The Vampire Who Loved Me (14 page)

Portia opened her eyes to find a heavenly
choir of cherubs beaming down at her. They perched on downy white clouds in a sky of celestial blue, their chubby little fingers plucking the strings of golden lyres.

“Oh, dear Lord,” she whispered. “I’m dead.”

She clapped a hand to her mouth. Perhaps this wouldn’t be the wisest time to start blaspheming.

The cherubs smirked down at her, deepening the dimples in their rosy cheeks. Her spirit might be residing on a cloud of its own in this glowing little corner of paradise, but her body
was probably lying in the middle of some weed-choked courtyard at Chillingsworth Manor in a tangle of twisted and shattered limbs. At least Julian wasn’t subject to the grim finality of death, she thought with a wistful little sigh. After sending her crashing to her doom, he’d probably sprang to his feet, dusted off his coat, and headed back to London for a fresh bottle of port and another game of brag.

Unaccountably annoyed with the cherubs’ good cheer, she jerked her gaze away from them.

“Oh, dear Lord!”
she said again, this time with an entirely different inflection.

The vision that greeted her eyes was decidedly more pagan in nature. A most curious creature—half-man and half swan—appeared to be forcing his romantic advances on a voluptuous and nearly naked young woman. Despite the maidenly way she clasped the scraps of her ruined gown to her breasts, her parted lips and dazed expression left one with the indelicate hint that she might actually be enjoying his rapacious attentions.

“Oh my,” Portia murmured, forced to turn her head sideways to absorb the full impact of
their coupling. As heat flooded her cheeks and other less respectable parts of her body, she almost wished she hadn’t.

The heat seemed to burn away the last wisps of fog drifting through her head. She realized in that moment that she wasn’t floating on a cloud gazing up at the heavens but lying on a feather tick blinking up at a faded mural painted on a domed ceiling by some artist who was probably long dead. The innocent cherubs were perched next to various far less innocent characters from Greek mythology, including the cunning god Zeus who had transformed himself into a swan to ravish the unsuspecting—but not entirely unwilling—Leda.

Portia sat up in the sagging four-poster, shocked to realize she was wearing only her thin silk chemise. The drooping neckline of the garment revealed an alarming expanse of creamy bosom and shoulder. Her hand flew to her throat only to find the gold collar gone as well. It seemed she’d been liberated from both her clothing and her chains.

Someone had also freed her hair from its combs and wiped the mask of powder from her face. Oddly enough, it was more stirring to
imagine Julian’s hands tenderly mopping the powder from her cheeks than unlacing the whalebone corset of her gown.

A branch of candles stood near the foot of the bed, their flickering glow doing little to brighten the gloom of the chamber. Although the candles were molded from fragrant beeswax instead of tallow, most of them were little more than salvaged stubs. A fall of cobwebs draped the tarnished brass of the chandelier, drifting like tattered lace before the breath of some unseen draft. The frozen pearl of the moon peeped through the mullioned window tucked beneath the eaves on the far side of the room.

She jumped as the door swung open and Julian ducked into the bedchamber, a woolen blanket draped over his arm.

“I suppose that answers one of my questions,” she said, tightening her grip on the neckline of the chemise. “I’m definitely not in heaven or
you
wouldn’t be here.”

He swept her a mocking bow. “The Prince of Darkness at your service, my lady.”

His wind-tossed hair and sparkling dark eyes made him appear only too well-suited to the role. The mischievous sprite who had stolen
her gown also seemed to have made off with his coat, waistcoat, and boots, leaving him garbed in his white lawn shirt and ivory trousers. His cravat hung loose around the broad column of his throat.

He tossed her the blanket with an apologetic shrug. “I would have laid a fire in the hearth but I’m afraid it’s not one of my talents.”

Portia could well understand that. Especially when a single stray spark could incinerate him.

As she wrapped the blanket around her shoulders, he settled himself into a gilded chair with padded arms that sat a few feet from the bed. If the gilt hadn’t been peeling and the padding spilling from the arms, it would have made a fitting throne.

