His fingers trailed down the back of her arm, and she shivered. She pulsed with need, and he inhaled deeply, letting her hear his own arousal in his deep breaths. “Are you going to tell me what we did in here?” There was a slight smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.
“Oh yeah.” His words were warm and seductive, and the sound of his voice had her ready to beg for his touch, and a deep, guttural moan swam through her mind. It wasn’t her sound but his, and it was from some time in their past. The sound held every last ounce of his desire for her, and she understood, truly understood beyond just being told, just what she’d meant to him. Her breath faltered and left her gasping. He walked to the nightstand as she tried to calm herself, but as he opened the drawer and reached in, her heart pounded. He withdrew his hand and pulled with it a beautiful swirled glass cylinder that sent more wetness to pool between her legs.
She knew what it was, and while she couldn’t recall ever having experienced it, she didn’t need to remember to know she had. His slight smirk showed his arousal as much as the bulge in his pants, and as he returned to her side, he reached for her hand. He placed the phallic instrument in her palm and leaned to her ear again. His breath against her lobe alone was enough to send her body into spasms of want, but when the cool glass touched her hand and she felt the weight of it, she shuddered and groaned inwardly. “I watched you pleasure yourself with this.” He paused as she listened for what was to come next. “Then I tied you to the bed, blindfolded you, and fucked you with it until you orgasmed.” He reached to her arms and trailed up to her neck, caressing and tickling her skin. “I think you offered to sodomize me with it too.” And with these last words, he chuckled. She cocked her head at his puzzling words. “Just a little misunderstanding, that’s all… You’re intense in the bedroom, but you’re not that debaucherous … yet. Not that I wouldn’t let you do anything at all you wanted to my body…”
“I can’t imagine I’d ever let a man tie me up or blindfold me. Just doesn’t seem like me.”
“It’s not very you at all. But it was very much us. Try to remember you trusted me, and it was your choice.” And as he walked away to the door leading out to the deck, he commented over his shoulder. “It was also your choice to remain tied up when I fucked you.” She could see the smirk on the side of his face, and then he passed through the deck doors.
He sat on a chair and looked up to her as she exited, and as a small smile spread across his face, she smiled as well. She wanted him. She didn’t care if she couldn’t remember him; she wanted him desperately. She looked to the bay off in the distance. “I remember this view.” It was beautiful, and she took in the bay as the moonlight reflected off the glassy, smooth surface.
“I’m surprised. You were actually sitting on my lap facing me and riding my cock the vast majority of the time you were out here.” She gasped, and he chuckled. When he rose, it was to push her body up to the rail. She could feel his arousal pressed firm to her stomach. “I know you’re wet for me, sweetie, and I want you so fucking much I can barely stand it, but we have one more stop to go.”
She was aroused as his hand traced feathery circles across the skin of her thigh as her skirt rode up in the car. She was welcoming his touch, and it didn’t appear to frighten her at all. When they pulled up to the curb in front of Ember’s apartment, she just stared up at the building. Her emotions were evident on her face, though he didn’t have any idea what they were. This was her old life, and he didn’t expect it not to come with its fair share of memories and sadness.
He grabbed her bag from the backseat as well as his own, and they walked together into the building. He pulled the key from his pocket when they reached the door, and as it was pushed open, she inhaled deeply. She was taking in the scent of her old life, and it was emotional for him just to watch. He’d shared her life here over the past summer, and it held his own secret feelings and memories as well. Truman had sent someone to gather her mail, clean out the cupboards and refrigerator, and pay the next six months’ rent. He didn’t want her hurried to make decisions about this place and her belongings, and as they entered, he saw her mail had been stacked on the table.
“Come here.” He pulled her to the bedroom, and there on her bed was an envelope. A large, flat one. He’d asked Angus’ assistant Clint to look specifically for this envelope and leave it here, so it was no surprise to him to see it lying on her bed, propped on the pillows. Ember’s eyes, however, registered confusion and curiosity. When she approached and picked it up, she saw the postmark from her school, and she inhaled a quick breath. She sat and looked up to him. He smiled down at her in response, and she tore it open. Her diploma was enclosed. She teared as he watched her carefully, and he sat beside her. “Congratulations.” He murmured the word warmly against her temple, and she allowed her head to find the indentation below his clavicle. He wrapped an arm around her, and she was still and calm in his arms.
There was a contentment about her that he hadn’t seen since her death. “Do you think I’ll ever be able to work?” Her voice was hopeful, and when she pulled away from his body, she looked to him, nibbling at her lip. He could tell she was nervous about the answer, and he understood. He’d always worked, and an eternity without a passion of some sort could be a daunting prospect.
“Give it time. Many of our kind work, and I think they’ll loosen up with you after a while. I’ll do what I can to see to it as well.” He meant every word he spoke. He had every intention of fighting tooth and nail to see she was treated as any other of their kind. He wanted her to be happy, and he knew this was going to be part of her happiness.
“I should take a shower.”
He didn’t want to hear those words. “Not a chance. You smell too fucking good the way you are.” She’d softened and loosened up considerably on their trip, and he was relaxing for the first time in weeks at her new disposition. He wanted to make love to her, but then, he wanted to make love to her even when she was breaking his heart. He didn’t expect her to, and he wasn’t entirely sure it would even be wise, but he wanted it, and the scent of her arousal made it clear she did too. His conscience wanted to wait until she either remembered him, trusted him, or just plain fell in love with him all over again … but his cock just wanted to fuck the hell out of her. That was the trouble with settling wars between his head and his cock—they were seldom on the same page, and his cock was usually begging to slap his brain while his brain wanted to chain his testicles to the wall.
She looked at him as he took her diploma from her hands and set it on her dresser. He crawled onto the bed beside her and pulled her to face him. It would be dawn in a couple of hours, and there was still so much he wanted to tell her before they could sleep. “This is where we were the last time we were together.” He swallowed hard over the emotional lump in his throat, and his brow flinched at the memory. Her face softened, and she looked concerned. “We ran into a man outside of the college after the last night of class. He was the vampire who would eventually kill you and turn you.”
Her eyes widened. She knew the events of the night that she was bit, but she had no idea what led up to it, and while he was dreading filling in these utterly painful memories that were hard for him to stomach, he wanted her to know. “That night at school after class, he was relaying a message from Mason, telling me that I needed to report to Boston immediately. I took you home and left. I didn’t know what to expect, but I knew it couldn’t be good, but what I never expected to happen is the nightmare that did.” He was still swallowing hard over his words, and she was still eyeing him with her own concern.