Holiday with a Vampire 4 (12 page)

Chapter 7

I
t was insane. They’d only met hours before, but in that short time Angel felt closer, more connected, to Cullen than any man she’d ever met. He understood what made her tick, was funny and kind and yet, at the same time, a man used to getting precisely what he wanted.

And he’d made it plain he wanted her.

His hands curved around the small of her back and his lips pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Close your eyes,” he whispered against her skin. And when she did, he kissed each closed eyelid, as well.

Angel cupped the back of his head in her hand, making sure he didn’t go anywhere until she got another kiss on the lips. The instant his mouth met hers, there was a momentary swooping sensation, a downward plunge on a roller coaster. She gasped and trembled in his hold.

And then the sensation was gone. And so was the hard marble bench on which they’d sat.

She snapped her eyes open to find herself inside an enormous candlelit bedroom, sprawled in the center of a four-poster bed. Each heavy, intricately crafted dark wood pillar appeared to have been carved out of the trunk of its own tree. Swaths and folds of heavy burgundy damask, rich and opulent, created a partially open curtain around the bed. Cullen took her with him as they landed on the soft mattress, and she welcomed the weight of his body as he held her against the cool linen sheets.

“You really don’t waste any time when you want something, do you?”

Eyes gleaming, he chuckled softly and pushed aside strands of hair from her cheek. The seductive smile that curved his lip made her want another kiss. “All I’ve ever done is waste time. Waiting for it to be right. Waiting to understand what it all meant. Waiting for you.”

His fingers traced a path from the center of her palm, up her wrist and the sensitive bend of her elbow, to her shoulder and neck until his thumb traced the sweep of her bottom lip. Every cell in Angel’s body shivered in unison.

“Since you’ve never been with a vampire before, there are things you should know.” He kissed her deeply, his fangs lightly abrading her bottom lip even as his tongue slid seductively along hers.

Angel was panting, her body hitting a fevered pitch as he pressed his weight against her, and she felt his knee come up between her legs. “First, blood lust and physical desire are two halves of the same coin. I will not feed from you unless you permit it, but it brings a change in the experience for both of us.”

She nodded mutely as he began to kiss a heated path down her neck and between her breasts. “Second, the mortal body might be limited, but the mortal mind is not. And when you take a vampire for a lover, there’s no reason to limit yourself. There may be only one me and one you, but there are infinite ways I can pleasure you.”

Angel writhed, grasping handfuls of the velvet coverlet and linen sheets in her fists. “Anything else?” she panted, heart manic, senses reaching near overload.

He raised himself up on his elbow and gave her a heated look that stole her breath. “Yes. I’d like to watch you undress.”

A sudden rush of insecurity hollowed out Angel’s chest. It was one thing to kiss in the darkness of the garden, where he could feel but not see her. It was another to strip, knowing what it would expose. “I don’t think—”

He pressed a finger to her lips. “You don’t have to. Let your limitations go. You will do things with me that you’ve never done with anyone before. Just accept that and you’ll enjoy it even more.”

“You zapped us here from the garden. Why can’t you just zap away my clothes, as well?” she persisted.

His hot gaze bored into hers. “Because I want to watch you being unwrapped, like a gift.”

Angel nodded and he kissed her deeply again. He shifted his weight when he broke the kiss and pulled her to a sitting position. Faster than she could blink, he’d moved to a chair across the room by the door. She keenly felt the loss of his firm body next to hers.

“How’d you get over there?”

He shrugged. “We move faster than the mortal eye can track, but right now that’s not important. What’s more important is that I stay here and you stay there, so I’m not tempted to help you. Take off the shoes and sweater first.”

That wasn’t so bad. She’d still have her shirt, leggings, bra and panties on. Angel pulled off each of her ankle boots, letting them fall with a
thump
to the floor, then pulled off her socks. She grasped the edge of her V-neck sweater at her waist and pulled it in a slow slide up and over her head. The buttons on her shirt pulled tight, nearly popping apart. If she’d had any clue she was going to be doing a striptease tonight for the sexiest man she’d ever met, she would have dressed completely differently.

