Night's Honor

SIXTEEN

At her reply, a sense of peace and gladness filled Xavier.

He raised her hand to kiss her fingers, and she caressed the corner of his mouth. Her dark eyes looked wondering, and she looked more vulnerable than he had ever seen her.

Need roared like a freight train in his blood, but he would not give into it. Not yet. Putting an arm around her slender body, he walked with her to his bedroom door and opened it.

Inside, everything was as he had last left it, the large, old four-poster bed made with an eighteenth-century, intricately embroidered quilt. He saw that Diego had unpacked his bag and set it neatly on the chair in the corner, then he forgot everything except for Tess.

As they passed through the doorway, she pulled back against his arm, her body language suddenly turning reluctant, and he realized he had forgotten to turn on the lights. He flipped the switch, and gentle, indirect light flooded the room.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

The reluctance vanished from her body, and in reply, she shut the door and turned to put her arms around his neck.

That was all the invitation he needed. He kissed her hard and hungrily, and he felt her reaction shudder through her whole body. Her lips molded to his, and she kissed him back with a fierce hunger that set him ablaze.

Over the centuries of his existence, he had witnessed so many things—miracles and tragedies, and mysteries that were simply unexplainable. He’d had considerate, humorous lovers, and he’d enjoyed every one.

None of it compared to the miracle of holding Tess’s body against his. Seeing the utter lack of fear in her flushed, angular face, when she had once been so afraid of him.

Realizing the passion that glazed her beautiful eyes was all for him.

“‘Thy love is better than wine,’” he whispered against her softened, sexy mouth.

Better than wine.

He brushed his lips down the side of her cheek, along the clean, graceful curve of her jawline, and kissed her slender neck. Her skin. Dear God, was there anything else as perfect as her skin?

She cradled his head in both hands, her uneven breath sounding in his ear. “What was that? Were you quoting something?”

“Love poetry,” he muttered, kissing along her collarbone as he ran his hands underneath the hem of her sweater. “From the Song of Solomon.”

An exhalation of a laugh shook out of her. “You’re a romantic?”

“I was, once upon a time,” he admitted. He curved his hands around her narrow rib cage. She fit so perfectly against him. “I still am, on occasion. When life permits.”

“I’m not a romantic,” she confessed. Nuzzling his cheek, she slipped his jacket off his shoulders. He shrugged it off and let it fall to the floor.

“I forgive you,” he told her expansively, with a grin.

Another ghost of a laugh danced across her face. “Quote something else for me.”

As he coaxed her sweater up, she lifted her arms. He pulled it off of her and let it fall to the floor too. She wore a plain black bra, no lace, but the way it molded to the round curve of her breasts was extravagantly feminine.

He touched her temples. “‘Thou hast doves’ eyes,’” he said gently.

Her expression turned luminous. The emotion shining out of her face—that was all for him.

He felt it come into him, until it lit every corner of his soul and shone back out at her. “Of course, there’s also this one—‘I have compared thee, O my love, to a company of horses in Pharaoh’s chariots.’”

She burst out laughing. “What on earth does that mean?”

“I have no idea.” Smiling, he stroked her graceful shoulders while she undid the buttons of his shirt.

“How much can you quote?”

“I was a young man with a completely normal sex drive, who was encouraged to study the scriptures,” he said. “I memorized all of it.” He stroked her lips. “‘Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet. . . . Thou hast ravished my heart.’”

Something stricken banished the laughter from her gaze. “Yes,” she whispered. “That’s what it feels like.”

All the words burned away, and he stood silent, without language or barriers, holding on to her bare, warm waist. He felt like he might drown if he let go. He might drown anyway, but if he did, he needed to bring her with him.

He shrugged out of his shirt, threw it and went down on his knees in front of her. Unbuttoning her jeans, he slid the zipper down and eased both her jeans and panties over her hips while she stripped off her bra. When she stood totally nude before him, he sat back on his heels and feasted on the sight of her.

She was panther-sleek, with toned, slender muscles, a narrow waist and a flat stomach, all of which served to enhance the feminine swell of her hips, and Dios, those full, round breasts. The dusky rose of her nipples were the perfect crown for those tender beauties, and the silken tuft of private hair at the juncture of her legs beckoned him with a siren’s lure.

