“Wi-,” she stumbled out, and then she swallowed. “Wine,” she managed wondering what had happened to the quality of her own voice.
She’d never been alone in a room with a man in an intimate setting before,
she thought, except that night on the lawn with Trinity. The instant she thought of that night, aches began throbbing centered between her thighs and she willed herself not to squirm.
“Wine then.”
She watched Trinity move to the sideboard and she couldn’t help noticing what a strongly made man he was. He was potent and so male. Most men of the
ton
were nothing like Trinity or any of the Blacknalls, and she didn’t think it was even because they were vampires.
Trinity turned back to her, bringing a bottle of wine and another wineglass. He came to her first, pouring her wine and when she expected him to retreat to proper seating at the opposite end of the long table, she was surprised when he pulled out the chair to her right. She was further surprised when he sat and poured himself a glass of wine.
“You drink?” The question fell out of her mouth before she thought better of it.
Trinity lifted his wine glass taking a sip as his rich blue eyes studied her above the rim. As it left his lips, he said, “I can drink and eat, but the food is a waste of time.”
He didn’t seem at all perturbed, so she took a sip of her wine, and asked, “Can you get drunk then?”
He actually smiled a bit. It was closemouthed with a slight lift of his masculine lips. “Perhaps after an entire case.” She raised an eyebrow in wonder, and he added in a lower tone, “I could get drunker feeding on your blood after you’d drunk the wine.”
She wasn’t appalled at all. Her blush spoke of other feelings. When Trinity spoke of sucking her blood, her body flushed with the same feelings that had heated her that night out on the dark lawn … when he’d touched her between her legs.
Then, she did a starkly brave thing for the meagerness of her world. “I am your wife. I would think being who you are and who I am that it would be your right to feed on my blood.”
She dared not look at him, but kept her head bowed and she saw his strong fingers clench around the stem of his wineglass.
“You offer again.” His voice sounded as if sifted through gravel. “Why?”
Beth clutched her napkin, looking up at him, then quickly away. Her gaze fell to his broad wrist and she realized she was staring at it. Flustered, she glanced at him quickly again, hoping he’d not caught her yearning stare. Of course, he had.
“Beth?” he questioned again, leaning forward. She felt his hand sift through the hair at the side of her face. “Any other woman I can mesmerize … hypnotize to do my will,” he said as his fingers touched her cheek and she looked up at him in wonder. “But not you,” he finished.
His knuckles smoothed under her chin, then down her throat slowly. She felt suspended. She felt entranced. When his knuckles reached the point under her chin again, his thumb reached upward brushing over her bottom lip. The yearning aches inside her leapt stronger. Yes, she would definitely call it yearning.
He lifted his thumb away and he sat back with his dark blue eyes potent. “You’re beautiful,” he said.
Her heart flipped a beat as her fingers touched her lips where he’d touched them. She knew the expression on her face was amazement that quickly turned into disbelief as she slightly shook her head.
“You are,” he restated firmly to her disbelieving gestures as his fingers tapped the table. “I’m afraid that I won’t be able to stop if I taste your blood.” His words were flat and matter of fact as he turned his gaze off into the distance of the room.
Beth assumed that meant her death if he took too much of her blood. She could certainly believe that, knowing how much she craved to taste his blood again, and how hard it was to stop. She lowered her fingers from her lips and she settled her fingertips over his tapping fingers … stilling their motion. Every piece of her believed he would never harm her that way. He might not realize it, but he was incapable of it.
“You should sleep,” he muttered, turning to look down at their fingers where they touched. “We have exhausted our revelations for one day.”
Chapter Twenty One
A
t midnight, Trinity stood on the highest eaves of the regal manor. The constant wind from the moors tugged at the loose edges of his shirt and the long strands of his hair. Moonlight from a half-moon glistened over the sprinkled blossoms of heather waving on the dark landscape below him.
He’d fed again, glutting himself, even though he didn’t need it. Just to be certain. The night felt long and it had never felt that way to him before. Yet he’d found being close to Beth again had eased the primitive urges he’d felt when apart from her.
