William (14 page)

Bloody hell, I'd been starved for this. I
moaned through our kiss when he shifted his hips, gripping his back
as his stiffness rubbed against mine. More, damn it, I wanted more!
I wanted it all, whatever all of it was. I moaned again,
impatiently this time, plunging my fingers into his hair, and he
broke from my lips to look down at me with heavy-lidded eyes.

"Is there something you want, William?"
Merrick breathed, drawing his fingertip down the center of my lips,
my chin, my neck.

"Yes," I managed to pronounce. "But perhaps
you'll have to show me what it is."

Merrick lowered his head for a moment,
brushing his lips against the edge of my jaw. "William," he
murmured, his finger pausing at the most sensitive point of my
chest. "Where to begin."

The dark promise in his tone turned my wits
to honey. Though I meant to take full advantage of my new freedoms
as his lover, I could hardly resist his taking the lead when I knew
he led so very, very well. My hands were urgently claiming whatever
they could reach, every perfect line and dent and hollow, from his
steely shoulders to the long muscles of his thighs. But when he
took my cock in his hand, my body arched and I was lost.

Merrick groaned and started a path of hot
kisses down my neck, shifting over me until he could suck one
nipple into his mouth. Another epithet escaped my lips and I
gripped his hair, throwing my head back.

This was what it was to love as a vampire. No
human could have borne such incendiary pleasure. My veins were
crackling, my skin buzzing, and deep within me was a hunger so
demanding it threatened my sanity. I wrapped my arm around his side
and pushed him to his back, straddling his hips and bending down to
seize his lips. With a rumbling murmur of approval, Merrick took
both our lengths in hand and squeezed. Hot spears of pleasure shot
through my body as he stroked us, each one drawing a violent
shudder. I dug my fingers into his shoulders, gasping, rocking into
his grip. How could I stand it? I was already fit to explode.

"Oh," I moaned, and took a shuddering breath.
"God, Merrick. If you knew..."

"Do you?" Merrick carded his fingers through
my hair and tilted my head up to look into my eyes. "Do you know
how I've wanted you?"

"Maybe." I shivered as he ran his fingertips
slowly down my spine, exhaled when their path continued lower. "I
nearly died of wanting you."

"Yes." Merrick's eyes burned into mine,
liquid amber ringed with fiery copper and shards of ebony. "You
nearly did." He pressed me onto my back and covered me again,
lavishing my throat with kisses. "Maybe, you say," he whispered
against my throat, and began to make his way downward. "I thought
my desire was plain."

"It is when you're with me." I shifted as he
parted my thighs and pressed his lips to the apex of my ribs.

"I am with you now." Merrick hooked his hand
under my thigh and raised it, kissing the inside of my knee. "And
I'm going to be with you all night."

"I'll go mad," I breathed, looking down at
him. He was cupping my sack in his palm, rolling and squeezing as
his fingers probed further behind. As I watched, he dragged his
tongue up the length of my cock, and my mouth fell open with a
ruined groan.

"You are already mad." Merrick said, and
wrapped his lips around me.

"Jesus bloody Christ," I gasped, grabbing his
hair as his head sank between my legs. "Merrick, yes!" I'd been
sucked into a cloud of heaven. Oh, Satan in Hell, it was good.
"God, Merrick, yes." His searching fingers made it clear where we
were going, and I had never been more ready for it. To feel my body
opened by his firm caress as his mouth moved up and down my stiff
length was a thrill I could scarcely process. By the time he lifted
his head I was ragged with desire.

"Is this what you want?" Merrick breathed,
his touch moving deeper, circling, stretching.

"Everything," I blurted, writhing against
those skillful fingers. "More, Merrick, please!"

"Are you certain?"

Were my splayed and trembling thighs not
proof enough of my certainty? I tugged at him impatiently, dragging
him up to where I could better communicate my urgency with a
desperate kiss. His arousal was a hot iron between us; when I
rocked up against it, he groaned into my mouth and reached down to
pull my leg farther up at his side. I hooked it around him, pulling
him closer, and felt the tip of his sex replacing his fingers,
pressing against that hidden cleft with unmistakable intent.

"Yes," I whispered against his lips, gripping
the back of his neck. "Yes, yes, yes."

