Nightfall (13 page)

“You’re heaven,” he told her, too lost in a haze of
exhaustion, arousal and half-sleep to worry about sounding stupid.

Her gaze softened. When she started to rise, he noticed she
seemed a little unsteady. Tightening his hold to give her time to regain
strength also kept her close. “What did you mean?” he asked, his voice a low
rumble. “That night you said you couldn’t feed from me because I wasn’t a
marked servant.”

“I could have fed from you, but it was a little soon after
the last time.” She paused as if she was considering whether she wanted to
explain. Or maybe if he was asking seriously or just yanking her chain. While
he wasn’t sure if he did believe any of it, he wasn’t yanking her chain. The
thought had drifted into his mind like everything else tonight. Random,
unfiltered and yet somehow significant.

“At a certain age, most vampires consider taking a fully
marked human servant. It lets them have a regular blood source, among other
things.” Her fingers whispered along his throat. “A vampire has to mark a human
three times for him to be her full servant.”

“You mean…drink from him three times?”

She shook her head. “A serum is released in the blood. It’s
best to do it three different times, because all together, they can be painful.
In a not-so-good way.” Her faint smile reminded him how he’d embraced the pain
of the lash. “I’ve thought about that a lot,” she murmured, following his
thoughts there. “I want to do that to you again. I want to give you more pain,
watch how hard it makes you.”

She pulled the dress over her head, her hair funneling along
her pale left shoulder as she finished the motion, let the garment flutter to
the bedding beside them. He reached up, dove his fingers into the thick silk of
her hair. Her vibrant blue eyes rested on his face, watching everything he was
doing. His body was beat all to hell from the day, but he found he wanted to do
everything to her, for her. Suddenly her words made more sense to him.
“It’s
not a matter of you being able to give.”

“I felt you here, even before I saw you in my room.”

“That’s the first mark.” She paused, as if she’d thought
better of having said that, but then lifted her shoulder, which caused an
interesting movement with her breasts. He cupped the weight of one, enjoying
the simple pleasure of stroking the curve. It really was like they were
floating tonight. That edgy urgency that had brought them together before
wasn’t here, but that didn’t make this less intense. Just intense in a
different way that kept his throat thick, his movements dreamlike.

“I gave you the first mark, the other night. It’s only a
geographical locater. It tells me where you are, within a thousand miles or
so.”

“Is that all? The government’s secret microchips do a better
job than that.”

When she made a face at him, he twined a lock of hair around
his forefinger, splaying the others over her left breast. He did a slow,
teasing pass over her nipple, watched it harden and her catch her lip in her
teeth, felt her pussy contract on him. He wanted to do this all night, swim in
languid arousal. “What do the other two marks do?”

“After a vampire gives the second mark, she can speak in her
servant’s head and allow him to hear her thoughts, when she wants him to do
that.”

“Hearing your voice in my head. That would be nice.” He
smiled absently and she caressed his jaw.

“You’re half asleep, cowboy. No man wants a woman’s voice in
his head all the time. She’d devil him to death.”

“True. But I think…when she’s the right one, her voice is
there all the time anyway. Right?”

She studied him. It was a surreal conversation, vampires and
marks, but all of it fit together, in a way that fit her. He tried to grasp
that, and was too sleepy. She stroked his face.

“You’re a romantic, Quinn. I want to say it’s unexpected,
but it was obvious the first time I walked into your bar. You believe in things
being how they should be, even if it’s hard to find them set up that way.”

Catching both his hands, she molded them around her breasts,
a direction he was more than pleased to follow, kneading her curves, thumbing the
nipples, lifting and bringing together the two curves as she made a sweet moan.
He lifted his hips, embedded himself a little more deeply in her.

“When the third mark is given,” she continued breathlessly,
“a human becomes fully submissive to the vampire. Her property. She can hold
his soul in her hand, crush it, possess it. His life force is linked to hers.”
Her gaze came back to his. “If she dies, he dies.”

