Undying (7 page)

He kissed her cheek, her chin, her pale throat.

He did not allow himself to think of the sweet blood pulsing there. Could not. This was the reason HFs were so dangerous. Even a man with his willpower had a difficult time not sampling blood when it was offered so willingly.

He moved his mouth over the hollow of her throat, lower. Her small breasts pressed against his face. He pushed up the hem of her T-shirt and kissed his way up from the flat of her belly to a peaked nipple. He massaged her other breast with his hand. She had small breasts, but big, dark areolas that strained against the thin fabric of her T-shirt. She was perfection.

Maggie threaded her fingers through Arlan’s hair and moaned softly. He sucked one nipple, then the other, dampening the cotton. She grabbed the hem of her shirt and wiggled upward, the fabric skimming over her belly, her breasts, her head.

Lamplight fell from the bedside tables, bathing her in a soft glow. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered.

“You don’t have to say that.” She yanked his shirt over his head and tossed it.

“But you are.”

She did not meet his gaze. Instead, reached down to grab the waistband of his jeans. She tugged on the button, popping it open on the first try.

“Hey, hey, slow down,” he murmured, gently taking her hand away from his throbbing groin. “You have somewhere you need to be?”

“Life’s short,” she reasoned.

He kissed her again, chuckling. “Not for everyone.”

“You talk too much.”

He smiled down at her and kissed her. He’d met plenty of women like Maggie before. Hell, he was just like her. Quick sex. Eyes closed. No talking. Get your rocks off and go.

But Arlan kept his eyes open, gazing down at her incredible face as he stroked her rib cage and the taut muscles running the length of her belly.

Maggie wiggled out of her jeans and lay completely naked beside him, except for the tiny scrap of black lace she wore as panties. Arlan drew his fingertips lightly over her waist, her hips, down her thigh. She shifted her body and rolled onto her side, facing him. As he caressed her slender but muscular body, he gazed down at her, studying the pale fringe of lashes that framed her brown eyes and the tiny freckles on the tip of her nose.

She stroked his biceps, his pecs. Her touch was well-practiced. Exquisite, actually, as she thumbed his nipple, sending a hard tremor of pleasure through him, and he tried to think about something other than her naked body pressed against his. She was so adept with her attention to him that he was concerned that while he was telling her not to rush, his body would rush to the finish line.

He thought about the broken leg of his kitchen table he needed to repair.

And her perfect, hard nipples.

And the milk that had probably soured in his refrigerator while he was in Greece.

And the patch of golden hair he knew was just beneath the black fabric of her panties…

He rolled her onto her back and lowered his body over hers. He kissed her breasts, the flat of her belly, then just above the waistband of her panties. Then he tugged on the stretch fabric with his index finger.

She sucked in a breath, sliding her fingers into his hair.

Arlan took his time with his kisses. Maggie moaned, lifting her hips, writhing beneath him. She seemed so sweet, so lost, that he wanted to draw out her pleasure as long as he possibly could.

The minutes that ticked endlessly by in his life came to a standstill for a short time. Twice she called out, her body arching in ultimate satisfaction before he slipped out of his jeans. She kept her eyes closed, he kept his open as he pushed inside her.

He moved slowly at first, watching her face. Studying the pout of her mouth, the gentle flair of her nostrils, her small hands clenching his shoulders.

She wrapped her legs around him and lifted her hips to meet his. Arlan tried to hold back, but he couldn’t. It seemed as if all his emotion had suddenly built up in his chest to the point where he could no longer breathe. The only way to catch his breath was to push inside her, again and again.

As Arlan had feared, it was over all too quickly. But the way he was feeling right now, even if he had been able to last all night, it would have ended too soon. Every muscle in Maggie’s body tightened and she sank her nails into his back as she arched against him in another orgasm.

He managed only two more strokes before he surrendered.