“Where are we?” she asked, nervously eyeing the shadowy corners of the room.

“I thought it best that we lay low for a few hours and fortunately, Chillingsworth Manor isn’t the only abandoned house in this parish. Judging from the sheets draping the furniture, the occupants of this house may very well plan to return someday. I’m just hoping it won’t be tonight.”

“How did we get in?”

“Through a freshly broken window.” He smiled at her expression. “You needn’t look so shocked. I can assure you that burgling a deserted house is the least of my sins.”

“Well, I certainly won’t argue with that.” Their eyes met for a long moment, but it was Portia who had to look away first. “I thought vampires couldn’t enter a house without an invitation?”

He wiggled his eyebrows at her. “That’s only when there’s someone at home.”

She frowned. “Why don’t I remember coming here?”

“If you don’t recall stealing a horse from Raphael’s stables and boldly eluding our pursuers, it’s probably because you were draped across my lap like a sack of potatoes. You fainted.”

She groaned. “How embarrassing! I’ve faked any number of swoons in my life, but never succumbed to a genuine one.” She opened the blanket to peer down at her unconventional attire. “It’s very odd but I also can’t seem to recall how my gown came to be missing? Did it by any chance
fall off
as we were galloping across the moors?”

“No, but it was sprinkled with holy water
and I got tired of burning myself every time I touched you.” He tugged up the cuffs of his shirt to reveal blackened scorch marks along the length of his muscled forearms.

“Oh,” Portia breathed in genuine dismay. She had to fight an absurd desire to go to him, to press her lips against his wounded flesh and try to draw out the pain.

He lifted his shoulders in a diffident shrug. “They’ll heal. Not as quickly as a gunshot wound, of course, but in time.” He leaned back in the chair, crossing his long legs at the ankle. “So when you found your gown missing, did you fear my intentions toward you might be less than honorable?”

Portia matched his mocking tone with one of her own. “Usually when a man sweeps a woman up into his arms and carries her off, it’s for some nefarious purpose.”

“I was trying to save your life, not force you to elope with me to Gretna Green.”

She tilted her head, studying him from beneath her lashes. “I thought perhaps you really had decided to set up housekeeping with me as your kitten.”

“If I wanted a pet, I’d get a dog. Their claws
aren’t nearly as sharp and their affections are more easily engaged.”

“That was an unfair jibe, don’t you think? Especially since I spent the earliest part of our acquaintance scampering after your heels like an overeager pup.” She touched a hand to her throat. “Perhaps you should have left on the collar and chain so you would have a way to bring me to heel.”

“Don’t think I wasn’t tempted. I briefly considered telling you I’d lost the key during our mad dash for freedom.”

“Well, I could have hardly berated you for your carelessness when I’m the one who managed to whip an entire nest of vampires into a murderous rage.”

Julian’s jaw tightened. “If you were trying to create a diversion, your plan was a smashing success. I briefly wanted to murder you myself.”

Portia lowered her eyes. She might not recall their dramatic escape, but she remembered only too well the moment when she had marched across that ballroom to confront his former mistress. “That was quite the royal snit Valentine threw along with that holy water, wasn’t it?”

“Capturing her shouldn’t prove to be much
of a challenge now. She’ll probably be waiting for me on Adrian’s doorstep when we get home. You were quite magnificent tonight,” Julian added softly. “You’re an even more accomplished actress than I realized. Were I not such a heartless cynic, I would have believed every word you said to her.”

She lifted her head to look him straight in the eye. “Perhaps that’s because they were true.”

Julian gripped the arms of the chair, every
muscle in his body going rigid.

Portia lifted one delicate shoulder in a shrug, sending the blanket spilling to the tick. “Oh, I’ve tried not to love you, truly I have. I disliked you quite passionately for nearly a week after you went off the first time and I’ve even been moderately successful at hating you ever since I found out about Valentine. But I’m afraid old habits die hard, especially those ingrained in the tender heart of a young girl. When Valentine laid claim to you tonight, I decided I wasn’t going to
surrender so easily. If she was willing to fight for you, then so was I.”

