The Vampire Dimitri

18 Wherein All Is Laid Bare

Dimitri woke to find himself hard, hot, damp and tangled in the bedcovers. His fangs were fully extended, his body swollen with need. The Mark on his shoulder shuttled pain through his limbs, but even that deep agony wasn’t enough to chase the potent dreams from his thoughts.

All at once, he realized his chamber door was ajar. Opening. That was what had awakened him from the dream.

He smelled her.

Satan’s stones. Dimitri froze, holding his breath, pulling himself out of the sleek, hot dream with great effort.

He dared not move. He could hardly think as she slipped into the chamber and closed the door behind her. His heart pounded, filling his ears, and in his mind he kept thinking, no, no, no, no.

Yet his body raged and beckoned.

If it had been anyone else disturbing him, he could have bellowed and ordered them out. Or even leaped from the bed to show them the door.

But he was paralyzed.

She stopped next to the bed, and he looked up at her in the dark, able to see the details of her face, even the curl of a lock of hair over the white night rail.

“Maia,” he managed to say. “What are you doing here?” Get out.

Her eyes found his in the dim light. He saw her draw in a deep breath and bite her lower lip. “I’m not certain,” she replied.

“Then leave. Now.” His breathing had become unsteady and he gripped the bedcoverings, curling his fingers into them, forcing his body to remain still. Like stone.

“I’m going to call off the wedding.” She was close enough that her gown brushed the side of his bed. His hand, wrapped in a sheet, rested on the edge right next to it.

He forced himself to remain rigid. Tight.

“That would be outside of foolish,” he said, his voice harsh and grating even to his own ears. “Maia. What are you doing?”

“I’m here,” she said, shifting. The warm cotton gown brushed the back of his wrist and Dimitri’s fingers released the crumpled bedcoverings all on their own.

“Here?” He forced an edge of disdain into his tone. “Whatever for?”

She shook her head as if to clear it, her eyes steady on him, as if to somehow read the lie there, even in the dark.

And then she touched him. Her fingers, settling gently on his bare wrist next to the edge of the mattress, released him from his paralysis. He was done.

His arm lurched, moving before his conscious thought, and his hand whipped out, dragging her onto the bed. His other hand moved around to slide fingers into her hair, guiding her lush warmth down onto him. Yes.

Maia didn’t pull back, didn’t resist. If she had, he’d have released her immediately. But, foolishly, she came willingly, sliding onto the bed, her knees pinning her blousy night rail to the mattress before she collapsed next to him, tangled in the soft cotton.

Dimitri was aware of a rushing sound in his ears, of a warning voice in his head, but it was too late. He had her. In his arms, wrapping Maia in the warmth of his body and the tangled bedclothes, their flesh separated only by a flimsy gown. Wild need surged through him, and he ignored all of the reasons he should send her away.

Taking care not to cut her with his fangs, he covered her mouth with his, drinking desperately from the corners of her lips, sliding over and across them, nibbling and sucking as she shifted against him, her mouth hot and teasing in a slick, sensual kiss, her breasts rounding against his chest.

He gathered her close, imprinting her body against his, capturing her against him with one bent leg and his hands, sliding along her slender back, pulling her onto him, into him, close. She burned him.

His breathing was out of control, his body tight and throbbing, his fangs jutting so far that his mouth hurt.

“Maia,” he managed to say, focusing on the sudden sharp pain from his Mark. Ah, that was it. If the pain became worse, then Luce was unhappy with his actions. And right now, now that he’d stopped, now that he was set to do the right thing, to send her away, the pain was white-hot, blasting and searing down his side and around by his left hip. An incentive for him to change his mind. “This is your last chance. Leave now.”

Perhaps her eyes had adjusted to the dim light, for she focused on him, met his gaze. “I’m not going to leave,” she said. “Unless you truly do not want me.”

Even then, he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t send her away.

“Very well,” he said in a harsh voice, horribly aware that his Mark eased. That Lucifer approved. “I will give you nothing, Maia. Do you understand? This is nothing more than me, taking what you offer.”

“Is that not how it’s always been?” she replied.

“You must wed Bradington,” he said, grasping the front of her gown as he twisted around, shoving her back onto the bed, curving over her, pinning her down with the weight of his hips. “I can give you nothing else,” he said again. “Nothing. And wedding him will save you.”

