Carnal Thirst

Chapter Four

Danior was sweeping up the glass when the first scream pierced his senses. His heart halted one brief moment and set into a gallop as adrenaline pumped into his system.

Fearing that their hiding place had been discovered, he dropped the broom and raced up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Another scream rent the air, louder this time, fueling his sense of dread. She could be dead before he ever reached her.

Danior rushed into her bedroom. It was empty. He heard water in the bathroom, the sounds of a struggle, the pounding tempo of her heart.

He burst through the door, letting it rebound noisily off the wall as he stopped stock still in the door frame at the sight that greeted him.

She whirled and jerked her head up, shrieking and covering her nakedness.

A fog of lust overwhelmed him, making him sway and take a step back. It curled through his body to tauten his nerves with desire. His blood flow redirected, leaving him light headed as it aimed for his cock, bringing it to throbbing life with the resounding beat of his heart. He took a step inside, barely able to break his gaze away from the soft, ample curves of her body to inspect the room for danger.

"What has happened,” he demanded, wrenching his mind away from the ripe, woman shapeliness in the corner just begging for him to give her a roll. Concentrating, he looked around the small room, seeing nothing amiss. Without his gaze locked on her form, he was able to think clearly. He could sense no other presence, now that he had calmed enough to reach out with his mind. Her screams had made his mind betray him, set him into a near panic. He could not allow her to weaken him in such a way.

He looked back at her when he confirmed they were alone. Desire swelled again, abetting his descent into pure, carnal, mindless need. God above, she would be the death of him.

"Get out!” she screamed, “Get out, get out, get out!” She backed up, pulling the nearly clear curtain over her body as if it would shield her from his gaze.

He closed his eyes a moment, willing himself to leave the room. His lids opened once more, defying his waning willpower.

She obviously didn't realize just how much the curtain revealed. He could see the shadow of blonde hair at the apex of her thighs, see the turn of her waist up to her ribcage. Her small, pink nipples flattened against the vinyl, breasts bulging against the fabric like they were contained in a corset, urging him to rip the covering away and suck them into his mouth.

His salivary glands tightened, a sharp pain jarring his jaw muscles. His mouth watered as hunger overtook him, hunger that could only be appeased by a warm, willing woman.

Without conscious volition, he stepped toward her, closing the distance between them until he had backed her up nearly to the wall. Steam wafted in the air, making her skin damp. Her hair clung to her forehead and throat in an array that drew his attention to her veins as effectively as an arrow shot.

They shown pale blue, a tracery over her chest and throat like a fall of delicate lace about her neck. His fangs ached to see the life blood flow in her veins, to see the translucent skin unmarred and pink from the heat of the nearby shower and her own response to his nearness.

"Why were you screaming?” he asked with an attempt at feigning a calm he didn't feel, yet his voice was still thick and rough with arousal despite his effort.

She swallowed, her throat working to put moisture into her mouth. He clenched his jaw, tightening his hands into fists as her muscles moved sensually slow. “A spider tried to get me,” she said huskily, watching with a wary eye caught between him and a route of escape.

He smiled despite himself. He hadn't met a woman yet who didn't hate spiders. “You're nearly immortal now. It wouldn't have hurt you."

She tightened her grip on the curtain, shifting on her feet. “Phobias are an irrational fear. I can't help myself."

"Hmm.” He couldn't either, and he was weary of playing by the rules of society, the rules of the council ... and her rules. Perhaps that's why he'd broken one of the oldest dictates of the New Orleans underworld—to allow a human to be turned vampiric. It was a death sentence to defy the council, one that he'd welcomed with relish before. But now....

He watched her without speaking a long moment. Tension built in the air around them. Expectancy made her breath rush between her lips. She breathed hard, as if she couldn't get enough air. He felt suddenly as breathless as she, his heart pounding in time to her own.

Such moments were rare for him, this sense of urgency to sate his appetite mingling with the near hidden fear of rejection. The uncertainty sharpened his yearning, awakened a new hunger, stronger than any other before it, more ravenous.

Scarcely aware of himself, he lifted his hands and ripped the curtain away. Her gasp spurred the rapacious, overwhelming need to take and conquer, devour her cries and consume her passion. She wrapped her arms around her breasts and pubic mound, trying to hide. His belly clenched with the impact of her defenselessness. He smiled in anticipation, eager to see her and kiss her until her shyness dissolved under his tongue. Already her cunt wept for his possession. Its subtle scent perfumed the air, driving his need to unbearable heights.

"You draw attention to yourself, chere,” he said, slowly locking his hands around her wrists, forcing her to free her body for his greedy gaze.