"William," he breathed, reaching up to push
my hair back from my face. "Let me see your eyes."

I dragged my lids open with great effort and
was rewarded by the urgent tension in his perfect features, a
mixture of awe and tenderness and ferocious lust. He held my face
up to his, keeping me in that dark golden gaze as he began the slow
push of his hips.

A wanton sound welled up deep within my chest
and fell broken from my lips. My eyes closed as I felt the first
inch of him sliding within me, but then he stopped, stroking my
cheekbone with his thumb and bidding me to look at him again. I
obeyed, blinking up at him with watery eyes, and let him hold my
gaze as he continued his exquisite invasion. His brow tightened as
he sank deeper into my body, and he breathed my name again as
though shocked. His hips met mine, our foreheads touched; I was
undone. Cradled in his arms, I followed the first gentle motions of
his hips until we were rocking and thrusting in steady harmony. It
was unlike anything I had ever experienced. Each drive of his hips
brought a low cry from my throat, pushing me into yet another
dimension of excitement. I ran my hands feverishly over his taut,
shifting muscles, mesmerized by the way my body had begun to play
along of its own accord, my hips winding uncontrollably against him
in pursuit of the pleasure he gave.

I lost track of all boundaries. My spirit was
bursting out of my skin. I was saturated with the heat and tension
of our union, which had risen to unimaginable heights. I forgot my
hands, my limbs. All my atoms were twisting and tightening, and I
was fit to snap. It was coming on. I could feel it. My head rolled
back. "Oh my God Merrick," I gasped.

"My William," he breathed against my ear.
"Yes, my love."

Explosions. Bursts of flame. The mattress
whipped my back as I writhed against him, sobbing, thrown into a
madness of bliss. Lightning. Eruption. Destruction and creation. I
became one with the very matter of reality. And just as I recalled
the moment I was in again, I found Merrick shuddering in my arms as
he gave in to his own release. If I had gone mad with bliss before,
now I was sure I'd be slain by it. Absorbing the powerful motion of
his climax, I was provoked to my own convulsions again—for a moment
I wondered if it would never end. Merrick continued to move against
me, slowly now, his fingers threading through my hair, his lips
brushing my temple.

At last he gathered me closer by the waist
and rolled to his back so that I lay on top of him, and I curled my
body to bury my face in his throat without separating our hips. He
wrapped his arms around me and held me close. Though the epic waves
of sensation had settled, I still felt we were adrift on the same
sea of pleasure, only floating now on gentler swells.

"Spectacular," I breathed below his ear.
"Extravagant."

"It pleases you, then?"

"I shall never have enough."

Merrick kissed me, slow and languid, and
combed my hair back where it had gone wild. "We've hardly
begun."

I shivered as he moved beneath me, and
shifted more of my weight to my knees so that I could run my hands
down his powerfully built torso. "I never knew such pleasure
existed."

"Nor did I." Merrick slowly rose upright on
the bed, curling his arm around my hips to hold me securely against
him. Without thinking I began to shift and grind to get closer, and
we both groaned at the sensations my movements brought. I watched
him through a haze of hot contentment, my arms encircling his
shoulders, yielding completely to the rapture. Merrick's fingers
danced across my lips as he gazed at me in wonder. "Now I know
happiness," he breathed. "Now it's mine."

At those words I rocked harder against him,
sighing against his fingertips. "Now I can keep you with me."

We held each other in an unending embrace,
riding the ecstasy for hours. My body bloomed for him again and
again, and I learned what it felt like to please him, to watch him
come undone beneath my hands. I learned the shape of him, the taste
of him, the many ways our bodies could provoke each other. And just
before dawn, as I rode my last throes of energy, he offered me his
throat. The feeling of my teeth sliding into his firm skin as we
melted in each other’s arms was transcendent; his blood was the
juice of the gods. And as my lips went slack and fell from his
neck, I felt my transformation complete. Merrick laid me gently on
my back, whispering tender things as my eyes grew heavier, and I
laced my fingers sleepily through his.

"Merrick," I breathed, reveling in his
presence, savoring the weight of him beside me. "You'll stay with
me."

"I won't set foot outside."

