Illusion (21 page)

Exhaling a deep breath of frustration, I met his gaze. 
“Are you serious?  You’re sorry?  This is her fault, Stefan.  Her mess for you to fix and you’re sorry?  Incredible.”

Standing tall, Stefan glided across the room to squat in front of Georgia.  I felt her pulse rate increase under my fingertips and her breathing sounded ragged.  She tugged against me and I instinctively placed one of my hands up, pushing my shield around her, effectively ceasing her struggle.  Her squirming stopped and fury burned in her dark blue eyes as she looked from Stefan to me.

“What the hell are you gonna do to me?”

“Release your hold on her, vackra.”
  Stefan mentally commanded me.

Putting down my hand, I let my shield retreat back inside of me.  Georgia instantly began to fidget.

“Georgia, I am going to do what I should have done last night.  I am going to erase your memories of what we are,” Stefan said calmly.  He leaned closer and cupped Georgia’s chin in his hand, turning her eyes away from me.  He smiled serenely and his eyes bored into hers.  I knew the exact moment that she had fallen under his spell.  Her blue eyes glazed over and her lips parted slightly.  It was strangely erotic to watch him push his influence on her, to see her completely under his control.

“You will forget what we are, Georgia.  We are humans, just as you are.  We are moving to New York for business,” he murmured to her softly.  “Georgia, what are we?”

“Humans.  Just like me.”  She sounded robotic with no inflection in her voice.

“What did you see last night?” Stefan asked in the same soft tenor.

She paused, her eyes staring blankly into his piercing blue ones.  “I don’t know.”

“You watched a movie and then you went to bed.”

“I watched a movie and went to bed,” she repeated woodenly.

“Why are we moving back to the US, Georgia?”

“For business.”

Stefan’s gaze never left Georgia’s as he reached for her arm, gently pulling the towel away, revealing the small gash on the inside of her arm.  He bent and licked her skin, his nose wrinkling in distaste at her blood.  The wound stopped bleeding and he placed her arm back at her side.

“You received that injury while doing housework.  You will not remember harming yourself.”  Stefan smile faded and he sat back on his heels.  He was releasing her from his will and I could see the life come back into her eyes.  She blinked a few times and looked at the three of us in confusion.

“What am I doing here?”  Georgia asked.  “I don’t remember coming over here.”

“We were planning a going away get together, Georgia.  Don’t you remember?”  Lukas reminded her, lightly poking her side with his finger.

I had to give Lukas credit.  For being as irritated as he was with her, he was pulling this off superbly.  There were award winning actors that couldn’t have done a better job.

“A party!”  Georgia bounced excitedly.  “I’ll call Anna and we’ll plan everything!”

She jumped to her feet, hurrying to the door.  She gripped the doorknob and looked confused..  “Wait a second.  You’re going to Stefan’s house now, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, we’re getting ready to leave now,” I said cautiously.  I was waiting for Georgia to remember something, anything that would trigger an outburst from her.

“Then I’ll call your cell phone when I have details,” she decided.  “See ya later!”

The door slammed behind her, leaving me to gawk at the door, still waiting for the bottom to fall out.

“Well, that worked better than I thought.  I figured she’d find a way to trump you wiping her memory,” Lukas mused, standing up and brushing his hands together, as if wiping the events from the day away.  “Let’s get out of here before she comes back.”

For once, neither Stefan and I could argue with him.  Grabbing the bloody towel, I threw it in the trash can and followed Stefan to the front door.  I let my eyes sweep over my villa for a final time.

“Are you ready?” Stefan asked, moving to stand at my side as I glanced over the house I’d called home for over a year.

The situation with Georgia had driven home the fact it was time for us to move on.  Stefan’s arm wrapped around my shoulders and as I glanced up at him, I knew I had no regrets and nothing to lose.

Nudging him with my shoulder, I pressed closer against his him.  “Let’s go.”

