understand.
Seeing my frightened silence, she turned away. Her long fingers gripped the handle to open the door, and I stiffened, seeing everything dissolve to become an embarrassing incident that would forever widen the chasm between us. Panicked, I said, 'Because I want to trust you. Because I do trust you. Because I want this.'
Her hand fell from the door. As my pulse thundered, I saw her fingers tremble, knowing she heard the truth in my voice even as I accepted it. She felt it. She smelled it in the air with her incredible senses and her even more incredible brain that could decipher it. 'Why are you doing this to me?' she said to the door. 'Why now?'
She turned, her haunted eyes shocking me. Breath shallow, I stepped closer, reaching out but hesitating. 'I don't know what to do,' I said. 'I hate feeling stupid. Please do something.'
She didn't move. A tear had slipped from her, and I reached to wipe it away. Ivy jerked, catching me about the wrist. Her fingers were stark next to the black gold of Kisten's bracelet, their long whiteness covering my demon mark. I stifled my instinctive jerk, going pliant when she pulled me close, leading my hand to the small of her back.
'This isn't right,' she whispered, our bodies not touching but for her hair mingling with mine and my arm around her waist and her grip on my wrist.
'So make it work,' I said, and the brown ring about her eye shrank.
She took the air deep into her, closing her eyes and scenting the possibilities of what I would and wouldn't do. Her eyes were black when they opened, the last sliver of brown gone. 'You're afraid.'
'I'm not afraid of you. I'm afraid I won't be able to forget. I'm afraid it will change me.'
Ivy's lips parted. 'It will,' she breathed, inches away.
I shivered and closed my eyes. 'Then help me not be afraid until I understand.'
Her fingers lightly touched my shoulder, and I jumped, eyes flashing open. Something shifted. I took a breath, then gasped when she slid into motion. I staggered backward—her one hand gripping my shoulder, the other still holding my wrist behind her—and she followed until my back hit the wall. Eyes wide and fixed to hers, I held my breath, unwilling to object. I'd seen this before. God, I'd lived it.
Expression intent, Ivy's unchecked blood lust struck a chord and made my blood pound. Her fingers pressing into me grew firmer and her breath quickened. I told myself this was what I wanted. Believing it. Accepting it. 'Don't be afraid,' she breathed as she held herself poised.
'I'm not,' I lied, a tremble shaking me. Oh God, it was going to happen.
'If you are, you'll trigger paralysis. It's not under my conscious control, and it's triggered from your fear.' Her gaze broke from mine, and I felt a delicious dropping sensation plink through me when she looked at my neck. I closed my eyes as a slurry of bliss and fear rose inside me. I took in the feeling of her being so close, accepting it. Did I need danger to remember I was alive? Was it wrong? Did it matter if no one but me cared?
Head bowed, Ivy leaned close. 'Please don't be afraid,' she said, her words a tingle against my skin, to pulse deeper. 'I want you to be able to touch me back…if you want to.'
Her last words sounded lost and alone, afraid to risk the hurt again. My eyes flashed open. 'Ivy,' I pleaded. 'I told you. This is all I can give—'
She moved, and my words froze when she put a finger to my lips. 'It's enough.'
Ivy's feather-light touch sent a spark of adrenaline through me. I took a clean breath when the weight of her finger fell away. I exhaled, and her free hand slipped into the narrow space between the wall of the van and the small of my back. My eyes shut as her fingers pressed into me, pulling me forward. Breath shaking, I locked my knees, wise to the sudden rush that would send me tumbling down. I felt emotion rise, knowing she was experiencing it too. 'Ivy?'
I sounded frightened, and she pushed my hair aside, whispering, 'How I've wanted this,' her lips brushing the smooth skin under my ear. The warm dampness of her breath made me shiver at the mix of the familiar and the unknown. With a soft exhalation, she shifted her head and her lips found my collarbone, teasingly shy of my old scar. Tendrils pulsed in time with my heart, building on the ones before to an unseen height. Oh God. Save me from myself.
