Stefan (Lost Nights Series Book 1) (13 page)

Stefan wrapped his arms around me and deftly rolled me onto my back so that he was now hovering above me with his hands pressed into the mattress on either side of my head. My laughter died in my throat as I felt his hard length pressed against me. In an instant, I was wet. It didn’t matter than I’d been sated within an inch of my life only a few moments earlier. I was ready for him again and sure that if I didn’t have him, I wouldn’t survive.

“Humans have enemies, acquaintances, and friends,” he listed. Leaning down, his lips brushed against my ear. “Even friends with benefits, I believe.”

“Yes.” The hushed words slipped breathlessly past my parted lips as I arched my hips up to him. His thick length slid between the sensitive folds to press down on my clit, wringing a loud groan from me.

Stefan continued to move back and forth until I was mindlessly writhing beneath him, my body a taunt bundle of nerve endings screaming for release. Drawing back, Stefan remained poised at my entrance, teasing me so that I was ready to snap. “And what would you call me?”

“Lover,” I said without hesitation. There was no room in my mind for complicated thoughts or fears. I just wanted him.

His body slid easily into mine as if we’d been made for each other. There was no rush this time; no crazed, desperate run to the finish line only to be consumed by a fiery explosion. He moved slowly within me while my hands explored every part of his hard frame that I could reach. I learned the ripple of muscles across his stomach and curve of his pecs. My fingertips skimmed over his ribs and down over the ridges of his hips to the indention of his buttocks. His skin was like silk beneath my fingers.

He thrust deeper and we moaned together. French endearments tumbled like rain from his lips. He called me an angel sent to save his soul. A temptress. His lover.

The orgasm built steadily. Our pace quickened despite our attempts to proceed slowly. At the end, we clung to each other as we crested and broke free of the bound of the earth to soar among the heavens. For a heartbeat, we were free.

Chapter 9

“Mira is waiting,” Stefan announced, but he didn’t move. He was crushing me into the mattress and I wasn’t complaining. His weight was comforting and I really didn’t want to move. My entire body was relaxed and I had no desire for that feeling to end.

“Can you tell her you killed me? Because I just don’t want to move ever again,” I murmured into his chest.

“She’s already accused me of that,” the nightwalker mumbled as he sat up. “She pushed her way into my head as you were screaming, demanding to know why I was killing you.”

I quickly clapped my hand over my mouth to hold back the explosion of laughter that was building. While I couldn’t clearly see his face, Stefan didn’t sound pleased by the intrusion, particularly at such a moment. At least my amusement helped to shake off the last of my lethargy. Sitting up, I felt along his chest and shoulders until I finally located his face and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I’m sure she was just concerned about my well-being.”

“Not bloody likely. She wanted to remind me that my time was up.”

“It’s for the best. We’ve got work to do.” Reaching around the nightwalker, I located the small lamp on the nightstand beside the bed and flipped it on so that dim yellow light flooded the room. Stefan quickly dressed, while I dug through my own clothes rather than changing back into Mira’s. It was nice to be in my own clothes. Mira’s were lovely, but they were also expensive. I was constantly worried about ripping or staining them.

When we stepped into the living room, Mira and Danaus were sitting together on the sofa with expectant looks on their faces. I could feel my face turn beat red while Stefan just glared at Mira. I had no doubt that the neighbors could hear my screams, but I could live with that because I didn’t have to face them a minute later. Mira and Danaus had been in the next room when I lost my mind a second time. It was almost as bad as having your parents walk in.

“Packed?” Mira asked with a knowing smile.

“Uh…no. Sorry. I just need five minutes,” I said, quickly stepping away from Stefan and darting back into the bedroom. “God, I make a shitty pet,” I muttered under my breath as soon as I was back into the bedroom.

“Yes, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Mira commented close behind me.

I yelped in surprise. I hadn’t heard her move, let alone realized that she was behind me. “Sorry. Just need a minute.”

While I grabbed clothes strewn about the room in a willy-nilly fashion, Mira slowly poked around until she found one of my sketch books and starting flipping through its pages.

“You did these?” she asked, stopping me as headed for the bathroom to snag my toiletries. She turned the sketchbook to face me so that I could see the pictures I had done of the Rialto nearly a week ago.

“Yes, it’s what I do. I’m a freelance artist with a background in history.”

When she gave a little nod, I zipped into the bathroom and scooped up my body wash, shampoo, conditioner, and other random items. Coming back into the bedroom, Mira had finished with the sketchbook and was now watching me with a thoroughly puzzled look.