Afterward, she said nothing, just curled herself against him, her back pressed to his chest, and he drew his hand over her narrow waist. She fell asleep almost immediately, wrapped in his arms, but Arlan lay awake for a long time. And for once, it wasn’t because he couldn’t sleep, but because he didn’t want to.

S
lightly disoriented, Arlan woke at dawn to the rattle of the air-conditioning unit. A woman’s bare bottom pressed firmly against the flat of his stomach. Maggie. Maggie the Mysterious. Maggie, Fia’s informant. Possibly Maggie the killer.

The first rays of sunup filtered through the thin drapes and he studied her bare shoulder peeking from beneath the sheet they’d pulled over them sometime in the middle of the night, after they’d had sex a second time.

His gaze shifted to her long, slender neck. The back of her head. Her tousled blond hair. Back to her neck again. She had certainly satisfied him sexually, but there was still an inkling of need deep inside him.

He gazed down at her.
It would be so easy to sample her blood.

It had been a long time since he’d tasted a human, really
tasted
one as he longed to. Like most Kahills, he kept up his nutritional needs by using deer on the game preserve outside their town. They were well cared for and the animals provided enough blood for all who needed it, without having to sacrifice their lives. When he traveled for long periods of time, bloodletting became a little trickier, but because he only needed blood once or twice a month, it was a minor inconvenience.

Drinking human blood, as they had done in the old days, was now forbidden by the sept. They were
beyond
such primitive behavior. Or so they liked to think.

Back in the beginning, when the family had been cursed for fighting against St. Patrick, for refusing to give up their pagan worship, they had been turned into vampires by God. After that, they had scourged the hills and valleys of their homeland and taken blood, uninvited and indiscriminately, no matter the cost to life, human or otherwise. They had told themselves they did it to survive. Some had killed, others had recklessly made humans into vampires. They had hated themselves for what they had become. Animalistic was too tame a word to describe their behavior.

But that was all behind the Kahills now. In the seventeenth century, they had fled Ireland and the unrelenting vampire slayers to find refuge in the New World. Shipwrecked in a storm, the surviving members of the sept washed up on the shore of the Delaware Bay. Spared, they believed they had been given a second chance. In a plea for redemption, members dedicated themselves to the one true God and vowed to rid the human race of its foulest members. They would hunt down serial killers and pedophiles the human race could not capture and convict, and execute them. And with the elimination of each criminal, they prayed that they were a step closer to falling into God’s favor once again. With the eradication of each deadly criminal, they prayed that they became a little more human. Each man and woman in the sept hoped he or she was a little closer to mortality and an end to the everlasting, damned life they suffered.

Arlan looked at the sleeping woman in his arms again. Despite his true belief that his life’s work
did
put him on the road to redemption, a part of him still craved human blood. That primal part of him did not seem to change with the passage of time. He still dreamed of human blood. Studying her in the pale morning light, he still tasted it.

There were ways to drink one’s fill and truly satiate. Ways to kill without turning a human into a vampire. She said herself she had no family, no lover. He doubted anyone would ever look for her. Ever know she was gone from this earth. If she did have something to do with the Buried Alive Killer, this would be a simple way to end her involvement. It would certainly save the taxpayers a heap of money.

Arlan lowered his mouth to her neck and pressed his lips to her warm skin. He licked her with the slow, deliberate stroke of a lover. As he did, the crucifix he always wore around his neck fell on her bare shoulder. She sighed in her sleep.
A part of her wanted it, too…

No.
He pulled away from her, carefully untangling himself from her and the bed sheets without waking her.

Disgusted with himself, with his sick, dark, evil thoughts, Arlan grabbed his jeans and T-shirt and quickly dressed. As he sat on the edge of a chair slipping on his shoes, he looked up at her. She lay asleep, curled on her side, utterly unaware of who she’d picked up on that beach last night.

