Forbidden Days (The Firsts) (23 page)

Dez moaned, as she felt the flood of moisture pool between her legs, her own blood mixed with fluids that begged for stimulation she would not get tonight.  She’d promised herself she wouldn’t take advantage of the uncontrollable sexual needs a conversion brought on.  Of course, that hadn’t really been an issue with Zach, another gift of Park’s blood, she assumed.  Well, it had made it easier to keep her promise to herself.  And although he was nearly finished changing, she would stay away from him sexually.  Although, oh, hell, this came close… she might have to go up to her room and get out her well used vibrator. 

He lingered, but when she felt his mouth move up and then his tongue touch her southern lips, she groaned.  She wanted it, more than anything, but she made herself push back and pull her jeans with her.  She moved beyond his reach and left him sitting there staring at her with a small smile.  He brought his fingers to his lips and licked them.  She groaned again and turned away.

“Go to sleep, baby vamp,” she said, to remind herself as much as him that they were done for the night.  Then she flipped the light switch and laid down on the pallet.  It was a while before her body made her sleep.

She came awake later, she didn’t know what time or what awakened her until she felt someone holding her.  Self-defense kicked in and she started to roll over, ready to punch and hurt whoever was attacking her when she heard a quiet voice say, clearly, “Stop.  It’s me.  I just want to hold you while we sleep.”

It was Zach.  What the hell?  He was chained to the pole.  He couldn’t escape, so how was he here holding her?  She reached to his hands and felt the cuffs, which still encircled his wrists.  Several links of chains dangled from them where he must have broken them to get free.  How could he be so strong?  She knew, though, it had to be the blood of the first surging through his new vampire body.  Even though it had felt amazing when she drank from Park, the effects had worn off.  It seemed when a converting human took the stuff in, it made them crazy strong. 

She was exhausted.  So she rolled back over as Zach pulled her back against his chest and they actually spooned as they fell asleep.  Somewhere distant in her fatigued mind she thought about it.  Dez did
not
spoon.

144

Chapter Fifteen

Bas couldn’t find her.  He asked Eugene, who usually knew just about anything about what happened around the house, but he didn’t have an idea.  Bernie was in the gym with the McCairns, who were introducing her to the fighting stick.  He noticed she was a lot friendlier with them that she’d been with Vaz.  But when he asked her if she knew where Park was, she said she hadn’t seen her since the meeting ended.  But now she was worried, too, and joined him in the search.  Bas allowed another twenty minutes, but then decided to have Timothy start an electronic search.

“I’m going to bell that cat,” Bas said to him as they began the search.  After fifteen minutes, he saw her outline in a darkened corner of the garden, barely visible on the monitor.   Bas thanked him and headed to her.  For the past hour he’d become increasingly worried that something had happened to her, that Shanks had gotten to her.  When he thought for even that short time that he’d lost her, his heart had nearly stopped.  She meant too much to him already.  She meant everything.  He didn’t know what to do with that feeling.  How to live a life with her.  But he knew she’d have to be there.  And if Shanks had killed her…?  He couldn’t even think about it.

As he approached, he saw her head turn…she knew he was there.  She slipped off the bench and came to him.  Her hair was loose and flowed around her like satin ribbons, the light breeze making it dance.  He came to her and immediately gathered her in his arms.  He lifted her and held her close, then let her slide down his body.  Smiling at him, she came back in and hugged him to her, her head buried against his chest.

“Is everything alright?”  he asked.

“It’s wonderful.  You just smell so good I wanted to immerse myself in your scent for a few more moments.  You know, that first night, I wondered what cologne you could have been wearing that was so sexy.  Ummm.”

Bas wasn’t used to this.  He wasn’t even sure how to be with someone like this.  He held her closer.

“I wish you wouldn’t come out here alone right now.”

“But Vaz said you had the place secured.  I thought it was safe.”

“It is.  But still, just in case they were somehow to get past my men.”

“Alright.  Bas.  I have something to tell you.”  Park pulled him over to the bench.  “I went to see Cherise.  She’s remarkable.  And she’s right.  He’s going to come for me.”

“We’ll take care of it.  Don’t worry about it.”