“I make no promises,” she replied.

“Nor do I.” And, his patience gone, his goodwill trampled, he shoved his conscience away. She’d come to him. He’d warned her off. He grabbed her gown with his other hand and yanked, renting it down the middle with a loud, violent tear that made her slender body jerk.

With a little more care, but no lesser intent, he whipped the cloth away and bent to her again, covering her mouth with his. She reached up and slid her arms around him, pulling him down so that they were skin to skin, her soft, pale and silky curves rising up into his hard, hirsute body. So warm. Her long hair caught beneath them, and he tugged it away, threading his fingers in and around it.

He buried his face in her neck, tasting the hot, sensitive skin there, his lips tracing the curve of her shoulder as he struggled to keep from sinking his fangs deep. The need pounded in him, in his swollen gums and thrusting teeth, through his veins, in his cock, tight and raging against her thigh. Maia shuddered and sighed as he sucked hard on the delicate rise of her shoulder, still fighting to keep from sinking deep and drinking of her.

Dimitri moved to her breast, covering the taut rise of nipple with his mouth, sliding his tongue around the sensitive little tip. She dug her fingers into his hair, arching closer as he licked and gently sucked, his fangs gently surrounding the areola, brushing her skin with their tips. One little nick… She exuded heat, and the musky, sweet scent of desire filled his nostrils as she writhed and moaned against him.

He slid his hand down between her legs, finding her slick and swollen. She shifted against him, lifting up into his palm, and he pressed down into her, trembling a little at her passionate response. Sliding a finger inside, into the tight heat, Dimitri shifted as he teased and slid in and out and around, releasing her lush musky scent, turning his vision red and cloudy. Desire pounded in him and his gums throbbed, his cock shifting insistently next to her. Maia gasped something, reaching out blindly, her hands pulling at his shoulder, drawing him close.

He could wait no longer. Dimitri moved quickly and decisively, rising back up to rear over her slender white body and sliding his leg between hers. She curled her fingers around his shoulders, pulling him down as he fitted himself inside her. Maia’s gasp was swallowed by the roaring in his ears as he slid in, deep, filling. His muscles shuddered with the effort of control…she was sleek and tight and he found his face buried once again in her throat as he moved rhythmically: away, then closer, away…closer. Hot, damp, smelling of her, that sensitive, erotic spot…

It was too much to resist. His fangs brushed her skin and as he slammed deep between her legs, he bit into the warm, silky skin at the juncture of neck and shoulder, the points of his teeth sliding in with ease. She jolted and gave a soft cry, shuddering, but he was too intent, and he held her steady as the warm flow of lifeblood rushed into his mouth. The pleasure was heavy, the taste of rich, lush earth and life laced with Maia’s own particular essence, filling his senses, over his tongue, down into his body.

There was no holding back, no waiting. His world turned into a frenzy of pleasure, rising uncontrollably. His veins sang, swelled, his body slid against hers. Dimitri was vaguely aware of her nails scoring into his back, her head twisting and rolling on the pillow as he drank, as he thrust in and out, driving closer and longer until he could no longer think.

The explosion, when it came, was white-hot and red, draining him of awareness. He barely remembered to pull free of that hot, sleek place just before his seed spilled, twisting his hips away as he released her neck. Heavy, warm blood still in his mouth, he gave a soft groan of release as he pulsed and throbbed, damp and warm. He swallowed the last bit and closed his eyes.

Maia gave a soft whimper next to him, bringing him back from the easy slide into darkness, and he rose up to look over her. Her eyes were dark in a pale face, her lips parted, her breathing unsteady. She didn’t seem frightened or overset by his roughness. She beckoned.

Dimitri bent to her shoulder and tasted the leaking blood with his lips and tongue, gently licking it away, swirling the last bit into his mouth to stop the bleeding. At the same time, he reached down between them to slide over her quim, full and damp and still ready for him.

With a little nibble of apology along the tendon in her neck, he found the tiny core and as he shifted to cover her mouth, he slipped and stroked, luring her over into the same vortex of pleasure he’d recently enjoyed. His mouth stifled her soft cry of release and he felt her shudder against him.

Dimitri finished the kiss with a soft little nibble on that top, full lip, then collapsed onto his back, still wrapped in sheets and legs and her long hair.

