Devil's Gate (Elder Races #4.6)(26)

She nestled close with a sigh. “I love Verdi’s operas.”

“I’ll get us tickets,” he promised, resting his cheek against her temple.

They grew quiet, and after a while Duncan thought she fell asleep. He couldn’t. He was too full of the fabulous sensation of her curvaceous, warm body pressed against his side. He closed his eyes and drifted quietly, letting his imagination have free rein.

He wanted to do things with her. He wanted to talk over morning newspapers, hold hands in a movie theater, walk along the beach on a full moonlit night. He wanted her to call him and interrupt him while he was at work. He wanted to watch her enjoy a good meal.

He wanted to suckle her to climax, and spear into her soft body until he climaxed. He wanted to fall asleep in her arms.

He wanted to bite her so f**king bad.

He was so absorbed in the dark red of sensual anticipation, she shocked him utterly when she whispered against his neck, “I love you too.”

Gods.

He’d known emptiness in his life, and he knew how to be alone. He’d had taken lovers for a time and then they had parted, and he had watched his human friends and family die. He had never known anyone to fill him up so completely by saying four of the most beautiful words in any language.

I love you too.

No longer immersed in a dark red quiet, he discovered himself in a place of shining light.

Seremela’s sister, Camilla, flew in from Atlanta. She was waiting for them at the airport in Miami when they arrived that afternoon. Camilla and Vetta fell sobbing into each other’s arms, and after a moment Camilla turned to Seremela and roped her into the embrace. Hands in his pockets, Duncan stood back to give the women a little space. He grinned at the look Seremela gave him as she succumbed to Camilla’s clutching hug.

Then it was his turn. “Thank you,” Camilla said as she gripped both his hands. “Thank you so much. I—I feel like there’s more I should say, but I just don’t have the words.”

“We’ll meet properly some other time,” Duncan told Seremela’s sister. “In the meantime, you are most welcome. Enjoy having your daughter back safe and sound.”

Seremela told her sister, “Vetta will fill you in on everything. I’m too tired to talk.”

Camilla said, “I’ll call you tomorrow?”

“That’s fine.” Seremela staggered as Vetta threw her arms around her, hugging her fiercely. They stood for a moment in intense silence. Whatever they said to each other was telepathic, meant for each other alone, which Duncan thought was fitting.

After Camilla and Vetta left, a valet brought his car around while Seremela turned awkward and tried to explain how she could take a taxi home. Duncan listened patiently then said, “Don’t be silly. Of course I will see you home.”

She gave him a deer-in-the-headlights look. He was so amused and intrigued by it, he strode two steps forward until his chest brushed the tips of her delicious br**sts and he growled into her upturned face, “We have unfinished business.”

Her tremulous mouth formed two silent words. “We do?”

Falling in love was a beautiful feeling, as long as he fell with her. He grinned and bent his head until their lips touched. Then he said silently into her parted lips, “We do.”

The drive to her home was completed in fiery silence. She couldn’t sit still and fidgeted, and her snakes roamed restlessly around her.

He didn’t want her to sit still. He wanted her to fidget and flutter about, while he stalked his prey to capture her finally, finally—against a door, cabinet, couch, wherever the hell, it didn’t matter, any of the images his heated imagination supplied him were just fine, because he would capture her, it was just a matter of time. The red darkness took him over, and he held himself under savage control as he drove with immaculate care through the heavy Friday Miami traffic.

Fear and violence always touched a Vampyre’s life somehow. He had never realized how he had grown used to it, until he faced that goddamn pariah Djinn and grew shocked at Seremela facing danger and violence. She was too good, too fine; she loved opera and classic movies, and she lived in a civilized, lawful world, and she should never, ever have to face such violence again.

Dimly he realized he was allowing himself to react to what had happened, and by letting go, he was no longer in control.

The atmosphere in the car had grown excruciatingly charged by the time he drove into the underground garage at her apartment building. He pulled into a parking space. The quiet purr of the car engine faded. Seremela started to say something, her words stumbling and awkward.

Staring straight ahead, he interrupted her. “Invite me in.”

She took in a quick breath. It shook a little, and his c**k hardened at the small telltale sign. He turned to her and discovered her staring at him with that wide eyed, wondering look. Three of her snakes peered sideways from behind her head, staring at him too.

Laughter spilled out of him as the sight broke his tension. He reached out to one of the snakes. It touched the tip of his finger with a light flicker of its tongue. He repeated unsteadily, “Invite me in, Seremela. Please.”

“I would love for you to come in,” she whispered all in a rush.

With that, he lost all capacity for words or coherent thought. Somehow they got out of the car and into the elevator, where he backed her into a corner. He planted one hand on the wall on either side of her head and stared into her eyes as he breathed in the scent of her arousal. Her breathing grew choppy, and he watched the muscles in her slender throat move as she swallowed, the iridescent pattern that marked her skin shimmering in the overhead light.