“It’s not what you have on. It’s how you take it off,” he murmured.

Angel narrowed her eyes. “Are you reading my mind?”

The corner of Cullen’s mouth lifted in a way that made her want to kiss him and never stop. “Now the leggings.”

Angel scooted to the edge of the bed, then stood and turned her back to him. She reached beneath her shirt at the hips and slowly pulled the leggings down, bending at the waist as she slid them down her legs. The sensation of a warm, lingering touch that caressed her from her ankles, up behind the sensitive part of her knee and around the inner edge of her left thigh made her gasp. She twisted around but saw that Cullen was still in the chair across the room. She could have sworn he’d been touching her.

He smiled, his fangs indenting the curve of his bottom lip. “The shirt,” he said, the deep tone of desire making his voice husky and betraying how this display affected him.

That knowledge made all the difference. A powerful warmth blossomed in her belly, not just escalating desire, but the sense that she had power, that he truly found her arousing. “I don’t think so.”

Angel turned and hooked her fingers into the edges of her panties and slowly slid them down until they were around her ankles. His gaze went from hot to fire-alarm blaze. Angel smiled and, using her foot, flung them at him.

He didn’t give any more orders, but she figured she could take it from here. She unhooked her bra, and after pulling the bra out of one sleeve like a magician removing a silk scarf from the wrist of his coat, she flung that at him, too.

Cullen moved to the edge of his chair, the candlelight revealing his jaw ticking as it worked. She moved to take off the locket, the metal warm just above her breasts.

“Leave the locket on.” His words were hoarse.

She took her time unbuttoning her shirt. She started at the top. And when she reached halfway, she paused to glance up at him. His eyes had changed from vivid blue to crimson. For a second she was startled by it, but then the female instinct assured her this was him on the edge of his control. Angel couldn’t resist the chance to tease him. “Shall I keep going?”

He nodded, but his fingers were gripping the wooden arms of the chair and Angel thought she saw little puffs of dust rise up from each fingertip. While she felt bold, that didn’t mean she still wasn’t somewhat self-
conscious about her shape. She turned, pulling the shirt off her shoulders, and let it slowly slide down until it hit the crook of each arm. The cool air met her exposed skin down to the waist, and Angel shivered.

She felt his warm hands cup her breasts. His stubbled jaw abraded her skin as he rained kisses upon her neck and mouth, breasts and thighs, that left her stunned and speechless. How on earth was he doing it? He wasn’t even physically touching her.

“My gods, you are beautiful.” Cullen sounded both in awe and in pain.

She glanced at him over her shoulder. “You don’t need to flatter me.”

In a flash of movement, he was there beside her, his very real hands brushing the shirt from her arms and letting it flutter to the floor as he hugged her to him, pressing the back of her against the rock-solid front of him.

“You are a treasure. A gift. Flattery would be meaningless next to such glorious truth.” He leaned in, tracing kisses up from her shoulder to the sensitive spot beneath her ear as his hands skimmed over her body. But it wasn’t just his two hands she felt. It was more. Way more. Through her passion-induced haze, she could count six, maybe eight, and at least three mouths. Suddenly she felt the sensation of fingers skimming along her cleft and kneading her bottom that left her aching. Angel rocked against the sensation, desperate for release.

A fine golden shimmer like the bubbles in champagne fizzed through her body, making her absolutely giddy. For the first time in her life, Angel felt not just attractive, but beautiful, worshipped.

She turned in his arms and kissed him, putting every new emotion coursing through her into it, as if this were the first kiss, and the last kiss, of her life.

He scooped her easily into his arms as if she were no more than the weight of a doll. “What is your favorite flower?” he whispered as he nuzzled her hair and kissed her thoroughly.

“Honeysuckle,” she replied, barely able to catch her breath. “Why?”

He lay her down on the coverlet, and out of thin air a shower of pale blossoms, in shades of peachy-pink to deep yellow, began to drift down over her, their heady, sweet fragrance filling the air. A bubble of laughter welled up in Angel’s throat. “Are you sure I’m not dreaming?”

