Claimed by the Immortal

idea of the Hunger that is pushing me to do it. Imagine if you had been starving for weeks and suddenly someone offered you food. Would you be able to say no? This is as bad or even worse, because that rotgut canned blood Jude insists on serving may keep me alive, but it doesn’t satisfy my real needs.”

She looked down, gazing at her twined fingers. He wished he knew what she was thinking, because a few choice thoughts might be enough to yank his leash back into order.

But when she looked up, she appeared sad. “So offering comfort to me is painful to you.”

“Beyond painful.”

“I’m sorry. I won’t let it happen again. But one more question.”

“What?”

“Would that change if you could drink from me?”

Damn, she was determined to push him over the edge into madness. There could be no other explanation. None. She couldn’t be this dense. No, she was far too bright for that.

So what was she doing? Trying to provoke him into tasting her blood? Or was this a genuine attempt to understand the parameters of what he was trying to explain?

Did it matter? Either way she was seriously testing the limits of his self-control.

“You’re afraid,” she said quietly. “Afraid that one or both of us might become addicted.”

“Basically, that’s it in a nutshell.”

“It would be bad if only one of us became addicted.”

“Extremely bad.”

She nodded slowly. “I can see that. So my question is this. You said you could drink just a little from me without addicting me. Would you still be at risk for addiction?”

“Stop thinking. You’re not making my thoughts any clearer.”

She smiled faintly. “I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who has been screwed up by your arrival in my life.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She stood up. Now they were only inches apart. “You’ve turned reality on end for me.”

“I thought witnessing an impossible murder did that.”

“By now I might have been able to convince myself I’d had a temporary break or something. Witnesses are notoriously unreliable, you know.”

Where the hell was she going with this?

“Damien, I can’t stand this. My very presence is causing you agony.”

He couldn’t deny it.

“So I suggest you sip a bit of my blood, get it out of your system and maybe we can move on.”

“You used that argument once before,” he reminded her. “It didn’t exactly get anything out of either of our systems.”

But there was nothing as seductive, he thought irritably, as the appearance of perfect logic. Sip a little of her blood and get her out of his system? It was possible, of course. But not entirely. Never entirely, because tasting human blood was a primal imperative for him, and hers smelled sweeter than any meal ever served to him.

“You don’t know what you risk,” he said hoarsely.

“I think I do. You said it was possible to leave me unaddicted. The only one with anything to fear, according to you, is you. And if we leave sex out of it, you shouldn’t get addicted either.”

Flawless logic. Enticing logic.

“Are you afraid?” she asked.

It wasn’t a dare, but it came across as one, and when had he ever been able to resist a dare? Or fail to answer a taunt, even though he was quite certain she hadn’t meant it that way?

“What are you thinking?” he demanded even as he closed the last few inches between them.

“Some things need settling. There’s a threat out there and both of us are distracted. We need to clear our heads somehow. The easiest way to clear yours is to let you drink from me.”

“And you?”

“The last time I tried that, I just got more confused.”

In spite of his heightened predatory state, and the feeling that he could lose it at any moment, a crack of laughter escaped him. “So you do recognize the dangers, Schatz.”

She shifted from one foot to the other. “Well, yeah, but...this is nuts, Damien. I’ve got a little blood to spare. I’m tired of torturing you without intending to. So have a little drink on me and then we’ll get back to business.”

He hoped it would prove that easy because he could no longer resist. She was so close, and she turned her head a bit, pulling back the neck of her sweater to reveal the veins that throbbed so enticingly in her throat.

Not there, he warned himself. Too much too fast, less control. He drew a deep breath, filling himself with her scents: the perfume of her blood, the delightful aromas of human, the dizzying scents of her tamped-down desire for him. A saint couldn’t have refused this offer, and he was no saint.

Seizing her hand, he drew her down on the floor beside him so she was sitting beside him, a much safer position for them both. He looked deep into her warm eyes and saw determination and a hint of fear. The fear might have turned off a mortal man, but he was no mortal man. That fear was as aphrodisiacal to him as it was to any predator.

“Whatever you do,” he said deep in his throat, “don’t move. Do not move.”

“Okay. But why?”

“I’m a predator,” he reminded her. “If you move I may mistake it as struggle, and I’m not going to be thinking all that clearly for the next few minutes.”

Her eyes widened, and for a moment he thought she would withdraw her offer. Instead, she closed her eyes, sighed and said, “Okay.”

Carefully, he tugged at the neck of her sweater when all he wanted to do was rip it off her. With sensitive eyes, nose and fingertips, he found a much smaller, safer vein below her collarbone, above her breast.

Bending his head, he licked her there gently, numbing her skin with the special saliva that came only when he extended his fangs.

He heard her sigh but he was already lost.

Chapter 8

Caro didn’t feel his bite. She had steeled herself for pain, at least as much pain as an injection, probably more. Instead she felt no pain at all.

In an instant, her world changed. All of a sudden she felt two hearts beating, his and hers, and with each passing second they settled steadily into synchrony. At the same time, pleasure began to flood her, almost orgasmic in its intensity. She felt the blood pound in her own veins, and with that pounding came a clenching between her thighs, sweet, sweet clenching that kept time with her blood.

She dampened in response, wanting touches, wanting to hold him, but only his dimly remembered warning held her still. She could not move. She must not move.

But oh, how she wanted to. Upward she flew, everything vanishing except the soaring feeling that swept her away to a place she had never imagined, a place where nothing existed except her body, a body that ached and yearned and filled with joy at what was happening.

They united. They united more surely than if their bodies had melded sexually. She felt him, felt his pleasure, felt how it equaled her own, and thus multiplied her own.

Oh, heavens, it felt so good!

The last wisps of thought floated away. Never had she imagined such ecstasy, as if her entire being dissolved into the most passionate of delights, all the greater because she could feel his, too.

She hovered at the brink of satisfaction, suspended in pleasure almost too great to bear. Helplessly, she