Chapter 350
The night was growing late when Katelina and Jorick headed back to the beach house. The two-story building and its partner were like Bugs Bunny island huts on steroids, made of what appeared to be unfinished wood and roofed in something that looked like grass. She expected to see dark skinned natives in grass skirts and the odd cannibal hiding in the jungle. Instead there were manicured lawns and a handful of English speaking staff. So much for cartoon reality.
Katelina stopped in the kitchen where a friendly woman made her a fizzy pink drink, then she joined Jorick in the living room. Between the futons and scattered tables, an antique map hung on the wall. Islands were scattered across the face of the ocean like freckles and labeled in foreign characters.
"Which one are we on?"
He shrugged. "It's hard to tell if it's accurate, or just decor." He held out a piece of paper. "This was on the table."
The note scrawled inside said simply:
We must leave tomorrow.
Wolfe.
She scowled. "He's ordering us around like he captured us."
"Only in his imagination. Nevertheless, he's right."
Katelina wasn't ready to say goodbye to the island paradise. Leaving meant returning to cold places and even colder attitudes. "Do we have to?"
"Yes. We need to go to Munich and report so we can go home."
Home. It was a shadowy word that conjured different places: a lonely house in Maine, a neon green monstrosity where her mother lived, and a small apartment buried deep underground in the vampires' American Citadel. She suspected the last option was the home he referred to.
He slipped an arm around her and pulled her to him. "Cheer up, little one. We still have tonight."
"In that case, I need another drink."
***
Jorick led her up the winding wooden stairs and down the hall to their bedroom. A large cotton clothed bed stood in the middle with a headboard of driftwood and gauzy curtains that mimicked mosquito nets. A bench below the picture window held their suitcases and a selection of puffy throw pillows. The view beyond was magnificent, though to Katelina's mortal eyes most of the details were lost in darkness.
Jorick pulled her back against him. His lips tickled her ear as he whispered, "Should I describe it for you?"
Goosebumps raced up and down her back and she giggled. The fruity drinks had left the world wobbly. "It's a lot of palm trees and some creepy bugs hiding in the leaves."
"That hardly does it justice." He kissed the lobe of her ear and then moved lower to nuzzle her neck. "Yes, there are palm trees, majestic palm trees whose trunks stand proud and tall, gently curving" he broke off to lift her hair and kiss his way up the back of her neck. "up to the magnificent cluster of emerald green fronds" He ran his fingers through her golden tresses, letting the strands fall back around her shoulders. "that dance in the breeze." He tightened his arms around her and swayed as if they, too, were dancing.
"What about the bugs?" She laughed and tipped her head back until she could see his eyes, so dark they were almost black. She let herself drown in the heady warmth, wrapped in a sensual softness that left her breathless.
"Bugs?" He slipped the straps of her bathing suit over her shoulders and peeled the garment down until she was naked. Then he brought her hand to his lips, tracing kisses over her fingers. "The graceful palms shelter many things." He trailed his lips over her wrist and down to her elbow, and then across the back of her arm to her naked shoulder.
She gave a soft murmur of pleasure that ended in another giggle. "Such as?"
"Oh, there are insects, of course, diamond eyed creatures" He kissed his way across her back to her other shoulder and then moved slowly down her arm. "whose wings sparkle incandescent in the light and shine with colors like mother of pearl. Barely more than gauze, they're delicately stretched over a fragile framework that lets them glide" He paused to spin her around so that she faced him. His eyes ran over her nakedness and then he moved in closer and kissed her forehead and her cheeks. "glide from the uppermost reaches of those palms, down" He moved to her neck and then to her shoulders. "down until they reach" He cupped her breasts and kissed their rosy peaks. "the smooth stones."
She threw back her head and laughed. "Stones? Really?"
He laughed with her, and then squeezed the fleshy mounds, gently massaging and teasing her hard nipples with his thumbs. "You underestimate their importance."
She murmured her enjoyment and managed to say, "But stones aren't pretty."
"Says who? Each one is unique, shaped by the hand of Mother Nature herself, kissed by the rain" He rained kisses over them. "rounded and smoothed by the elements and the pounding surf. With delicate colors and subtle highlights; shades of white and pink and blue." He broke off to take first one and then the other in his mouth. She moaned softly and he released them. "But we can't stay among the peaks and valleys forever, we must glide down" he paused to kiss his way over her ribs and down her stomach, until he was on his knees before her. "down to the mossy" He stopped to tease the thatch of golden curls before he opened her legs enough to allow his lips past. "moist ground below."