He quirked one brow upward. “If you were, would you want it to stop?”

Angel bit her lip and shook her head. “But if this were a dream, I do know that I wouldn’t be the only one without any clothes on.”

Cullen gave her a grin as sexy as hell, complete with fangs. “My lady’s wish is my command.”

The second she got a chance, she was going to test out his comment about fang sensitivity and see if they really were an erogenous zone for vampires.

In a swirl of dark particles, his clothing evaporated, leaving him gloriously naked. Every ridge and ripple of muscle gleamed in the glow of the candlelight. Angel’s breath caught in her throat. Holy hell. He looked even better than she’d imagined. And she had one damn fine imagination. He was every fantasy she’d ever had rolled into one seriously hot guy.

* * *

Cullen was almost at the end of his rope. The only thing keeping him sane was the fact that he could mentally make love to her even as he physically bided his time, waiting until she was ready.

He didn’t want there to be any hesitation. No worry or fear or doubt about how truly beautiful she was to him. With her soft, silky pale porcelain skin and full, feminine curves, she was the picture of the perfect aristocratic woman from when he’d been young.

When he took her, he wanted it to be the singularly most powerful moment of her life, leaving her feeling as if she was the one calling the shots. Because she was, in more ways than she could possibly know.

Bracing the weight of his body with his hands, he positioned himself above her and indulged himself in the kisses that made his fangs and his shaft ache so damn hard he thought he might implode. Mortals were such fragile things, and Angel was far more tempting than he’d anticipated. The locket’s golden glow just above the creamy expanse of her breasts reminded him he had other obligations, but he shoved those aside. Right now all that mattered was her.

The sweet confection of willing woman, hot with need and steeped in fragrant honeysuckle, filled his senses. Her kisses were wanton, lovely, totally uninhibited. But when she stroked one of his fangs with her tongue, he lost it and let the pleasurable torture continue until she broke away to take a breath.

Her eyes were luminous and her skin flushed, taunting him with the sweet blood simmering in her veins. He watched the artery at her throat jump beneath the creamy expanse of her skin. “Angel, will you let me taste you?”

Her bee-stung mouth, rosy and swollen from their kisses, curved into a come-hither look that stripped him of any remaining good sense. “Yes,” she moaned.

She tilted her head to the side, exposing her neck. As she arched up against him, her skin felt slick with perspiration and feverish to the touch.

Cullen was lost. In one movement he plunged into her and began drinking from her vein, as well. The rich sweetness, like a floral honey, seeped into his mouth, the life force of it vibrant and alive just like its maker.

The soft, needy noises Angel made belied the fierce grip she had on him, her nails scoring his skin. She met him, taking from him even as he took from her. Somehow, in the midst of madness and pleasure that made him blind with the force of it, something soft and subtle crept in.

And as he held her in his arms, her cheek on his chest, the tangle of her hair against his face, Cullen realized he’d never felt at peace like this before. She shifted position, curling her soft body about him, and the smooth metal of the locket burned a path across his skin.

The locket. The key to a future where they could both be free—where they could both be together, if that was what she wanted. He hated to leave the moment, but he knew the clock on his chance to change their future was still ticking.

“Angel,” he said softly. She stirred. Cullen let his fingers skim through her tousled hair. “Angel, it’s time to go.”

“No,” she mumbled, snuggling closer.

Cullen kissed the top of her head. “I don’t want to go, either, but we have no choice. You still have your wish to make before the sun rises.”

“I wish I could be with you,” she mumbled, her words tainted with the soft singsong quality of sleep to them.

Cullen froze.

Her wish.

He could not undo it. Not once it was spoken.

And never had a wish turned out well. The locket saw to that. He held her close and kissed her hair, knowing it was only a matter of time until fate tore her away from him.

Chapter 8

D
arkness still claimed the streets of New Harmony. Angel clung to him for a moment, the heat of her body making the honeysuckle fragrance of her much more acute in the cold air.

