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She pulled the dress over her head, her hair funneling along her pale left shoulder as she finished the motion, let the garment flutter to the bedding beside them. He reached up, dove his fingers into the thick silk of her hair. Her vibrant blue eyes rested on his face, watching everything he was doing. His body was beat all to hell from the day, but he found he wanted to do everything to her, for her. Suddenly her words made more sense to him. "It's not a matter of you being able to give."
"I felt you here, even before I saw you in my room."
"That's the first mark." She paused, as if she'd thought better of having said that, but then lifted her shoulder, which caused an interesting movement with her breasts. He cupped the weight of one, enjoying the simple pleasure of stroking the curve. It really was like they were floating tonight. That edgy urgency that had brought them together before wasn't here, but that didn't make this less intense. Just intense in a different way that kept his throat thick, his movements dreamlike.
"I gave you the first mark, the other night. It's only a geographical locater. It tells me where you are, within a thousand miles or so."
"Is that all? The government's secret microchips do a better job than that."
When she made a face at him, he twined a lock of hair around his forefinger, splaying the others over her left breast. He did a slow, teasing pass over her nipple, watched it harden and her catch her lip in her teeth, felt her pussy contract on him. He wanted to do this all night, swim in languid arousal. "What do the other two marks do?"
"After a vampire gives the second mark, she can speak in her servant's head and allow him to hear her thoughts, when she wants him to do that."
"Hearing your voice in my head. That would be nice." He smiled absently and she caressed his jaw.
"You're half asleep, cowboy. No man wants a woman's voice in his head all the time. She'd devil him to death."
"True. But I think...when she's the right one, her voice is there all the time anyway. Right?"
She studied him. It was a surreal conversation, vampires and marks, but all of it fit together, in a way that fit her. He tried to grasp that, and was too sleepy. She stroked his face.
"You're a romantic, Quinn. I want to say it's unexpected, but it was obvious the first time I walked into your bar. You believe in things being how they should be, even if it's hard to find them set up that way."
Catching both his hands, she molded them around her breasts, a direction he was more than pleased to follow, kneading her curves, thumbing the nipples, lifting and bringing together the two curves as she made a sweet moan. He lifted his hips, embedded himself a little more deeply in her.
"When the third mark is given," she continued breathlessly, "a human becomes fully submissive to the vampire. Her property. She can hold his soul in her hand, crush it, possess it. His life force is linked to hers." Her gaze came back to his. "If she dies, he dies."
"I know a lot of old couples who would like that, so one of them isn't left behind." He sighed. "I think my folks worry about that now and then."
She tilted her head, the silken fall of her hair sweeping over one shoulder. "Where are they, your parents?"
"Happily living out their lives in a senior community in Arizona. When he was still working, they used to catch me on the rodeo circuit as often as they could." He'd seen a different side of his father then. The old man would never be a friend to his sons or offer praise easily, but showing up for those events and treating Quinn with rough approval had changed things. Though they couldn't find common ground as man and child, they'd made their peace with one another as men.
"They don't miss the ranch?"
"No. Surprised the hell out of me. But when Dad hit sixty-five he said he'd seen enough of horseshit and roughnecks and they headed for the place a lot of their friends had found."
"Your parents are close," she guessed. "They have that connection."
"Yes. I didn't get it for a long time, because he seemed so hard, but I guess the key was in how he listened to her even when he didn't seem to listen to anyone else. Love can be a powerful thing." He fixed his gaze on her.
Now her hands closed over his, stilling them. "It can't be like that for us," she said. "Vampires don't fall in love with humans. Humans are their servants."
"What if the human servant falls in love with the vampire?"
"That's acceptable, as long as the vampire isn't swayed by it, as long as she never forgets that the human is not her equal, that he belongs to her."
He studied her. "You believe that bullshit, that people--vampires, humans--can shut it down like that?"
"If they know that the alternative is far worse." The shadows that crossed her face had him sliding his hands to her shoulders.
"Come down here."
