She needed to slow down, or she would explode before the conversation ended.
“No, I cannot. Not while we’re together. My power…they did something to me. Bound my abilities in some way, as surely as they bound my body.” He licked his lips, revealing and hiding his fangs. So sharp, so deadly. “Do you like this, Jane? Do I please you?”
So much it scared her. “Yes.”
“Lean down. Kiss me.”
Another urge to obey… She stilled instead. Yes. She wanted to kiss him. Yet she knew that if she leaned down, if she kissed the breath out of his lungs as she wanted him to do to her, they would have sex. They wouldn’t be able to help themselves. Look how close she was to begging for it already!
She couldn’t have sex with him. They were strangers. Worse, he was a vampire, a drinker of blood, and she’d studied his kind for research. Oh, God. Talk about a mood killer. If he ever found out, the mood wasn’t the only thing that would be killed.
He wouldn’t find out, she assured herself before she could panic. Wasn’t like she’d tell him, and who else knew? No one. Although he might wonder why she knew more about his physiology than she should. Like the fact that he was alive, and not dead, with the same basic organ alignment as a human.
Besides, she would return home at some point. She hoped. More than that, they were in danger and under a time crunch. She needed answers from him, not pleasure. Not kisses.
Reluctantly she crawled off him and stood beside the bed. Her knees almost buckled. Amazing that she was able to maintain her balance, since her muscles had the consistency of Jell-O.
“Jane?”
She couldn’t look at him. She would cave. He was just so damn beautiful, those eyes so hungry. For her. Plain Jane, as the kids at school had once called her. Already she was tempted to fling herself back on top of him, rubbing her way to ecstasy. The scent of him clung to her. Sandalwood. Delicious. Every time she inhaled, she smelled him, weakening her resolve.
“Can someone else remove the illusion?” she asked, keeping her profile to him. “While we’re together?”
“Why did you leave me?”
“I wasn’t concentrating. I was only…”
“Thinking of me. And sex.”
Her cheeks heated as she nodded.
He uttered a low growl. “If you will not take pleasure from me, at least sit beside me. I would rather have part of you than none of you.”
Said the spider to the fly. A born seducer, this one. Nicolai knew just how to lure, how to tempt. Against her better judgment, she sat. Her fingers brushed his ribs, and the heat of him had her shivering all over again.
“The answer to your question is yes,” he said, gruffer still. “If someone’s power is greater than mine, my illusion can be broken. But do not go around asking for such a thing. You do not want the witches here knowing what was done to you.”
She waited, tense and silent, for him to go on. He didn’t. Finally she gasped out, “You can’t leave it at that. What happens if they discover the truth?”
Another round of silence.
Her heartbeat increased in speed. “What if your magic fails while I’m here?” Again, she waited. He didn’t rush to assure her all would be well. Still no need to panic. Not yet.
“Feed me,” he said, his fangs extending over his bottom lip, “and I’ll strengthen. No one will be stronger than me.” There, at the end, his words were slurred.
One half of her trembled in pleasure, the other half shuddered in fear. The vampires in the lab had fed from bags of plasma. She’d never been bitten. Had never wanted to be bitten. Until now. If anyone could make her enjoy something like that, it was this man.
“I’ll think about it. Now let’s backtrack a little. If you can make anyone look like the princess, why did you summon me specifically?” Why place her in such danger? Not that he’d truly wanted her, and her alone. She recalled his disdain when he’d learned she was merely a human, recalled his surprise. “I asked before, but you never answered.”
He leaned toward her, forcing her fingers to press into his skin. A silent command—and an unrelinquishing demand—for contact. “I did not summon you specifically.”
She’d realized that as she’d spoken, but hearing him confirm it depressed her. She had to remain on equal footing with him, and even though he was chained, he kept leaping to the next level without her.
“Who did you mean to summon, then?” she asked, tracing an X next to his navel. She blinked. His navel? Damn it! Her willpower sucked. She’d told herself not to touch him so, of course, the first thing she did was claim his belly button as her personal property.
“Jane?”
His deep voice startled her, and she jerked her spine ramrod straight. An instant later, her gaze met Nicolai’s. A mistake. Liquid silver eyes, smoldering with passion. Languid expression masking a sea of desires. “Yes?” Danger, Jane Parker, danger.
“I lost you, even though I’m having this conversation only because you wished it. We could be doing—”
“Sorry,” she said before he could finish. No reason to discover if what he thought they could be doing meshed with her own desires, and every reason not to. She stuffed her hands under her butt, her weight pinning them in place. Hopefully. “I’ll pay attention from now on.”
He flicked his tongue over one of his fangs, and she couldn’t help but imagine that tongue flicking between her legs. “I summoned whoever would save me.”
Oh, dear God. Her bones melted. Climbing on top of him a second time might actually be a good idea, she mused. She’d be able to hear him better. Yeah, yeah, because she was having trouble hearing him and… Damn it, she thought again. You knew better than to look at him!
She cleared her throat. “So I release you, and then what happens?” Good. Back on track.
“I am…not sure.”
The truth or a lie? That hesitation… “Will I go home?”
“I told you. I do not know. Do you have a man waiting for you?” he asked, the words grated, as if pushed through a grinder.
“No. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have straddled you. Fidelity is important.” She had nothing and no one except the routine she’d developed. Wake up at six-thirty in the morning and jog five miles. Take a shower, dress, fix breakfast. Read for a few hours, usually something on macroparticles, sometimes a romance, fix lunch. Read for a few hours more, shop online for anything she needed, walk the treadmill to release the knots in her muscles. Bathe, fix dinner. Watch TV, sleep. Exciting.
She didn’t need to work because one, she’d made so much money through her research, she could never spend it all; and two, she’d made so much money in the car accident settlement, she could never spend it all. Only problem was, she wanted something money couldn’t buy. Her family. A second chance.
“But I’m not in danger there,” she added softly. “So tell me. What will you do when you’re free?”
Absolute determination cloaked her features. “Kill my tormentors.” Flat, cold. A vow. “After that, I will journey to Elden.”
The “kill my tormentors” part shouldn’t have cranked her engine, but it did. A lot. All that ferocity… He would protect what was his, and fight for what he wanted. Always. Anyone who tormented him or those he loved would suffer. And with him, a woman would never have to worry about anything. Well, except her panties. Those might be ripped a few times.
“If I summon the healer and she does her thing, and then I let you go, but I don’t instantly go home, will you take me with you?”
She was not staying here; she knew that much. Nicolai might plan to kill everyone, but he was only one man. Or vampire, whatever. There would be survivors. Survivors looking to punish the person who had unleashed the big bad vamp.
And the longer she resided in this palace, the more danger she would be in, he’d said. Yet, she couldn’t strike out on her own. She knew nothing about this land. This magical land, where spells could be cast, memories erased and powerful vampires enslaved.