She tipped her radiant face up at him and smiled in a way that twisted the bitter barb of truth even deeper into him.

“So, now what?” she asked, her voice light and easy.

“Now we wait for your wish to come true.”

“My wish?”

“You wished we could be together.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Why does it sound like you don’t think that’ll be a good thing?”

Cullen rubbed his hands on her arms, the red wool of her coat soft beneath his fingers. “What did your mother tell you about the locket?”

Angel fidgeted. “She said that a man would come asking for it and offering me a gift. If I wanted to keep the gift, I had to hold on to the locket. I can only assume she meant you.”

Cullen nodded slowly. “What she didn’t tell you is that no wish the locket has granted has ever turned out as expected. I wanted immortality, but immortality is an empty shadow of life when you are all alone.”

A sad look of empathy flitted across her features. “I never wanted to be alone. I don’t see how the locket could make my situation much worse than it is.”

Cullen winced. “Trust me. You haven’t seen two hundred years’ worth of its manipulations.”

She gripped the lapels of his coat with her slender hands. “So, my wish about us—it’s doomed to failure?”

If he could have asked for the locket outright, he would have, but the conditions Marie had placed on the curse made it impossible.

If you tell her de truth, you try to take the locket, it will cut you down. You will come back, and each time der be a little less of you.

He’d only been foolish enough to try it once. He’d blacked out the minute the words had left his mouth, and when he came to, he’d aged ten years.

He hadn’t tried that unfortunate path again. And he certainly wouldn’t risk it with Angel. “I may be a vampire, but I can’t tell the future. I only know what I’ve seen. The locket is cursed and I’ve tried everything to break that curse.”

“How do we break it?”

Cullen looked away from her, pain radiating through his chest. He wanted to tell her, God above, did he want to, but he couldn’t. “I can’t tell you. It’s something you have to figure out for yourself.”

Angel sighed heavily. “It’s just a locket. It can’t possibly be this critical to anything.” She dug in her purse and pulled out her ring of keys, then flipped through them, searching for the key to unlock the front door of her shop. Daylight was coming. Cullen could feel it in his bones. But there was nothing to be done about it.

Despite everything he’d shown her, everything that had passed between them, Angel had yet to offer him the locket. He was growing less certain that she ever would.

There was passion between them, certainly, but obviously not love. If there had been, then Marie’s curse would have been broken. Cullen had to face it: his best efforts weren’t good enough. Angel had made her wish, and unless she offered him the locket as well, it would come true with horrible consequences.

A cough sounded nearby, and Cullen gazed at the man hunched into his jacket strolling up the street, his breath a mist in the cold, early-morning air. His gut clenched in warning.

The click of the gun being cocked ricocheted through Cullen’s keen hearing. For a moment he considered just ripping the bastard’s throat out, but the last thing he needed to do was risk his fragile relationship with Angel by showing her what a monster like himself could truly do. Having her look at him with horror and disgust would be a hell of its own.

He settled for whipping around to face the man and stepping in front of Angel to protect her from whatever the assailant intended. If he got shot, it was no big deal, but if Angel were shot—it could cost him everything.

“What do you want?”

The barrel of the gun glinted in the streetlights. The man’s dark eyes sized up Cullen and Angel in mere seconds. He hadn’t shaved in several days and his jaw ticked as he clenched his teeth. “Give me your money.”

Angel gasped when she saw the gun and clung to Cullen. Cullen hoped the gunman just wanted the cash, and pulling his wallet from his pocket, he took the stack of thousand-dollar bills he’d been prepared to give Angel. “Here. Three hundred thousand dollars. Get lost.”

The man grabbed the cash, his eyes fever-bright. The stench of rotten vegetation typical of desperation and the saccharine stink of drugs saturated the air around the man. He waggled the cocked gun at Angel. “Her, too.” As she dug in her purse for her wallet, her coat gaped open, revealing the golden locket nestled against the warm skin at the base of her neck.

He saw the thief staring at it. Cullen’s gut contracted.
No. Anything but that.

