The Accidental Vampire (23 page)

"I've never wanted anyone this badly." His teeth grazed against her throat as he spoke and Elvi moaned and tipped her head to the side, and then back as his mouth moved down the long column to her collarbone. She then gasped as he nudged the neckline of her blouse lower and licked the upper curve of one breast.

"Oh yes," Elvi murmured. She was feeling exactly what he claimed to be feeling, but couldn't seem to find the words to say so. "
Yes"
was apparently the only word in her vocabulary at the moment. And she lost the ability to say even that when his hand closed over one breast, squeezing it gently as he lowered his mouth further still to close it over the tip and breathe hot air on it through the cloth covering it.

Unintelligible sounds of pleading slipping from her lips, Elvi arched in the passenger seat, pressing her breasts upward and wishing her clothes weren't in the way, that she could feel his warm mouth without obstruction.

Apparently, it was what Victor wanted too because in the next moment he was tugging impatiently at the blouse and drawing it down to reveal the thin white strapless silk bra beneath. It was a front-fastening bra and took only a quick snap of his finger and thumb to release it.

Elvi gasped and shuddered as the cloth fell away, allowing her breasts to pop up, then cried out as his mouth finally covered one excited nipple. Clutching her fingers in his hair, she held on for dear life as he suckled, her hips gyrating upward as she felt his hand slide under her skirt and move up her thigh. That was when a tap on the window made them both stiffen, then jerk apart.

Elvi quickly pulled her blouse up to cover herself and glanced around, groaning with embarrassment when she recognized Teddy Brunswick's grim face peering in through the driver's window. They'd just been caught parking by the local police. Elvi hadn't even had that happen as a teenager.

"'Put on your bra," Victor said calmly, shifting to block Teddy's view.

Elvi tried, but her hands were shaking so badly, she kept fumbling it until Victor brushed her hands aside and did it for her. He also tugged the blouse back into place before getting out of the car to face Brunswick.

Taking a deep breath, Elvi slid out of the passenger side.

"I got a call that someone was upsetting you at Wal-Mart," Teddy announced abruptly as soon as she paused at Victor's side.

"Louise," Elvi said with despair. She'd known the woman would spread the story, but should have realized the first call she made would be to Teddy.

"Yes." His gaze narrowed, taking in her disheveled clothes and swollen lips. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, I'm fine," Elvi said quickly. "Louise misunderstood everything. I was crying because Victor had just told me that I could have babies now, and I…" She shrugged helplessly.

Teddy nodded slowly, then said, "So you thought you'd come back here and start right away."

Elvi stiffened in surprise, her face flushing with a combination of shame and anger. Teddy had never before talked to her with such distaste or so coldly and what he said hurt, but when she sensed Victor tensing beside her, she reached to the side and caught his hand.

"That was uncalled for," Victor said quietly, his grip on her hand firm. "I'd like to call you on it, but since I know it's just jealousy talking I won't… This time. Don't mistake this for a free pass to hurt Elvi again, though."

"Jealousy?" Elvi echoed, peering at Brunswick with confusion. "Teddy?"

The police captain was silent, his mouth set and expression empty. Without a word, he turned and walked to the patrol car parked behind Victor's BMW and got in.

Victor turned back to the car and lifted the mirror out as she watched Teddy drive away.

"You didn't know he loved you?" Victor asked when she realized he was holding the mirror and hurried to lead the way to the side door of the garage.

"No," Elvi murmured, still not really believing it. She paused at the side door to the garage. Reaching in her purse for her keys, she added, "I still don't know that. We've been friends for years."

"He's loved you for years." Victor stepped inside, and then paused to wait in the narrow space between the wall and Mabel's car as she locked the door behind them. "That's why he never married. No other woman could compete with you. When your husband died, he hoped…" Victor shrugged those useless hopes away. "But you were turned."

"And he didn't want me anymore," Elvi guessed wryly as she turned to face him.

"Oh, he wanted you, all right," Victor assured her. "But he thought you wouldn't want an old guy like him, so he set his mind to helping Mabel find you someone else. He loves you that much."

