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He fired up the grill on a vampire-esque outdoor space, a section of the cave off the dining area that had a stone shelf overhang open to the air. A breeze from within the cave kept the smoke out.
His heart beat heavily in his chest, but he wasn’t sure if it was his blood-needs, or his desire for Claire, or the fine smell of grilled meat, or a kind of grief he could hardly bear.
Whatever it was, when Claire moved to stand beside him, he slid his arm around her waist and pulled her close. She sipped her beer and sighed, doing both over and over.
The meal he ate with her was a quiet thing. Every once in a while he’d look at her and she’d look back, her light-brown eyes speaking of her affection for him and how much she’d miss him. He returned the favor, but he couldn’t speak. What was the point? The blood-chains told the whole story anyway: He’d miss her like hell, and she felt the same way.
She didn’t eat much; he was slightly more successful. Eventually, he rose from the table, carrying the plates into the kitchen. He could have cleaned up, but his tremors told him he needed to get on with things.
Claire had just pushed her chair in when he caught her up in his arms and carried her into the bedroom, the place where she’d healed from the cut on her back.
The room was pristine, the bed made with fresh linens and Claire’s earlier torn-up, bloody clothing removed. He needed to give his housekeeper a goddamn raise.
* * *
Claire had never been so in sync with Lucian as she was in this moment. She felt his pain at the upcoming separation and knew it matched hers like a reflection in a mirror.
When he set her on her feet, she held his face in her hands and just looked at him, memorizing the cool gray of his eyes, the permanent scowl on his forehead that took his thick brows low, the way his nostrils flared because she knew he smelled her blood, and maybe her sex, and that he wanted her.
The chains didn’t need to tell her that, though hers sang against her throat, reminding her of how everything had started. Now she was here, staring into the eyes of a vampire she’d grown to love over three short nights. She wouldn’t deny it anymore. She loved Lucian, everything about him, including his scowl, the heaviness of his spirit because of all that he carried around with him, his concern for his world, but mostly his belief that he’d lost his soul a long time ago because he was Daniel’s son.
This part of his life she would never fully understand, in the way she couldn’t truly comprehend what Zoey had endured, or what it had taken for her to live as long as she had, with tremendous strength of spirit.
But the journey ended here, tonight, with Lucian. Soon he’d take her back to Santa Fe.
She released a deep sigh and leaned up to kiss him, just feeling his lips with hers, memorizing them, knowing this would be the last time. She’d already decided to keep her memories and not have them erased. How wise that would be, she wasn’t sure, but she never wanted to forget Lucian. Never.
His arms slid around her, very gently, as he drew her close. She hooked an arm around his neck, fondling the coarse hair at the nape.
She pulled back. “Will you let me have my way right now?”
He didn’t smile. He just nodded. He must have understood.
“Let’s get our clothes off.”
There was no hurrying the process, just a steady removal of shoes and shirts, pants and underwear. He was in that half-aroused state that she found extremely attractive: the c**k swollen but not yet upright, getting ready.
Lucian had a beautiful cock. She sat on the side of the bed, spread her legs, and gestured for him to come close.
She explored him, touching, looking, feeling the silkiness and the hardness, the magic of what would fit inside her and pleasure her, what he would release that should make babies, but for vampires rarely did.
His abs flexed as his chest rose and fell in long deep breaths. With one hand around his stalk, she ran her other hand over his stomach. “Flex for me.”
He tightened his stomach so that her fingers moved up and down the waves of him. She leaned close and took his crown in her mouth. He shuddered, his muscular thighs quivering.
She focused on the feel of him in her mouth, the ridge over which she moved her lips, and heard him groan, her tongue dipping into the tip then swirling over the rounded head. She sucked him slowly, moving down then back up, over and over, her hands sliding around to grip his firm bu**ocks.
Lucian.
His hands stroked her short hair, her face, her neck, and lingered on her shoulders. His h*ps flexed, pushing into her.
She heard his breathing catch, so she pulled back then drew him onto the bed. She had him lie facedown and for the next half hour, she moved her hands and her lips over every inch of his body, sucking different parts, tasting, biting.
Claire. Claire.
His voice through her mind was one thing she’d really miss, the deep resonance that filled her thoughts from side to side and made her feel full. And that was how he made her feel: full.
How was she supposed to return to regular old earth, and human men with bouncing, nervous knees as they looked her over, then boasted about accomplishments she would never again care about?
She tugged on his arm and turned him over. She felt another familiar tremor run through him. He’d had several during the time she’d been touching him. He needed to feed and after tonight other women, probably vampires, would take care of him, ease the remnants of the blood-madness he’d endured, slake his thirst.
She hated all those women. She wanted to be the one, the only one, the forever one to feed him, all impossible, of course. So she hated them.
But right now she could feed Lucian.
“Take my blood, vampire, in whatever way you want to do it.”
* * *
Lucian’s mouth watered. Claire straddled him now, and his gaze fell to her throat. Over the past three nights, he’d taken blood from different parts of her body, even through a syringe when he was out of control. She’d given it up for him repeatedly, out of necessity at times and out of desire at others.
He felt so much coming from her, vibrating through the chains and through her touch, a kind of energy he’d never felt from her before. Yet he felt the same way: That this was good-bye. That she was touching him so thoroughly, sucking him so thoroughly as a way to memorize his shape and feel.
He wanted something similar, but in this case he’d be doing things she’d never be able to do with a human.
His fangs descended as he got ready to pierce a vein.
“I need you to stand up.” He gestured to the side of the bed.
She slid over the side, gained her feet, then waited for him. He stood in front of her first drifting his gaze over her br**sts. He fondled each of them, exploring her as she’d explored him, making his hands do the memorizing. Her ni**les puckered and her breathing became a light pant. Her hands floated over his forearms, then up his biceps, over his shoulders.