“Since the vows,” he muttered with the wind snatching away the sound of his voice. If he believed in fate, he might think he’d found that one woman meant for him. That would be so generous of life. It was hard to accept. Yet every turn he took seemed to turn him back toward it.
He remembered thoughts he’d had shortly after meeting Beth. A wish … maybe … “No.” But how could he lie to himself? He’d thought she would be the kind of woman he could have wished to marry. “If I were human.” He growled at himself.
Yet he
was
married to her. Now what was he supposed to do? He turned and he walked to the top of the eave as though he were the most talented circus performer. If there was one thing he’d learned in his overly long life, it was destiny didn’t care what you thought should be happening.
Moments later, he quietly entered Beth’s room. His night vision found her like a beacon, sleeping on white sheets. Her long hair was inky blackness against the white, frilly-laced nightgown she wore, which was sliding down one shoulder, baring it, as she slept on her side. Urges and emotions tossed inside him at the sight of her. The vulnerable and seductive sight of her. He fought the calamity attacking him on all fronts. He was amazed he could even care that blood pulsed in her veins as satiated as he was. The battle tightened his resolve and his entire body into an unyielding wall.
He approached her. She was fragile and soft. The curve of her hip beneath the sheet was full and tempting. His body regretted she was so innocent of sexual couplings, because it wanted her with fierceness that felt wild and untamed. Yet his mind controlled his body and he wouldn’t see her frightened or harmed.
“Trinity?”
By god, she’d startled him. He’d been so intent looking at the top curve of her breast he was completely unaware she’d woken. Damnation, that was unusual. He looked at her eyes so dark in the lightless room.
His arousal was not capable of entrancing her.
Trinity pushed aside the nagging thoughts as he realized Beth wasn’t certain he was really there. She didn’t have night vision as he had. He could back away without her realizing.
Unrealistic urges opened his lips. “Hush, maiden, I just wanted to check on you,” he murmured under his breath.
Guard your door, if not in here.
He turned his head slightly at the protective thoughts that stabbed him.
“I knew you were there. I don’t know how,” she said sleepily. Then she said so softly he barely heard, “I dreamed of you.” He moved closer as though she lured him. “Where are you?” she asked.
“Right here,” he answered. In one movement, he could be sitting beside her.
Her gaze searched for him in the darkness. “In my dream you pierced my neck with your fangs and you took my blood. I felt so …”
Damnation.
Was she out to seduce him to do it? His fangs lengthened in his mouth. Wicked temptress, he thought. Hadn’t he told her on a number of occasions how hard he held back his feral desire to feed on her? How dangerous it was. Yet, she continued to entice him.
Anger and sexual desire clashed inside him. He’d proven to himself he could keep from biting her, but not from coupling her. In a less compelling moment, he might have thought the two were far too intertwined to try. At this moment, he was provoked. Then he was on top of her, pulling her over and beneath him.
“Right.” Beth’s voice was shrill, finishing on a high note, and he realized she’d ended the sentence she’d started before. Her small fists pressed into his chest.
“You will get burned,” he warned, grasping her chin and turning her face to the side, baring her neck to his fangs. “Is this what you want?” His voice rumbled as he grazed her neck with his fangs, but not biting.
A delicate feminine yelp leapt from her throat and her body bowed against his, rising to where he held his body tautly above her. The fullness of her breasts flattened into the hardness of his chest. “Yes,” she panted, arched beneath him. “If we don’t do this you will live a tortured existence beside me, but not with me.”
He was astounded, but no less provoked, by the temptations of her supplicated throat and the mutual arousal he could feel burning between them. “How do you know this?” he demanded, his breath hot against her supplicated throat.
“So much knowledge came with the taste of your blood,” she panted.
He could feel the passion pumping through her veins and he licked her throat, opening his mouth, fangs throbbing for her purity, just as his erection pounded for it. She was splayed beneath him as his muscular body flexed and tensed.
“Kiss me,” he rasped, feeling as if he might break in half.
