A girly giggle twitched at my lips. “I always wondered if you were a boxers or briefs guy.”
David looked down, then shrugged. “These are kind of in between.”
“They’re sexy and—” I pouted. “They didn’t get wet.”
He threw his head back, laughing. “Quite frankly, I’m relieved.”
“Well—” The heavens forced my gaze away from him, “They won’t be dry for long.”
“No.” He curled his palm and caught a few raindrops. “I should be taking you home.”
“I don’t want to go home.”
“I know.”
My toes angled inward, my lip hiding behind my teeth as his suggestive smile brought my blood up to my heart in a heat wave. “I want you to come closer.”
“I know.” His words landed all hot and moist on my face, his chest suddenly inches from mine. “And it’s taking everything in me not to want you right now.”
I shook my head. “You can want me.”
David folded over a little, his brow coming to rest on mine; I looked up into the anguish his closed eyes tried to hide. “Lay down,” he whispered, stepping back.
The grassy bed beneath my feet felt sticky, the summer’s dying heat making the rain rise off it in a warm cloud. David stayed standing, stiff and tall as a tower, while I pressed my palms to the grass, my elbows shaking, and edged jaggedly onto my back, trying to look relaxed.
“Close your eyes,” he demanded sweetly, still not opening his.
“Okay,” I said, but after six long breaths and two fistfuls of grass pulled from the soil, only an empty breeze had caressed my half-naked body. I opened my eyes. David?”
I watched him expectantly, waiting for him to look at me. He didn’t. He was fighting that battle within—the war between the vampire and the human—and as he dropped to one knee, then the other, his fists tight, my main concern was not the possibility of my own death, but that he might deny himself the pleasure of my blood.
“You remember not to scream, right?”
I nodded, biting my lower lip.
Without a second thought, both his hands cupped my face, then slid down my jaw and over the curve of my neck, slipping my bra strap off my shoulder. “Just stay still, Ara.”
The air coming into my lungs felt empty. “Are you…are you going to take my bra off?”
“Not if you don’t want me to.”
My eyes opened to his breath on my chin, his lips within reach, his body immensely close but not touching; wanting but not taking, practically floating down the length of mine like he was just a layer of heat in the atmosphere. Every nerve in my brain called out to him; every part of my body, tingling hot, begged him to press himself against me.
But he didn’t move. He just smiled to himself, leaning on his elbow beside me. “Well, do you want me to take it off you or not?”
I could feel my pulse, racing like a twitch in my neck; felt my body succumb to the lust—scream out its own instinct-driven desire to die at his hands. But I wasn’t ready to undress completely. “Not yet.”
His eyes stayed on the bare patch of skin, his lips softly landing there as he smoothed the strap back in place. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I said, then quickly reached down to scratch my sticky leg. “The grass is just really itchy.”
“Shall I run to the rock and get the picnic rug?”
“No,” I said, eyes wide. That would just give him too much time to think about what he didn’t want to do to me.
He smiled to himself—his secret smile—and cupped my neck, his thumb sliding down over my chin easily with the rain’s assistance, coming to rest just under my jaw, tipping it up to expose my throat. “Your life is in my hands right now,” he whispered against my pulse. “And the most beautiful thing about that, Ara, is that all I can read in your mind is desire.”
“That's because you don’t scare me, Mr Knight.”
“I wish I did.”
“No you don’t.”
“You’re right,” he said, keeping his eyes on mine as he reached down and took my hand, folding it open to press a firm kiss on the softer, more delicate side. “I like you this way.”
I looked at his nail sitting ready at my wrist, one firm indent away from releasing my blood. “Then what are you waiting for?”
“Someone to stop me.”
I gave him a reassuring smile. “I trust you, David.”
“You shouldn’t.” He traced a shallow, horizontal line, drawing slivers of red out over my milk-white skin, like pinhead rivers running quickly for the sea. But I didn’t feel the cut—just the pressure of his fingers gripping my bone.
Only a beat passed after that before the black in his eyes washed the human away—the vampire taking control, pressing his teeth down on the outer edges of the wound to open it further. Thousands of tiny bubbles raced up my veins, making my fingers want so badly to flex out and either shove him away or run along his jaw.
My blood could finally reach him—was deep inside him right now, touching his heart, coursing through his veins, warming everything I could never physically touch. I wanted it to stay there forever. I wanted the sun to go down around us, and rise again tomorrow, leaving us here like this, always.
I rolled my face to the leaves above, watching them swirl around, while my lungs filled with humid air, the rain moistening the back of my throat with each shallow breath. And the feel of David's thumb in the cup of my palm, holding my hand in place against the stubble on his chin, made me feel so close to him—to the human that loved me; the human that was buried deep beneath desire right now.
But the trust was magic—almost euphoric, as if the world around me was just a soft echo—like being lost in the perfectly tuned note of a song I’d never heard. I could float away, were it not for David grounding me, keeping me here. I finally knew what it felt like to be his victim; a human that could nourish him, but loved enough to be left alive. I felt the lick of death, felt the peace others must feel when they finally give over to it—how nothing in the world really mattered anymore. In a funny way, it all just seemed kind of silly to worry about the things we did.
Slowly, David drew away, leaving a moist, cool patch on my wrist, and smiled down at me. A stain of crimson love bled from his lips in rivulets, seeping out over his perfect smile.
My chest and shoulders lifted with each deep breath, guiding my soul back to the present.