"I don't do it on purpose,” she gasped, jerking at the tether of his hands, fighting, but not fighting hard enough. “I don't want you looking at me. I don't want anyone to look at me."

"Don't you?"

She tried to pull free, to turn away, but he wouldn't allow it. No, not this time. He'd seen her before, when he'd cleansed her body and laid her to recuperate in the bedroom, but her limp form was nothing as it was now, vibrantly alive, aching for fulfillment and freedom.

When she couldn't escape, she closed her eyes, as if that would hide her somehow, as if it could disguise her embarrassment.

She hated herself, her body—that he knew, but the driving need to change was something he'd never understood about women. His cock swelled at the sight of her pale flesh. She was all rounded curves and no hard edges. She would be soft to touch, soft and welcoming to the pounding of his body into hers. He ached to sink inside her, drum into her pussy until the world dissolved around them.

Her breasts were smaller than he'd supposed, and if she'd been a smaller size, she would probably be nearly flat-chested. As it was, they were a modest handful, tipped with virginal nipples no larger than the tip of her pinkie finger. He could tell just from looking at her and her response, that she'd never allowed a man to look at her naked. Had she allowed a man to suckle her breast?

He thought not. It pleased him to think he would be the first to taste her, to see her.

"Stop looking at me,” she gritted out, twisting in his hold, ashamed of herself.

Her shame made him ache, long to erase whatever held her repressed to her own natural beauty. He was angry that she'd loosed his hold over himself, that she denied him and herself. He was ravenous, and he saw no need to deny the hunger what it willed.

"You're right. I've looked for long enough,” he ground out, wrapping his arms around her and trapping her hands behind her back, forcing her to arch against him.

Her breasts flattened against his chest, her soft stomach melded to the muscles of his flat belly. He groaned as his cock met her naked mound, only his leather pants between him and the sweet heat between her thighs. He held her there a moment, soaking in the feel of her pressed so intimately against him.

Her heart fluttered against his chest. Each rapid breath made her tighten to him, increased the furious tempo of his own desire.

Biting back another groan, he bent his head and closed his lips over hers. She gasped against his lips, indignant, surprised, angry. He tasted her sweet breath before plunging his tongue inside her mouth, sweeping past her short fangs to tangle with her tongue.

She was hot and wet, vulnerable against him. Her hands twisted at her back, fighting him. Aggression surged in his veins at her defenselessness. Toying with her tongue, he nibbled her lips, urging her to taste him back.

Her tongue was limp in her mouth, resistant to his teasing, leaving him disappointed.

He released her hands, cupping her buttocks as he crushed her back against the wall, bringing her up hard against the ridge of his cock.

She moaned into his mouth, gripping his forearms as if she would thrust him away. He plunged his tongue in and out of her mouth, mimicking the grind of his hips as he rocked against her mound.

She whimpered, deep in her throat, sucking on his tongue at last, sending his will careening out of control. He kissed her harder, coaxed her tongue into his mouth so that he could suckle her as he massaged her buttocks. The weight felt good in his hands. He spread them, unbalancing her until she was opening for him, spreading her thighs around his hips as he pushed her up the wall and took her weight into his hands.

His groin nestled in the apex of her thighs. He knew her cleft wrapped around him, bared to his cock, wet and burning for the hammer of his body. He tore his mouth from hers, dragging it over her jaw line.

Her small gasps urged him on, fired his blood in a way he hadn't felt in years. His body had felt dead before, lifeless to emotion. Now he was alive and starving for the taste of her, of this woman that hated him and what he was.

He opened his mouth on her neck, dragging his teeth over her throat. She shuddered, her pulse quickening beneath his lips as if she knew what he wanted ... and feared and welcomed it.

He had yet to taste her blood, but he craved it, craved the ecstasy that could only be wrought by the intimacy of blood bonding.

The thought brought him up short, quenching the fire in his loins like a dash of ice water.

"Oh ... god,” he groaned against her neck, his breath fanning off her skin against his own lips. His fangs lengthened, anticipating the pleasure of piercing her flesh, to become one with her. His salivary glands spasmed again, making him hiss in pain.

He laved her neck, tasting the salt of her skin, the fear and desire trembling beneath the surface, pulsing in her lifeblood. It called him like a drug, promising a high unlike any other, an addiction he wished to embrace again.

To want it was the ultimate weakness.

He thrust against her cleft, her liquid heat near burning him through his pants. He groaned and closed his eyes, driving against her, trying to draw the anguishing, needful thirst to his throbbing cock.

