But for now, she looked so stunned he let her go.
“Sorry, my dear. According to Guidon’s book this is what must happen for me to take your power—you will start to feel the same pain when we touch.” He related what that chapter had said. “But it will stop.”
“Why shouldn’t I know what it feels like? It is my curse, after all. Why should I be immune?”
“It isn’t your fault, and you should not have to suffer.”
Damn, Raven hated the thought of being destroyed now. Before meeting Ophelia, he would have welcomed it. But now . . .
He would love to spend eternity playing bondage games with Ophelia.
“I am pleased to know you like to be tied up.” He kept his voice soft to disguise the rawness of it. He had to fall in love with her, then die brokenhearted.
She shivered, and her breasts swayed. Tempting him.
After he took her power, she could be touched. But he wasn’t going to be the man to do it—he would be dead. A stab of jealousy hit his heart at the thought of the lucky man who would eventually have her.
It was irrational to be jealous.
Ophelia studied him, her head cocked to the side. “You are so gentle with me. It makes me forget what you said about yourself. That you said you were an assassin. My goodness, I can even trust you around me with a whip in your hand . . . trust you to give me pleasure and not hurt me.” She nervously licked her lips. “I’ve never had anyone I could trust—I’ve never been able to feel close to anyone, since I was so afraid of hurting people. I can’t imagine you as an assassin now, even though I’ve seen how dangerous you can be. I want to understand you. Why did you become an assassin? Why would you kill—you are a gentleman, aren’t you? I know gentlemen fight duels, but they don’t . . . do whatever assassins do.” She lifted her hands, as if to touch his shoulders, but she froze.
She looked so hurt that she couldn’t touch him.
To build her trust, he had to explain something. Give her something. “I was a soldier. For a long time. Killing was what I learned to do well.”
“You fought against Napoleon?”
“I fought against everyone. I fought Napoleon, I fought in India, I fought in the uprising in Ceylon. When there were no battles, I went in search of them.”
“Why?” Her eyes revealed how perplexed she was. “I should think battles are awful. I would be relieved when one was over. To be safe and—and normal again.”
He jerked his head up. She had spent her life wanted to be normal; he had spent his life looking for death and conflict. Two more opposite people he could not imagine. How could he capture her heart? She was looking at him like he was a dangerous beast or a strange creature she’d never encountered before. She couldn’t understand him.
“Did you find it exciting?” she whispered.
“No, it wasn’t that.” Or was it? “There was excitement, I suppose,” he said, considering. “Being in battle meant you spent a lot of time doing things like fighting, marching, setting up camps, cleaning your rifle. The basic job of survival took much of your time. It meant I didn’t have to think.”
Her indigo eyes widened. “That sounds terrible. How could you have wanted to be in the midst of battle simply so you didn’t have to think? What did you not want to think about?”
“Lady Ophelia, you’ve had graver troubles than I.”
“But I’ve hurt people, too, and it haunts me. I suspect it haunts you, too.”
He stared at her. “It does.” That made it a greater wrong that he had continued to do it as a soldier. Then he’d done it as a vampire, using mortals as his prey. There couldn’t be any man less deserving of a woman’s love.
“After you were a soldier, did you become an assassin of vampires to do good?”
Raven laughed at that. “No, it wasn’t that.” Damn, why had he said that? It was a statement that demanded an explanation. “I did it to pursue and destroy vicious vampires.”
“Are all vampires vicious? I knew some female vampires, and they seemed like ordinary girls to me.”
“Vampires claim they are not vicious.”
“I suppose I could be called vicious,” she said, her brow furrowed. “They are no different from me—forced to do something against their will.”
“You are not vicious, and you are nothing like the vampires I hunt,” he said. “That’s enough questions.” He had a long way to go—many more bouts of pleasure before they would be ready for him to try to take her power.
Ophelia watched Ravenhunt stand and stretch. His bare back was beautiful—a play of candlelight and shadow on a broad vee of muscle. She ached to reach out and stroke his magnificent back, let her hands follow the broad shoulders and run all the way down to his lean hips and muscled bottom.
Of course she couldn’t.
She also wished he would not shut her out when she asked him questions. But it seemed as impossible a wish as the one to caress him.
His expression was one of dark, brooding gloom. He lived alone, in the darkness, and it was obvious the violence in his past troubled him greatly.
“Who are you, really?” she asked softly. “You put yourself in exile the way I was told I must. What are you that you had to do this?”
“Just a soldier.”
“I know that’s not true. When soldiers return from battle, they are happy to be away from war. They want peace and they—”
“No, love. On that you are wrong,” he said. “Many soldiers find they can’t live with peace. As I said, surviving keeps a man busy. Soldiers are used to the excitement and fear of fighting for their lives and for other men. They are used to making instant decisions and throwing courage or madness at a hopeless situation. Peace does not sit well after that.”
“How could you prefer that? I don’t understand.”
“Men have their reasons.”
“Yes, the things you don’t want to think about and that you will not tell me about.”
Of course he said nothing in answer. He lifted his hand, almost touched her bare shoulder. His hand stayed there, not quite making contact, but it felt as if little bolts of sizzling power jumped between her skin and his.
“Did you become an assassin to live as you did in war?”
“I—Hades, it’s complicated.”
Ophelia folded her arms at her chest. “I am going to find out what you are—”
“Love, I hunt and destroy vampires. The undead would want me dead. For my own protection, I have to live like this.” Raven stopped talking. Some of that was actually the truth, but the last thing he could let her do was learn his whole truth.
“Can you stop hunting vampires?”
“No.” He had to bring a halt to this conversation. He braced his arm against the bedpost. In this position he towered over her, and she gazed up at him. Their lips were close, and he took the whip and used its tip to caress her nipples. He drew them to full, erect points.
“You—oh.” Her sentence dropped to a moan as he lightly strummed her right nipple. “But you look so unhappy—oooh!”
He slid the whip down, rubbing it between her thighs, rubbing her clit.
“Goodness—the only time—”
She was still fighting to talk. The way to silence her would be to dive between her legs and lick her senseless. Or thrust his aching cock in her to the hilt. He’d been sporting an erection for hours, and his ballocks were in pain.
“The only time I’ve seen you smile is when we do . . . lovemaking things,” she gasped.
So demure and sweet. He owed her something, but not enough that he frightened her away. Stroking her clit, he murmured, “I cannot stop hunting vampires, love. It’s too late for me. But yes, carnal games with you make me very happy.”