Uncurling her long, slender legs from beneath her, she slid off the bed and to her feet. As she glided toward him like a vision out of one of his sweetest and darkest fantasies, the candlelight played over the translucent folds of the chemise, stroking to life a rosy hint of nipple and an enticing web of shadow between her shapely thighs.

He came to his own feet, scooting around the chair and backing away from her as if she was the one who had the power to destroy him. “What do you think you’re doing, Portia? You were supposed to drive Valentine insane with jealousy, not drive me insane.”

“Have you forgotten that I’m supposed to be your eternal bride? And every bride deserves a wedding night, doesn’t she?”

He pointed a finger at her, surprised to find it none too steady. “If I lay so much as a finger on you tonight, I won’t have to worry about Valentine destroying me. Adrian will do it for her.”

She smiled and took another step toward him, bringing herself within his reach. “It just might be worth it.”

He backed right into the wall, clenching his teeth against a savage rush of longing. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

Resting her hands lightly on his shoulders, she rose up on her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to the underside of his jaw, the enchanting softness of her breasts brushing his chest. “I saved you in that crypt,” she whispered. “You owe me.”

“I know I do,” he growled. “That’s why I’ve stayed away from you for all these years. To repay you for your kindness.”

She gazed up at him, her eyes soft and luminous. “Do you remember what happened?”

“How could I forget? I almost killed you.”

“That’s not how I remember it at all.”

Desperate to erase the tender expression from her face, he seized her by the shoulders and reversed their positions, pinning her against the wall with the hardness of his hands, the hardness of his body. “Then let me refresh your memory, angel. You kissed me. Then you chained me to the wall just as I had begged you to do. But you didn’t do it to protect yourself. You did it so you’d have me at
your
mercy. So you could force me to do the unthinkable.”

“I didn’t have any choice. You were dying.”

“
Then you should have let me die
!” As the echo of his shout faded, he pushed himself away from the wall and her, raking his hair out of his face. “With or without my soul, how could I ever be anything less than a monster after what I did to you?”

She caught his arm, tugging him back around to face her. “You did everything within your power to save me.
I
was the one who seduced you.
I
was the one who sat on your lap while you were in chains and kissed you and touched you and used all of the pathetic skills at my naïve disposal that I’d learned from reading lurid Gothic novels to entice you into burying your fangs in my throat.”

“You were an innocent! You didn’t realize what manner of beast you were about to unleash.”

“I may have been an innocent, but I wasn’t stupid. I knew exactly what saving you would cost me. And I was only too willing to pay the price.” She shook her head helplessly. “You were never a beast, Julian. Don’t you remember? You broke those chains. You ripped them
right out of the wall and came after me. But you didn’t kill me.” Despite the tears sparkling in her eyes, both her voice and her gaze were steady. “And you didn’t rape me.”

“Only because you gave yourself to me willingly. If you hadn’t…” He let the brutal thought go unfinished, still remembering the taste of her blood on his lips, the horror that had washed over him when both the lust and the bloodlust had passed and he had found her pale, still body sprawled beneath his.

“You would have taken me anyway? Is that what you believe?”

“Don’t you?” he asked, refusing to let her flinch from his uncompromising gaze. “My only comfort was knowing you wouldn’t suffer the shame of bearing my child.” A bitter laugh escaped him. “Who ever thought I would be grateful that I couldn’t create life, only death?”

She lifted her chin. “I did what I had to do and so did you. I’ve never regretted it. Not for a single minute.”

“Well, I’ve regretted it every minute of every day and night since then. And my curse is to go on regretting it for all eternity.” He caught her by the shoulders and gave her a harsh shake.
“Do you really think getting my soul back now would cleanse me of all my sins? Have you any idea of the things I’ve had to do just to survive? Even with my soul, I’d be no more fit for a woman like you than some filthy rag that’s been lying in the gutter for all these years!”