“Trinity,” she whispered and she used her arms clutching his shoulders to pull her lips up to his. Fire burned down his body as their lips touched. His hardening erection knew how close it was to what it demanded as he kissed Beth’s eager mouth.
She tasted of trust and unfolding passions, so tempting and ripe. He wanted to lay his body on top of her, to grasp her thighs and pull them open so he could settle between. His thoughts taunting him with the knowledge of the little wispy thing she barely had on. He could feel the tips of her nipples prod his chest at different moments as she held on to him to kiss him.
Her mouth was bolder and her small tongue tempted him, until he thrust his bigger tongue deep into her mouth.
Like he wanted to thrust inside her.
The tightly controlled part of him wondered how far he could go with this before his beast gained control.
A rumble purred from his throat. No, she was his and he would not go feral on her. He knew his eyes were yellow and his fangs were out. Yet he was controlling it with a sense of firmness he’d not felt before. Perhaps his little innocent was right and he was incapable of harming her. She tasted right. She tasted of fresh storms brewing. Her arms lost the strength they’d used to hold her upward to keep kissing him and she fell to the pillows with her lips panting lightly.
Her hands rubbed his sides, dragging his loose shirt in places. “You’re my husband,” she whispered.
His chest tightened.
Yes. Please
. He knew she was offering herself to him. “I’m not a gentleman,” he managed; his throat was tight.
Her hand found his bare skin, beneath his shirt, and stroked. A little sound of awe curled from her throat. She liked the feel of him.
“I’m not a fragile little girl.” Beth’s small hand flattened on the upper mound of his chest muscle.
“Yes, you are.”
A soft yet rough assertion as her fingers kneaded his taut muscles. Her other hand found the bare skin on the side of his waist and she rubbed it, making his erection throb. She sighed with a sound of relenting surrender to the fact he was right. She was a vulnerable little girl. Just that thought scoured his body and he nearly lowered it on top of her. He wanted to lick this little girl from head to toe.
Beth felt every side of herself in contradiction. She was innocent, yet at times she felt worldly. She was afraid, but not afraid at all. She wanted her husband, but she wasn’t certain what to do with him. Then, at some moments, she did know. She wanted him to come to her, to stop holding himself away, but she didn’t know how to make that happen. Perhaps he was right … she was a little girl and didn’t know anything.
Except, she would think all those things and know them to be right, but none of it mattered when she touched him. It was completely dark and she couldn’t see him. It was like a dream. He was like a fantasy above her. She felt the heavy strands of his hair touching her bare shoulders and she felt the incredible strength he used to stay above her.
She’d fallen into the dream-like quality of it all and became brave through the darkness to touch him. She’d fallen off a cliff into sensations so strong they made her entire body yearn. Trinity felt like warm steel. There were ropes and ridges beneath her palms, and it thrilled her to think a man of his quality and power wanted her. Her, little plump Beth, who’d been unable to catch a husband on her own … through two seasons.
Now she touched strength like none she could imagine. He’d come for her, he held himself under control … for her. Perhaps she was being cruel, trying to break his resolve. Nevertheless, some feminine intuition told her this was the way to bind him to her.
“Show me your breasts.” His voice was husky and raw.
She was surprised, chased by guilty feelings of being indecent. Then little thrills tugged her away from guilt, and to cover her flustered emotions, she blurted. “You can see me?”
“Everything,” his words rumbled above her.
A shudder of shocked awareness shivered through her. She hadn’t known. Her head tilted to the side away from where his gaze might be. How could she just show him her breasts? Her nails uncurled from his flesh where she’d clutched him too hard, but he hadn’t flinched away. Then, with immense dread and excitement combined, she tugged her gown down, baring her chest.
They were too big.
“Perfect.” His voice was a husky purr and the tips of her nipples ached with twin pangs that coursed into her belly and lower. Suddenly she remembered the feel of Trinity’s persistent fingers touching her loins. Heaven help her if he’d sucked on her nipples too. She started to blank out those indecent thoughts, but then a pleased sound etched from his throat. “You are getting aroused, little virgin.”