Microsoft Word - The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance.doc (2 page)

He captured my attention as his teeth tugged at the lace of my bra, his mouth begging entry to the silken cups. I slipped my hands up to tangle in his dark hair, slightly in need of a trim, and down to caress the corded muscles of his bare back. Caught in the throes of fresh  passion, we’d stripped down almost as soon as we made it back to my apartment. His stones concert T-shirt

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was still in my doorway, my skirt and blouse not far ahead to

mark a trail that led from hall to kitchen.

He cradled my buttocks in his hands, lifted , and rested my bottom against chipped Formica before forming his tongue around my bare nipple and sucking itin for a long, hot pull. My knees would have buckled if I wasn’t already balanced on the counter.

Had he broken the skin on my neck with his bite?  I couldn’t tell. His tongue stroked and laved, drawing me in. He suckled, as greedy as a newborn. But,
 
I
 
was the mere babe.

Over the second glass of wine, he’d confessed to being nearly 600. I’d laughed, not yet moving past the state of disbelief. It took his confession of having been an intimate of the Shelleys  to push me into the realm of acceptance. His explanation of Mary’s belief that she had failed her husband struck a cord and felt so real.

He knew things that only years of study and access to sealed documents at the Bodleian Library would have confirmed.  Mary’s private letters, many lost, came to life in Connor Black’s descriptions. He would be far too young to know so much, unless . . .
 
600 years old? Really?

What drew him to me, he claimed, was  reading my dissertation on Mary Shelley’s yearning for immortality as expressed in her novels. I’d apparently captured such a sense of the real Mary that he wanted to meet me, and became a student to do so. He’s been close to her after her husband’s death, but she’d refused to let him turn her.

“Because it was too late for her,” I interjected, downing my  third glass. Good Cabernet. “Why would she want to live when  everyone she cared about had died?”

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“The very reason she refused me,” he confirmed, with a  lift

of his glass. “But you won’t refuse me, will you?”

“Immortality doesn’t hold a lot of appeal right now.” Life

being such a joy and all.

How about a sharpening of your senses, all of them?  Sounds, smells, tastes. You can’t imagine what chocolate tastes like to me. And the wine, oh.” He rolled his eyes back in his head as if the wine was ambrosia of the gods.

“I can still eat chocolate then?” I tingled with curiosity. “It’s

not all about the blood?”

“The blood fortifies, it sustains you. But the food? Eat as

you like. You won’t gain a pound.”

I laughed. He had to be kidding.

I’ m completely serious. You’ll remain as you are now,

perhaps a little leaner.”

“Only a little?” I raised a brow. “Perhaps I’ll call you after I

lose another ten pounds.”

“No.” There was an edge to his voice. He grew insistent.

“Now. We’ll go back to your place now. Let me show you.”

“Show me?” My nerves skittered with curiosity mixed with

a hint of fear.

“What I can do to you. For you,” he corrected. “Tell me to

stop if I make you uncomfortable. You’re in control.”

“I’m in control,” I echoed now, as if suddenly remembering.  My nerves no longer skittered, but were as taut as violin strings.  And now they sang.

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“Mm.” He looked up, a drip of blood trailing down his

stubble-dotted chin. “Your wish is my command.”

But he didn’t stop to take commands. He dropped to his knees, tugging the underwear that matched the bra down my hips and dipping his head between my thighs before I had a chance to protest. I shifted, leaning back to allow him better access. He drank deeply, and for so long that I lost all thoughts of control. I lost my mind. I barely remembered my name.

And then, I nearly lost consciousness. I tingled all over, felt light-headed, euphoric. I’d never felt so at peace,  and yet so high. So very high. I drifted in the air, hovering over the scene. I looked good stretched out along my kitchen counter, my torso elongated to best advantage for my slightly rounded abs. My stomach  looked flat, lovely. My breasts, firmer than I remembered. My legs, longer than I ever imagined, and perfectly shaped as they wrapped around him, pulling him tighter, before they went quiet and limp.

