Reunion by Felicity Heaton (e book reader free .TXT) 📕

She couldn’t stop herself from smiling, from feeling light and wholly painless because of how he was acting. It was endearing, beautiful. She had never felt so loved.

“The vampire hunter. I hurt him too. I know I can defeat him now.”

“This needs to be sealed,” he said in a low voice and glanced at her with eyes that clearly expressed his feelings.

Marise nodded and then closed her eyes when he changed into his vampire guise and lowered his head to her arm. She tensed at the first tentative stroke of his tongue against the wound and then sighed when he began to clean and seal the cut in earnest. The kisses he pressed against her arm didn’t go unnoticed. Her chest ached and stomach flipped with each one. She wanted to cry, and laugh, and tell herself that she was crazy for keeping away for him for so long. Fifty years of robbing herself of this pleasure, of the warmth of his affection and the comfort of his embrace. She must have been insane.

He licked her arm again and then pulled away. She frowned at the loss of contact and opened her eyes to look at him. He was smiling, evidently satisfied by the effect he’d had on her. She smiled in return and then her expression shifted to confusion when his smile faded into a sorrowful look.

She kept her eyes locked on his face as he wrapped a bandage around her arm, pinning it in place. He smoothed it, trailing his fingers down to her hand and holding it.

“I know an apology won’t fix things between us, Mari, but I am sorry,” he said and then looked up into her eyes. She hated all the hurt she could see in them. She had made him suffer for fifty years because she hadn’t had the bravery to tell him, to admit to things and take part of the responsibility for what had happened. “I missed you. I thought about committing some offence so you’d have to come for me.”

She shook her head.

“I’m glad you didn’t,” she said. “If you’d done that, I would’ve had to kill you.”

He smiled.

Reaching over, she ran trembling fingers over the bite marks on his neck. His gaze slid down to watch what she was doing. Could he feel how scared she was? Could he sense how nervous he made her now?

“They always looked good on you,” she whispered.

He frowned and met her eyes again. “They’re my sire’s marks... yours are the other side.”

She hesitated and shook her head almost imperceptibly.

“No, they’re not.”

He frowned for a moment and then a spark of understanding flickered in his violet eyes.

She brought her hand up and caressed his cheek, pushing rogue strands of his long black hair behind his ear. She had missed him so much.

“They’re all mine,” she whispered and dropped her hands to her lap and stared at them.

“What?” His voice was loud in the silent room and it startled her to hear the force in it.

“All mine... that night when Tynan showed you to me, I wanted you, and in the heat of the moment I took what I wanted and then I was scared. Almina offered to take over, to convince you that she was your sire and to train you so I could keep my distance. Only I couldn’t. When you kissed me that day, I should’ve told you who I was. Tynan was right. All this could’ve been avoided.”

She struggled to keep her eyes on her lap. They wanted to meet his, to judge his feelings, but she couldn’t face the idea that he might be angry with her. He might hate her.

The silence ate away at her, stealing a little more of her hope with each passing second.

“You spoke with Tynan? He knows?” His voice held no anger but she still couldn’t find the courage to look at him.

She nodded. “He didn’t speak so much as shout. And yes, he knows.”

“So why the confession?” There it was, that tiny edge of anger she had been waiting for, only it seemed restrained, controlled. Wasn’t he mad at her for never telling him? Didn’t he hate her?

Her heart said it was too much to hope for.

“Because Tynan was right. You deserve to know. I’ll be gone in a few days. Please don’t follow me when I face the vampire hunter. I can’t bear the thought of you getting hurt. If you love me, stay here.” She rose from the bed and stared at the floor.

“You know I can’t do that. It’s my love for you that drives me to protect you,” he said with so much conviction that her chest ached.

Leaning over, she pressed a light, shaky kiss to his lips and breathed in when he responded. She broke away and sighed.

“Thanks for the arm.”

Jascha watched her walk to the door, anger rising inside of him. How could she turn so cold again? He had thought they were on the brink of reconciliation and now she was leaving. He frowned. She was running away.

He threw the covers aside and got out of bed. He was damned if he was going to let her run again. He yanked the door open and followed her out into the hall, not caring that he was naked and that the guards walking past were staring.

Marise was barely a few steps outside his door. Grabbing her arm, he pulled her back into the room, slammed the door and shoved her up against it.

She squeaked.

He silenced her with a kiss.

His lips claimed hers with passionate strength and demand. He parted them with his tongue and delved into her sweet mouth, his heart rejoicing when she began to respond. Her tongue brushed against his and then her hands were on his shoulders, pulling him to her.

