The pieces of the puzzle were falling into place. He roughly guessed it was nearing sunrise. And figured this was the only way to know for certain. "D'ya trust me, Tori McAdams?" he asked, taking a s.h.i.+rt from the back of the door and b.u.t.toning her into it.

"Trust you?" "Aye. Do you trust me?"

A tiny smile curved her mouth, sad and bittersweet, as she lifted her hands, palms up, asking, "If I didn't trust you, why would I have come here? I knew that if I could get to you, you could help me. Would protect me."

"I will. Come with me now. We've something we need to be doing," he said, guiding her down the stairs and to the large eastern window.

She sensed what he was doing and she hesitated. "I'm newly changed, Declan. She said the sun could kill the newly changed. And even if I'm not happy with my new diet, I'm not ready to die yet."

Stroking a rea.s.suring hand down her back, he held her in place. "It takes more than a few seconds, darlin' girl.

It takes being thrown out into the sunlight and chained in place while the sun chars the flesh from your bones over a period of time. If this hurts even a bit, I'll get you away."

"Declan, what..."

He shushed her, pressing his lips to her mouth, and cuddling her against him. "You're going to be fine."

"You mean, you don't think the sun is going to hurt me?" she asked, fear in her voice. Her neat nails bit into his arm while she stared out the window into the lightening horizon.

"No," he said honestly. "Most vamps, even a Master, are in their lairs by now, weakened and needing rest. You don't look weakened, or in need of rest."

"So no need to rush out and buy a coffin, huh?" she quipped. "This doesn't make any sense. He bit me, and he made me drink. After that, my body felt like it was going to explode every time my heart beat. If Masters need to take their rest by now-whatever a Master is- then why am I still awake? Why don't I need to crawl into a pile of graveyard dirt and sleep?"

Resting his chin on her crown, Declan laughed. "A myth. They don't need graveyard dirt, or a coffin. Just someplace safe from sunlight. And they can cross running water, and they have a reflection."

"So I can still see what I look like on a bad hair day?

Oh, joy," she said, laughing a little to herself. Nerves.

She was strung tightly now. Declan could feel the nerves singing in her body, feel the tension in her tautly coiled muscles.

Nuzzling said hair, Declan murmured, "You always look beautiful. s.e.xy. Touchable." He stroked his hand under the s.h.i.+rt to cup her b.r.e.a.s.t.s as he lowered his head to whisper, "When the sun rises, I'm going to make love to you here, with the sun s.h.i.+ning down around us. I've wanted to see you like that, with the sun painting your skin gold. I want to taste you again, and suck on your tasty little c.l.i.t while you come for me." Her nipples, hard and hot, stabbed into his palms as he rolled and pinched them. Her a.s.s was pressing back against Declan's c.o.c.k and her hips were rocking in a hungry, fevered motion.

She whimpered, hardly aware that the sun had started to make an appearance on the horizon. The lavender light slowly s.h.i.+fted to pink, the clouds going gold while he whispered about how it had felt with his c.o.c.k snug inside her body. Trailing one hand down to her center, Declan continued to eye the horizon while he started to slide his fingers in and out of her body. Her cream coated them as he pushed back inside her channel and sought the little notch that would make her come.

And the sun was indeed painting her skin gold. Urging her forward, he guided her hands to the broad windowsill and forced her to bend over, bracing her weight on her hands, with her pert a.s.s sticking up in the air. The shadowed cleft opened a little, revealing a tight, pink rosette, and lower, dark curls that surrounded her s.e.x, her lips pink and swollen and gleaming wet. Taking his c.o.c.k in hand, he guided it inside her tight, swollen pa.s.sage as he groaned with a mixture of relief and pleasure.

Pleasure that he was inside her again.

Relief that he wasn't going to lose her to the darkness.

And then he started to pump inside her, his hands gripping her hips and pulling her a.s.s back to meet him.

The pink rosette beckoned and he slid one hand around to coat his fingers with her cream, lubricating them before pressing the pad of his thumb against her a.n.u.s.

The tight ring of muscle resisted as he slowly worked it in, listening to her startled gasp, feeling the tightening in her sheath as he started to push a little inside her.

The tight little hole closed over him like silk and Declan shuddered, feeling Tori trembling under his hand, her b.u.t.t quivering against his thighs as he pushed back inside her. "Do ya like that, now?"

Tori moaned in answer, feeling the flared head of his c.o.c.k as it pulsed deep inside her, as he pushed down and s.h.i.+fted so that it was rubbing against that spot inside her with every stroke. She clenched down around it and mewled, a hot hungry little sound. She quivered when Declan eased the tip of his thumb inside her virgin a.s.s, his own breaths leaving his body in ragged pants. The tight hot walls of her a.s.s closed around him like a silken glove and he groaned in pleasure as the sensation triggered an early o.r.g.a.s.m in her body.