He rose wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Wait,

how was I watching? Was I  –  realization dawned. I was dead?

He left me there, an abandoned rag doll, and went off in search of something. A knife. He stripped off his shirt and sliced a red welt along his well-honed shoulder blade. He leaned in for a kiss. “Your turn. Drink.”

I didn’t know how I could comply with his orders from way up in the ether, but I tasted brine, like seawater, on my tongue as he pressed against my mouth. Drowning, I drank him in, unable to hold back, and I gasped, coming to the surface at last.

“That’s it.” He cradled my head in his hands.

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The blue of his eyes shone through the haze to guide me, stars in a midnight sky. I dipped my head again and darted my tongue along the tangy red welt. Now I tasted wine, the  Cabernet we’d had earlier, the rich berry essence with a hint of tobacco, earth and salt. Connor’s blood. Clarity returned with every taste. I became all too aware of my fingers sliding over his bare chest, down his arms, and up again, pausing at every sinew and cord. He was real, no figment of my imagination. I slid  my bottom down off the cabinets, cold linoleum under the balls of my feet as I rose up on tiptoe to kiss his lush, quivering mouth.

My hands strayed to the button of his jeans, too much clothing. I wanted to feel him against me, inside me. I felt so

new,  so alive, aware of every little thing: my nerves pulsing  under the skin, blood thrumming through my veins, the tick of  the clock in my bedroom, a soft mewling  yawn from the baby  next door. Next door? Could I hear that far?

“Your senses sharpen,” he said,  as if he could hear my  thoughts. And then I realized that he hadn’t spoken aloud. I  could hear his thoughts, and he mine.
 
We’re connected now.

“For life?” Not used to telepathy, I’d asked it aloud.

He laced his fingers with mine.
 
For eternity. My

epipsychidion.

Soul of my soul. I knew the Shelley poem, the poet’s fixation with a lover. I also knew the reality behind the poem.  Shelley had fallen for a phantom, his own idealized version of what love should be. Was I, in fact, a phantom now? Or was I waking  from past disillusionment, ready to accept a whole new life?

With my newly sharpened senses, I assumed the sound of breaking glass was the shock of my own realization. It took a second to comprehend that it was my actual window breaking.

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A man was climbing in through the broken glass, and another two coming in the door I’d left unlocked. I assumed they were men, larger than life in dark jumpsuits and helmets, faces covered with masks. Gas masks.

Connor shoved me behind him as if about to defend me. I

was  touched by the gesture until he fell at my feet. A heartbeat  later, my shouts of protest echoing in deep-throated slow  motion, I fell atop him and into the black fog of my own mind.

I woke up in the dark. So dark I couldn’t see. I could feel that I was  in bed, in a cotton gown, but not my bed and not my gown. Hospital? I sat up. Hospitals had those infernal fluorescent lights, always on. I couldn’t see any cracks of light to indicate a window or a door. I inhaled, rubbed my arms, and discovered an IV jabbed into the inside of my left elbow.  Hospital, I reaffirmed, and tried to feel better about it.

Hospital. I squinted into the darkness. Had I gone blind?  Panic set in. I was blind! Lord, I hoped it was only a temporary condition. I reached out at my sides, fingers meeting metal rails.

“Hello?” If I couldn’t see, how would I know if there was

someone in the room? “Hello?”

No  answer. I sighed, reached over, and worked my hand up the IV tube to a box-like machine. My finger hit a button, something. A buzz went off, and stopped, followed by a soft whir, and what felt like a pulsing down the tube. Maybe I was getting more drugs, whatever had knocked me out. Maybe I didn’t care. But I did care. I struggled to remember what had happened, why I was here. And then my mind found Connor.

I’m here
. Connor Black’s voice in my head, as if he were

speaking to me.

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Where?
 