She gave him a look at that, as if she was going to put him in his place, tell him she was the one who gave the orders around here, but in the end she surprised him, letting him draw her down so her face was nestled against his throat. When both his arms banded around her, she slid hers under his shoulders, held on, their bodies now linked as intimately above as below. Maybe she was right about him being a romantic, because it felt more important, a stronger desire right now, just to hold her as close as he could, than to thrust to completion where he was buried to the hilt inside her.
"Have you...fed lately?" he asked.
Her fingers curled against his skin and he ran his hand down her bare back. When she didn't respond, he added, "It might just be the moonlight, but you look a little paler than usual."
Lifting his chin, he made it clear he was giving her better access. He stroked her cheek, applied pressure to guide her. Offering.
*
Selene could close her eyes and hear the thud of his heart, the coursing of blood through his veins. During broad daylight, she was sure he was still questioning her sanity, or determining how much of her vampire delusion he could handle. However here, in the shadows, with that touch and look, it was clear he'd already accepted what she was...what he was becoming to her.
She'd been told by other vampires it could happen this fast. Most of them had acquired their human servant within only a handful of days of meeting them, an unbreakable bond that could span over three hundred years. Vampires didn't indulge in romanticism, not when it came to humans, but Laurent had used those terms so she could understand.
"You were a human," his lip curled as if reacting to something distasteful, "so love at first sight is the closest approximate, though it has nothing else in common with that other than the quick ignition of the attraction. Lord Brian, who conducts scientific studies on vampires, says there may be some chemical inside certain humans that makes them more amenable to the idea of becoming a vampire's servant, and that chemical may attract vampires to them. In fact, in some of these chemically compatible humans, he's noted their libido increases considerably after only the first mark from the vampire who will become their Master." Laurent's gaze had gleamed with indifferent amusement. "It's as if they're preparing themselves for the demands we will put upon them, despite their bodies still lacking the second and third marks needed to handle that demand physically. You could fuck a first mark to death in no time.
"In short, the powers-that-be have ensured we have a pool of human servants willing to serve our needs, even if they don't realize it as quickly as we do."
She wanted to give Quinn the second mark, badly. It was the only thing that could explain it, some kind of chemical
receptor. She wanted to talk in his head, hear him speak inside hers.
But a decision like that would impact Quinn's life dramatically. Quinn, who'd worked so hard for his ranch, whose body bore the dangerous roadmap of his rodeo life to meet that goal. She wasn't an impulsive teenager, no matter that sixty was considered little better than a college student in the vampire world. She was his bar manager, his sex partner. His Mistress for playtime, not for real life. No matter how it felt otherwise.
Instead of taking the vein offered, she pushed up, sitting astride him, and leveled a gaze on him. Saying nothing, she began to pleasure herself, gripping him with her internal muscles, sliding up his shaft, commanding him to service her as she desired. His brown eyes got that intent look that sent a thrill of pleasure through her, and he put his hands to her hips, adding strength to the rhythm she was setting.
She'd told him she'd take, no matter what, that she'd never be denied. But with every movement in sync with her, the way his body arched to drive up into her, how his eyes stayed on hers, making sure he was satisfying her, he told her he'd give even beyond the point when the well was dry. That was the type of man he was, not just when he wanted or desired, but when he loved. It wasn't until now she'd realized what a dangerous drug that was, offered so freely to a vampire. Nigh irresistible.
She dug her nails into his chest, hard enough to draw blood, and his pulse leaped, his cock thickening inside her. She wanted to do everything to him, use the whip on him again, tie him down and fuck him, just like she'd described. She could see staying in this little corner of Texas her entire life, running his bar...
Her entire life? Centuries of it, long after his bones were dust?
She was no longer human. She couldn't afford to think this way. She translated emotional needs into physical ones, redoubling her efforts, driving them ruthlessly, pulling the climax out of him that his exhausted body was going to give her, come hell or high water.
He kept up with her, eyes still on her face. How much did he see or understand? "Take your hands off me," she ordered. "I want them over your head."