Declan needed her too much, had needed her for too long. The feel of her going into spasms around his invading c.o.c.k was incredible and he thrust himself inside her in short, furious digs as he started to come.

She spasmed around his c.o.c.k, her entire v.a.g.i.n.a fluttering, clenching and quivering, as a hot wash of her cream flowed from her depths and Declan flooded her with the heavy, warm wash of his s.e.m.e.n.

They collapsed-Declan catching their weight and guiding them to the window seat-so they could catch their breath. And watch the sun rise. "f.u.c.k me," he said, winded. "At some point, I'm going to be able to last more than five minutes inside you."

She laughed weakly. "I'm not sure I could take it. But I'm game if you are," she said willingly.

"Not right now," he chided her, smoothing her tumbled ringlets from her face. "We've got some work to do."

"Work?" she repeated.

"Hmm. Work," he replied. "To find who did this to you, and kill him- slowly, painfully, and with great pleasure." He was growling by the time he finished.

"Sounds good. What else?" she said, lifting her face to study him.

Looking down at her, he smiled. "Find out exactly what you are now, I'm thinking. But, for now we just need to watch the sun rise."

So they did. "Does it hurt at all?" he asked after five or ten minutes. By now, the sun was riding high in the sky and her cheeks were a little pink.

"No," she said slowly. "It...it itches. Like I've spent too much time in the sun, like sunburn feels after you've finally figured out you're burned."

"I have a friend. He's a vampire-one who was changed against his will. Like you. He's more than three hundred years old. Now he can tolerate small amounts of the evening sun-enough to watch the sun set again after three centuries of darkness-and it makes him itch.

You already have the tolerance of a centuries old vampire."

"This is a friend?" she said, stiffening.

"Yes. A good man, he is. He was friends with my grandfather, almost two hundred and fifty years ago.

s.h.i.+fters are a long-lived race. His name is Elijah Crawford. And I think you need to meet him. If anybody has answers, it's him.

"And I trust him. He's a friend, a good one. Eli has saved my life and my a.s.s a time or two. It will be all right, Tori, I promise."

CHAPTER THREE.

A couple of hours later she was eyeing the ma.s.sive amount of food in front of her. "Should I really try to eat all of this?"

He laughed. "Half of it is mine. I spent too much energy last night s.h.i.+fting back and forth so quickly. And I require more than the average human. A s.h.i.+fter tends to have a high metabolism. Vamps have slowed metabolism. I imagine yours will be somewhere in between.

"Just eat what appeals to you. We don't have any answers yet. But your body already knows what it can and can't tolerate. And you said you wanted food.

Food-not blood." Her cheeks flushed. Watching him move around the kitchen-relaxing the way you can only relax after good hard s.e.x with somebody you care about-she had started to forget. A little. And now she remembered. "I wasn't trying to get you to feed me," she said flatly. "I didn't ask last night and wasn't asking now."

"I know. But we need to know what your body needs to be at your strongest. If food will do the trick, which I doubt, it makes your existence easier."

"Easier?" she said through gritted teeth. "You call this easier?"

"Aye. Easier than it will be if you require blood for sustenance. Do you know what that will do to you, preying on others to survive? I know," he told her, turning and pinning her with glinting green eyes.

"You've a soft heart, Tori McAdams, even if you keep it well hidden under that tough hide you show the world.

And seeing other people as food will tear at you, and destroy you. Have you thought of that?"

Yes. And that was why she felt so raw all of a sudden.

Deflated, she asked, "Am I a monster now?"

"Oh, Tori, you don't have a monstrous bone in you."

Then he crossed over and hugged her from behind, resting his chin on her shoulder, cuddling his larger body against hers to comfort. "But don't you think we should find out exactly what is in you?"

She ate. A normal sized meal.

But she still felt hungry.

Her body didn't want food though.

She could smell him, sitting across the table, warm, s.e.xy male. His blood throbbed in his veins and she could hear it, could hear the steady pounding of his heart, the soft whoos.h.i.+ng as blood flowed through his body. Her eyesight- sonofab.i.t.c.h-had improved as well.

She could have done without seeing the large vein in his neck that pulsed and fluttered and beckoned.

Lifting the gla.s.s of water to her mouth, she sipped, desperate to wet her dry mouth.

"What about orange juice?" she asked suddenly.

Lowering the gla.s.s, she stared at him with a puzzled frown. "If the acid in it is what made my blood so distasteful, will it hurt me?"