Whether I was crazy, dreaming or drugged, what

did it matter? I may as well answer.

You have to find me
, he said.
 
Find me
.

I preferred to find
 
me
 
first.

Deductive reasoning had never been my strong point, which was, why I’d gone into teaching literature.
 
Teaching
.   The  Shelleys. I’d been having wine with Connor. It all came flooding back to me a second later. Vampire? It couldn’t be.

My blood pounded in my veins so hard I could practically hear it. I remembered the window shattering, three men in jumpsuits and masks, my falling at their feet, and the world fading to black. I sat up fast, the tubing ripping from my skin on a snap of pain that faded  as realization dawned. Hospital? Or had I been abducted?

The world came into focus, a dim glow lighting the room, or were my eyes finally working? I squinted in the darkness until I realized that I didn’t need to squint. I could see everything fine,

even  in the dark. The machinery at my side, a medical-looking  box with two bags hanging suspended  –  one as clear as water,  the other as opaque as blood  –  both feeding into the tube that  had been stuck in my veins. The bed, covers rumpled at my feet,  the walls covered in what looked to be watered silk, there were  gilded wall sconces, tasteful paintings of flowers in vases, two  dressers, a vanity with an enormous mirror, a chair, and doors  – a bathroom? Closet? Hall? No curtains, no windows. My bare  feet found the  soft, woven carpet, not exactly standard hospital  issue.

The doors should have been my target. Which one to exit?  Where to call out? I headed for the mirror, my breathing suspended. I feared what I might, or might not see, but there I

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was, bathed in a golden glow as if kissed by the dawn, lovelier  than I’d ever appeared. My hair hung in soft, honeyed curls to  my shoulders. I stroked my cheek, pale or simply an effect of  the darkness? My eyes glowed, cat’s eyes, predatory and  shrewd. Me, but not me. What had happened? Where was I?

Again, I left the doors unchecked in favour of sifting through the dresser drawers. My favourite jeans, a not favourite sweater. My clothing was here, and what else? I pulled the jeans on, not bothering to look for more. The jeans hung, just barely staying around my hips. The sweater had been nearly too tight, but now it draped my frame. No time to think. Shoes. I needed shoes and I could walk out of here and into the night. Something told me not to call out, not to stay. A voice  in my head, not my

own.
 
Connor
.

A sound caught my attention, a rustling from the direction of the door at the far end of the room. A heartbeat later, the door

swung open.

A man stood outlined in a halo of light. Once he stepped inside, I could see that he looked something like an angel. Blond curls, structured cheekbones. I met his gaze as he stepped inside and closed the door behind him. I didn’t know how I could so clearly make out the colour of his eyes through the dark, but they shone amber, warm as candlelight diffused through a glass of Irish whiskey.

He held a clipboard, his arms crossed over his white coat,

which reminded me of folded wings.

“Luke.” He held out his hand and smiled, straight white  teeth, no fangs. Another good sign. Not that Connor had  appeared to have fangs until he’d been about to bite. “Luke  Jameson.”

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“Doctor Jameson?” I asked, hesitant, as I placed my hand in

his soft, warm grip.

He nodded. “I’d prefer that you call me Luke, but whatever makes you comfortable. The whole suite –” he gestured around us “  –  was designed for your comfort. I’d prefer you thought of it as home.”

“I’d like to go home.” To my real home. Not that my

shoebox apartment had ever felt much like home.

“Why don’t we have a seat? We’ve a lot to discuss.” He  opened the door adjacent to the one he’d come in, the one I’d  assumed was a closet but turned out to be a sitting room. I  followed him into the light, to an overstuffed lavender sofa in  front of a brick hearth with a walnut mantel. A pastel rug  covered a  bare wood floor. Heavy curtains covered a back wall.  Windows? He settled on the ottoman of the chair that matched  the sofa, set the clipboard on a side table, picked up a remote  control and lit the gas-fuelled fireplace.