She let out a long, low moan and clutched his head, opening herself and pressing him deeper into the soft folds of her flesh. Her fingers tangled in his long, midnight hair and she floated on a bubble of intoxication and pleasure as his hot tongue stroked her delicate center.
Her legs trembled as he moved his kisses to her inner thighs. His tongue teased her soft skin and then, he bit.
She gave a cry of surprise and pain, but it faded away and left her in the red-tinted, pleasure-soaked world of the vampire bite. It was a connection that could to take their prey to hell or to heaven. And heaven was where he took her. He was inside and outside her; everywhere at once, pulsing, touching, stroking, caressing. She could feel both his desire and his satisfaction coursing through her veins, igniting her passion. As the sensations became more intense, things flashed behind her eyelids; pictures too fast for her to see and words too soft for her to understand. As always she felt the desire to catch them, to see, to know, as if some ancient secret was buried in them. She groaned loudly, urging him on, her instincts screaming for more; more contact, more pleasure, more blood.
Without conscious thought she pulled away from him and he let her go. She stumbled back, dizzy with euphoria and alcohol, and fell to her knees. He moved to her quickly and caught her in his arms, concern burning beneath the lust in his eyes. "Are you all right?"
She gripped the collar of his pullover. Her voice sounded husky and foreign in her ears. "I will be."
She tore his shirt, pinned him to the floor, and bit into his chest. He gave a cry of surprise, and no doubt pain as her dull teeth pierced the skin. His hot, spicy blood filled her mouth, but it didn't satisfy her thirst, only intensified it.
He rolled with her, so that he was on top. She struggled briefly as he shifted to remove his pants and slide himself between her thighs. Her legs opened readily for him, and she thrust with her hips, encouraging him, even as her open mouth sought the bleeding wound. He thrust into her at the same moment that she clamped on, and her body arched with a cry of delight. Lost in a crimson tinted world, she didn't even notice when he bit into her shoulder.
Moments crashed over one another in a carnal cascade of ecstasy. The sounds and images returned, closer than before and, just as it seemed she might understand, her body rocked with the climax of release and she cried out, severing the connection.
The world slowly came into focus; the ceiling with exposed rafters, the bench, the soft white rug under her back. Next to her lay Jorick with his shirt torn open, panting and rubbing at a smear of crimson on his chest.
She licked her lips and tasted blood. She'd bitten him. Again. She was momentarily horrified and wiped her mouth, as if it could hide what she'd done.
"I've told you it's nothing to be ashamed of."
"You say that but-" she turned away and stared at the curtained bed. "When that happens it's like I'm someone else, and then I come back to myself and have to deal with the consequences."
He pulled her to him. She resisted for a moment, but his soothing hands coaxed her surrender and she relaxed against him. "Isn't all lust that way?" he asked teasingly. "Is it really that you become someone else, or that you're finally free enough to be yourself?"
Her cheeks flushed and she sucked her bottom lip. It still tasted like him. "You're saying I'm blood thirsty?"
He nuzzled her neck, and licked the bite he'd made, as if sweeping away the last of the crimson evidence. "More like a wanton pleasure seeker." He laughed and held up the shirt she'd torn as proof. "There's nothing wrong with that, given the right circumstances."
She met his gaze and teased him back, "What would the wrong circumstances be?"
His dark eyes grew darker, and his voice lost its humor. "If it's with the wrong vampire."
She looked away as a memory popped to the surface. A starving creature skulked in the corner of the prison cell, little more than skin and bones and matted red hair. It stared at her with hungry eyes, and then it struck. She fought at first, and then- and then the world fell away and she'd come crashing back with blood on her lips to find Jorick snarling and trying to murder Verchiel.
"It wasn't like that," she said sharply, as if Jorick had forced the memory on her. "Malick"
"Yes. I know. Malick manipulated you and then sicked the poor, starving clown on you and you bit him back in self-defense or" he broke off. "It doesn't matter."
She rubbed absently at the scar Verchiel had left. "It obviously does. To you. He apologized a long time ago and already said he was starving and didn't realize who I was."
"I'm sure," Jorick muttered darkly.
She pushed on, "Malick only arranged it to punish you for not following orders."
Malick. The master hung over them like a dark shadow that tainted everything.
Jorick sighed deeply and pulled her closer. "Nothing is tainted, not you or me or this." He motioned with a hand to indicate the two of them. "I love you."
She buried the side of her face against his chest and inhaled his deep, musky scent. "I love you, too."
He pressed a kiss to the top of her head and then swept to his feet. "Come, little one. I may be used to sleeping in strange places, but even I won't forsake a bed for the floor."
