“I can’t do this right now.”
“Fine.” He got to his feet and crouched in front of me, taking my hands in his so I had no choice but to look at him. “I’m not asking you to make a choice this second. I just want you to know why I’m relieved another option has been taken out of the running.”
Staring at him, I tried to decide if he was being cute or making a joke at my expense, but he seemed totally earnest. I let him hold my hands while he watched me. He had the eerie vampire ability to sit perfectly still, as if he’d been turned to stone, so sometimes it felt like I was looking at a statue version of Holden that didn’t breathe or move its eyes.
Not that Holden breathed on a normal day.
“Sig isn’t another option,” I assured him.
“Good.” He offered up a faint smile and squeezed my hands. “Good.”
“Are you really so unhappy?”
“It’s not that I’m unhappy. But I’d be much happier if I didn’t have to share you at all.”
“I imagine Desmond feels the same way.”
“Probably.”
I slid off the settee and straddled his lap, looping my arms lazily around his neck so I could get close enough to press my forehead against his. I liked the way his cool skin made my own seem warm by comparison. The way I felt when I was close to him was something I wouldn’t be able to give up easily. He made me believe I was safe even when I wasn’t. Like I could get through any situation.
Even this one.
“I promise you, when this is all over…Peyton, my mother, Sutherland…when it’s all done, we will talk. You, me and Desmond will sit down and figure this whole awful mess out. Okay?”
He supported my lower back with wide, strong palms, and leaned us towards the settee, his lips dangerously close to mine. “In the meantime, do you think you might relent on this silly celibacy mission you’re on?”
Given my position, it was impossible to ignore the rising presence of his erection, or the possessive way he tightened his hands into fists on my shirt. If I waited a few more seconds, he might shred the garment and have his way with me on the floor.
It wouldn’t be the first time we hadn’t made it to a bed.
I weighed the options in my head. On the one hand, I wanted to be thoroughly consumed by him. I craved his bite more than almost anything, longing for the intoxicating thrill it gave me. And he’d mentioned we would be better able to sell our story if we were heard by others.
That was what made me push myself off him. Not the notion of selling our relationship, but the idea other people could hear us. I had no interest in turning my bedroom sessions into an audience event. The members of the West Coast council had no place in my relationships.
No matter how badly I wanted to end my three sexless months and put Holden and me out of our misery, it wasn’t the right moment.
“I’m sorry. I want to, but it’s not—”
He lifted me off the floor and backed me into the wall, rattling the large mirror beside us. With barely any effort he hoisted me up with one hand so I was once again positioned over his hardness. Briefly his eyes fluttered closed, and he stilled the hand that had gone to my throat.
“Holden.”
His fingers grazed the thin skin of my neck, and when he reopened his eyes, they’d gone black. For a fleeting moment I wondered if I should be afraid of him. Years of training to kill vampires made me wary of their black-eyed state because it usually meant they were about to rip your carotid artery out.
Holden wasn’t interested in a traditional feed though. He might want to bite me—hell, I wanted him to bite me too—but his interest was carnal in a different way.
“You want to,” he said, his voice harsh and raspy. “You said you wanted to.” He kissed my collarbone, and he must have heard the loud thump of my heartbeat because he lowered his ear to my chest and listened for a long time.
Which was when he seemed to understand why my heart was beating so fast.
He lowered me back to the floor and took several steps away, raking his fingers through his hair and looking completely disgusted with himself. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay.”
“You didn’t hurt me. I wouldn’t have let it get out of hand. And you’re right…I did say I wanted it. Just not here. Not like this.”
He sat on the bed, the blackness fading from his eyes as he continued to stare at me. I tried to smile, but I wasn’t feeling very smiley right then.
Maxime had a hell of a sense of timing, because he knocked quietly and opened the door, giving Holden and me a much-needed reprieve from the tension.
“Is it a bad time?” Max asked.
“No. Couldn’t be better,” I replied.
Chapter Fifteen
The West Coast vampires were more forward thinking than their East Coast counterparts in that they opted for a technologically advanced approach to collecting information. Back in New York I was convinced the council still thought computers were a passing fancy because very few of the wardens or sentries used them, and I doubted Sig or Juan Carlos had ever tried.
Maxime was carrying a sleek MacBook when he came into my room and took a seat in the center of the big leather couch. I sat on his right and beckoned for Holden to join us. Perhaps with his brother in the middle we might stop being so weird and he could potentially relax.
I wasn’t mad at Holden for what he’d done. I knew with absolute certainty he never would have forced me to do anything I didn’t want to do. There was a strong likelihood he hadn’t taken blood since his arrival in Los Angeles, and he’d been drinking. Vampires didn’t drink often because our metabolisms processed the alcohol too quickly, creating a near-instant buzz.
He was hungry and a bit drunk, and I’d sat on his lap after depriving him of sex for three months. I wasn’t trying to make excuses for his actions, but I wasn’t upset with him. My clothes were still intact, and he hadn’t done anything except pick me up and listen to my heartbeat.
Maybe I was making excuses.
I sighed and directed my attention back to Maxime and his laptop. I had to admit, I wasn’t terribly good with technology myself. My smartphone made me feel stupid, and the laptop I had at home was about three times thicker than this one and existed solely so I could update my iPod.
The couch sagged under Holden’s weight, and he looked at the screen with us.
Maxime had pulled up a black-and-white photo of a beautiful mansion surrounded by a copse of palm trees. He continued to flip through photos on the computer, showing the mansion getting larger and larger as more rooms and wings seemed to be added in each new photo. The color photos showed it to be a lovely near-yellow cream with burgundy accent tones.
“Nice house,” I said, still not sure why we were looking at it. “What does it have to do with Sutherland?”
“This is the Winchester Mansion in San Jose,” Maxime informed us.
“Winchester, like the rifles?” I asked.
“Precisely. It was constructed after the death of Mr. Winchester by his widow Sarah. She carried an incredible burden of guilt because she believed the ghosts of those killed by her husband’s rifles were haunting her. When she spoke to a psychic, the woman informed Sarah the only way to escape the spirits was to build a house and never stop.”
“Never stop building?” I stared at the thumbnail images on the screen of the ever-growing house, wondering what kind of madness would drive someone to do that.