“Are you rich?” she asked as I dumped the armload of items into the bag.

I couldn’t have stopped the laughter if my life had depended on it. “No. I’m doing better than most who try their hand at making a living with art, but I’m not rich.”

“Do you come from a rich family?”

“Nope,” I said with a little grunt as I pressed all the items down so that I could close the zipper. It might have all fit if I’d taken the time to fold it, but I was already running late and I didn’t want to keep Mira waiting. Not the best way to make a good impression. “My dad worked in factories almost all his life and my mom was a receptionist for a small business. We scraped by. I worked my way through college.”

“I don’t understand.”

I stopped trying to shove items into my bag so I could close it and turned where I was kneeling on the floor so I could look at the nightwalker seated on the edge of the bed. She just looked uttered dumbfounded and her gaze was locked on me. “What is it?”

“How did you capture Stefan’s attention? You’re not a witch.”

“Nope.”

“Then what?”

I didn’t truly understand her line of questioning and how it related to my relationship with Stefan, but I had a guess about why the nightwalker was interested in me.

“Honestly?” I paused and gave her a little half smile. “I think it was because I made him laugh.” I shrugged as the memory of the first night ran through my head. “Or maybe it was because I laughed at him. I don’t know. Am I really that different from the other women you’ve seen him with?”

“There’s been no one for as long as I’ve known him and I’ve known him most of my existence. You’re... not what I’d expect him to be drawn to.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, trying to sound as if the question wasn’t important. I returned my gaze to the bag, but I was waiting anxiously to hear her thoughts. Despite our continued intimacy, there was a lot about Stefan that I didn’t know. If you considered that the nightwalker was over a thousand years old, the amount became nearly astronomical.

Mira was silent for so long that I finally looked over my shoulder to find her staring off into space with her lips pursed in thought. “Stefan is a snob,” she started slowly. “He believes in good breeding and believes in his superiority because of his birth. There is no one more important to Stefan than Stefan and he puts his happiness above all others. Of course, that’s most nightwalkers.”

I frowned and redirected my gaze to the bag tightly clenched in my hands. I didn’t agree with her, but I was troubled. That wasn’t the first time I’d heard that description.

“Many years ago, I read Oscar Wilde’s book,
The Picture of Dorian Gray
. When I was finished, my first thought was that Mr. Wilde had met Stefan and used him as inspiration.”

That was an unsettling thought. Would I prove to be the poor artist who idealized the lovely Dorian?

“I can’t really say why he’s interested in me. I probably just break up the monotony,” I said with a shrug. If that was true, I certainly hoped that he didn’t lose interest in me before we managed to get me clear of danger. I didn’t like the idea of not having Stefan around to fill my nights, but then he was a nightwalker and I was a human. It wasn’t like we had anything that resembled a future together. Hell, I was supposed to be in Venice for only a couple more weeks and then I was off to Istanbul.

“That’s not true,” Stefan snapped. My head popped up to find him standing in the open doorway, looking pissed. I just didn’t know if he was pissed at me or Mira.

“You know, I’m going start demanding that all nightwalkers wear bells. You guys are too freaking quiet,” I complained, finally crushing everything into the bag so that it zipped.

“But if I wore a bell, I’d miss out on so many of the interesting things that come out of your mouth,” Stefan said. The tall nightwalker reached over me and easily lifted my bag as if it weighed nothing. While the blood-drinking thing and the allergy to sunlight annoyance were minuses to vampirism, I was really starting to envy their strength. It was certainly come in handy.

Taking the sketchbook from Mira, I did one last glance around the bedroom to make sure that I wasn’t forgetting anything before I followed them into the living room. Danaus was in the kitchen, poking around in the mostly empty refrigerator. He pulled out two bottles of water and handed one to me while he took up position in front of the windows looking out on the city.

Stefan dropped my bag on the floor and slumped elegantly on the sofa. I stared at him for a moment as I sipped the water, only now realizing how parched I had become, but I had a feeling that my recent blood donation might have something to do with that. My mind replayed what Mira had said and there was an arrogance about Stefan. I had never really seen it directed toward me, but at the rest of the world. His every movement was so damn perfect, as if he were dancing.

“How old is Carla?” I asked suddenly.

Stefan arched an eyebrow at me, silently questioning the unexpected query. “Not old.”

I huffed at him and put the half-empty water bottle on the table. “I have a feeling you and I have a different definition of what ‘not old’ is. Could you be more specific?”

