Blood Knot Page 4

  Her heart was pounding, hard enough to echo in her temple. Under her tee-shirt, her breasts were aching for his touch, but Winter struggled to admit that.

  “Sebastian was human once and now you’ve made him a man again. He has his weaknesses, just as we all do,” Nathanial told her. His lips hovered over her pounding temple. “I’m one of those weaknesses. He has seen me only as a negative in his life for years now. That is the picture he painted for you.” His lips slipped down to her mouth, brushing over her skin in barely-there caresses, to hover over her lips in an achingly-close not-quite-kiss. All Winter had to do was lift her chin the tiniest fraction of an inch and she could take the kiss for herself. She found she was holding her breath. Waiting. Hoping.

  “You want me,” Nathanial said. It wasn’t a question.

  But Winter found herself answering anyway and replying with the truth. Her “Yes,” emerged breathless from her lips to his.

  His lips pressed against hers with the softest of touches. It was barely a kiss, and Winter strained for more intimate contact. He lifted his lips from her, just far enough to look into her eyes once more. “You wanted Sebastian, all the time you were together. Instead you watched him bed all those men and women and let jealousy be your bed partner. You hungered for him, didn’t you, Winter? Wanted him as you have wanted no man in your life before.” His tongue stroked her upper lip. “Tell me.”

  “Yes,” she breathed, her body trembling at his touch.

  He kissed her, his tongue thrusting into her mouth, making her moan. Then he stepped away from her, his hands falling to his sides.

  “Thank you,” he said. “Is that enough of a demonstration, Winter?”

  For a blank moment Winter’s mind tottered. Then fury swept through her. “You were conning me?”

  “You agreed to the demonstration,” he reminded her. “You were warned about what I was doing. That is more than the average mark is told. And yet I still got the information I wanted.” He shrugged. It was a small, elegant lift of his shoulders and seemed almost apologetic. “I did warn you,” he repeated.

  She closed her eyes, humiliation and cold sense at war inside her. This was what her marks felt like if ever they found out they’d been had.

  “If it is of any comfort, Winter, I always hew close to the truth. There are consequences for both sides when I play a mark.”

  She opened her eyes to look at him. Nathanial glanced down at the front of his trousers, drawing her gaze to the swollen erect mass there.

  Winter could feel her cheeks burning, even though she was hardly a blushing virgin type.

  “One of my weaknesses is redheads,” Nathanial added. “Especially stubborn, intelligent, independent, feisty redheads.”

  Her whole body seemed to tighten and pulse. Winter covered up her reaction by turning away and heading for the sink for a glass of water. But her hand was trembling, so she changed her mind and leaned against the counter, her arms crossed. It left five feet of space between them. Good.

  Nathanial stayed by the windows. “Tell me why you didn’t look inside Sebastian until you had to save his life.”

  Winter could feel her mouth opening as her jaw dropped. She stared at him, trying to gather her thoughts. “Because I just wouldn’t. That wouldn’t be…” She had never had to explain this to anyone before and couldn’t find the words. “Proper,” she finished inadequately.

  “It would be unprofessional,” Nathanial added.

  “Yes,” she agreed. “That, too.”

  Nathanial smiled a little. “You must have given Sebastian merry hell these last two years, Winter. You’re like me in many ways.”

  Winter could feel her mouth turn down. “I’m nothing like you. We have nothing in common.”

  “We have Sebastian in common,” he said coolly.

  “We don’t have him,” she spat. “You had him and you lost him. I never had him the way you did. He was just a business partner. And now he’s not even that.”

  “He’s something more than that now, Winter.” He moved toward her. “Why do you need his blood every month or so? Why are you not working together anymore? What happened after Singapore?”

  She pushed her hand through her hair with a frustrated sigh. “I suppose, if I don’t answer you in full, you’ll have it out of me one way or another, right?”

