Longest Days (The Firsts) (7 page)

Eillia turned away and went barefoot into the kitchen to put on water for hot tea.  She breathed deeply and made herself calm down.   Yeah.  She could mount him and ride him when he was better, satisfy her need, and then make him forget.  It was a simple biological need.  No one would ever know, so she could indulge herself.  She could feel her body tighten and twinge at the thought.  But no.  It would be an affront to the memory of the man she’d loved for most of her life.

An argument ensued then between her libido and her better self.

Oh, really?!  You think you’re going to go the rest of your life without sex because you’ve lost your man?

I think it hasn’t been enough time to grieve.  And I should have saved him.  I’m a first blood.  I should have been able to protect him.

You’re a first blood vampire.  You’re powerful.  But you’re still very human.  You can’t protect everyone.  You can’t control everything.  Hamid’s time had come.   It’s how it works.  And you need the connection.  You need blood and sex.

I’m fine.  I’m drinking again.  The sex… I don’t need it.

You will.  You do now.  Go look at him again.  Tell me when you see his cock, you don’t want it inside you.

Go away.  This is pointless.  I won’t have sex again until I’m ready.  And that is going to be a very, very long time.

Um, hmm.  We’ll see.  Finish the tea, and go warm him up.  You may not need him, but he needs you.

Ha.  You think I won’t be able to control myself.  That if I lie against him to warm him up, I’ll jump him.

Um, hmm.  Do what you think you need to do. 

“I will!”  Eillia said out loud, and yanked the pot off the hot stove, filling the teacup with wild splashes and then dropping into a chair.  She glanced back at the cocooned man. 
Oh, hell!

Daniel awoke abruptly, and realized immediately that he was warm and wrapped up against another body.  Oh, shit.  Joey D’s mother again?    Wait.  His last memory was of his snowmobile rolling on top of him.   He remembered freezing to death. 
Ah, fuck!  Was he dead?

He moved his arms and tried to sit up, but had to disentangle himself from the tightly wrapped bedding.  Finally he was able to pull free.  The cool air against his bare chest told him he was alive and still in Alaska.  He could see his breath in the air around him.  As he started to pull his legs out, he glanced at the still form beside him.  Definitely woman.  Thank god.  And definitely
not
Joey D’s mom who had garish bleached blonde hair.  This woman had long smooth satiny black hair that disappeared beneath the comforter.  And milky white skin marred only by a symbol on her shoulder tattooed in henna brown ink.  He recognized it as Celtic, but he didn’t know what it symbolized.   Her face was buried in a king size pillow he’d been sharing.  He looked closer, but without seeing her face, he couldn’t tell if he knew her.  By the straight black hair, he though she must be Inupiat.  By the part of her body he could see, he knew he’d never been with her before.  What the hell had happened last night?

His feet shoved the rest of the warm comforter away and he stood up.  Well, he was naked.  So, did they…?   He shook his head, trying to recall.  He’d been drunk and out of it most of the past year.  But he had run out of booze. That’s why he was trying to get down the road to the bar.  So he sure the hell hadn’t been drunk last night.   And he had a distinct memory of the accident.   He remembered thinking how it was about time.   He remembered seeing his angel above him as she called him from this earthbound life.   And he remembered losing consciousness in the snow.  He should be dead.

But here he was near a dying fire next to a woman he likely did not know, naked and shivering.  He glanced at the comforter and wanted to crawl right back.  But he was too freaked out.  He looked around and found his clothes near the fireplace, spread out on a chair.  They were dry, so he slipped them on, and gained back at least a little sense of control.   He moved his arms and legs back and forth and bent over, then moved his head back and forth.  Huh.  Nothing was broken or strained.  Nothing even hurt at all.  Why did he remember the airborne machine crashing down on his body?

One thing he recognized right away was that he was starving.  He hated to impinge further on the woman’s hospitality, but he needed something, anything.  So he opened a cupboard door in the small kitchen.  It was a freaking food bonanza.   Several kinds of bread, a couple of packs of cookies, boxes of cereal.   The small icebox that sat perched in the corner of the room opened to reveal three different meats in large quantities.  Damn.  This girl was loaded for company.  He hadn’t spent much of his wages for the past year, so he’d just give her some later to pay for what he used.  He felt better taking two big slices of bread and filling them with a little of all three types of meat.   Daniel thought it might be the best sandwich he’d ever eaten.  Could have been influenced by hunger, but he was prepared to stand by the assessment.  He washed it down with a bottle of cold water.