“A little over a century,” Stefan clarified.

I put my hands on my hips and stared down at Stefan. “And that’s not old to you?”

“A fledgling,” Mira said, as she sat on the opposite end of the sofa from Stefan.

“A baby,” Stefan explained.

“And Knox? Is he old?”

“No,” Stefan said firmly but didn’t elaborate.

“Knox is a little over two hundred. Why do you ask?”

“I just noticed that some of you move differently. Carla just seems faster, like I’m missing frames in a movie. Knox is sort of like that sometimes, but smoother.” I paused and frowned at Mira and Stefan. “And then you two move… like you’re not moving. You’re floating across a ripple-less lake or gliding on ice. There are times when you don’t, but I get the impression that it’s more intentional, like you’re trying to move like me.”

“Nightwalker can move with blinding speed from early on, but the older we are, the better our minds are able to process it,” Stefan explained. “It’s why our motions smooth out with age.”

“It’s a little frightening, but definitely beautiful.”

“Just remember that they can rip your throat out before you’ve even realized that they’ve moved,” Danaus added in a low voice as he turned from the window to look at me.

To my surprise, neither nightwalker looked perturbed by his dark reminder. In fact, they actually looked pleased by the thought. If my own limited experiences were to be trusted, nightwalkers were violent creatures at heart. Maybe it was a fair assessment.

“So, who do you think killed the woman?” I asked, waving to the blood stain on the floor I had been diligently ignoring since I came in the room.

“We’re not sure,” Stefan said, his expression instantly turning grim. “While I’ve never questioned that I have enemies, it has been a very long time since any have made their presence known to me. I can’t begin to guess as to who is behind this.”

“Danaus?” Mira asked, looking over at the hunter.

“We were followed today,” he announced, causing my mouth to fall open shock. That that explained why he took such a long route to my apartment. “I didn’t catch a clear look at who it was. At least two, but they were smart enough to keep a good distance from us. She’s being watched.”

“But if we were followed during the day that would mean that they were humans, right?” I interjected as I tried to keep score of the humans and the magical creatures.

Stefan nodded. “Possibly pets of someone to keep an eye on you. Their job is likely to report back whether Mira had seriously taken an interest in you.”

“Do you think that they would have attacked me if Danaus hadn’t been there?”

Mira gave a little shrug. “I don’t know. We haven’t been able to determine the culprit’s true intent yet. They could have intended to see you killed to hurt Stefan, or they could have been trying to put him in a vulnerable position.”

“But they’ve failed. You saved me,” I said, sliding my hands into the back pockets of my jeans to settle my nervous fingers. As it was, I was straining to keep from pacing.

“Temporarily,” Danaus sharply reminded me. “We still have to prove that you didn’t kill the human. The culprit could be watching the investigation in hopes of finding an opportunity to place the blame squarely on your shoulders.”

Stefan bonelessly rose and closed the distance between us. He placed both his hands on my shoulders and narrowed his eyes on me. I got the impression he was trying once again to read my mind but in the end he just shook his head and frowned. “I want you to go through every motion and thought from right before the police appeared at your door.”

I pointed to the sofa where Stefan had been sitting. “It wasn’t late, just a bit after eight, and I was reading.” Twisting around, I scooped up the paperback romance novel from the coffee table and flashed it at him. “Someone knocked on the door. I thought it was strange because I wasn’t expecting anyone.”

“Not even Stefan?” Mira asked, sliding to the edge of her seat.

“No, he said that there were delegates or something like that in town,” I said with a shake of my head.

“Your underlings from Budapest,” Stefan interjected, glaring at Mira. “I thought it was important that I was present.”

I quickly continued, not wanting Stefan and Mira to fall into an argument. What had happened to me was not Mira’s fault. There was no point in arguing over whether or not Stefan truly needed to be away from me that horrible night. It was done. “Stefan warned me that it was unlikely that he’d be by for a couple nights. Besides, he doesn’t knock. He finds it more amusing to scare the shit out of me by just appearing from out of nowhere.” I smiled up at Stefan, but he didn’t return it, his expression grim as he focused on my story.

“I put the book I was reading on the table and got up.” I led the way over to the front door with Stefan close on my heels. “I didn’t hear any voices or movement. My first thought was that it was one of my neighbors needing something. It’s never happened here, but I’ve had plenty of neighbors stop by for random things at strange hours back in the States. I unlocked the door and opened it.” My words mirrored my motions and then I simply stopped.