Slipping his arms around her slim thighs, he rubbed his cheek against her, inhaling her scent, while he listened to her heartbeat gallop. It was good, so good, to scent the evidence of her arousal, and to know that her heart raced for him.

He had been stiff for some time, but now his cock hardened further until he felt desperately sensitized, unbearably erect. Desire might be an old friend whom he had met before, but with her, it came to him wearing a new face, sharp, bright and joyful.

He felt the blood coursing through her, such unimaginably precious treasure housed in the temple of her body, and her fingers stroking through his hair. She tugged gently until he tilted back his head to look up at her.

“Let me come down there with you,” she murmured.

It took a moment for him to understand what she meant. He loosened his hold around her thighs, and she began to kneel.

“No,” he said, standing to pick her up. “I won’t take you on the drafty floor, not when we have such a large, comfortable bed to explore.”

He walked to the bed to ease her down onto it, and he came down on top of her. Hungry for the rich taste of her mouth, he kissed her again as he stroked between her legs to finger the delicate, plump folds of her moistened sex.

Fire flashed in her eyes, and her breath sawed in her throat. As she fumbled at the waist of his slacks, her lips shaped unsteady words against his. “I can’t stand it.”

His, this urgency of hers was all his. The look in her eyes. The need he could feel in her. All for him.

Her body might be lovely, but the passion of her spirit was what drove it, and that was inexpressibly gorgeous. Intoxicated with beauty, he licked her mouth. “You can stand so much more than you think you can.”

Carefully, he parted the petals of her flesh until he found the small pearl of her clitoris. With a deep sense of pleasure, he explored the stiff little peak of flesh and circled it with his forefinger. She made an inarticulate, urgent noise at the back of her throat, her body arching up to his touch.

He needed.

He needed her.

“Touch me,” he said against her mouth.

She made another odd little sound, something between a growl and a whine, and hooked one leg around his waist as she ran her hands quickly, greedily down his back. Tracing the waist of his slacks to the front, she wrestled with the fastening.

Something thundered in his ears. With surprise, he realized it was his own roughened breathing. When she got his pants open, his stiff, aching penis spilled out into her hands.

As she gripped him, he threw his head back, face twisted. She ran her thumb over the broad, damp tip of his cock, and the pleasure was so extreme, it was agonizing.

“Oh, shit,” she muttered. She grabbed his wrist, held his hand against her and shook as though she had a fever.

It snapped him back into focus. He stared down at her as she climaxed, quivering rhythmically against his fingers. It was so surprising, he couldn’t stand for it to be over so soon. He slid down her body and parted her legs, and put his mouth on her.

Her head snapped back against the mattress, and she stuffed the heel of one hand against her mouth to muffle a scream.

The taste of her, the sensation of such velvety softness against his lips . . . he lost all sense of self-control and feasted, licking and sucking, while she bucked and twisted underneath him. His awareness narrowed to two things, how immense and painful his erection had become, and the slick pearl of flesh he held with such tense care between his teeth.

She was sobbing now, and swearing like a sailor. He would have laughed, if he’d remembered what humor was.

Instead, he flicked his tongue faster, harder. He couldn’t shove his cock into her and suck on her at the same time, no matter how much he wanted to, so he made do by inserting two fingers into her.

Her inner muscles clenched on him, and she was so tight and richly plush inside, so wet, he just had to fuck her with those two fingers, he had to. The heat and carnality of it shoved him outside of himself. All his intellect shut down, until only the urgency was left, and it built to an excruciating level.

A low, shaking moan broke out of her, and her body rippled with more tremors. He felt her climax, inside and out.

As he held his mouth firm and steady to help her through it, he thought, Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.

No. That ancient, long-dead author got it wrong.

Love is surprising and can strike the oldest, most world-weary heart without warning.

Love is so much stronger than death.

The strength of her second climax was so ferocious it overtook everything. She felt completely lit from the inside, bathed in the sweetest, most delicious fire she’d ever experienced.

It wasn’t that she’d never climaxed before. She’d had healthy, athletic sex, and she’d climaxed many times, both with partners and by pleasuring herself. Climaxing happened to be one of her very favorite things to do.