He closed his eyes when her fingertips grazed his skin, light tentative strokes that called to him, luring his body into responding. It had been so long since he had kissed a woman, since he had kissed her. Fifty years was a long time to be without the woman you loved, to be without love, and without another’s touch.

Jascha grazed his fingers down her arms to her hands. He held them a moment before moving his hands to her waist and pulling at her shirt to free it from her trousers. She broke the kiss, leaning her head back into the door behind them, and he watched her face as he finally freed her shirt and raised it. She bit her lip at the first brush of his fingers against her soft skin. His stomach tightened with anticipation, his desire escalating as his body responded in the only way it knew how.

She moaned when he pressed his thumbs into her sides below her ribs and ground his hard cock against her crotch.

Her head tilted back, beautifully exposing her milky throat and his eyes dropped there. He stared at the marks on her neck—his marks—and remembered all the times they had spent together.

Running the pads of his fingers over her throat in a light caress, he thought about what she had said to him. She was his sire but she had been scared. What had frightened her enough to drive her into the decision to let another raise him?

He brought his mouth close to her neck and pressed his cheek against hers.

“Why did you run away after you turned me?” he whispered against her ear.

She shivered in his arms and sighed. He thought she wasn’t going to answer.

“I thought you’d only love me because I was your sire,” she said, her voice trembling and betraying her nerves. He could sense it in her, had always been able to feel a trace of her emotions.

“The moment I laid eyes on you that night... across that dance floor... I fell in love with you,” he whispered against her throat.

She pushed him backwards, her wide eyes echoing her shock.

“You did?” Her tone matched her look—surprised and stunned. “When you were human?”

“When I woke to another... I thought I was going insane. I swore I’d fallen asleep with you. I hated what had happened to me.” He pressed a finger against her lips to silence and reassure her when she leaned forwards to speak. He smiled and his eyes followed his fingers as he brushed the strands of dark hair from her forehead. “But then I saw you, and realised you were like me, a vampire, and after that... I did everything I could to make you notice me.”

She smiled but there were tears in her eyes.

“The thought that I had fallen asleep with you the night I died plagued me, but it soon drifted to the back of my mind as I tried to prove myself worthy to you. I used to follow you everywhere. I used to love watching you in the garden when you thought no one was around.” He wiped a tear from her cheek.

“I knew you were watching... that’s why I’d go there, to let you watch, in the hopes that you’d come to me.” Her hand lightly cupped his cheek and then trailed down to his neck. She stared at it and he knew she was staring at the marks on his throat.

She was his sire. He realised that meant she was the only one to ever bite him. He had never allowed Almina to.

“I love you, Mari.” He held her gaze, furrowing his brows so she could see the apology mixed in with what he had said. He had never meant to hurt her.

Her expression remained flat for a moment and then she smiled.

“I feel like I’ve always loved you, Jascha.”

He grinned and pulled her close, wrapping her up in his arms and savouring the gentle pressure of her cool fingers against his bare back.

Pressing kisses to her throat, he steadily traced the curve of it, licking her earlobe as he reached it. He kissed along her jaw to her mouth, claiming her lips again and stealing all her breath away as his tongue tackled hers.

Marise closed her eyes and surrendered to her feelings and Jascha. She ran her fingers down the arch of his back to the smooth globes of his buttocks and smiled as she refreshed her memory of them. She had spent countless hours studying the beautiful curves of his body as he had slept. Sometimes she had wished she could draw so she could capture his graceful, lean but powerful physique on paper so the world could see how perfect he was.

She bit back the tears that wanted to come when happiness filled her and ignored the voice at the back of her head that reminded her of her duties.

Jascha swept her thoughts away for her when he scooped her up into his arms and carried her across the room. Panic that he would reopen his wounds filled her mind, but all sensible thought quickly left her when he laid her down on the bed. His eyes sparkled with love and fire. She smiled back at him and then frowned when he pulled back and she saw all the marks on his body again.

“You’re really in no condition—”

He cut her off with a kiss, rough and powerful, deliciously demanding. She melted into the bed, every bone in her body going limp beneath his persuasive kisses and tender touch. He lifted her shirt up, bunching it around her breasts, and grazed her stomach with his fingertips. She sucked it in to evade him, giggling as it tickled. He pressed a kiss to her chin and then disappeared. She closed her eyes and arched her back when he licked her stomach, running his tongue around her belly button and then nipping at her