“I thought I might need to go…”

He jumped on that.  “You are
not leaving
.”

“I know.  I need you.  I mean…well, I need you, Bas.  You’ve become part of my life I hope…oh, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’ve fallen in love with you, who you are, how you’ve treated me, what we have together.  I’m willing to risk telling you even though I know that you won’t feel the same way.  But I think you do care about me.”  Bas started to speak, but she put up her hand.  “It’s okay, you don’t have to say anything.  But, more than that, more than you, I need
all
of you here.  Cherise told me something…I knew as soon as she told me that it was true, but it took some time to make myself accept it.”  She paused.  Bas was not a patient man.

“What did she tell you, Park?”

“I’m pregnant.  With your child.  A girl.”

Bas shot up.  “You can’t be.  Vampires cannot reproduce.”

“I can.  With a vampire.  Because I carry the blood of the first.  She told me.  Even though the child is only days old, she knows.  She even knows it’s a girl.  She says she’s beautiful and strong.”

He felt blindsided.  “Park, she’s confused.  I cannot have impregnated you.  If you’re pregnant…”

Park stood up now, too.

“Don’t say it.  You know better.  I haven’t had sex in years.  You are the first person I’ve ever let get close to me.”

He grabbed her and kissed her.

“I know that, Park.  I’m sorry.  But Cherise
is
mistaken.  I have never heard of a vampire having a child.”

“Oh, you haven’t? 
I
am the child of a vampire.  You need to understand that when it comes to me, apparently nothing you used to know applies.  Above all, I’m telling you…Cherise isn’t wrong.  I know it.”  She took his hand and laid it on her belly.  “Your daughter grows inside me.  She will be here in six months.”

He kept his hand there and suddenly felt an overwhelming love.  Beyond anything he’d ever felt.  Tears welled in his eyes, something he hadn’t felt in centuries.  He looked at Park through pooled liquid and saw her tearing up too.  “I feel her,” he said.  “She is real.  She’s our daughter.  Park, this is…”

Her eyes were shining in the lowlight of the night time garden.  “I know…right?  We are going to have a baby together.  Pretty soon.”

“I honestly have no idea what to say.  I never expected to…  I mean, I’m more than three hundred years alive on this world… The idea of having a child is…”

“It’s good though.  Isn’t it?  I mean, you’re happy about her.  Aren’t you?”

“I’m stunned.  I don’t know what to think.  But…yeah…it’s good.  He looked away.  “It’s good,” he repeated.

“Cherise says she is going to be important.”

“She already is.”  He pulled her close and kissed her again, long and deeply.

“I want to take you upstairs.  Would that…I mean…it wouldn’t harm her, would it?”

“No, I can’t imagine it would harm her.  I can’t think of anything better to celebrate her.”

Bas swung her up into his arms, and for the second time that day, used vampire-speed, and they were in his suite within sixty seconds. They didn’t finish celebrating until time for last meal just before dawn.

Wonderfully satisfied, a naked Park rolled over, showing Bas her flat tummy.

“She’s in there, going to make me quite rounded soon.”

“You’ll look lovely.”

“Bas, we need everyone on board if we’re going to protect this child.  They all need to know what to expect.  It’s going to be more dangerous than anything they’ve ever done before.  Cherise assures me he’s more powerful than any of us can imagine.”

“We’ll have a meeting tonight to announce our news  and let them know what’s going on.  Park, I have some other questions for Cherise regarding your state of being.  I’d like to talk to her together when we awake tonight.”

“Okay.  I’ll let her know we’re coming.  Right now, though, I’d like some of that chocolate chip ice cream you guys have.  I think I’m addicted…or the baby is…either way, I can’t get enough of it.”

“Race you.”

“Ah…hell, no.   Vampire-speed.”

Bernie prepared for another night to end, the dawn threatening the sky outside her window.  She stood, just for a moment, to watch the streaks of scarlet slip into the darkness and an opalescent glow of light begin at the horizon line.  She hadn’t had time enough yet to miss the sun, but she knew she would.  The brilliant glow of light and heat on the skin on a cool autumn morning had always been one of her favorite things.  The first day in spring when the sun and temperature brought you outside after a long cold winter.   The summer when the sun seemed relentless, but you still loved its life giving brightness.   She already knew there would be mornings like this where she would ache to feel it touch her skin.  And she fully understood that would never happen again.