But she’d never before climaxed with Xavier.

The visual shock of watching him work between her parted legs was only matched by the sensual shock of feeling his mouth move on her with such intimate wisdom, and feeling his fingers pierce deep inside her body.

She’d never before climaxed with such emotion.

He had coaxed her out of her fortress until she stood unguarded, and the pleasure rolled over her like a tsunami. Sobbing for breath, she clutched at his shoulder, while tears spilled out of the corners of her eyes. He was the only thing strong enough to hold on to in the face of such a storm.

As the wave of pleasure peaked and ebbed, Xavier raised his head and met her gaze, the angles of his face pronounced and serious. He had such clarity in his eyes, as if he comprehended even more than she what they did together.

The muscles in his arms and upper chest bunching, he rose to crawl over her. A sprinkle of sleek, dark hair ran down the middle of his lean torso, winging out to touch both flat, male nipples, and arrowing down to the erect penis that jutted out of the opening of his slacks.

He had a beautifully masculine body, but it was only a naked body. It shouldn’t be so profound. Except she couldn’t lie to herself, and it was.

After two climaxes, she should feel sated, but she didn’t. Nothing was going predictably. Her body felt empty and aching.

Looking up into his eyes, she curled her fingers around his cock. He felt hot and hard, his penis covered with skin like silk. When she squeezed him, he hissed between his teeth and arched into her hand.

The most ravenous hunger gripped her. She arched her pelvis up, guiding him as he settled his weight on her. Nose to nose, they stared into each other’s eyes. The intensity was palpable and searing, like an arc of electricity sparking between them.

The head of his cock brushed the hypersensitive, swollen flesh at her entrance. Bracing his weight on his arms, he pressed, and the thick, rigid length of his flesh entered hers.

He came in, and in, moving slowly to let her accommodate his intrusion. She was so wet and ready he didn’t have to work but could push in to the hilt.

The same hunger she felt etched his features, and his eyes blazed with fierce wonder.

“Tell me it’s okay to fall in love with you.” The words tumbled out of her trembling mouth without her conscious volition, and when she heard herself say them, she flinched and felt crushed with humiliation.

She hadn’t meant to say it. For God’s sake, this was only the first time they had gotten together, and despite their earlier conversation there was no guarantee of another. How many times did people say stupid stuff in the heat of sex?

If she thought his gaze had blazed before, it was nothing compared to the heat and light that came out of him then. He looked wholly alive, wholly engaged, and so touched she didn’t have the heart to stammer out a retraction.

Eyelids lowering in a heavy, sensual look, he tilted his head to fasten his lips over hers in a light caress. He murmured softly, “I would be so honored if you did.”

It was okay. He made it better than okay. He made her welcome.

As he began to move, she wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck, and held him with her entire body.

He set up a gentle rhythm, sliding all the way in then pulling back until just the tip of his penis rested at her entrance. Leaning on one elbow, he stroked her face, her hair, and ran his fingers lightly down the side of her neck to cup her breast.

Pinching and rolling her nipple between thumb and forefinger, he looked deep into her eyes. “You’re beautiful,” he murmured. “So beautiful. You’re so hot and wet. God, I’m on fire.”

She couldn’t lie still. She had to move with him. He had always seemed cooler to her, but now she could feel the heat pouring off of him. As his hips rocked against hers, his whole body flexed, and she remembered the first time she saw him, how he moved with complete, seamless grace. Watching him move now, with such sensual abandon, was incredibly sexy.

His thick, dark chestnut hair fell about his face, shadowing his gaze. As she nuzzled him, he picked up his pace, fucking her harder.

She tightened her inner muscles, gripping his cock as strongly as she could as she raked her fingers down his back. Throwing his head back, he hissed as he pistoned into her.

His eyes flashed red and his fangs descended, and she had no business being shocked or surprised, but oh my God, she was. He looked feral, animalistic.

Just as he had when he had stood between her and Malphas, guarding her from a being that was so Powerful, if the confrontation had turned violent, he would have almost certainly been killed.

“Xavier,” she whispered.

