And then things became stranger still when it began to move as she did. Expanding and contracting, forcing him to meet her thrust for thrust. Making his own participation in this almost irrelevant.
I’ll take you, she’d said, and he suddenly, vividly, realized what she’d meant. He was there for her pleasure, not the other way around. And it felt . . . he couldn’t . . . this wasn’t how . . . unhh.
“The ones you see here are those who do not feel that way,” she told him, continuing their former conversation as if nothing was happening. “Or are those who decided to live in spite of it.”
Mircea stared up at her. The damned woman wasn’t even breathing hard!
“Perhaps . . . it will fade . . . in time,” he said, because if she could, he could.
“It doesn’t. How can it? It’s part of you, they’re part of you—literally, for they gave you life. It is their blood that animates you, that called you back from death. You are meant to be together, your whole being knows it.”
“I can’t . . . imagine feeling . . . that way.”
“Can’t you?” She changed position suddenly, forcing a groan out of him. “It’s something like that,” she told him. “But all the time. But not just physical; it’s mental, emotional—almost spiritual. An utterly helpless longing to touch him, to be beside him, just to hear his voice. Even when you know he doesn’t care as you do, even when you realize that it’s all on your side, it doesn’t lessen the need. It’s the worst thing in the world when they reject you.”
“Anyone . . . who could reject you . . . is a fool,” Mircea snarled.
“Then the world is full of fools,” she said lightly.
And the next second, she was at his throat.
Soft lips instead of hard teeth, but still, so close. It sent a shiver through him that resonated from his body and up into hers. He knew she felt it when she smiled, ferally.
“Which do you want more,” she asked. “Blood or sex? And think carefully, for you can only have one.”
Mircea opened his mouth to say sex, because clearly.
But then he closed it again as that long, white throat slid along his. He could feel her heartbeat, a quick flutter against his skin, and then slower, heavier, until it synchronized with his own. Until it felt like his own, like his blood was in her body, was in her body and was waiting to be reclaimed.
He felt his fangs descend.
But it was hers that scraped against his skin, not tearing, not even pricking. Just brushing, delicate, teasing, maddening. He heard himself growl, a frightening sound. He hadn’t lost that much control since—
He tried to rein himself in, but she was doing it again. Sliding her throat along his, her pulse along his, and now her body as well. Slick, wet friction and undulating muscles and a pulse pounding, pounding, pounding in his throat, in his head, in his—
“Only one,” she whispered, and it was absurd.
“I can’t—”
“You can. You did it with the senator, did you not?”
“Yes, but—”
“Sex without blood is meaningless for most of us. Blood magnifies everything in our world, including pleasure. But, apparently, you are different.”
“I’m not—”
“But you are. You’ve demonstrated that twice now. So, for you, only one.”
Her lips caught his, in a sweet caress that was nothing like what he wanted. It was soft and gentle when he wanted hard, when he wanted piercing, when he wanted warm and metallic and—
“Only one,” she told him, sucking right over his pounding pulse, pulling it into her mouth, letting him feel her hunger, her need—
Only to let it out again, unbroken.
“Only one,” she murmured, as he choked.
“Only one,” and she sped up, taking it from torture to something for which he had no words.
“Only one,” she warned, as finally, finally, she released him, the power snapping that had held him down, that had kept him captive, that had kept him from—
“Only one,” she laughed, as his fangs slid into her skin, at the same moment that his body surged into her flesh, as he took from her and spilled into her in equal measure. This was how it was supposed to be, this was what he was, what he’d been driven mad for, this, and this, and this. . . .
Moments later, she had finally lost her breath, but not the wicked sparkle in her eyes. “You really are . . . bad . . . at taking orders,” she told him.
“And not likely to get any better,” Mircea growled, and rolled her into the sheets.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The wait ended the next night.
Mircea awoke to the feel of something hitting his chest. And to Paulo’s voice saying: “Get up. She wants you.”
He blinked his eyes open to find himself clutching a large, linen wrapped package—for an instant. Until it was snatched from his grasp and torn open. And something softer than down, something like a cloud in cloth form, was spilling over the bed.
“Oh,” someone breathed, as Mircea’s eyes finally managed to focus.
He sat up, finding himself clasping a doublet of deep, midnight blue velvet. The pile was shot through with tiny threads of silver, and scattered along the threads were glittering objects that gleamed in the candlelight, like dark fire. He ran his fingers over them, and finally realized that he couldn’t see them well because they were the same color as the cloth—a blue so dark they were almost black.
As sapphires often are, he thought dizzily.
And then Jerome—and it was Jerome, sitting on the bed, gray eyes huge—pulled out a length of snowy white linen—a shirt. It was massive, easily using as much material as a woman’s chemise. But it needed to be, to fit through the dozens of slashings on the doublet.
And then a matching suede and velvet cioppa appeared. And then a pair of hosen so fine and light that Mircea was concerned he might rip them just by holding them. But they stretched when he gave a tug, with a tensile strength he hadn’t expected.
There were other things, too—belt, shoes, gloves, even a hat. A velvet slouch with a jeweled buckle, the centerpiece a sapphire the size of his thumbnail. The whole together was an outfit a Doge might have envied—or a prince. And quite, quite illegal for someone of his current status to wear.
Fortunately, Venetians treated the sumptuary laws with the same respect they did the rest of the legal code.
“These are for me?” Mircea asked, looking up.
Paulo frowned at him. “Who else?”
“They’re from the senator?”
“Again, who else? Over there.” The last was directed at two maids who had just come in bearing hot water and towels, and making the tiny room exceedingly crowded.
Paulo looked at Jerome pointedly, but the smaller vampire didn’t budge.
“You said you didn’t ask for anything,” he said, looking covetously at the expensive pile on the bed.
“I didn’t.”
“You never said a word, and yet she sends you this?” Jerome clearly didn’t believe him.
That was all right; Mircea didn’t half believe it himself.
“She sent it because she wants him to look like he belongs at her table,” Paulo said, ducking his face into the basin.
Mircea finally noticed that the blond was only half dressed, and that his hair looked like birds had been nesting in it. He was also trying to shrug on clothes and make his ablutions even while bossing the two of them around. “Her table?” Mircea asked.