"You read his mind?" She realized.

Victor nodded.

"Can you read mine?" she asked, suddenly horrified at the possibility. The idea of his knowing exactly how he made her feel and just what she wanted to do to him and what she wanted him to do to her was somewhat humiliating.

Victor was silent so long, she began to think he wouldn't answer the question, and then he admitted, "I don't know. I've never tried."

Her eyebrows rose in surprise. "Why not?"

Instead of answering, Victor leaned the mirror against the wall and then peered at her with an expression of concentration.

Elvi waited, knowing he was trying to read her. She wasn't sure if she'd know if he'd read her or not, but nothing seemed to happen. They just stood there while an odd array of expressions flew across his face; concentration, bewilderment, amazement, then doubt. She'd just become sure he must be reading her mind, when he suddenly stepped closer and reached out to touch her arms, holding them in a firm grip as he refocused his concentration.

"I can't," he said at last and Elvi couldn't tell from his expression if it was a good thing or not. He'd gone suddenly pale, but his expression was hard to read. Turning away, he leaned against the car as if suddenly weak, and she felt concern claim her.

"Victor?" She moved to his side, then slipped under his arm to stand between him and the car and peered up into his face. His eyes had been closed, but now opened.

"Are you all right?" Elvi asked uncertainly, reaching up to press a hand to his chest.

Victor covered her hand with his own, pressing it to his heart, then lifted it to his lips and pressed a kiss to it. The gesture was so caring that she found herself holding her breath, and then his tongue dipped out and slid over one finger, sliding along it to the spot where it met her hand.

Elvi felt a shiver run up her back and swallowed thickly as she watched what he was doing with fascination. Heat was pooling in her belly again. When he then drew that finger into his mouth and sucked on it, her whole body seemed to tingle with the caress and she suddenly found herself leaning heavily on the side of the car behind her.

Drawing her hand away, he let her finger pop from his mouth, and then used the hand to pull her into his arms as his mouth claimed hers again. Elvi slipped her arms around his neck, her mouth opening beneath his as she felt the top of her blouse being tugged downward. The snap of the bra being released barely reached her ears, but she gasped as the cool air touched them, then Victor caught her by the waist and lifted her onto the hood of the car.

Moaning into his mouth, Elvi arched as his hands closed over both breasts, the rough skin of his fingers, unimpeded, now caressed and kneaded as his tongue swept through her mouth.

Eager to touch him as well, Elvi slid her hands beneath his cotton T-shirt, urging it up his body until it caught under his arms. She then delighted in running her hands over the naked flesh she'd revealed, catching and gently tweaking his nipples as he was doing to her.

The cloth of her blouse must have been getting in his way, Elvi realized, when he forced her arms to her sides so that he could tug the cloth down and free of her hands. She shivered as the light material of the peasant blouse pooled around her waist, leaving her topless, but Victor slid his arms around her at once, warming her with his body, the springy hair on his chest brushing her nipples.

Missing his kisses, Elvi slid a hand into his hair and urged his mouth back to hers, murmuring happily when he thrust his tongue inside. It was a short kiss, however. Pulling free, he dropped his mouth to explore her breasts, kissing a trail around and between them, lavishing them with his tongue, and then finally suckling at one then the other.

Forced backward on the hood to accommodate him, Elvi leaned on one elbow, and ran her other hand over his back and head, her eyes glued to where his mouth was taking first one nipple, and then moving to take the other. Distracted as she was, she didn't miss the feel of his hands gliding up her outer thighs, pushing her skirt before them, before sliding back down toward her knee. The next time they came forward, they burned a trail along the inside of her thighs, and Elvi could feel the muscles of her thighs begin to tremble and her breathing becoming a short, harsh pant the higher they rose. One stopped on her thigh, resting there lightly, but the other continued up to brush along her panties lightly. The teasing touch tore a cry from Elvi's lips and her hips lifted of their own accord, urging him on even as her thighs closed instinctively around his hand like a flower protectively closing it's petals at nightfall.

In response, Victor caught her thighs with both hands and forced them apart, then let her nipple slip from his lips and dropped to his haunches beside the car and pressed his mouth to her panties, nuzzling her through the silk.