Chapter 9 – Method Acting

The house was strangely quiet.  It was rare for things to be so subdued, I’d become accustomed to the flurry of activity and conversation that always seemed to surround me and the difference was glaring.  The silence left me plenty of time to think, and I had enough on my mind to sort through.

After folding yet another blouse and tucking it away in the suitcase, my thoughts focused on Georgia and the incident at my villa.  I was extremely concerned about her state of mind and confused at her strange behavior.  I still couldn’t figure out what had possessed her to seek out Stefan and Lukas alone.  Had she always been off kilter and I hadn’t seen it?  Was it the knowledge of mythical creatures existing that had pushed her over the edge?  Every time I tried to focus on her future, it was it was scrambled with gaping holes in it.  It was comparable to staring through Swiss cheese.

And then there was Stefan… he had been exceptionally careful with his thoughts, almost as if he was afraid for me to know how he was truly feeling.  I glanced up to see Stefan staring out the windows, and I studied his profile from across the room.  His chiseled face was contemplative, stress deepening the feathery lines around his eyes.  He had his hands shoved in the front pockets of his dark wash blue jeans, the muscles in his arms tight.

 “You’re awfully quiet over there.  What’s going on in that head of yours?” I asked, reaching for the next item to pack away.  “You’ve closed your mind to me or I wouldn’t have to ask.”

He turned to face me and his eyebrows furrowed over his blue eyes.  “Do you need to ask?” Stefan snorted.  “I had no choice but to erase a huge portion of your friend’s memory and we are heading back to New York tomorrow.  I am worried about Georgia’s state of mind and your safety once we return to the US.”

Exhaling a deep breath, I nodded in agreement.  If I were to be completely honest, I was worried about not only my safety, but his as well.  My father was a big unknown to us since he had the capability to deflect Stefan’s psychic ability.  Stefan was a meticulous schemer, careful and precise.  He didn’t like to be caught off guard by a rogue vampire that was older and considerably more powerful.

“Georgia seemed fine when she left.  We’ll be able to watch her tonight.  As for Kian… maybe my shield will work on him.  Nikolaus can work around his power, maybe I can too.”  I resumed folding clothes and sighed.  “I can’t let him control my life, Stefan.  I refuse to do it.”

“That we are in agreement with, vackra.  I refuse to let him control you and what we have.  I am also unwilling to let you be a guinea pig and test your shield.  We cannot assume your mind works the same simply because he can thwart Kian’s ability.”  His voice had a sharp, cutting edge to it, like the blade of a newly sharpened knife.  Glancing up at his expression, his beautiful face momentarily had an inhuman quality to it, cold and unfeeling.  By the time I blinked again, it had rapidly been replaced to reflect the Stefan I loved, his handsome face was unworried and lips quirked slightly at the corners.  His other expression had been so fleeting that I almost thought I imagined it.  Almost.

Even though it was tempting to just stand and observe him longer, I disappeared into the closet, bringing out the final things I wanted to pack away.  Packing away clothing into the luggage gave me time to deduce exactly what Stefan was planning, most likely for my father.  He would not be hasty in how he chose to attack.  Call it intuition or a hunch, I could sense the smoothly-oiled wheels of his mind cataloging information into the vast filing cabinet of his mind, each piece of information vital to his strategy.

Zipping up the suitcase, I turned and carried it to stand by its mate at the closet door, my hands on my hips.  Logically, I should be disturbed to know that the love of my life was planning my father’s death.  I had no emotional tie to my father, the only link I had to Kian was the blood that ran through my veins.  The knowledge that he had single-handedly killed my mother quickly alleviated any troubled thoughts that lingered.  It was a necessity, as Nikolaus had told Stefan.  It was either kill or be killed.

I wasn’t ready to die.

I glanced up at the windows where Stefan had been standing only moments ago to find that he had moved silently and swiftly to stretch his long body across the bed, ridding himself of his clothes to lie naked.  He was reclining on his back, his long arms behind his head.  Even though I’d seen him nude many times, seeing him like this never lost its powerful effect on me.  My breathing shifted into rapid pants and I suddenly felt like I had on too many clothes.  My concerns were pushed away as I stared at him, transfixed by the sight of his pale skin against the chocolate brown of the duvet cover.  My hands moved on their own accord to undress, letting my discarded clothes fall behind me, unwanted and unneeded as I approached the bed.