  Nathanial smiled. It was a full, cheerful grin. “You’re starting to learn.” He cocked his head. “Although if you want to be stubborn, I’m more than happy to…coax the information out of you.” He swayed towards her, his blue eyes full of sudden heat that had little to do with the teasing tone of his voice.

  Winter slid along the edge of the counter, out of his way, even as her heart thudded at his nearness. “I’ll cooperate,” she assured him.

  Nathanial straightened up. “Ah well,” he sighed. “Tell me about Singapore, then. What happened after?”

  Winter sighed. “Who was the idiot that said ‘The truth shall set you free’? I’d like to kill the bastard if he isn’t already dead. All the truth did for Sebastian and me was slaughter everything we had. Two of the best years of my life. Gone. Just like that. Because the truth came out.”

  Chapter Four

  New York City, New York. About nine months ago.

  THE FIRST SHE knew that anything was wrong was when she gradually became aware of Sebastian calling her name. And a hand patting her cheek.

  The tapping was annoying and she tried to turn her face away from it. When she didn’t have the strength to do that much, she roused enough to wonder why and realized that things were not right. Something was happening.

  She began to pick up external cues. Distant traffic. She must be in her apartment in New York, then. It was early summer and warm in the apartment. But she was covered in a blanket.

  And shivering. She was cold. Colder than January.

  “Winter! Open your eyes!” It was Sebastian again and he sounded worried. Again, the tap on the cheek. His hand. She would know his scent anywhere—

  She snapped her eyes open. How could she know his aroma so well? And from just his hand?

  Sebastian was leaning over her, the thick locks of his hair falling forward as always. Relief actually showed on his face. Hovering over his shoulder stood Jackson, her doorman.

  Jackson smiled. “That’s the ticket. I’ll call an ambulance.”

  “No!” Sebastian shot back. “I’ll take care of her. I know how to treat her.”

  Jackson’s smile faded. “You’re sure, Mr. Worthington?”

  “You called me first, didn’t you, Jackson? You know I know Winter well. I can take care of this.” He pulled a billfold from his inner pocket and unclipped a couple of notes. “She’ll get eaten up in the system.”

  Jackson waved away the money. “I get paid well, Mr. Worthington.”

  Sebastian took Jackson’s wrist and laid the notes on his palm. “This is a thank you for calling me in the first place. Your instincts were right, Jackson. You did well.”

  Jackson nodded. “I like Ms. Winter,” he said simply.

  “I’ll makes sure she stays one of your favorite tenants, then.”

  Jackson touched his forehead and left the apartment.

  Sebastian turned back to Winter. She was lying on the floor, she realized. Next to the fireplace, right out in the middle of the room. She couldn’t put together what she had been doing to end up here. What day was it? What time? How long had she been lying here? Fright touched her.

  “What am I doing here, Sebastian?” she asked. Even her voice was pathetically weak.

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “But we have to presume it is something to do with Singapore, as that was just under four weeks ago.” He picked her up. “I’ll put you on your bed. It’ll be more comfortable than the floor. Then, if you can manage it, you need to analyze yourself.”

  She tried to put her arms around his neck, but was too weak even for that. Sebastian was warm against her cold body and she sighed in contentment as he carri
ed her through to her bedroom. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “Don’t thank me,” he said roughly. “I’m the one that put you in this position, remember?” He lowered her to the bed, bending to place her gently on the covers. “Damn, you’re colder than an ice cube, Winter.”

  He was bowed over her, lifting his hands away from her. It was summer, so he wore his usual jeans and a collarless dress shirt in a cotton fabric so soft and old it begged to be touched. The sleeves were rolled up. The shirt exposed his neck to her and Winter could focus on nothing but the tender flesh running from his ear to his shoulder. She could trace the path his carotid would take. It seemed she could even hear his heart beat in her mind.

  She reached for his arm, her strength suddenly enough for that. It was only a few inches, after all.

  He froze, his chin turning so that his green eyed gaze could take her in.

  Her heart was running far too hard. Dangerously fast. Winter cupped Sebastian’s face, and smoothed her fingers into his hair. In the profound silence that gripped the bedroom, she heard his tiny gasp.