He didn’t know how long they lay there, tangled and close, for he slipped into something between sleep and wakefulness, comforted by the slight, warm figure next to him, the sensuous smells of their coupling and her.

Something distant must have awakened Dimitri, for it drew him from that half slumber and into the wakefulness of reality. The first thing he saw was a blood streak on the sheets, and then the small marks on her slender, ivory neck. The scent of coitus stained his fingers and the bedcoverings, the little flutter behind her eyelids told him she was dreaming.

Maia was curled up amid white sheets and his dark body, her hair cascading over the bedsheets and pillows. A soft, delicate snore was coming from her parted lips. Something started to turn inside him, rolling and opening, and he stopped it.

He stopped it cold, pulling that brick wall back around to bar those soft feelings.

Oh, what he’d done. Dimitri closed his eyes as uncertainty and anger flooded him. After so many years of denial, he’d succumbed easily and thoroughly in the past weeks. Bitterness tinged his mouth as his heart thumped an erratic, accusatory beat. He’d warned her, yes, he’d told her to leave, but he knew better.

It was never that easy with a woman. Never that simple. And the tender, unfurling feelings in his belly were guilt and pleasure wrapped into one. Emotions that he must learn to do without.

He heard rapid footfalls coming down the corridor, and then there was an urgent knocking at the chamber door.

“My lord!” The knock became more urgent.

“One minute,” he growled at the door.

“Please, my lord, it’s an urgent matter!”

Dimitri glanced down at Maia, who was now stirring. He clapped a hand over her mouth just as her eyes bolted open in shock and dismay.

He put a finger to his lips and then yanked the bedclothes up to cover her. “What is it?” he bellowed. “Come in.”

“It’s the elder Miss Woodmore,” said Crewston, poking his head around the open door. A single shaft of daylight spilled into the dark chamber from behind him. “She’s gone missing!”

Dimitri felt her go rigid beneath the sheets. He pressed his hand down on top of her to keep her still, glad that Crewston was mortal and unable to scent the strong essence of coitus that lingered in the chamber. “Nonsense. She’s likely gone for a walk or shopping this early in the day.”

“I don’t know about that, my lord, but her Mr. Bradington is below, claiming she agreed to walk with him this morning. Surely she wouldn’t have left before he arrived.”

“Tell Bradington—” Dimitri barely managed to keep a snarl from his voice “—that she had an emergency with her wedding frock and had to visit the seamstress this morning, and that she will return shortly. And send him on his way, if you please.”

“But my—”

“Crewston.”

“Very well, my lord. But the younger Miss Woodmore is beside herself with fear that Miss Woodmore has been abducted again.”

“Advise Angelica that I am confident her elder sister will return shortly. And I don’t wish to be bothered for any reason until she returns, or until after dinner. Whichever occurs first.”

“Yes, my lord.” Crewston withdrew, his disbelief and annoyance barely masked.

No sooner had the door clicked closed than Maia erupted from beneath the sheets, holding them to the front of her torso. She opened her mouth, likely to begin barraging him with questions or recriminations, and Dimitri decided to take the bull by the horns, so to speak, and launch his own attack first.

“Are you aware that you snore, Miss Woodmore?” he asked in a mild voice.

She drew back, a glint of fierceness in her eyes, and closed her mouth. The sheets were a bunch against her chest, revealing only the barest curve of one shoulder. “Why, I—”

“It didn’t bother me, but if you decide to share a bedchamber with Bradington, it might become a concern.”

Her lips tightened and she replied in a low-pitched voice, “Don’t be a fool, Corvindale. Do you think I don’t know what you’re doing? Trying to divert me, trying to anger me? Or hurt me so that I go running off to Alexander?”

He closed his mouth and blinked. Her intelligence and foresight never failed to surprise him.

“I know better than that, Corvindale. I know you better than you realize,” she said, lowering her voice still further, watching him steadily. “And you’ve lost the power to hurt me like you might wish to, because I know why you do it.”

He’d become very still. “Is that so?” was all he trusted himself to say.

“You’re just like the beast from that fairy tale, locked away, cold and angry and afraid to allow anyone close to you, or to divert you from your research. But you’ve missed everything that’s important. And this,” she said, spreading her hand to encompass the events of the last night, “is…was…a bit too close for you. I’m sorry for that.”