He wandered back to the fire and looked down at her.   Man, she was sleeping hard.  He tried to see her face, but it was firmly buried in the plush pillow.   He was just curious to know who she was, so he tried brushing her hair with his fingers to get her to rouse, or roll over.   She didn’t move.   He leaned in to make sure she was still breathing.   She seemed to be.  So he pulled the covers away just a little and ran his fingers down her bare back.  She moaned, but still didn’t give him a view of her face.  Damn.

It was a beautiful back.  Slender, smooth, strong.  A lovely curve.  He pulled the cover back over her, and gathered her hair in one hand, then let the sleek strands slip through his fingers.  It reminded him of his dead angel.  Daniel shook his head and started to get up when he heard her moan again.  Then she rolled over.  He stared at the face that had haunted him for a year.  She was here.  And she couldn’t be.

He nearly fell over in shock.  Well, now he had to reconsider his state.  Was he dead after all?  Because she couldn’t be real.  She couldn’t be lying here warm and breathing when he’d held her in his arms…cold and dead.

The ghost moaned a third time and then her tongue slipped out and slid around her lips.  He watched it disappear inside her mouth and she rolled over again, pulled a hand up under her cheek and bit her lower lip.  Well, it sure the fuck looked like she was alive.  But how could another woman look so exactly like the one he killed?  And how could it be that, of all the men in the world, that woman would end up in bed with
him
?  He didn’t believe in magic.  He didn’t believe in destiny.  So how the hell was this real?  Only one answer.  It couldn’t be.

He pulled the covers away from her and wrapped his hands around her shoulders, then pulled her up.  She took a deep breath and dropped her head against him, then slipped her arms around his neck.   Her skin was warm and soft.

He had to wake her and find out what the hell was going on.  But she didn’t waken.  He stared at her perfect features, in sleep exactly as he remembered them that night in death.  God help him.  He was finally losing it.

Daniel laid her back down and pulled the covers close to keep the cool air off her naked skin.

Then he fell back onto the couch and collapsed.  What the hell?  He tried to reason this out.  Tried to gather information, what he actually knew.  Okay.

He’d been in a snowmobile accident, badly injured, freezing and dying in the snow.  And yet here he was, warm and unhurt in a cabin with a woman who looked like his dead angel.   His chest felt like it was being squeezed of air, so he pushed upright and went to the door.  He pulled it open, then surged forward to cold Arctic air and dancing flurries.  It eased his anxiety enough he could draw another breath.  Okay.  Breathe, think, think, breathe.

His rescuer looked like his angel.  She couldn’t be.  He needed to go back in there and find out who she was and what happened last night.  And the air was way too cool to stay out here in shirtsleeves much longer.    He glanced at the door, which was still ajar.  Shit!  He’d let the cold into the cabin.  He needed to get in and bring the fire back up to warm the cold air for the sleeping woman.  Shaking the snow off his boots, he looked up to see the door open further.  Daniel stopped in his tracks.

She was standing there looking at him, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders.  He felt dizzy.  It was her.  He knew that face better than he knew his own.   She looked sleepy.  Then she spoke.

“Not the best night for a stroll.”

She sounded amused.  He wanted to answer her, but he couldn’t.    He just stepped closer, his eyes locked on her face, searching for the truth.  It
had
to be her, but it
couldn’t
be.   He cleared his throat.

“Yeah.  I agree.  Just needed some air.”

She nodded her head and stepped back as he entered the small cabin.  Then she pulled the door closed and turned to him.  Hesitated, then said, “Hi, I’m Lia.”

He stared again, the name on his tongue, in his mind
.  Lia.  Lia.

“I’m Daniel.”  He finally got out.  “Lia.  Pretty.  It suits you.”

“Thank you, I think it does.  Anyway, how do you feel?  You had a nasty accident.  Do you remember?”

Her voice was beautiful, refined, a slight accent.  He’d never heard the dead angel’s voice, so he’d never even been able to imagine it.