He was a paradox of sorts: dark and light, vampire and man.  And I craved him like any addict would hunger after the object they desired.  He had gotten under my skin in the most mysterious of ways with his charm and beauty.

He smiled one of his crooked smiles and his arms reached out to tug me to the bed beside of him.  He pushed me to my back, opening my legs wide and moving to settle between them, simply staring at the wetness that glistened between my thighs.  His fangs were fully out, his blue eyes heavily lidded with his need as he knelt before me.  The now familiar excitement of seeing him aroused and filled with want made me desire him so intensely that my entire body cried out for his touch, writhing and arching my back off the bed as I longed for him to touch me.

“Always so impatient, Josephine.”

His nostrils flared as he smelled my arousal in the air between us, and his fangs retracted slowly.  He parted my folds with his fingers, burying his head between my thighs, his tongue tracing a slow line from my wet pussy to circle around my swollen clit, then returning to delve inside of me.  He let out a deep rumble of pleasure, his thumb rubbing over my clit as he sucked and licked, his soft, sensual touch making me shiver at the same time a low moan fell from my lips.

He raised his head and hovered over me.  The burning intensity of his eyes had me trapped, unable to look away.

“Beg.”

My eyes stared into his, filled with astonishment.  He wanted me to beg?  He sat back on his heels and began stroking his full length with long, languid strokes, still staring at me with eyes that beckoned for me to yield to him.

“Beg,” he repeated.  His tongue slipped out to lick across his lower lip eagerly.

“Please,” I whimpered.  I wasn’t above begging when the end result would have him buried inside of me.

“Please, what?  What exactly do you want me to do, Josephine?”

He was playing dirty, making me tell him what I wanted merely to hear me tell him how badly I needed him.

Sneaky bastard.

Trying to make my voice stay low and sultry, I stared deeply into his eyes.  “Please, Stefan.  I need you…”

His eyebrow rose slightly and his lips twitched, the speed of his hand on his cock increasing.  “Tell me what you need and where you need it.”

I let out a frustrated groan and bowed my neck against the bed.  He was going to kill me.  My mind flashed back to the first night I met him and I mused of self-combustion.  If he kept this up, I’d be a pile of ashes from all of his sexy talk.

Sitting up a little, I rested on my elbows.  I focused on him so intently that I felt myself slip into his mind, our thoughts fusing together, our desire mingling and fueling the craving that was burning in each of us, threatening to blaze out of control.

“I need your cock inside of me.  Now,” I said in a low growl that was worthy of a vampire.

His answering smile was triumphant.  His fangs dropped again and he lowered the entire length of his long, lean body against me, letting our joining come naturally, his cock sliding deep inside of me.  After a moment he ducked his head to kiss my neck, his tongue licking along my pulse point.

“I love it to hear you talk like that, vackra.  Du vänder mig, Josephine,” he said into my ear before his lips drifted to the other side of my neck.  My fingers gripped his taut ass to keep his slow, steady rhythm from stopping.  This time when he spoke, it was his voice I heard in my mind. 
“You are so wet for me.  Do you want more?”

“Yes!  More!” I panted.  He picked up the pace, our bodies starting to make the sounds I associated with our lovemaking: wet sounds of flesh against flesh, our cries and moans matched the frantic rhythm we’d set.  “More!”

“More?  You want more?”  Stefan asked, his voice a deep rumble in his chest.  He leaned closer, the hard muscles of his chest pressing against my breasts, his strong arms on each side of my head, caging me in.

“Yes!  Harder,” I begged, pulling my legs back and letting my heels dig into the firm cheeks of his ass.  His eyes darkened and his speed increased, our hips meeting at an almost brutal speed.