“Miss Woodmore,” he said, barely holding on to the fury he managed to dredge up, just able to keep the truth of her words from penetrating, “you have no idea of what you speak. The only thing I care about,” he said, his lips and jaw tight, “is freeing myself of this.”

He turned sharply so that she could see the back of his left shoulder.

Maia’s sudden intake of breath was audible and he felt her body still next to him. “My God.”

Dimitri knew what she saw: the horrible Marking of the devil spreading down like black roots over his shoulder. When he’d first awakened to find himself signed thus, the lines had been narrow, like fine cracks in shattered glass. But over the years of his abstinence, his disregard for Lucifer’s will, the lines had grown thicker and darker as they welled with pain. Now they rose from his skin like slender black-red veins, writhing and twisting with agony, pounding and pulsing with his every defiance of the devil.

“This is the Mark of my covenant with Lucifer,” he said, keeping his voice steely. “I’m damned, Maia, damned and tied to him, and because of that, I cannot—I don’t want—anything or anyone in my life. I want to be left alone. I want to be free.”

She hadn’t taken her eyes from his shoulder, and when she reached to touch him, Dimitri moved away.

“Now,” he said, taking control of his voice, changing it from the desperate tones of a moment ago to one matter-of-fact and calm, “this is what will happen. You’re going to leave here, Maia, you’re going to go to your chamber and dress and pretend you were on a walk and forgot your appointment with Bradington. And you’re going to marry him as planned. And you’re going to forget about all of this.”

“I can’t do that, my lord,” she said, surprising him with the formal use of address.

“You must. There is nothing I can do for you, nor that I want to do. I’ve allowed you to invade my house, my den and now my bedchamber—” she tensed at that comment, and, gratified that it had hit the mark, he went on “—but I’m finished now. Lerina’s visit last night has me concerned that she has some other plans. And I’ve done everything I can to ensure that you wed Bradington without a hint of scandal. That is all I can do for you.”

Her mouth had tightened. “I cannot do that, Corvindale. Did you not hear me?”

“Yes, you—”

“I cannot, Corvindale,” she interrupted in a stiff voice, “because, much as I desire to leave your vile presence, I cannot walk from one end of your house to my chamber in the other dressed like this.” She flung the bedcoverings away from her naked torso.

Lord. He caught his breath before he realized it, then looked away. But the image was burned into his brain, the delicate shape of her body, the shadow of her collarbones, the high handfuls of breasts tipped with tight pink nipples, the hollow of her waist and curve of hips, and the peek of a slender white thigh. Remember it.

“Very well,” he said in a strangled voice. “I’ll arrange it for you, Miss Woodmore.”

She was shaking her head, her full lips flat and mutinous. “I will return to my chamber, but I don’t see how I can marry Alexander when I’m in love with you.”

He stilled as something sharp darted through his gut. “You’re even more foolish than I thought if you believe that, Miss Woodmore.”

“That is one thing I believe we must agree on, my lord. I am foolish.”

“And regardless of what you might think you feel, Miss Woodmore,” he said, “love has nothing to do with whether you wed Bradington or not. Is it not all about the match? The income, the family, the title? Whatever you might think you feel has no bearing on your reputation or your marriage.”

Something glinted in her eyes and he thought for a startled moment that his feisty Miss Woodmore might be tearing up. But she blinked and the shininess was gone.

“Nevertheless,” she said, “I will tell him the truth. And either he’ll wish to go forward with the wedding, knowing that not only do I not love him, but I don’t come to him untouched, or he’ll drop me and our engagement will be broken.”

“There will be a scandal,” he said, despite the fact that he would ensure that Bradington didn’t drop her. “Your reputation will be ruined.”

“Please refrain from stating the obvious, Lord Corvindale,” she said in a parody of an admonishment he’d once given her. “I’m willing to risk it. I will not live a lie with Alexander. He needs to know the truth. And that is why I felt compelled to tell you the truth of how I feel, even though I knew precisely how you would react.”

“You don’t understand, Maia,” he said, keeping his voice cold so that it wouldn’t break. “I’m immortal. I live forever. And when I die…I belong to the devil. I belong to him even now. I have nothing to give. That,” he added nastily, thinking of Wayren and her stories, “is what makes me different from the fairy-tale beast. I own nothing of myself. I have nothing to give.”