She touched his face. Not once did it occur to her to be afraid. This amazing creature had quoted poetry to her. This amazing creature inside of her was Xavier.

He closed those feral-looking eyes and kissed her fingers.

She tightened her embrace, while she tilted her hips to let him thrust deeper. He bowed over her, moving faster, fucking harder, until he gasped out something incomprehensible—she really needed to learn some Spanish—and stiffened.

Deep inside, she felt his cock pulse. He rocked against her gently.

Closing her eyes, she kissed his cheek while she rubbed his back. Oh, she might not understand this strange journey she was on, or how the series of decisions, progression of events, had brought her to this point. She could only be glad she had gotten here.

After a few moments of holding his hips tight against hers, he stirred to caress her lips with his again, gently. When he deepened the kiss, she found that his fangs had retracted. His tongue played with hers, as he stroked her thigh.

“I sense sunrise is near,” he whispered.

She threaded her fingers through his hair. “Since you have that automatic shutter system in your house, can I assume you won’t fall instantly into some kind of creepy, deathlike coma?”

He chuckled. “Yes, you can safely assume that.”

“Good, because otherwise I was going to tell you to get off me quick, before you pinned me down for ten hours.” He laughed out loud, and she grinned. “Just kidding, I think I could roll you over onto the floor.”

“Thankfully you won’t have to.” As he eased away from her, his softening penis slipped out, and she sighed regretfully. It had felt too good to have him inside of her. She already missed the joining, already wanted him again.

He left the bed, and returned with his shirt, which he wadded and used to clean the inside of her thighs. Lingering at the job, he ran his fingers along her sensitive skin, and she stretched languorously under the caress.

He said, “I want you to sleep with me.”

She paused before answering and thought of Diego, asleep in the other room. It would be so easy for Diego to text or email, or even call anyone back at the estate, and then nothing she and Xavier did would be private any longer.

While she had no intention of hiding anything, she wasn’t sure this was how she wanted things to go. Besides, what had just happened was too powerful to her, and she felt raw and shaken.

She might have promised she wouldn’t run away, but that didn’t mean she had to avoid making a strategic retreat. So much had happened, she needed time to process.

Kissing him quickly, she told him, “I would love to sleep with you, but maybe not this time. I have no intention of sneaking around, but I would rather Diego and the others found out about us in a different way.”

He frowned, and she could tell he didn’t like her refusal, but he didn’t disagree. “Very well,” he said. “I will let you go this time. But not next time.”

She smiled. “It’s a deal.”

Moving around the room, he collected her clothes. He was completely nude and entirely confident, and she couldn’t stop staring at him. His back, arms and legs were corded with lean muscle, and watching him was a pure pleasure. As he neared a large walnut wardrobe, he pulled out a black silk robe and offered it to her.

With a quick smile of thanks, she slipped it on. It was too large for her frame, but not unpleasantly so. The hem brushed the top of her bare feet, and the sleeves fell to the tips of her fingers. At his urging, she held out first one arm then the other. He rolled the sleeves up to her wrists while she watched, then handed the bundle of her clothes and shoes to her.

Awkwardness and doubt tried to worm their way into her mind. She shoved them out again.

Slipping his fingers underneath her chin, he coaxed her face up. As usual, his gaze was all too keen. “I will only feel good about letting you leave, if you tell me you are fine with what just happened.”

She took a deep breath. She would not be typical. They had made love, and she had wanted to, and it had been a rare, wonderful experience.

“I’m not sure that ‘fine’ is quite the right word for how I feel,” she told him honestly. “While I’m so . . . glad, I also feel pretty shaken. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not dealing with it, or that I’ll go against my word and leave.” She gave him a small smile. “Will that do?”

The muscle in his jaw ticked, another small tell. “It goes against my instincts to let you out of here, even if you are only going to another room. But I also agree with you—letting Diego stumble upon us together is not the right way to break the news to the others.” He kissed her swiftly. “You’d better leave before I change my mind.”

She nodded, and before she could change her mind too, she kissed him again and walked rapidly to the door. Funny, now that she was actually leaving—even though she needed to—she had to fight the impulse to turn around and stay.

She walked to the short hallway and looked back. He had left his bedroom door halfway open. As she paused, he said telepathically, In case you change your mind.

