only warmth he could feel came from a human touch. He reveled in it, savoring it, letting her heat flow from his hand, up his arm, encouraging more and more of it with the dance of his fingers.
He could finish her this way. He knew he could. But why hurry things needlessly? She had other delights he wanted to enjoy, delights she would enjoy, as well.
He pulled open her jacket, pulled down the neck of her sweater and pressed his mouth to the pulse in her throat. He licked her, feeling new shivers run through her with every movement of his tongue. He had promised not to drink but suddenly realized that was going to be a difficult promise to keep. This close to the throbbing vein in her throat, he could smell the perfume of her blood. It filled his nostrils and lungs, and his Hunger grew until it seemed to hold him in steel bands of need.
Just as he thought he might lose control, he snapped his head back. While his one hand continued to torment her below, squeezing, pressing, kneading, he slipped his other up inside her sweater and found her breast.
Her nipple had already engorged for him, feeling huge and hard in his palm. When he squeezed, she gasped, and finally she brought her arms up to grab his shoulders. Now she was participating, at last, holding him so he wouldn’t pull away.
He had no intention of doing so. He might be denied his ultimate prize, but her powerful sexual reaction was the next best thing. His own body hardened in response, throbbing and demanding, but he ignored it for now. Instead, he accepted her silent invitation to lower his head and suck and nip at her breast.
The shudders that gripped her as he nipped at her told him she wasn’t as far removed from his world as she might like to think. A little pain could amplify pleasure for some, and she was apparently one of them.
Satisfaction penetrated his heat-filled, Hunger-filled mind, and he bit just a little harder. Her response was instantaneous as she groaned and arched into him, and that response felt almost like his own.
It would have been better only if he had drunk from her.
He felt the moment when she crested, and he crested in response, like a snapping bowstring. Dimly, and with no little pleasure, he suspected that nothing she had wanted to settle had been settled at all.
Nothing was settled. The thought floated vaguely into Caro’s mind as the spasms of her climax ripped through her in powerful waves long after she had passed the peak. Nothing.
Because pressed to a cold brick wall, with a vampire’s hand between her legs, holding her as hard as a vise, with her breast still aching from his ministrations, she knew she had just gone somewhere she had never gone before. Never had she experienced such a powerful orgasm, and she would certainly never have expected to experience one like this under these conditions. She still wore her clothes, even her gun and badge. And it was not a bed that sustained her as her legs weakened and wanted to give way, but a hand, a single hand, that had elicited pleasure she hadn’t even guessed she was capable of.
It appalled her to realize that she’d been settling all her adult life, never dreaming there was so much more to be had.
And it angered her that it had come from a vampire. She had wanted to put an end to this, to clear the air, and instead all she had done was discover something that could only lead to ultimate disappointment when she could no longer experience it again.
She was still trying to catch her breath when he removed his hand and steadied her against the wall by leaning gently against her. Her hands still gripped his shoulders, an unmistakable sign of her weakness, but as much as she wanted to pull them away, she didn’t seem able to yet.
He had left her as weak as a kitten. She didn’t like that at all.
Yet, whispered some honest corner of her mind, she wouldn’t have missed it for anything, although it left major problems in its wake. Now she would forever wonder what delights he could give her if she removed her limitations.
But anger returned her strength, and at last she pushed him away. He slipped back two steps immediately.
“Damn it,” she said.
“Did I disappoint you?” But his eyes, not quite golden, not quite black right now, said he knew he had not.
“Shut up, Damien. Let’s get over to Jude’s and look at the freaking books.”
He didn’t say another word, merely accompanied her back to the car meekly.
Well, see if she would let that happen again. She had learned her lesson: no more vampire sex. Ever.
Damien let her be. He’d made his point about how much she wanted him, though why he had he was now unsure. He should have just disappointed her and let her go her way. After all, he had a life to return to in Germany, and he had no intention of hanging around here for long.
Not that that had ever been a problem in the past. The women he shared sex with were women who intended to move on every bit as much as he did. This time he might have made a mistake.
But everything about Caro indicated anger, so that was probably good. If he tried to approach her again, she would probably shoot him, and while that wouldn’t kill him, it would certainly dampen his ardor.
The thought managed to amuse him enough to ignore the power her scents seemed to hold over him. He had just slaked one of his needs adequately enough, as he had slaked hers, yet the throbbing Hunger had already returned. That was a different experience for him.
He glanced her way and saw she stared straight ahead, her jaw tightened. Perhaps he hadn’t slaked anything for anyone. Maybe he’d just made it worse for both of them.
He wasn’t used to that. In the past, when he was done he was done, whether or not he’d drunk from his lover. Never before had the urge returned so swiftly.
Caro, he realized yet again, had quite an unusual effect on him. She had from the very start. His first slip just might have been an aberration, but what had just happened...that was no aberration. He could simply have ignored her scents and taken her out of there. He had
What was it about her that was causing him to act so irrationally?
There didn’t seem to be an answer, other than that something about her kept pushing him well past caution. Maybe he needed to worry about that a bit. In some way, this woman was dangerous to him.
Worse, he was beginning to realize it wasn’t just his Hunger for her. He liked her strength, her determination, her sense of humor. Perhaps that was the greatest danger of all.
Never had Damien imagined when he’d departed for the bookstore just how happy he was going to be to get back to Jude’s office.
Jude was alone, reading a stack of papers at his desk. He looked through the door of his office as the two of them entered. Damien saw his nostrils flare and realized the other vampire knew pretty much what had happened. Jude was suave enough not to mention it, though.
“Blood?” he asked Damien.
“Yes.” The need to drink had grown to an overpowering thirst since his encounter with Caro. Since those little nips he had given her had allowed him to taste a single droplet of her blood.
No other blood had ever tasted so good to him.
Making no effort to conceal what he was doing, he bit, fangs extended, into the bag of blood Jude gave him and drank. Let her see. Maybe that would throw up a barrier she would never let him cross again.
Instead, Caro barely spared him a glance and revealed no surprise at all. Evidently she had figured out how he must feed if he wasn’t robbing his sustenance from unwilling humans. And evidently, as a cop, it took more to disgust her.
Jude, once he ascertained what they had learned at the bookstore, announced he was going out for a while and taking the car. He didn’t say where, and no one asked. The tension in the room was enough to consume
