
”

“Okay.”

“I’ve been thinking about what you said.”

Th
at caught his attention. Something
he’d
said had been weighing on her mind?

“
I think I understand how you’re feeling. And I just want you to know this, Dane. You aren’t insignificant. If that’s the way you see yourself and if I was the one who made you feel that way, then you have to know that I’m truly sorry. Because I never meant to hurt you. You’re one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met and you don’t deserve that.”

He waited for her to drop the
proverbial hammer. She didn’t disappoint.

“But you
also need to understand one thing. I’m in love with someone else. And that’s not going to change. If he walked out of my life right now, I’d spend the rest of forever loving him still. There’s never going to be anyone else for me but him. I can’t explain why it’s that way…it just is. I can’t help it. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”

Returning his attention to the piece of wood in his hands, he took a deep breath and sighed. “Yeah. I
get it.”

“We’ll always be friends, you and I. Especially now that we have so much in common.”
She was trying to coax a smile out of him, and he couldn’t help but respond. It was hard to resist Eva’s sweet charm.

“Sorry about the other night,” he apologized.

“Water under the bridge.” She picked at a piece of tree bark with her finger. “One other thing. I know your parents were invited to the wedding, but it would probably be best if you didn’t come with them. Not that I don’t want you there - I do - but with this territorial thing between you and Julian…well, things could get tense. And we all need to be careful.”

“So I’m officially uninvited?” He tried to make
his comment sound glib, hoping he succeeded.

“You
know
I’d love to have you there. I feel like a total creep for even bringing it up. It’s just…”