Under a Vampire Moon (41 page)

“W
hat’s a life mate?”

Christian blinked his eyes open to find Carolyn leaning over him, her hair framing his face. Smiling wryly, he said, “Good morning to you too.”

“It’s only three thirty, not morning yet,” she assured him. “What’s a life mate? You’ve called me that two or three times now.”

“A life mate is the one person we cannot read or control who can be a proper mate to us. With them we can enjoy shared dreams, shared pleasure, and passion beyond measure, but we can also relax and not guard our thoughts with them,” he answered solemnly.

“And I’m that for you?” Carolyn asked with surprise.

He nodded.

She considered that and then frowned. “How do you know? I mean, what if you’ve got the wrong girl?”

Christian grinned at her worry. “Do you remember on the beach when I smoothed cream into your back and started to make love to you on the lounger before Beth called to interrupt us?”

Her eyes and mouth went round, and then she gasped, “But that was a dream.”

“A shared dream,” he corrected.

“You mean you and I—?”

He nodded. “As were the other dreams. It is a sign of a life mate, as is eating again, not being able to read their mind or control them. As well as the shared pleasure.”

“Shared pleasure?” she asked.

“When I make love to you I experience your pleasure as my own,” he said quietly. “And so will you feel mine.”

“I don’t recall feeling—”

“When you touched me on the terrace,” he prompted, and slow realization dawned on her face. “I distracted you then and have tried to keep you from touching me since because I couldn’t explain it without telling you everything and I worried you weren’t ready for it.” He hadn’t given her the chance to touch him tonight yet either. Her admission of love had quite overset him earlier and it had been a very short, passionate session before they’d both been screaming and passing out. His thoughts scattered as he felt her fingers slide down his chest toward his groin.

Christian’s gaze shot to hers, but knowing she was testing out the shared pleasure, he simply watched her face as her fingers found and closed around his suddenly awakening member. Her eyes widened at the first touch, but then drifted shut as she closed her hand around him and drew it along his growing length. His own eyes drifted closed, so Christian was taken completely by surprise when she suddenly climbed to straddle his hips.

B
linking his eyes open, he found himself staring with amazement. She was smiling. Carolyn knew exactly how she was affecting him and was reveling in it. Enjoying the power she wielded, she grinned wickedly and lowered herself, taking him into herself in a slow, torturous manner that had him clenching his fists to keep from grabbing her hips and taking control. A relieved groan slid from his lips when he was finally buried inside her to the hilt, but her torture wasn’t over yet. Grin widening, Carolyn leaned forward to press a kiss to his lips, then slowly began to move, apparently determined to drive him wild with her slow torment. It was sexy as hell.

“W
hy do we faint each time?”

Christian opened his eyes, expecting Carolyn to be leaning over him again, but this time she lay on her side beside him, head on her upraised hand as she waited for him to explain why they fainted at the end of each lovemaking session.

He hesitated, his brain slow to wake fully, and then answered, “That happens with life mates for the first year or so.”

“All life mates experience this?” she asked, running her fingers lightly along his arm.

Christian raised his arm, and drew her against his chest before lowering it again. Running his own hands down her back, he admitted, “I have only heard of one couple who it didn’t happen for right away.”

When she tilted her head up in question, he kissed her forehead, and murmured, “My cousin Vincent and his life mate, Jackie.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Weren’t they life mates then?”

“Yes, but Jackie had a bad experience with an immortal as a teenager,” he explained, his hand finding her breast. Pleasure slid through him at once and his voice became a little rough as he continued, “My mother believes the experience caused an ingrained wariness that made her erect a natural wall that wouldn’t allow their minds to merge fully until she learned to trust him completely. After a couple of weeks they apparently started fainting as well.”

“Oh.” Carolyn breathed, arching into his caress, and then mumbled, “You have a lot of cousins.”

“More than you can imagine,
cara
. And they will be yours too,” he assured her, pulling her to straddle his thighs as he sat up.

Twenty

C
hristian stirred lazily and opened his eyes. A smile tugged at his lips when his gaze landed on Carolyn, sleeping beside him. He’d woken up before her this time, he thought and started to reach for her, but then retrieved his hand and rolled out of bed instead when his bladder complained of a need for relief. He quickly crossed the room, and slipped into the bathroom to tend to the matter.

Carolyn wasn’t in bed when he returned and he paused, but relaxed when he spotted her by the closet. She must have heard the door open, because she turned then and smiled.

“Have I mentioned how incredibly handsome and sexy you look first thing in the morning with your hair all tousled like that?” she asked as her gaze slid over him, and then her eyes drifted back to his face and she added dryly, “And young.”

“I’ve told you, I’m not as young as I look,” he said, starting toward her.

She tilted her head. “How old are you?”

“I was born in 1491, I’m five—” He broke off to rush forward as Carolyn’s knees buckled and she started to slide toward the floor.

Catching her before she hit the carpet, Christian carried her to the bed, and sat her on the end of it. He then straightened and said wryly, “Well, you didn’t take that quite as well as the rest of it.”

She just stared at him and he shifted uncomfortably.

“I told you I wasn’t younger than you are,” he pointed out and then cleared his throat and said worriedly, “I know you have a problem with having a younger lover, but how do you feel about an older one?”

Carolyn just stared at him.

Christian ran a hand wearily around the back of his neck. It had seemed to be going well before this, but now . . . well his age had apparently knocked her for a loop and he didn’t know what to say to make it all right again. It was also incredibly difficult to think with her sitting there naked on the foot of the bed.

“What’s the difference between a vampire and an immortal?”

Christian breathed out. At least she appeared to be over the worst of her shock. Well, she was talking anyway.