Tension pulled my eyes open when her fingers traced a trail down my neck. Sensation blossomed, and I threw my head back and sucked in the air. Her arm slipped around my waist, catching me before I fell.
'Rachel, I…God you smell good,' she said, and a torrent of heat flowed through me as her lips brushed against me with her words. The smoothness of her teeth across my skin sent my pulse pounding as I fought for breath. 'You won't leave?' she asked. 'Promise you won't.'
She wasn't asking me to be her scion; she was only asking me not to leave. 'I won't leave.'
'You give this to me?'
Shaking inside, I whispered, 'Yes.'
Ivy exhaled, sounding as if she had been freed. My blood rose, mixing with my lingering fear of the unknown to drive her to a fever pitch. Her lips touched my lower neck and vertigo spun the room, burning tracings of desire to settle deep and low in me. I exhaled into the promise of more to come, calling it to me. I breathed it in like smoke, the rising passion starting a feeling of abandonment inside. I didn't care anymore if it was right or wrong. It just was.
Her grip on my shoulder tightened, and slowly there was a gentle pressure upon my skin, and her teeth slid into me without preamble.
I groaned at the rush of fear and desire. My knees gave way, and Ivy shifted her hold. Her touch was light— keeping me upright while I went flaccid, my body struck into overload—but her mouth on my neck was savage with a fierce need. And then she pulled on me.
My air came in a rush. Gasping, I stiffened, my hands springing up to clutch at her, clenching when she threatened to pull away in fear that she had hurt me. 'No,' I moaned, fire running through me. 'Don't stop. Oh… God…'
My words hit her, and she dug her teeth into me, harder. My breath exploded. For an instant I hung, unable to think. It felt that good. My entire body was alive and aching. A sexual high flowed through me, a torrent of promise.
Somehow I took a breath, then another. They were fast, stumbling over each other. I clutched at her, wanting her to continue but unable to say it. Her lips pulled away from me, and in a rush of sensation, the world spun back into something I could recognize.
We had moved from the wall of the van and stood against the closed door. Ivy was holding me upright against her with the fierce demand of possession. Though she had taken her lips from me, her breath came and went on my broken skin, almost an exquisite torture. There was no fear. 'Ivy,' I said, hearing it come from me as almost a sob.
And with that small encouragement that everything was okay, she bowed her head to me again, her mouth finding me to draw from me both my blood and my volition.
I tried to breathe, failing. I clutched her to me, tears slipping from under my closed eyes. It was as if her soul was liquid fire and I could feel her aura, swirling about mine. She wasn't just taking my blood, she was taking my aura. But I wouldn't miss what she could steal, and I wanted to give it to her, to coat her in a small part of me and protect her. Her needs made her so fragile.
The vampire pheromones rose like a drug, making her teeth into spikes of arousal. My fingers spasmed and my rough touch sparked through her. She lunged into me again, her teeth bringing me to a gasping stiffness. I couldn't think, and I held her to me, frantic she'd leave.
Through our auras mixing, I could sense her desperate need, her want for security, her desire for satisfaction, her unearthly hunger for my blood, knowing that even if I gave it freely, she would be haunted by shame and guilt.
Compassion swirled from nowhere in the high I was lost in. She needed me. She needed me to accept her for what she was. And when I realized that I had it within myself to give her at least this small part of me, the last of my fear melted away. My eyes opened, unseeing on the wall of the van. I trusted her, I thought, as the edges of our auras blurred into one and the last of my barriers began to fall.
And Ivy knew the instant they did.
A soft sound came from her, delight and wonder. As she held my head unmoving and her lips worried my neck, her hand slipped lower until it found my waist. Her long fingers hesitated, and while she pulled harder to make a silver spike dive through me, her cool palm slipped under my shirt to brush my middle, fingertips searching. I