“Jewelry, too,” the thief added with a jerk of his chin.

“You don’t want that,” Cullen urged, trying to throw a glamour on the man, but he didn’t respond.

Angel’s numb fingers fiddled with the latch. The chain slowly filled her palm. Cullen could tell she was trying to be brave, but her eyes were too bright, brimming with unshed tears, and the musty scent of sorrow swirled around her.

“You don’t have to do this,” Cullen growled.

“It’s a locket. It’s not worth my life. Besides, you said yourself, it’s cursed.” The heavy sadness cloaking her tone told him that it pained her to let it go. Fire erupted inside of him. He could kill the man. Easily. Swiftly. His fangs ached so badly it made his eyeballs throb.

“You don’t understand, Angelica. You need that locket.”
I need that locket. We need that locket.
He watched their last chance at being free of the curse fade away as the thief stuffed the wallet and watch in his coat pocket and snatched the locket from her hand before disappearing around the next corner.

Cullen stepped in the direction of the thief. Angel put her hand on his arm, holding him back, her fingers digging in.

“Let it go,” she said softly.

It took everything within him to do it. She truly didn’t know how much she asked of him, but Cullen gave in to her regardless. He turned and gazed into her face. “Don’t you want it back?”

“Of course I do. It was the last thing my mother gave me, but it isn’t worth risking our lives.”

If she only knew how worthless their lives would now become without the locket, she’d see things completely differently. Cullen held her small hands between his. “I’m not risking death. Let me go and get it back for you. Please.”

“Did you see that man’s eyes, Cullen, I mean really look at them? He was desperate, not vacant or hard.”

“A thief is a thief. I say we track him down anyway. He can keep the money as long as we get your locket back.” Cullen looked desperate. For the life of her she couldn’t understand why the locket, which had been
her
family heirloom, could mean so much to him.

“Wait a second. It means something to you, doesn’t it? That’s why the test. That’s why the outrageous offer to buy it. Why do you want that locket so badly? I’m not letting you go after it until you tell me the truth.”

Cullen growled and turned, pacing the length of the sidewalk. “Why can’t you just believe me?”

“I need more than that. You owe me more than that.”

He raked his fingers through his hair, making his polished appearance suddenly more chaotic. “Do you remember the bad relationship I said changed me?”

“Yes.”

“She did more than change me into a vampire. She stole part of my immortal soul. She bound it into that locket. If I don’t help you get it back, I may never—”

“Never what?”

“Never have a chance to be free.”

“Free?” Her brow puckered. “Free? Are you telling me this entire thing was just a setup to get that locket back?”

Cullen grimaced. “At first—”

“At first? And what now? Am I still just someone you can dupe into getting what you want? Is that all I am to you?” Deep in her chest her heart splintered. She’d been used by men before, but this was different. Far different. It hurt worse, because some small part of her had begun to love him.

He grabbed her about the upper arm, his blue eyes blazing flame. “No.” His fingers tenderly traced through the hair at her temple. “But I don’t know what else to do. Everything I am is tied to that locket. And if he sells it or gives it away to another, the curse continues. And I lose you. Plain and simple. I have to go where the locket takes me.”

The ache in her chest eased. “You really are like a trapped genie of the lamp, aren’t you?”

He nodded, his expression morose. “The price of pissing off a voodoo priestess.”

“Why didn’t you just take it from me, before you let me fall in love with you?”

“You love me?”

She nodded. “I know it’s crazy. But I also know I’ve never felt like this before.” She didn’t want to stand in his way, yet the thought of letting him go pierced cold and hard through her chest. Angel rubbed at the soreness just over her heart. All along her common sense had told her it wouldn’t last, that there had to be a reason someone like Cullen was interested in her. And now she knew: the locket—just like her mother had said.

* * *

He’d sincerely thought about glamouring her and taking the locket. Hardly the stuff of heroes. But when the thief had intervened, his brain hadn’t thought past the immediate moment. Protecting Angel had been all that mattered.