She moaned, panting and whimpering. He grazed her neck, calling the blood to its surface.

With a growl of fury, he tore himself away from her, breathing heavily, resisting the lure of her eyes, glazed with passion and fear and disappointment. Her mouth and throat were reddened from his kisses.

Her lips were parted and wet, pouty, begging to be tugged into his mouth and sucked. And a line was drawn across her throat, from his teeth, testament to how close he'd come to breaking his vow to himself.

He stalked out of the room before he could make such a drastic mistake as blood bonding with another woman. The last time he had, she'd nearly killed him.

Maggie watched him leave, unsure if she wanted to scream at him for touching her, or run after him. She knew it was stupid, but she couldn't help feeling like he was disgusted with her for some reason. She didn't want to embarrass herself if that was the case and ask him to stay.

Had he felt some cellulite on her ass and been turned off? She didn't know, and not knowing what had happened made her sick to her stomach.

She felt as dumb as a teenager. She didn't have enough sexual experience with men to know how to deal with their mood swings, to know what every nuance of an expression or rejection could mean.

Maggie felt herself descending into a depression. Strangely, she didn't long for a stomach full of something sweet. That was a bright note, but she was still ashamed to admit that a man made her feel this way. It was weak, and she hated being weak or dependent on another person.

Strange as it was, she could barely remember how she'd felt the night she'd been attacked—the same day her world had changed because she was out of a job, car-less, and practically on the street with no money for necessities like a home and ice cream. Instead, her thoughts centered around a man she didn't even know, who'd taken her in for some unfathomable reason. He was a vampire. She should hate him, be scared of him, not feel this insane attraction.

But she did, and she couldn't stop herself.

Maggie finished her shower, washing the scent of him off her skin, the taste of him out of her mouth. Try as she might though, she couldn't erase how it had felt to be touched. God, it had been so long. She'd forgotten what it could feel like, how exhilarating it was to feel arousal and have that same feeling reciprocated.

But it wasn't. No more than it had been the first time.

Miserable, she left the bathroom and found that he'd laid out a new set of clothes as well as a pajama shorts set. She checked the sizes and was mortified to see that he had them exactly right. There was no pretending that she was something she wasn't. She hated the idea that he knew she was a size eighteen—hated that he'd seen her naked when she'd been so careful all of her life not to allow it.

She dropped her towel and changed into the pajama set. Miserable, and not knowing what else to do, she climbed into bed and was asleep only a few moments later.

The nausea woke her. She broke out in a cold sweat as her gut clenched. Hoping the feeling would pass, she lay perfectly still until she knew that it wouldn't. Unable to fight it any longer, she threw herself out of bed and rushed to the bathroom before it was too late.

She barely made it to the toilet in time. The elegant dinner she'd enjoyed went straight into the toilet, scouring her throat and mouth with fire. Tears streamed down her face, making her eyes blur. Her stomach convulsed again and again until she had nothing left inside her, and even then the disgust continued to make her dry heave.

Finally, she was able to stop and flushed the toilet, crawling to the tub and running water to rinse her mouth out and wash her face.

She heard the door open and knew he'd come in.

If things weren't bad enough, they always got worse. Maggie kept her back to him, bathing her face in cold water.

He touched her shoulder gently, pulling her hair back from her face.

Maggie shrugged him off, going stiff all over. If it wasn't bad enough that he'd rejected her, to have him see her this way should have killed her dead on the spot from mortification. Someone up above liked to torture her for fun too much. “Stay the fuck away from me, you bastard!"

He dropped his hand, but she could still feel him right behind her, watching.

Maggie tried to ignore him. The pain helped. Her head felt like it was going to split open. Even her teeth hurt, ached as though someone had tried to pry them apart. Pain gnawed at her belly now that it was empty, but she'd be damned if she'd experience that again for something to fill it and take the ache away.

"You have to feed. I thought having some food in your stomach would slow the process, but I see it hasn't."

Pain lanced her gums. She tasted blood and knew they'd split. She gulped a mouthful of water and spit it out, seeing small threads of blood run down the drain.

"Your fangs have come fully in. It's the overabundance of venom that sickens you and drives the hunger,” he said softly, as if he knew what she was experiencing.

She half wondered hysterically if a dentist could pull them and fix her little problem. She cried into the tub, pressing her palm into it to keep from falling inside as she spat more blood out. Bile rose in her throat. She'd always had a problem looking at blood, much less tasting it. The coppery taste repulsed her. How could she ever stand drinking it willingly?

"What's wrong with me?” she whispered, sobbing against her arm.

"You need blood. If you don't hunt tonight, you'll die."