Chapter 14

14

"R elease me from my vow, Emmaline."

She didn't respond, wouldn't release him, and damn it, it had begun to matter to him if he broke his word to her.

Her only answer was spreading her knees wider over him, then sensuously rubbing his length between her legs, with only his trews and her silk between them. "Ah, gods, yes, Emma," he grated, shuddering with need, disbelieving that she was doing this to him.

He would use her hunger against her, he thought hazily. If his blood on her tongue made her lose control like this, he would force her to drink him until she surrendered everything.

Force a vampire to drink him... what was happening to him?

She put her hands on the headboard between his and held on as she ground against him, making his head fall back. The scent of her hair, the feel of her bite, and her own obvious pleasure were sending him over the edge. "You're going tae make me come like this. If you doona stop..."

She continued grinding against him as if she couldn't stop. The frustration was like nothing he'd ever known. To not be able to touch her, or put his mouth to her flesh... She brushed her breasts against his chest and back again. The headboard began to crack under his hands.

The throbbing pressure mounted inside him, had been building all night from her first taking. Now his breaths grew ragged as she moved faster, riding his length. Just when he perceived she'd stopped drinking, she whispered in his ear, "I could drink you forever."

You will. . . .

"Taste so good," she said, moaning the last.

"You drive me mad," he grated, then threw his head back and yelled out as he came hotly under her movements, forced by the firm bucking of her hips against him.

Hot seed spurted in his pants again and again; the wood beneath his hands disintegrated to splinters.

When he finally finished shuddering, he clenched his bloodied fists beside her legs. She fell against his chest, clinging to him, her small body quivering.

"Emma, look at me."

She faced him, her silvery eyes mesmerizing. She felt familiar, and yet he'd never seen anything like this stunning creature. She tilted her head, regarding him with an unsure expression.

"I want to touch you. I want to bring you to come."

She glanced at his torn hands with raised eyebrows.

"Then I'll kiss you. Pull your undergarments aside and kneel up right here."

She shook her head slowly.

"Why?"

She whispered, "Because these things keep escalating."

"I dinna break my vow now." Hands still clenched, he lowered his voice to say, "I ache, I want to pleasure you so much. "

He saw her eyes grow soft just before she put her forehead to his. As if she couldn't help herself, she leaned in to lick and tease at his lips. Her hair fell forward, brushing his neck. Her exquisite scent washed over him, and he felt himself growing hard again.

Between her kisses, he rasped, "Why can this no' go further?"

"This isn't me," she murmured. "I'm not like this. I barely know you."

Sheer frustration welled in him at her ridiculous assertions, said between tonguing his lips. He believed they were sentiments she felt she ought to be saying. "Yet you've taken my blood directly from my body? That's as intimate an act as two can have."

In an instant, she stiffened and drew back. "That's true and regrettable. But I couldn't share myself so completely with someone I don't trust." She rose and then curled up in the chair. "Someone who's been so unkind."

"Emma, I—"

"You know you have been. Just three nights ago, you frightened me more than I've ever been in my entire life. Yet now you want something from me?" She was trembling. "Please leave. For once?"

He growled in frustration, but he did limp to the door. At the hallway adjoining the rooms, he turned. "You've bought yourself a few hours. The next time you drink, you're mine and we both know it." The door slammed behind him.

***

Emma lay in her nest on the floor, tossing in her blankets. When had her clothing become so textured? She seemed to feel every line of thread against her sensitive breasts.

And she wore silk .

Just thinking about what she'd done to him made her hips undulate, as if she could still feel him beneath her. She'd made him have an orgasm, by riding him.

Her face burned hot. Was she becoming Emma the Wanton?

And she'd almost experienced one, too. When she'd bathed, she'd found herself wetter than she'd ever been. She was beginning to suspect that blood lust for her wasn't the craving to drink, it was sexual lust because of drinking.

He was right—the next time she took from him, he could make her his, because tonight, she'd temporarily lost her mind, forgetting why she couldn't sleep with him. She simply wasn't the type of person who could give it up without some kind of bond or commitment.

She didn't think of herself as old-fashioned about sex—there was a reason for her familiarity with Skinemax—and she had a very healthy attitude about the whole subject, for all that she'd never had an orgasm. But she knew deep down that she would need something lasting—and that it could never be with him.

Besides the fact that he was a crude and menacing Lykae who delighted in her discomfort, she couldn't imagine taking him among her friends. She couldn't see him watching movies at the manor, eating the popcorn she always made just so she could smell it and throw it at anyone who stood in front of the screen. He wouldn't fit in with her family because they would be sickened at the very sight of "an animal" touching her. And because they would always be plotting to kill him and such.