As the sky brightened further, she slowly pulled the heavy shutters together and interlocked them into place, then slid the solid metal sheet across the shutters that fully secured the room for a vampire’s safe sleep.

She had a closet full of beautiful nightgowns with matching robes that Park had ordered for her before she’d even finished her conversion.  And yet recently, she found herself just running around her room nude.  She didn’t know why, except that she was more comfortable in her skin than she ever had been before.  She found everything sensuous when it came to her body…even the smoothness of the wood floor against her toes.  If she ran her fingers across her naked skin, no matter where, or how soft or hard, she could nearly orgasm.  It was incredible. And thank god for the multi-pulse  massage shower head.

Standing in front of the huge mirror above her bathroom sink, she watched her face as she moved her fingers across her breasts, circled the nipples aggressively with two fingers, rolling them around.  A slight smile on her lips, she watched her face…
her own face
, but better, with vampire genes, the skin flawless, lips fuller, eyes brighter.  She liked this new life, thought she would love it one day.  She was immortal, and always young and beautiful. Her smile grew.  How could you not love that!?  Her fingers traveled lower, both hands now curving eager fingers around her tight small waist and around her upper thighs, slipping closer, closer, until she widened her legs and they slid into her slit.  They massaged the surface, rolled the extremely responsive fold that someone once told her would have been a penis if she’d been a boy.  It was as sensitive and responsive as anything on her body and she moaned as her fingers pressed and pulled it, slipping in and out, faster and faster until the hot rush of off-the-charts pleasure cascaded through her body.  She slammed her hands down on the counter and stared at her face again.  She looked so satisfied.  In her human life, she’d done that occasionally, but nothing like the last few days.  And never with so much enjoyment.

She thought about her time in the cell, with Vaz.  He’d told her sex was essential to vampire life.  He’d been there when she’d done so many things to herself.  She was better about it now, but her cheeks still flushed when she thought of him.  Would she ever be able to face him again?  She had always liked sex, but she’d never had an orgasm during intercourse.  It never bothered her, she knew some women never did.  But now, she wanted desperately to try intercourse
as
a vampire
with
a vampire.  And when she visualized it, fantasized about it…it was always with Vaz.  She should just go down to the community room tonight, grab Mick McCairn, who had already made it clear he wanted her, and bring him up here and fuck his brains out.  Forget Vaz.  Forget that obscenely sexy long blonde hair she desperately wanted to pull out of that ponytail and hang onto it while she rode him.  Ooh.  She might need that shower massage yet tonight. 

A knock on her door interrupted the thought.  It was probably Park.

Bernie walked naked across from the bathroom, but grabbed a beige satin robe off the padded seat at the end of her bed and slipped it on.  She didn’t bother pulling the belt until she opened the door and stopped in her tracks.  Vaz, tall and real, right in front of her, almost as if her actions had conjured him for her.  She could feel her cheeks burn.  He didn’t know, couldn’t know, what she’d been doing, so she shouldn’t be embarrassed.  Or did he?  Vampire senses were very heightened.  So what?  She tossed her hair and tightened the belt so tight she thought she would have cracked a rib if she’d still been human.

“Yes?”  she said coolly.

He hesitated.   Vaz…overconfident super strong vampire…hesitated.  It peaked her interest.

“May I come in?”

“It’s morning.  I’m preparing to sleep.  You should be too.”

“Bernie, you don’t have to tell me how to be vampire.  I got it.  I just wanted to clear the air.”

“Hmmm,” she said, but she stepped back and let him in.  He looked around, disinterested, at her somewhat messy suite.

“Settling in okay?”

What?  She shook her head, her champagne curls bouncing everywhere.  “I’m not much for small talk.  What did you want?”

He turned suddenly and grabbed her.  “This,” he said softly and pulled her into his arms, kissing her, his tongue immediately invading her mouth.  And god, he was delicious.  She’d been imagining him at her just moments ago, replacing her fingers.   And here he was.  Her mouth had never been more thoroughly ravished.   When they both came up for air minutes later, they were panting.