"It was the garlic that made it distasteful, I'd say. The juice just made it uncomfortable to swallow. Garlic is almost like holy water to a vampire, or like sulfuric acid is to a human. So after you burned his throat with the garlic, he had all the acidic blood on top of that. I imagine you hurt him pretty d.a.m.n badly. But just the juice? I imagine it is like drinking orange juice when you have a cut in your mouth." He quirked a blond brow her way and said, "Do you want to find out?"

She hesitated, wrinkling her nose and asked, "Will it hurt me?"

"Maybe physically." Then he grinned and said, "But it won't kill you. It's not holy water."

Horror rushed across her face. "Am I d.a.m.ned now?"

Declan shook his head, his smile fading. "If you truly believe in G.o.d, then how can you ask? You didn't ask for this, didn't court it. You've done no evil, Tori.

Would G.o.d punish somebody who is innocent, because of something that was forced on him?"

She slumped in her chair. Rubbing her fingers across her brow, she said wearily, "This is too much. Too much has happened, too many things have changed."

"All right. I can always add some vodka to the orange juice," he offered.

A tired laugh escaped her lips. "A screwdriver sounds rather tempting," she said. "Come on. Let's get it over with."

It didn't hurt. The juice slid down her throat easily, and she savored the sweet taste on her tongue. "Why is everything so much more vivid now?" she asked, draining the gla.s.s.

"Vampires have enhanced senses," he replied. "But that's not what you want either."

She flushed. "You noticed."

"When you're eyeing me like a bedtime snack, it's hard not to notice," he said, shrugging. "If it were only in the hedonistic sense, it would be flattering. Right now, it just is. We'll handle it. "Can you sleep?"

She frowned, trying to follow his rapid change of topic while she adjusted to just how well he could read her.

And she imagined he had always been able to read her that well. Without answering, she asked a question of her own. "Are your senses as heightened?"

"Some are even more so," he answered, a bit cautiously it seemed. "Why?"

"Which ones?"

"Ah, smell. Hearing. You, well, most vamps are a little stronger, but I am faster, more agile."

"Smell?"

"Why are you asking?"

Meeting his eyes, she said, "You read me a little well for my own comfort. How?"

He lifted his shoulders slowly. "Your expressions. Your heart rate picks up when you're nervous. I know you are still hungry, because of the way you keep looking at me, then away. And you keep licking your lips, like you always did when I stopped by with something from Cinnabon," he said, grinning faintly, the dimples in his cheeks deepening to slashes as his mouth curved up.

"Your scent changes a little with your nerves, your anger, and your emotions."

"Changes?" Her voice squeaked a little. Clearing her throat, she asked, "Changes how?"

Now his grin was wider, and wicked. He had figured out why she was asking. His soft green eyes didn't look so soft now; more wild and dark and green-hungry and hot.

"Changes." He paced around her, much like a wolf circling his prey. Each circle brought him closer, until he was brus.h.i.+ng her body with his every time he moved. "When you're aroused, you smell...hot. I know that scent. I've smelled it on you nearly every time we've been together. I heard it every time your breath caught in your throat, every time your heart kicked up, how you'd grow wet with wanting. I've wanted nothing more at times than to bury my face between your pretty legs and eat. But you always pushed me away.

"It drove me mad, knowing you wanted me, knowing you didn't want to." Moving behind her, he gripped her hips and rocked his rigid c.o.c.k against her a.s.s- naked under the s.h.i.+rt.

"It made me want to howl, made me want to take you down to the floor and f.u.c.k you until you couldn't see straight. Until we collapsed-both of us."

His hands came up and caressed her aching b.r.e.a.s.t.s, fondling and tweaking the nipples while she whimpered and moved against him, thrusting her t.i.ts into his hands, and her bottom against his shaft. "And the nerves. When you are turned on and wanting me- like I want you-you get nervous, worried that I will see.

And it smells sweet, and innocent, like rain in the spring. That was what kept me from pus.h.i.+ng, knowing how nervous you were, how torn. I knew something kept you from letting me close, even though you wanted me.

"And it hurt you, confused you. So I made myself not push," he finished, jerking her s.h.i.+rt up and baring her a.s.s. He smoothed his hands down the rounded white globes, squeezing and stroking, feeling the tense muscles just below her skin that quivered with every touch. Then he turned her around and lifted her naked b.u.t.t onto the edge of the counter, moved between her thighs and freed his c.o.c.k.

"Look at you," he muttered thickly while he spread her legs wide, exposing the wet folds of her body-pink and damp-the curls that covered her mound, her long torso, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s covered by the s.h.i.+rt and one b.u.t.ton. With a jerk, the b.u.t.ton popped off and her heaving chest was revealed-her white t.i.ts with dark pink nipples, already erect. "Such a pretty sight. You're so wet," he mused as he slid his hands behind her ankles, up her calves to her knees.