“I know a lot of old couples who would like that, so one of
them isn’t left behind.” He sighed. “I think my folks worry about that now and
then.”

She tilted her head, the silken fall of her hair sweeping
over one shoulder. “Where are they, your parents?”

“Happily living out their lives in a senior community in
Arizona. When he was still working, they used to catch me on the rodeo circuit
as often as they could.” He’d seen a different side of his father then. The old
man would never be a friend to his sons or offer praise easily, but showing up
for those events and treating Quinn with rough approval had changed things.
Though they couldn’t find common ground as man and child, they’d made their
peace with one another as men.

“They don’t miss the ranch?”

“No. Surprised the hell out of me. But when Dad hit
sixty-five he said he’d seen enough of horseshit and roughnecks and they headed
for the place a lot of their friends had found.”

“Your parents are close,” she guessed. “They have that
connection.”

“Yes. I didn’t get it for a long time, because he seemed so
hard, but I guess the key was in how he listened to her even when he didn’t
seem to listen to anyone else. Love can be a powerful thing.” He fixed his gaze
on her.

Now her hands closed over his, stilling them. “It can’t be
like that for us,” she said. “Vampires don’t fall in love with humans. Humans
are their servants.”

“What if the human servant falls in love with the vampire?”

“That’s acceptable, as long as the vampire isn’t swayed by
it, as long as she never forgets that the human is not her equal, that he
belongs to her.”

He studied her. “You believe that bullshit, that
people—vampires, humans—can shut it down like that?”

“If they know that the alternative is far worse.” The
shadows that crossed her face had him sliding his hands to her shoulders.

“Come down here.”

She gave him a look at that, as if she was going to put him
in his place, tell him she was the one who gave the orders around here, but in
the end she surprised him, letting him draw her down so her face was nestled
against his throat. When both his arms banded around her, she slid hers under
his shoulders, held on, their bodies now linked as intimately above as below.
Maybe she was right about him being a romantic, because it felt more important,
a stronger desire right now, just to hold her as close as he could, than to
thrust to completion where he was buried to the hilt inside her.

“Have you…fed lately?” he asked.

Her fingers curled against his skin and he ran his hand down
her bare back. When she didn’t respond, he added, “It might just be the
moonlight, but you look a little paler than usual.”

Lifting his chin, he made it clear he was giving her better
access. He stroked her cheek, applied pressure to guide her. Offering.

* * * * *

Selene could close her eyes and hear the thud of his heart,
the coursing of blood through his veins. During broad daylight, she was sure he
was still questioning her sanity, or determining how much of her vampire
delusion he could handle. However here, in the shadows, with that touch and
look, it was clear he’d already accepted what she was…what he was becoming to
her.

She’d been told by other vampires it could happen this fast.
Most of them had acquired their human servant within only a handful of days of
meeting them, an unbreakable bond that could span over three hundred years.
Vampires didn’t indulge in romanticism, not when it came to humans, but Laurent
had used those terms so she could understand.

“You were a human,”
his lip curled as if reacting to
something distasteful,
“so love at first sight is the closest approximate,
though it has nothing else in common with that other than the quick ignition of
the attraction. Lord Brian, who conducts scientific studies on vampires, says
there may be some chemical inside certain humans that makes them more amenable
to the idea of becoming a vampire’s servant, and that chemical may attract
vampires to them. In fact, in some of these chemically compatible humans, he’s
noted their libido increases considerably after only the first mark from the
vampire who will become their Master.”
Laurent’s gaze had gleamed with
indifferent amusement.
“It’s as if they’re preparing themselves for the
demands we will put upon them, despite their bodies still lacking the second
and third marks needed to handle that demand physically. You could fuck a first
mark to death in no time.

“In short, the powers-that-be have ensured we have a pool
of human servants willing to serve our needs, even if they don’t realize it as
quickly as we do.”