Not to mention that in addition to all of their differences, he had another female out there who had some cosmic destiny to be his .

Emma was up for a little healthy competition, but against a Lykae's mate...?

Well. Now she was just being silly.

He knocked on the adjoining door, opening it without a decent pause, but luckily she'd cut out all that lolling and petting her breasts business.

His hair was wet from a recent shower, and he leaned against the doorway in jeans that rode below his waist and a little loose—as they should . He wore no shirt, and one of his palms had a knot of cloth around it. She swallowed. Injured from when he'd cracked her headboard as he came.

He crossed his arms over that muscled chest. Her appreciation for it bordered on idolatry. She would so give him another amen.

"Tell me one thing about you that I doona know," he demanded.

She forced her gaze to his face, finally saying, "I went to college and got a degree in popular culture."

He appeared impressed, but he hadn't been in this time long enough to know that most people thought pop culture was a do you want fries with that? degree. He nodded, turning toward his room.

Because he didn't expect her to, she said, "Tell me one thing."

When he faced her again, he did appear surprised she'd asked. His voice gravelly, he answered, "I think you're the most beautiful creature I've ever seen."

He must have heard her gasp before he closed the door.

He'd called her beautiful !

Before, she'd only felt a sad resignation. Now she was giddy. Oh, she was in a bad way. Her emotions were like a crazy compass dial, spinning wildly .

She narrowed her eyes, realizing what this was. Stockholm syndrome. Identifying with your bullying captor? Check. Forming an attachment to him? Check.

But in all fairness to herself, how many captors—actively acquiring—were six-and-a-half-foot-tall gods with delicious, sun-darkened skin, the coolest accent, and the warmest, hardest body she'd ever dreamed of? All this and he liked to wrap that body around her? All this and he thought she was beautiful.

Not to mention the fact that he couldn't seem to give her enough of his luscious blood.

Was she becoming this Lykae's Patty Hearst?

Didn't matter. Bottom line: she wasn't his mate. So even if he did seduce her and they had a little some-something going on, she'd be idling time until he found his true one. And if she got herself nailed and bailed by a man like Lachlain, she thought she might turn into a blubbery, weepy female. Which was not an option.

She was relieved she wasn't his mate. She was . Matehood with him would be a life sentence. He would never let her go, and she'd be browbeaten and miserable with him. If she escaped he would come for her until her aunts finally killed him.

Her coven would delight in it. If they found out he'd kissed her and touched her intimately, they would unleash hell on him and his kind. As far as she knew, she was the only one of her coven ever to be touched by a Lykae.

And her mother had been the only one to fully succumb to a vampire.

***

Emma woke at sunset, sensing something.

She popped up her head, peeking over the side of the bed, but saw nothing. She told herself it was nothing, even as she hastily dressed and packed, then dashed to Lachlain's room.

She found him asleep still clad only in those jeans, with no blanket to cover him because he'd used his to secure her window. He began shuddering as though in the grip of a nightmare. He rumbled words in Gaelic, and his skin grew slick with sweat. All the muscles in his body tensed.

"Lachlain?" she whispered. Without thought, she hurried to him, reaching out to run her fingers down his cheek, trying to soothe him.

He stilled. "Emmaline," he murmured, without waking. Was she in his dreams?

She herself had had a doozy of a dream, the most realistic one she'd ever experienced.

She absently stroked his forehead as she recalled it. It had seemed to be from Lachlain's point of view—she could see things that he saw, smell scents he smelled, feel as though with his fingers.

He was in a shop under a tent. Jewels were spread before him, and a beautiful woman with coffee-colored hair streaked from the sun and sparkling green eyes was by his side.

He purchased a gold and sapphire necklace from the shopkeeper. The design of the jewelry and the currency he used told Emma this was long ago.

The woman sighed and said, "More gifts."

"Aye." Lachlain was irritated because he knew what she was about to say.

The woman, whose name Emma somehow knew was Cassandra, said, "Nine hundred years you've waited. I've waited almost as long. Do you no' think that we— "

"No," Lachlain interrupted sharply. How many times will she broach this? he thought.

Cassandra might not believe, but he did.

"I'd accept a night with you."

"I doona see you as more than an old friend. Know that that can end." His ire grew. "You are of the clan and will meet her. Do you possibly think that I would put her in that uncomfortable position?"

Emma shook her head at the bizarre dream, still thrown by how authentic it had felt. He only had to mention jewelry, and she went dreaming up wonky scenarios.

She glanced down and saw with a blush that she'd begun stroking his chest. She didn't stop, just marveled at how gorgeous his body was, marveled that he wanted to make love to her with it—

His hand shot to her neck, tightening before she could scream.

He opened his eyes. They were completely blue.