“Vampires are mythical creatures, fabled to be cursed and soulless,” he answered quickly. “Immortals are a result of scientific advancement. We have nanos in us that kill off illnesses and cancers, and so on, and repair damage done to the body by the sun or aging.”

Carolyn absorbed that and then said, “Which is why you’re alive and strapping at . . . My God, you’re more than five centuries old,” she breathed.

“Yes.” He grimaced. “And some days I feel every one of those centuries.” Like now, he decided and thought wouldn’t it be ironic if, after refusing to get involved with him because he was too young, she now refused because he was too old?

“And the blood?” Carolyn asked suddenly, drawing him from his thoughts. “Why do you—?”

“The nanos use blood to propel and replicate themselves,” Christian explained. “They also utilize it in repairs. But it takes a lot of blood, more than a human body can produce. Immortals need an outside source of blood aside from what they can produce.” He paused, and then added, “We didn’t start out with fangs. The nanos altered my ancestors to aid them in getting what they needed.”

“The nanos gave you fangs?” she asked with surprise.

Christian nodded. “And other benefits. We’re faster than other humans, stronger, and see better at night . . . among other things.”

“Other things like controlling Bethany and making her do what you want?”

Christian nodded unapologetically.

“So while you feed on bagged blood now . . . ?”

“We didn’t always have that option,” he said quietly.

She seemed to accept that, and then asked, “So are you an alien?”

He smiled faintly. “No. We’re human just like you . . . and you’ll be immortal just like me when I turn you.”

Carolyn stilled. “What?”

“If you want,” Christian added quickly. “I would never turn you without your permission. It’s not allowed, but even if it were I wouldn’t. I—” Christian paused and sighed, then moved to sit next to her on the bed.

“Carolyn,” he said, taking her hands. “You’re my life mate, and that’s a very precious thing. I also love you, which is inevitable between life mates. The nanos pick the perfect mate, and—” He paused, realizing that sounded about as romantic as dog food. He tried again. “The point is, you are my life mate. I will never cheat on you, never stop loving you, and would sooner cut out my own heart than hurt you . . . And I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I would like to turn you and claim you as my mate for so long as we both live.”

Carolyn frowned and hesitated, and then asked, “So I wouldn’t age anymore? I’d always look forty-two to your twenty-five?” Before he could answer, she added wryly, “Which I suppose is better than looking sixty-two to your twenty-five if we had met later. Still, it seems unfair that for the rest of . . . well . . . however long we live, everyone will think I’m the older woman with the boy toy when you’re really ages older than me.” She shook her head and leaned it against his shoulder, moaning, “Why couldn’t we have met twenty years ago? I’d look the same age as you then.”

“You wouldn’t look forty-two,” he said quietly, relief already washing through him. She was willing to turn. “You’ll look somewhere between twenty-five and thirty years old.”

Carolyn stiffened and slowly lifted her head. “What?”

“I told you, the nanos repair damage,” he said gently.

“Yeah, like from the sun and illness and—”

“And aging,” he put in. “They are programmed to keep their host in peak condition. They will repair everything, including any damage aging has done.”

She blinked and then squawked, “That’s not repairing, that’s reversing.”

“Yes, I suppose,” Christian acknowledged.

“Well . . .” Carolyn frowned. “I don’t know if I want to look twenty-five forever. For heaven’s sake, nobody gives twenty-five-year-olds respect. Not even me. I’ve been thinking of you all as a bunch of young punks since meeting you. Well, until I got to know you at least, and—” She stopped talking and frowned when Christian suddenly started to laugh. “What’s so funny?”

“You,” he said gently. “What you’re talking about is ageism. And it happens no matter the age. Twenty-year-olds think teenagers don’t know a thing, thirty-year-olds feel the same about twenty-year-olds and teenagers, and so on.” He quirked an eyebrow and asked, “Do you really think fifty- and sixty-year-olds don’t look at you and feel the same way?”

Carolyn scowled at the thought.

“And it gets no better among immortals. My brother Lucern is over six hundred and treats anyone under four hundred like they’re young punks.” He paused briefly and then said, “And I hate to point this out, but most women would be pleased at the thought of being their peak age and physical condition for the rest of their lives . . . Always young, always healthy and vibrant.”

Carolyn sighed. “I’ve always been weird.”

He grinned. “It’s part of your charm.”

“Hmm,” she said, and then suddenly stiffened. “Will I have to drink blood?”

“Not drink it, no. You needn’t even taste it,” he assured her quickly, suspecting that would be a problem. “If you puncture the bag with your fangs, they draw the blood directly into your system without it ever crossing your tongue. But you will have to feed to allow the nanos to do their work and keep you at peak condition.”

She thought for a moment, and then asked, “Peak condition?”

“Yes.” Christian peered at her curiously.

“Does that mean perky breasts and no cellulite?”

Christian’s eyebrows rose. “I haven’t noticed any cellulite, and I like your breasts.”

“Yes, yes, I love you too,” Carolyn muttered, obviously thinking he was only saying that out of love. “But would the nanos—?”

“Yes,” he assured her patiently.

“Oh.” She sighed and said, “Well, there’s that then at least.”

She made it sound like a booby prize. Frowning, he said, “
Cara,
I—”

“How am I supposed to explain it to my employees?” she asked suddenly.

“Ah.” Christian frowned. “Well, that’s—”

“I suppose I could let them think I had face-lifts and stuff.”

“Er . . .”

“But I’d probably have to sell the advertising agency and do something else after a couple of years,” she continued with a frown. “I mean, eventually they’d pick up on my not aging.”