  She found a strength she didn’t know she possessed to bring herself up off the pillows he’d laid her upon. She brought her mouth closer to his hot flesh. She craved to taste it. To…

  “Winter,” he breathed, holding himself motionless.

  She laid her lips against him.

  He shuddered.

  Driven by something she didn’t understand, something too powerful to argue with, she opened her mouth and sank her teeth into his neck.

  “Bloody hell!” Sebastian gasped. He wrenched her away from him and staggered back, exploring his neck with his fingertips, then checking his fingers for blood. He stared at her. “Winter!” He said her name as if he were appalled.

  But she was too busy trying to deal with sudden and overwhelming hunger pangs. Pangs that were more like cramps. They were making her writhe on the bed in agony.

  Sebastian moved closer, watching her. “Jesus wept…” he said after a moment. “I don’t believe it.” He climbed onto the bed next to her. “Let me see your teeth, Winter.”

  “What?” she gasped, holding her stomach.

  “I need to know if you can pierce my skin or if I have to do that for you.”

  She tried to curl into a ball as the cramps hit her again, moaning.

  Sebastian cursed softly. She felt his fingers on her mouth, and one slide gently under her upper lip. “Nothing,” he said. “You’re quite human. But you need to feed. And I don’t have canines any more either.”

  The mattress shifted and light glared as he entered her bathroom. Then he was back. She heard him give a soft hiss of pain. “Quickly, Winter. Here.”

  His fingers touched her lips. This time they smelled differently. She turned her head, alerted by the aroma. The rich promise.

  “Drink,” he crooned as drops fell onto her tongue.

  Winter swallowed and felt the spread of warmth and energy from the few little drops. Eagerly, she sought more, and more flowed into her mouth. Thick and sweet as honey. She swallowed.

  Warmth seemed to spread through her body as the liquid made its way down to her stomach.

  “That’s it,” Sebastian told her, his tone approving. A hand slid under her head, supporting her. “Now, can you put your lips on my wrist?”

  The first faint alarm filtered through her haze of enjoyment. But the strength she was drawing from the liquid overrode her intellectual objections. In the back of her mind she put together the truth. Sebastian’s wrist. His hiss of pain. Canines. Teeth. Fangs.

  Blood. She was drinking blood. Sebastian’s blood. Hot blood.

  It tasted nothing like blood. It tasted ambrosial. The finest wines had nothing on this. The heat and energy it was generating in her was like the strongest energy drink in the world. Industrial strength power straight into her veins. She could feel her body responding and could measure its restoration for herself.

  She gripped his wrist and pressed her lips against the wound she knew she would find there. With the slightest of hesitations, knowing full well what she was doing, she made herself draw blood into her mouth.

  The flood of hot liquid was like a mouthful of the most delicious mulled wine, made with a gourmet bouquet of herbs and spices. She moaned, forgetting what it was she was drinking. She sucked, drawing more and more into her mouth, feeding greedily.

  “I said enough, Winter!” Sebastian tore his wrist away from her mouth. His tone implied it wasn’t the first time he had spoken.

  Appalled, Winter let go of Sebastian’s wrist and rolled away, curling into a tight ball and hiding her face.

  She felt the bed move then heard the sound of running water in the bathroom. Then, even worse, the sound of tape being torn off a roll. Sebastian was staunching the wound on his wrist.

  The his hands tugged at her shoulders. “Look at me,” he said.

  Because his tone was gentle enough, Winter let her arm drop so that she could peer at him with one eye.

  Sebastian eased himself onto the other side of the bed so that his face was level with hers. “You’re not embarrassed, are you?”

  “More like sickened.”

  “Honestly, Winter? That’s how you really feel?” He brushed her hair off her face as if he were trying to see it properly to judge for himself. The white gauze on his wrist was very white in the low light filtering through the curtains. It had to be late afternoon for the light to be so dim.