She wanted to give Quinn the second mark, badly. It was the
only thing that could explain it, some kind of chemical receptor. She wanted to
talk in his head, hear him speak inside hers.

But a decision like that would impact Quinn’s life
dramatically. Quinn, who’d worked so hard for his ranch, whose body bore the
dangerous roadmap of his rodeo life to meet that goal. She wasn’t an impulsive
teenager, no matter that sixty was considered little better than a college
student in the vampire world. She was his bar manager, his sex partner. His
Mistress for playtime, not for real life. No matter how it felt otherwise.

Instead of taking the vein offered, she pushed up, sitting
astride him, and leveled a gaze on him. Saying nothing, she began to pleasure
herself, gripping him with her internal muscles, sliding up his shaft,
commanding him to service her as she desired. His brown eyes got that intent
look that sent a thrill of pleasure through her, and he put his hands to her
hips, adding strength to the rhythm she was setting.

She’d told him she’d take, no matter what, that she’d never
be denied. But with every movement in sync with her, the way his body arched to
drive up into her, how his eyes stayed on hers, making sure he was satisfying
her, he told her he’d give even beyond the point when the well was dry. That
was the type of man he was, not just when he wanted or desired, but when he
loved. It wasn’t until now she’d realized what a dangerous drug that was,
offered so freely to a vampire. Nigh irresistible.

She dug her nails into his chest, hard enough to draw blood,
and his pulse leaped, his cock thickening inside her. She wanted to do
everything to him, use the whip on him again, tie him down and fuck him, just
like she’d described. She could see staying in this little corner of Texas her
entire life, running his bar…

Her entire life? Centuries of it, long after his bones were
dust?

She was no longer human. She couldn’t afford to think this
way. She translated emotional needs into physical ones, redoubling her efforts,
driving them ruthlessly, pulling the climax out of him that his exhausted body
was going to give her, come hell or high water.

He kept up with her, eyes still on her face. How much did he
see or understand? “Take your hands off me,” she ordered. “I want them over
your head.”

“No.” He gripped her harder, brought her down on him, so the
resulting impact between her clit and his pelvis sent a searing jolt of
pleasure through her.

She was going to get meaner about it, but then that
softening happened in his eyes. “I want to touch you,” he said. “Let me touch
you.”

He was, in far too many ways. But she let it go. She let
herself go instead, going up to that edge, ready to soar. She tightened on him
like a vise, felt every delicious inch of him.

“You come for me, Quinn. Right now. Your Mistress commands
it.”

It took a few seconds, because the man had truly worn
himself out these past several days, but there it came, at last, his hips
bucking up, a groan tearing from his throat as she matched it with her own
cries. The moonlight played over his face, his tanned skin and rippling
muscles, and she felt the imprint of his fingers, holding her sure and strong,
taking them both all the way past the finish line.

When she at last slowed, she felt a little lightheaded.
Yeah, she did need to feed. She’d had Turley right there in the bar cellar, had
even started the process of messing up his faculties enough he wouldn’t
remember what would happen, had put her lips up to his throat, and the second
she inhaled and didn’t smell Quinn…she couldn’t.

She was going to have to get past that quick, because
obviously Quinn was in no condition to give her blood…unless she gave him the
second mark. That mark would not only augment his strength so she could feed
from him more frequently without adverse effect, it would supplement his
strength on the ranch, which he obviously needed.

Rationalize much, Selene?
There was no going back
from the second mark. Even though the Vampire Council frowned on giving the
first mark without the intent of bringing a human into a vampire’s service,
there were plenty of humans running around with that geographical marker who
remained oblivious to the vampire world. As a result, they were left alone. A
second marked human might ascribe hearing a vampire’s voice in his head to
special telepathy, but since a second marking usually also accompanied the blood
drinking and other inroads into the life of a vampire, only a human in an
advanced state of denial, or an idiot, wouldn’t realize they’d been marked by a
vampire. Quinn was no idiot.