She was shaking as she turned her back to him, and when his hand clutched her waist and eased her body back to his own, desire coursed through him. He sat back on his heels and pulled her back to sit against the front of his thighs. He held his wrist up to her mouth, and with trembling hands, she held his hand and wrist in place. She was terrified, and as he leaned to her ear, she flinched. “Bite, Ember.” He knew once she passed this hurdle her mouth would know what to do, but this first bite, this first taste, could be terrifying.
She whimpered again, and he continued to shush and soothe her. He was incredibly aroused, but he was stifling the urge to grab her and grind his pelvis against her. She didn’t recall how much she enjoyed that, and he wasn’t about to make her fear worse. “Come on, Ember. I’m not going to bite you until your teeth are in me.” She leaned her mouth to his wrist, and when her lips touched his skin that was so deprived of her kisses and lips, he shuddered and groaned quietly behind her. She parted her lips, and just when he thought she might pull back and chicken out, she sank her teeth into his skin, sending stabs of pain through his body.
Soon the pain dulled, and she sucked, and as he felt the blood being pulled from his wrist into her mouth, he leaned to her neck and sank his teeth into it. She cried out even with his flesh in her mouth, and he pulled her blood into his mouth. She tasted incredible, still so much like herself, though she’d changed greatly over the last week. He pulled gently, trying hard not to be too vigorous. Her mouth was working on his wrist, but he was still a far stronger feeder than she was, and he didn’t want to get ahead of her.
They drank endlessly, and he listened to the new beat of her heart. It slowed as he knew it would and as his own was doing as well, and when they were both nearly drained, he used the last of his strength to lower their bodies to the bed, pulling her back to this front as he continued to drink and she continued to do the same. When the last of their blood was drained they effectively died, but only for so long as it took their bodies to process the blood they’d drank from one another, and soon, slowly, their bodies came back to life, and they slept in utter exhaustion. He held her in his arms, and she let him.
“When did we first meet?” She had every right to ask. She’d awoken before he had, and she sat up on her knees, watching him for many long minutes. He was beautiful, even in sleep. He was wearing the same dress pants he was in the night before, but at some point he’d taken off his shift. He was strong and pale, and when she held her own arm up to his as he slept, she saw they were the same color. She could see his stomach muscles, and his pecs were tight, and she wanted to touch him to see how hard his muscles would feel, but she didn’t. She just watched. His lips looked soft, and she wondered what it would be like to kiss him. Apparently, they’d done that and far more, and it was strange to look at his incredible beauty and know she’d experienced his body and had no recollection of it.
A man as beautiful as he could hardly desire her, but according to what she’d been told, he had. Enough so they’d spent the last summer together and a time before then as well. Ember thought back to the morning she’d woken up confused over a month ago. Was it him? She trilled with a sudden stab of desire. She resented the longing her body felt because she didn’t trust him, she didn’t know him, and he owned her for the remainder of eternity.
So the moment his eyes opened and he saw her, she started in on her questions. She was good at questions, and she had so damn many of them she wasn’t entirely sure where to begin, but their first meeting seemed as good a place as any.
“The basement of the man who kidnapped you. You were ten. I had tracked him from Boston. He’d been living there for two weeks, and I was watching him. I had only arrived in town and missed it when he yanked you from the street. But I caught up to him in the basement with you.”
“You’re the one who killed him?” He nodded his response as he lounged back on the bed with his hands under his head, and he watched Ember with an unreadable expression that made her nervous. So, you’re a pedophile then? I mean, you met me as a child, so…”
“No, I’m not in the least. I do, however, enjoy eating them. I wasn’t attracted to you as a child in any way whatsoever, and it wasn’t until you were twenty that we made love for the first time.” He used the word “made love” as though what they’d done was exactly that, and as she continued to watch him, a slight smirk passed his mouth before the unreadable expression returned.
“And did we see one another between the basement and when I was twenty?”
“Yes. You were seventeen, and you got in a bit of trouble with a boy named Todd at a party. I put Todd on a different course and took you home. You tried to kiss me.”
“So why didn’t you have sex with me then if you could have?”
“You were still a child, and I had no intention of doing that to you.”
“Yet you took my virginity when I was twenty…”
“You asked me to, and I obliged.”
“I see, so you didn’t really want to. You were just doing me a fav…”
“I wanted to very much, but I wasn’t about to overstep any boundaries with you.”
“I find it hard to believe I would ask a stranger to do such a thing to me. Just doesn’t seem like me.”
“No, you’re right. It isn’t at all you. But you have to remember that I’m a stranger to you now. I certainly wasn’t at that time. You remembered me very well because I was able to release your memories of me then.”
All Ember could do was watch him and study him. His words made no sense to her, but not because there wasn’t logic behind what he said, because it all seemed so damn impossible. Apparently reading her mind, he continued. “Perhaps we should go out and you could try to bury someone’s memory of you. You could get a sense of what it is.”
“Sure. I can look for a twenty-year-old guy to seduce, fuck him, and then bury his memories of me. Is that what you had in mind?” She was struggling to keep the anger from her voice. She wasn’t actually angry at him, she just didn’t understand how so much of her life could be missing, and the man lying in front of her was responsible.
“That wasn’t at all what I had in mind.” His eyes darkened and narrowed, and his jaw clenched. He rolled from the bed without another word and stalked away to the bathroom. Moments later, she heard the shower start. She followed him in and sat on the vanity, waiting. She was feeling obstinate as being turned into a vampire and learning you’re missing large chunks of your life always does—or so she could only assume. In truth, she wanted to see him. She wanted to know if the images in her head were real, and quite frankly, she just wanted to see him. When he stepped from the shower, he froze, and she met his gaze, holding it. But she let them drift down over his body, and as they stalled out over his groin, her breath left her in a rush, and she ran from the room.
He was exactly the man in her mind, every last detail of his length and his look captured by some unknown memory that felt so detached from her life. When he found her on the balcony, staring out at the dusk fading fast over the skyline, he spoke quietly. “Do you want to tell me what that was all about?”
She looked to his eyes. “I remember your body.”
“So, you do have memories of me?” His eyes looked almost hopeful, and she suddenly felt guilty.
“No… I mean yes, but not like… I have memories, but they’re not attached to anything. They’re just images, just flashes of moments with no context whatsoever.” She was near tears as she spoke, and his face had softened. “I don’t know if I liked you or loved you or hated you or was afraid of you…” Her tears were falling in her frustration, and he watched.