She blinked up at him, wonder slowly dawning in her eyes. “You didn’t let Valentine keep your soul because you were in love with her, did you?”

Although he looked even more desperate than before, both his voice and his grip softened. “No, God help me, I let her keep my soul because I was in love with you. I knew I could never be worthy of you and I believed that as long as I remained a vampire, I wouldn’t even have to try.” He touched a hand to her throat, gently caressing the scars he had left there. “When you opened your arms to me in that crypt, it was the greatest gift anyone had ever given me. But you deserved so much more from your first lover. So much patience and tenderness…and pleasure…”

She covered his hand with her own. “It’s not too late, Julian. You can still give me what I deserve.”

“I don’t know if I can,” he confessed hoarsely. “I don’t trust myself with you, Portia. I never have. With any other woman, I can control my…my more
unnatural
hungers. But with you…” He shook his head, his body already beginning to burn with a wild, sweet fever.

“You don’t have to trust yourself. I trust you enough for the both of us.”

With that promise, she cupped his face in her hands just as she had done in the crypt all those years ago and pressed her lips to his. Growling his surrender, Julian wrapped his arms around her and dragged her into his embrace, knowing it would take an eternity to completely slake his desperate craving for her kiss. He tried to temper his hunger with tenderness, but she welcomed the bold thrust of his tongue, twining her arms around his neck and kissing him back with a ferocious need that matched his own.

There was still a savage part of him that wanted to bear her back against the door, shove the gossamer silk of the chemise up over her hips, and take her with just as much passion but no more finesse than he had shown the first time.

But she stroked her fingers through his hair, gentling him with nothing more than her touch and the whisper of her sigh against his lips. In her arms he didn’t feel like a monster. She made him feel like a man.

Still savoring the melting sweetness of her mouth, he slipped one arm beneath her hips, lifting her as if she weighed no more than a child. As he carried her toward the bed, she wrapped her legs around his waist, coaxing a strangled sound from deep in his throat.

He laid her back on the feather tick, reluctant to surrender her warmth but eager to devour her with his eyes. As he drew back to tug off his cravat and shirt, she watched him, her eyes misty in the candlelight, the dew of their kiss shimmering on her parted lips. He was dismayed to find a tear clinging to her feathery, dark lashes.

“Don’t cry, Bright Eyes,” he said fiercely, dropping down on the bed next to her and brushing the crystalline drop away with his thumb. “Shoot me, burn me, drive a stake through my heart if you must, but please don’t cry. I can bear anything but your tears.”

“It’s just that I’ve been waiting so long for you,” she whispered.

“An eternity,” he agreed softly.

Yet still he hesitated. He was so much bigger than she was, so much stronger. He had hurt her once and if his nature drove him to do it again, there was no power on hell or earth that could stop him. But he didn’t want to cause her pain. He wanted to give her pleasure. He wanted to use every precious minute of the night and every skill at his disposal to bring her to shuddering ecstasy again and again. He wanted to make love to her until she cried out his name and forgot her own. Until there was no past and no tomorrow, only the endless hours between midnight and dawn.

His mouth hovered over hers, his raw senses overwhelmed by the warmth of her body, the richness of her scent…her very
aliveness
. He could hear her heart beating, taste the sweetness of her breath, smell her arousal. He’d wandered the world over only to find the most potent aphrodisiac right here in his arms. If she turned him out of her bed before he could so much as steal another kiss, she would have already ruined him for any other woman.

She stroked the hair at his nape, curling it around her fingers. “When you used to murmur my name in your sleep, what were you dreaming about?”

“This.” He lowered his mouth to hers, kissing her with all of the aching tenderness he had once denied her.