She’d been the one to see more in the thief. The desperation and need in the man’s eyes. Perhaps that was why she saw the glimmer of a heroic man in him yet. She saw more in him than even he could see in himself.

Cullen tightened his hold on her, afraid that she might slip out of his arms and disappear as quickly as she’d come into his life.

“I can’t take it from you. It’s part of the curse. It can only be freely given, and once a wish is made, I’m bound to that wish for the lifetime of the owner.”

“All this time, you’ve been trying to get it back to get your soul back, haven’t you?”

He nodded. “When you said Belle Eau was lonely, that was an understatement. Immortality long ago lost its luster. Having no one to talk to who shares your passions, no one who cares for you as you do for them is a monotonous existence—a half life, really.”

Angel spread her hands along his broad chest, the warmth of her touch seeping into his very bones. She loved him. It was unfathomable.

“Then let’s get it back.” Determination edged her words in steel.

Cullen sniffed at the cold air. There. A slight whiff of desperation tainted with pain and worry. The thief. He slipped his hand around Angel’s and gave it a squeeze.

“Come on, I know where he is.”

They walked quickly through the predawn streets of New Harmony. Angel had to practically jog to keep up with his long, quick strides. Her pace grew slower and slower, and Cullen found himself reducing his pace to make it easier for her. But time was running out. Dawn was already changing the dark of night to a lighter blue on the horizon.

By the time the sun rose above the mountain ridge, the magic of the locket would cease, bound up again until it reached its new owner’s hands.

He couldn’t take that chance. Not when he had more to lose now than he ever had. Before it had only been the last remnant of his immortal soul at stake. Now it was his heart.

Marie’s deviousness all of a sudden became so much clearer. Losing what he loved would be far more torture than the loss of his soul. And she’d wanted him to know that feeling.

At that moment Cullen decided he could do anything, be anything to see Angel happy, and if part of that included being with her, so much the better.

They reached the parking lot to the side of a small convenience store on the edge of town. Angel was out of breath and bent double to catch it.

“Are you all right?”

She waved him off. “Go. Get. Him,” she wheezed.

But before either of them could move a step, the thief came around the corner of the convenience store, two thin plastic sacks in one hand and a package of diapers under the opposite arm. Not at all what Cullen had expected.

His eyes widened. “You!” He pulled the gun from his waistband and pointed it at them.

“We don’t mean you any harm. All we want is the locket back,” Cullen said, but clearly the man was too shocked to hear him.

“You don’t understand. I’m sorry I robbed you, but I’ve got no choice. I needed food for my baby, and the locket is going to be a Christmas gift for my wife. I’m not going to jail again. I can’t.” He held the gun at them, the tip of it shaking.

“You have a choice. We all have a choice. Now, give me the gun.”

He took a step toward the man and the thief panicked. His eyes narrowing and his fingers squeezed.
BANG!

Cullen watched in horrified fascination as he tracked the bullet speeding toward Angel, able to see it with his vampire vision, but powerless to stop it.

“Angel!” He stepped in front of her, taking the hit of the bullet, but it passed through the flesh of his side. She bucked behind him, falling backward, a bright red rose blossoming on her chest, saturating her shirt and the air with the scent of her blood.

Time stilled to impossible, unbearable slowness. Cullen had gotten used to the fact that vampires could move faster, so the lingering moment seemed even more painfully drawn out to him. He heard the skitter of footsteps as the thief ran and the clatter of the gun on the pavement, but all his concentration was locked firmly on Angel as her pulse slowed, filling his ears with the
ka-thunk, ka-thunk, ka-thunk
of her heart. Her skin grew waxen and shiny with perspiration.

There was only one thing he could do.

He crouched down beside her, drawing her into his lap. “Angel, stay with me.”

Her frightened eyes bore into his, but when she tried to speak, she coughed, bright red blood staining her lips. She trembled as her body went into shock.

“I’m dying, aren’t I?”

As much as it pained him, Cullen answered truthfully. “Yes. But I may be able to help you. Do you still want to be a vampire?”