Elvi cried out and dropped onto her back on the hood of the car, her hands reaching fruitlessly for something to grab a hold of as her hips jolted, thrusting her pelvis forward. Then the cloth was suddenly pulled to the side and his tongue rasped over the delicate flesh in an unbearably exciting caress.

She was vaguely aware when he snapped her panties off and thought she'd definitely have to make a trip to the lingerie shop at this rate, but then her mind shut down and she became a moaning, groaning, sobbing idiot as his mouth returned to torment her. Eyes opening and closing and head twisting back and forth, Elvi got snapshot images of the garage ceiling overhead, but she wasn't seeing anything. Her mind was completely taken up with trying to accept the pleasure flooding her. She'd never experienced anything like it. There was the pleasure, then endless echoes of the pleasure vibrating through her brain as if the sensations she was experiencing were some weird boomerang that she was sending out, only to have them return bigger somehow, amplified, almost overwhelming.

Elvi was close to exploding, but she wanted to feel him inside her when she did. Forcing herself to sit up, she reached to tangle her fingers in his hair, relieved when he began to straighten.

Stepping between her legs, Victor took her in his arms and pressed kisses to her throat and face as she reached between them for the button of his jeans. She managed the button and zipper, and then slid her hand inside to find him, nipping his ear lightly with her teeth as she drew him out of his pants.

Muttering something incoherent by her ear, Victor clasped her by the bottom and lifted her slightly as she directed his hard length into her.

Elvi bit her lip and groaned as he filled her, her body expanding eagerly to except him. Pressing her heels against the side of the car, she clutched his bottom as he began to withdraw and drive himself into her in the age-old dance.

It was a short dance. Already well primed, Victor had barely thrust into her half a dozen times when Elvi's body suddenly stiffened, then convulsed, her hands clutching desperately at him as the world shattered around her. She was vaguely aware of Victor shouting out with his own release, but the sound seemed far away as she lost her grip on consciousness and fainted.

Chapter Fourteen

Elvi woke to find herself in bed once again. Confusion clouding her mind, she peered around, then slowly turned onto her back to peer at the other side of the bed.

Victor was lying on top of the sheets next to her, contemplating the ceiling overhead with a smile on his face. A glance upward proved there was nothing on the ceiling to cause the expression so Elvi supposed it must be his thoughts he was smiling about. When she turned her eyes back, she found his head turned her way, his smile curved into a grin.

"I fainted," she said.

Victor nodded.

"And you carried me up here?"

"Yes."

Elvi shook her head. "I'm sorry. I had two bags of blood this morning, I don't know why I fainted. I—" She stopped abruptly as his chest began to shake with silent laughter. "What's funny here? I'm starting to get concerned. I never faint."

"There's nothing wrong," he assured her, turning on his side to run one hand up her arm. "Fainting is common for the first year when… two immortals get together."

"For the first year?" she asked with disbelief, and then her eyes narrowed. "Did you faint?"

"I briefly lost consciousness, yes," Victor acknowledged.

Elvi rolled her eyes. Leave it to a guy. For her it was fainting, for him, it was briefly losing consciousness. She didn't care, he could call it what he wanted. She felt marvelous. Her body felt marvelous. Her bed was marvelous. Life was just plain marvelous at the moment.

"Is that you and your daughter?"

Elvi followed his gaze to the photo on her dresser. It was she and Casey at the town fair the summer before she died.

"Yes," she murmured quietly.

"And that's your late husband?"

Elvi nodded as her gaze slid over the picture on the other side of the dresser. Harry had been a handsome man. Tall, silver-haired and distinguished-looking. Elvi stared at the picture for a minute, and then glanced at Victor curiously. "Why have you never married? Two thousand years is a long time to remain single."

Victor rolled onto his back and closed his eyes and then admitted, "I did marry. Once. Her name was Marion. She was burnt at the stake in 1695. I was away in London at the time. If I'd been home—"

"You may have been burnt at the stake too," Elvi interrupted and was extremely glad he hadn't been home.