Portia moaned as Julian’s tongue swirled over her parted lips before delving deep into her mouth. He kissed her as if she were an innocent, a cherished bride who would require wooing and coaxing before surrendering herself to the pleasures of his touch. His mouth slanted over hers again and again, drugging her with a thick, sweet delight that flowed like honey through her veins and made her nipples swell and harden before surging between her thighs.

“Why, Mr. Kane,” she blurted out when he allowed her to steal a breath, “are you trying to seduce me?”

“You told me to give you what you deserve,” he murmured, the rich, hypnotic timbre of his voice a seduction all its own. “And a woman as beautiful as you deserves to be
seduced
at least three times a night, perhaps more often.”

As that clever mouth of his worked its way from the corner of her mouth to the curve of her jaw to the tiny pulse that beat at the base of her throat, she closed her eyes and breathed out a shaky sigh. She had never dreamed she would be so thankful he was a nocturnal creature.

As his lips grazed her throat, a shudder wracked his powerful body. But he held it in check, nuzzling the sensitive shell of her ear and filling his hands with her breasts. She gasped at his boldness, arching off the bed into his masterful hands. The room was cold but his body was burning, its feverish warmth kindling an answering fire in her own flesh.

His mouth closed over one of her breasts, licking the flames even higher. He teased the taut nubbin of her nipple with his tongue until the silk of her chemise was damp and clinging, then drew back to blow softly on the fabric. She’d never known such exquisite torment. But instead of begging him to stop, she tangled her hands in the raw silk of his hair, urging him on. He drew her other nipple into the lush heat of his mouth, suckling her deep and hard until delicious little shivers of need wracked her womb.

A husky moan of protest escaped her lips as
he sat up on his knees, straddling her thighs. She opened her eyes just as his hands caught in the silk of her chemise. The delicate fabric parted like parchment beneath the supernatural strength of his hands, leaving her naked and vulnerable beneath his gaze.

Julian’s eyes feasted upon the wonder that was Portia’s body bathed in candlelight. He’d been half blind with starvation and lust in that torchlit crypt. He’d fallen upon her like the ravening beast he’d been at that moment, barely taking the time to shove up her skirt and jerk open his trousers before driving both his fangs and himself deep into her tender young body. Only in his imagination and in the countless dreams that had haunted him since that day had he seen her like this.

She was more beautiful than even his most feverish imagining. Her dark curls spilled across the feather tick, framing her flushed cheeks and moist, parted lips. Her full breasts were ripe and rosy from his lavish attentions. His gaze swept down her body, past her slender waist and the delicious little dimple of her navel to her generous hips and the nest of glossy curls between her thighs.

No longer able to resist the temptation, he stretched his long, lean body out beside her and touched her there, parting those silky curls and the delicate petals beneath with just one finger.

Portia trembled beneath his touch. In that moment she
was
his kitten, purring and writhing beneath the masterful stroke of his hand. She pressed her eyes shut as his long, aristocratic fingers played her even more deftly than they had the pianoforte keys, coaxing forth a melody of gasps, moans, and shuddering sighs of delight. When he stopped touching her, leaving her perched at the very peak of some extraordinary precipice, she’d never been so aware of her own mortality. She thought she was going to die.

She opened her eyes, gasping aloud when she saw his face.

Julian didn’t need a reflection to know that his fangs were fully extended, his eyes glowing with an unholy light. He lifted them to her face, no longer able to hide what he was or his all-consuming hunger for her.

Instead of recoiling in horror as he feared she would do, she simply whispered, “Do you need to feed?”

A lazy smile curved his lips. “Oh, I intend to.”

Then he was sliding down, down, down on her in the flickering shadows cast by the candles.

As his mouth followed the path his fingers had forged, taking exquisite care not to graze her delicate flesh with his fangs, Portia arched off the bed and into his keeping. The nimble flick of his tongue transported her to some dark and dangerous Eden where the two of them could feast on forbidden fruit without being banished from the garden. He was both serpent and angel, temptation and salvation, and she knew he wouldn’t be satisfied until she’d surrendered herself to him, body and soul.