“Yes.  I do.  Very well, in fact.”  He paused.  “I should be pretty banged up.”

“You should.  You were lucky.”  She paused.  “I have to get some more sleep.  Are you okay?”

“Yeah.  Uh, yeah.  I had some of your food.  I’ll pay for it.”

“Not necessary.”

“I will, though.  And I guess I owe you a big thank you for the rescue.  I would have died out there.  Did you…did someone help you with me?”

“Nope.  Got you here all on my own.”

“Really?”   His eyes roamed over her small frame.  “How did you do that?”

“Guess I’m stronger than I look.”

“Really?  I’m a good two hundred pounds.  You can’t be more than, what, a hundred ten, twenty?”

“Like I said, I’m stronger than you’d think.  Well, eat what you want.  I have plenty.   You should lay back down, get some more rest.  I’m going to my room, so you curl up by the fire here, alright?  We’ll get you out of here as soon as the storm breaks.”

“Let’s hope so.”  Daniel looked deep into her eyes.  Unexpectedly, they were not dark, but a brilliant amber.  “You don’t want to be stuck with me.”

He smiled then.  And Eillia could feel it in the

deepest part of her.  The heart that had been so shattered for so long, the place between her legs that had been so deprived.  Her vampire desires were in high gear and she wanted nothing at this moment but to throw him down and climb on top of him.  He’d never even remember it.  She could work out every sexual need she had on his body.  When she’d undressed him, she’d tried not to notice, but she knew his body was extremely well fit for a human.  He was everything she needed right now.  She hadn’t even been tempted before.  But with him standing here, smiling at her, she could almost ask Hamid’s forgiveness, and then fuck this man until neither of them could move.  But she wouldn’t.

She still felt Hamid’s presence, and never more than right this moment as she considered sex for the first time in many centuries with someone other than him.  For a moment, she let herself imagine what it would be like with this man.  It wouldn’t be the same.  But that was as it should be.  She’d been with Hamid so long, how would it feel to have Daniel’s hands on her?   To feel him move
inside
her?

She shook her head.  She’d never know.  She wasn’t ready.

“Okay, well, rest…or keep yourself amused.”  Eillia walked to her bedroom and closed the door, leaving the comforter by the fire.  Damn.  She’d be pretty cold in here without it but she couldn’t go back out there.  She’d decided she wouldn’t jump him, but she didn’t fully trust herself right now.  A good rest should shore up her resolve until she could get him out of here when she woke.  

She’d already decided to vampire-speed him to town, compel his memory, and get him out of her life.  Her intense sexual reaction to him made that necessary.  As she pulled her flannel sheet tightly around her body, she thought about their meeting at the bar.  She hadn’t forgotten how she, too, had felt that somehow he wasn’t a stranger.

Rolling onto her side, she let her hand move to her breasts and delicately circle her erect nipples.  She was ready for him.  It proved she was healing.  Six months ago she would never have been tempted.  Now, she had to fight her own nature to stay away from a beautifully cut body and pale eyes that seemed to see into her soul.  He was just so fucking
male!  
Soon, she wouldn’t have a choice.  Blood and sex were primal, and now that she was drinking again, and deeply attracted to this man, it would happen if he stayed near her.

She moaned as her own fingers excited her desires even more.  She’d hoped to get a good blood meal from him before he left, but now she knew she couldn’t.  If she drew blood from him, her sex drive would be uncontrollable.    Even now, with her own hands sliding against her sex, she closed her eyes and an image of his lips there instead pushed her to climax.  Eillia turned her face into her pillow to muffle her cry.

It wasn’t enough.  She wanted to rip the bedroom door off its hinges and go to him.  With a deep sigh, she rolled onto her stomach and tried to relax and sleep. 
Shit!

Even through closed eyes, she saw him waiting for her.

She did not sleep.

Daniel felt completely blown out.  After the woman disappeared behind the scarred door, he dropped onto the couch, sinking too low as the broken springs tried to deal with his weight.  He pulled his feet up and stretched out, then reached for the comforter a few moments later.  It was too cold in the room without it.  The newly stoked fire was gaining size, but it still wasn’t generating enough heat to raise the temperature in the room above “fucking cold.”