Leather jacket thrown over his shoulder, Arlan stopped in the open doorway to glance at her one last time. He felt guilty for leaving her without saying good-bye, but right now, he didn’t trust himself. He needed to get home. Home where he would be surrounded by people like him. People who understood his base desires. There, he would be safe.

And so would Maggie.

Macy opened her eyes and blinked against the bright light that poured through the cracks between the parted hotel drapes. She could still smell Arlan on her skin. Taste him on her tongue. She could still feel him inside her.

But she was alone.

Of course she was. It was better this way, really.

The clock beside the bed said ten after ten.

She stared at the water-stained ceiling tiles, realizing he’d probably been gone for hours. Good for him. He was one of the brighter ones. He understood his purpose, understood when he’d worn out his welcome. Macy hated it when she had to push men out the door.

She got up and walked naked to the bathroom. As she passed the sink on her way to the john, she saw that there was coffee in the coffee maker. She touched her hand to the glass carafe. It was still warm. He had made her coffee? Then she saw the pack of powdered sugar donuts—they looked like they’d come from the vending machine in the hotel lobby.

He left her coffee and donuts? The thought made her smile.

Then, just as she turned to step into the bathroom, she saw a plastic cup. Filled with water, it held a single scraggly daisy.

Flowers, too. Who was this nutcase?

Macy lifted the flower from the cup of water and touched it to her cheek, wishing she still knew how to cry.

“Mary Kay.” Arlan walked into the airy dining room and kissed the top of Fia’s mother’s graying head.

“Arlan, thank Sweet Mother Mary you’re here. You’re a savior.” She beamed up at him. “Let me get you something to eat. You must be starved.”

“Don’t get up,” he said as she started to rise from her chair. “Sit right where you are.” He touched her shoulder lightly, easing her back into her chair. “Eat your lunch. I’ll get something myself.”

“Fia’s in the kitchen,” she called after him. “But I’m so glad you’re here. I told Fia you needed to come home. I knew you would know what to do.”

“No word from Regan?”

She shook her head, reaching for her glass of homemade iced tea with a sprig of mint in it. “Chicken salad in the ice box. Made with grapes and walnuts, just the way you like it.”

“Bless you. I’ll be right back. You relax.” He pushed through the swinging door that led from the bed and breakfast’s dining room to the gourmet kitchen.

Fia’s parents, Mary Kay and Tom, had been running some form or another of a hotel ever since they arrived in the New World hundreds of years ago. First it was just a coach stop, but later, an inn, then a boarding house and finally, in the seventies they remade themselves once again. With bed and breakfasts so popular with vacationing Americans, the couple made a healthy living in the seaside town of Clare Point as modern day innkeepers. Each day, Mary Kay baked and cooked and cleaned and played hostess, and Thomas sat on the back porch, smoking one cigarette after another, waiting until it was time to walk up to the pub for his daily dose of stout.

Arlan found Fia standing at the kitchen’s center island, scooping chicken salad onto a bed of lettuce on a plate. “Hey,” she called as he walked in. She didn’t look up. She didn’t have to. She knew it was him.

“Hey,” he called.

“Chicken salad?”

“You makin’? Sure.” He watched her take another plate from the cupboard. “Your mom said you haven’t heard from Regan. Fin heard from him?”

Fin was the oldest of her siblings, after her. Besides Fin and Regan, there were actually three more boys, currently teens, who she also considered her brothers. The younger boys had been left orphans after the massacre in Ireland and Mary Kay had taken them in as her own children.

“I haven’t talked to Fin. He’s on assignment, but I left him a message on his voice mail.”

Arlan watched her tear lettuce from a head of Romaine and arrange it on the second plate. “Hey, I want a croissant.”

She scooped chicken salad onto the lettuce. “Too bad. Too many carbs.” She offered him the plate.

He looked down at the small serving of chicken salad on the lettuce. “But Mary Kay always makes me chicken salad on a croissant,” he protested.

“Suck it up.” She walked past him, smacking him in the stomach with the palm of her hand as she went by. “Literally. You’re getting soft, my friend.”