Warmed, she replied, I won’t, but thank you.

Sweet dreams.

You too.

There were four doors down the short hallway. Two were propped open, one led to the bathroom with an antique claw-foot bathtub and the fourth led to an empty bedroom. Inside that room, her bag sat at the foot of the double bed, and as promised, on the nightstand Diego had left a snack of crackers, fruit and a variety of cheeses wrapped in plastic.

As she readied for bed, exhaustion weighed down her limbs. The day had felt a week long, and she hadn’t yet adjusted to a more nocturnal schedule.

Slipping into the bathroom, she brushed her teeth. Much as she wanted to take a full bath or shower, she could barely stand upright, so she washed quickly at the sink. Back in the bedroom, she closed her door and crawled between the covers.

She didn’t make it to turning out the bedside light. The world went dark as soon as her head hit the pillow.

An undefined amount of time later, she didn’t wake gently or slowly, but all at once in a clench. It took a few moments for her to realize where she was, as she stared around the strange, windowless room.

Memory flooded in. The confrontation with Malphas, and what had come after.

The things she and Xavier had said to each other, the things he had done to her, his mouth moving so knowledgeably as he tongued her until an inescapable fire had flared hot and bright. How he moved on top of her, moved inside of her, the feral changes in his face, and the gentleness of his hands and lips.

It had been at least a year since she had last taken a lover, and she felt the soreness in her muscles as she shifted her legs restlessly. Even with the soreness, an edge of that fiery hunger pulsed. Slipping a hand between her legs to cup herself, she realized she hadn’t even taken off the robe. The soft material twisted around her body.

Without visual cues from looking outside, it was impossible to know the time without a clock or device of some sort, and she was still very tired. What had woken her? She hadn’t dreamed of Malphas, thank God. Perhaps she had noticed the strangeness of the bed.

Faintly, the sound of male voices came through the closed door. Even though she could just barely hear them, not what was actually being said, they sounded tense, even angry.

Oh Lord, what now?

Throwing back the covers, she adjusted the robe and slipped out of the room.

The door to the bedroom where Diego had stayed was propped open, the room empty. The voices came from the living room.

As she froze in indecision, Diego said, “It’s been three years, and I’m not going anywhere. I clean the pool, maintain the cars and polish the guns, and that’s my entire life. When Melisande and Justine came to visit? That was the most interesting thing to happen to me in a long damn time. Even coming here last night was a massive change, and all I fucking did was go to bed.”

Sinking both hands into her hair, she held her head.

What is it about me? What?

I don’t ask to overhear this stuff.

“While I understand what you’re saying, it doesn’t change my mind.”

She had a visceral reaction, just listening to the sound of Xavier’s voice. Sensation ran along her skin, and she shivered, wrapping the robe more tightly around her torso.

His mouth on her. His mouth on her.

Dear God.

Calm and courteous, Xavier continued. “I retired you from the field for many good reasons, and I’m not going to put you back in active duty. The last time you went on assignment, your cover was so badly blown, you would be a dead man if I sent you back out again. You’re done, Diego. You’ve been done for a long time, and there’s no coming back from this retirement. I’m sorry, but that’s my final decision.”

Xavier retired Diego from a field?

A mental picture of Diego mowing an overgrown pasture bloomed in her mind. It was so patently ridiculous, the last of the sleep cobwebs in her mind blew away and she really woke up.

He retired Diego from active duty.

Like a spool of thread, everything she had witnessed from the past six weeks unrolled in her mind.

How she had felt more than once that something was slightly off at the estate. How everyone else had stopped talking whenever she entered the room.

How all five of the young men disappeared from one day to the next, and nobody brought it up in conversation. How important it had been to keep their identities hidden when unfriendly strangers had arrived.

How overwhelmingly knowledgeable Raoul was at killing. Once, she had even thought he would make an excellent assassin.

Was this . . . a little like James Bond?

With Vampyres?

She wasn’t sure if she should feel so amazed, or if she should just feel like a fool for not putting two and two together before now.

Before she could castigate herself too much, Diego spoke again. The tone in his voice was flat and final. “You’re right, Xavier. I’m done. I quit.”