  “Or is the sick feeling something you think you should feel so your intellect is trying to make you feel that way?” Sebastian ask her.

  Winter considered that for a moment.

  “You’re no longer ill,” Sebastian pointed out. “You look…well, marvelous,” he admitted. “Glowing. Just like one of us after we’ve fed.”

  She jumped a little and he rested his hand on her shoulder. “It’s alright,” he told her. “I don’t think this means you’re becoming a vampire, Winter. If you were it would have happened already.”

  Winter let out a shaky breath and closed her eyes. The fear she hadn’t been aware of holding evaporated. “Mother Mary above!”

  Sebastian laughed, a soft low sound. “Now you feel better, hmmm?”

  “Yes!” She opened her eyes again. “You’re right. I just thought I should feel wrong about it. And it is disgusting. But so is sex, if you just look at the basic mechanics.” She picked up his wrist, the one with the gauze and tape, and stroked the flesh just outside the tape. “It’s the everything else about sex that makes it so great.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Can’t you tell?”

  “My wrist is tingling.”

  “Mmm…” She picked at the edges of the tape, then ripped it away. The wound underneath was a fine pink line, healed over.

  She stroked it with her fingertip, healing it further, until the line blended in with the rest of his flesh, leaving no sign of the wound at all.

  Sebastian turned his wrist to different angles, examining it. “I used to be able to heal myself faster than that,” he said clinically, although Winter could tell that he was pleased.

  “I could have done it faster,” she admitted. “But it would have hurt rather than just tingled. And I wanted to show off.”

  “Why hurt?”

  “You’re human now, Sebastian. What I did was speed up your metabolism in that one little area so the wound healed naturally dozens of times faster than the rest of your body aged. The tingling was the area where the metabolism differences met. The bigger the differences, the more discomfort you feel. When you healed yourself as a vampire, I suspect there were supernatural powers involved, so there was no discomfort at all.”

  “No discomfort, no.” He lifted her chin. “And why show off?”

  She tried to smile. “You’re the only person on this planet that knows what I can do.”

  He blinked. “No one else knows?”

  She shook her head.

  He sat up. “Well, that explains
it a little bit.”

  “Explains what?”

  “Nothing. Well, something for later, anyway. You need rest.”

  But she didn’t need rest at all. She stretched out on the bed. She felt marvelous. Glowing, like Sebastian said. And sexy. Heated. Feral, almost. She rested her hand on Sebastian’s back. “You’re not going to rush off, are you?” she asked.

  He grew still. Just his head turned to look at her. Through her touch, she could feel the spike and leap of his heart. The flood of adrenaline. Excitement, she guessed. Hope, perhaps. But his face was like marble. “Lonely, Winter? Run out of blind dates and studs? You?”

  The need to have him inside her, to be consumed by sex, was beating at her, a tattoo in her brain, threatening to steal her concentration. Through her hand on his back, she pushed some of it into Sebastian, just to give herself a chance to think.

  He gasped and shuddered. “Winter…” And she watched his pupils dilate. He turned to her in a movement almost too quick to follow, reminding her that not so long ago he had been a vampire. His lips and his body pressed against hers and Winter sighed. He was as perfect as she had always imagined. Hot and hard and eager.

  His hand slid under her hip and held her against him, so that she could feel his pelvis and his hard, erect cock pushing against her abdomen.

  Sebastian thrust his tongue into her mouth with a hungry moan. He rimmed her lips before thrusting again, a mini-promise of what was to come.

  The pulsing need was threatening to drown her again, so Winter pushed more of it into Sebastian. She wanted to be aware of every moment of this.

  He groaned, arching against her. His pelvis ground into her with good, hard pressure as he reacted to the need she was feeding into him.

  His fingers scrabbled at the buttons on her shirt. Then he simply ripped it open. She heard the little disks land softly on the hardwood floor across the room. Sebastian cupped her breasts in their lace bra with trembling hands. “I want this too much,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I have no finesse left to spare this time.”