He pressed his free hand to his abdomen. He worked out regularly. He had great abs. What was she talking about? “I am
not
getting soft. Try me again. I wasn’t ready.” He thrust out his chest, sucking in his stomach.

She returned the gigantic aluminum bowl of chicken salad to the restaurant-sized refrigerator. “You sure Regan didn’t say anything about going somewhere after Athens?”

“Hey, we’re not done with the jelly belly discussion yet.”

“We’re done.” Skirting him, she sidled up to a drawer and pulled out two forks. “Ma’s already got iced tea in the dining room.”

He followed her through the swinging door. “He didn’t say anything about going somewhere else.” Upon his arrival in Athens, Arlan had met with Regan and the others briefly; that was the last time he had seen her brother.

When Arlan spoke, he left out the name of the city where they had convened. Fia knew where the men had been because she was presently a member of the High Council, but Mary Kay wasn’t privy to that information. Thirteen sept members served the High Council at a time. To protect the town, certain facts regarding the criminals they stalked remained confidential. Mary Kay rarely knew where the sept sent her sons. The individual investigations were secret, as were the executions.

Arlan took a seat at the massive antique oak dining table with seating for twelve, across from Mary Kay and beside Fia.

“I’m sure Regan’s fine, Mary Kay.” Arlan took a bite of the chicken salad. It was good, but would have been better on one of her buttery homemade croissants. “You know Regan.” He kept his tone light. “He’s never where he’s supposed to be when he’s supposed to be there.”

Fia’s mother refused to be comforted. “When he called, he said he was in deep trouble. We got disconnected before he could say anything else.” She poured two more glasses of iced tea from a pink carnival glass pitcher. “I thought for sure he would have called back by now,” she worried.

The front door opened and a balding, forty-something man in plaid shorts walked through the foyer and into the dining room. He was carrying a teary-eyed toddler in his arms. A human guest staying at the B and B.

“Gosh, you have company. I’m sorry, Mary Kay. I was wondering if you could help us out.” He jostled the child. “Seems Todd got stung by a bee. I was wondering if you had some tweezers or something to get the stinger?”

Mary Kay was already out of her chair, wiping her mouth with a pressed yellow cotton napkin. “Of course, Bradley. This is just my daughter and nephew.” She waved him toward the kitchen, ever the good hostess, even in the middle of a possible crisis with one of her children. She’d been through a few over the centuries. “Come right this way. I’ve got a first-aid kit in the kitchen.”

Arlan watched the door swing closed behind them before he turned to Fia. He lowered his voice. “You think Regan’s really in hot water?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. You know Regan. He exaggerates. I came home for Ma, not Regan.”

She was eating cubes of Mary Kay’s delectable chicken with bites of lettuce. Arlan was trying his damnedest not to contaminate perfectly good chicken salad with the rabbit food.

“You want to tell me about Maggie?” She put the last forkful of salad into her mouth and rose, grabbing her iced tea as she left the table. “Come on. Outside. Away from nosy tourists.”

Arlan grabbed his glass. Left his lettuce. He joined Fia on the front porch, where she’d settled on the swing.

“What did Maggie have to say?” Fia asked.

“She wasn’t happy about you not being there.” He dug his heels into the floorboards and they glided backward.

“But she talked to you?”

“Eh.” He shrugged, sipping his tea. “Sort of.”

She looked at him. “So she
did
talk to you or she didn’t?” She watched him for another second and then punched him hard in the shoulder. “You jerk! You slept with my informant?”

“Ouch!” He rubbed his arm and then ran his hand over his T-shirt where he had spilled iced tea. “Fee, that hurts.”

“So you’re saying you didn’t sleep with her?”

When he didn’t answer, she slapped the arm of the wooden swing. “Damn it to bloody hell, Arlan. Why is it always like this? Why can’t you keep your dick in your pants?”