I may have said something more, but it was
lost to the darkness of a most perfect sleep.

It was dark, of course, when I opened my
eyes. There was a lamp burning low on the nightstand, and the scent
of pine hanging in the air. I inhaled the clean aroma as I
stretched, groaning happily as I felt the blood waking up in my
limbs. Giving my back a final delicious arch, I sat up and rubbed
my eyes. Then I grinned. Across the room, obscured from view of the
door by a folding screen, was a rather large tin bathtub.

No sooner had I spotted it than Merrick
appeared in the doorway, carrying a steaming wooden bucket. "Good
evening," he smiled, and crossed the room to set the bucket near
the tub.

"Good evening." I thought to rise from the
bed, realized I was still naked, and decided to sit tight. Of
course there was nothing left of me that Merrick hadn't seen, but a
little propriety wouldn't hurt. I'd shown little enough of it the
night before, as I now recalled with a flush.

"You slept well?" Merrick himself was attired
in dark buckskins and boots, his waistcoat hanging loose over his
white shirt.

"Very well." I happily watched him come
closer. Though my eyes saw into the shadows more readily now, there
was something about a barely candlelit room that always took me
back to those peaceful nights in Merrick's cottage. "Are you about
to take a bath?"

"No, that’s for you."

"You shouldn't have gone to the trouble," I
said, but was far too delighted to sound very sorry about it.

"It was no trouble at all." Merrick assured
me. "You barely had time to rest after your journey yesterday. I'm
afraid I was rather overwhelmed by your arrival and forgot my
duties as a host."

"Please. I can't imagine you could treat a
guest any better."

Merrick looked down as though to hide his
smile. "I'll leave you to it. And now that you're awake, I must
retrieve some things from the coffee house just down the way. It
should be no more than twenty minutes. Take your time and join me
downstairs whenever you like."

"Thank you, Merrick."

With a nod, he made to leave, but paused at
the door and turned to me again. "You look very well, William."

"I was thinking the same about you, sir."

Merrick laughed through his nose and left
shaking his head.

Glorious day! Or night, rather.

I flung the covers off and went straight to
the washstand, inspecting myself in the mahogany-framed mirror
above the basin as I cleaned my teeth. It was still strange to see
myself so healthy and fresh. Though I'd always had a strong
constitution, now there was a new brightness around my eyes and a
silky texture to my skin, which was completely devoid of blemishes
or tired shadows. My body confirmed the overall change. I had not
grown or shrunk in size, but I was leaner, my muscles tighter.
Nothing disagreeable. And it was a good thing, for—I realized as I
looked into the mirror, which showed me from the waist up—this was
the body I'd have for the rest of my life, however long I could
make my life be. Strangely, Theo came to mind. But then I rounded
the screen to stand beside the tub, and my pleasure swept that
passing thought away.

What a gentleman, to go to all this trouble!
I would have been just as delighted in the kitchen, without his
having to carry so many buckets up and down the stairs. Of course,
it was more pleasant here in the bedroom, with the lamplight
dancing across the dark oak floors and on the surface of the water.
I lowered myself into the steaming bath with a blissful groan. The
oblong vessel was large enough that I could sit comfortably with my
knees up, and full enough that the water reached my chest. Within
arm's reach was a wooden stool, likely from the kitchen, upon which
sat a folded linen towel, a little tin pitcher, and a palm-sized
round of his homemade soap. I used the pitcher to douse my head
until my hair was drenched, happy as a damn otter. Reaching over to
retrieve the soap, I lifted it to my nose and savored the lavender
scent.

Ah, the luxury of life with Merrick! I knew
exactly what expression he'd make if I ever said that aloud, the
look of fond bemusement he often aimed in my direction. But truly,
for all his simplicity and humility, for me, Merrick's world was
practically decadent. I had always felt that way, even in the stone
cottage, with nary an ornament or decoration in sight. Everything
was always in its place, every surface clean and polished. Once I
had detected a wobble in one of his wooden chairs, and the next day
found it was good as new again—he had sanded the legs down during
the night. After that I made a game of looking for signs of
disrepair in and around the cottage. He nearly always beat me to
them, asking me to fix the loose handle of the kettle or mend the
frayed edge of a towel.