Chapter 13
Author's Notes: A/N: I’m a woman of my word. Two updates this weekend! Thank you guys so much for the warm reviews to yesterday’s chapter. *huggles* They made my day.
My thanks as always to my betas.
New England, 1701
It was impossible to keep his eyes off her. William knew; he’d tried. He’d made several futile attempts to drag his eyes away from the goddess currently massaging his foot, but found himself irrevocably drawn to the curves of her gorgeous mouth. The light in her eyes and the way she seemed to glow every time she glanced upward and those precious emeralds met his gaze.
He couldn’t drag his eyes away. There were times he feared she’d disappear if he so much as blinked.
Elizabeth’s creamy skin reddened with the provocative hint of awareness and she ducked her head. Her hands moved over his foot with such attentive affection he had to wonder, truly, if he’d been staked and somehow managed to sneak through the pearly gates. “You’re staring.”
“Am I?” he replied.
“You know I don’t like it when you stare.”
“You should try to be a li’l less beautiful, then.”
She wrinkled her nose at him and he couldn’t help from grinning. “You needn’t say such things,” she said, lightly tickling the soft underside of his foot. William grinned and wiggled—not that it did any good. Elizabeth was the only person, living or dead, who knew how ticklish he was. He didn’t mind that she knew. It was amazing—the wealth of things he didn’t mind she knew. Things he believed made him vulnerable or weak. Things he wished had died with his human self. Things not befitting for a demon.
Especially a demon with his reputation.
William truly had to wonder when he’d stopped caring so much. Or if he’d truly ever cared. There had been a point in life where certain things had seemed so important—things he reflected upon now as a fool’s gamble or an all-out waste of time. He remembered well how he’d felt upon first arriving in their village. How he’d come to the Americas to kill the Slayer, and how a part of him had known the first second he saw her that he was incredibly lost.
No matter how he’d tried to hide the revelation from himself.
Not much of his pre-Elizabeth life seemed to matter a damn to him anymore. He still hunted and fed, though he tried to leave his walking-meals alive; while Elizabeth had never asked him to be anything other than what he was, he knew the idea of him killing would eventually drive a wedge between them. He loved her too much to hurt her if there was an alternative.
There were other things, of course. Things like his reputation, which he’d at once thought his most valuable asset. William found he didn’t give a lick one way or another anymore. What did it matter what other vampires thought of him? He’d had that reputation for damn near two centuries. Two long, lonely centuries.
A reputation was worth rot against the awesome power of love. He’d give it up. He’d give up anything and everything.
Elizabeth was precious. Invaluable. She was worth any price, and no price would ever be enough. Any fool could see it.
He just happened to be the fool she’d chosen.
And somehow, this creature of light loved him. She loved him. She’d let his fangs mark her throat and had whispered she was his. She’d let him claim her.
This woman belonged to him for an eternity.
It hadn’t been an easy transition, and there was still a ways to go. Elizabeth hadn’t yet mustered the courage to break the news to her wanker of a watcher, and while William tried to remain sympathetic, his patience grew shorter as the days went by. He wasn’t irritated with his beloved at all—more the strain of control exacted on her by the git who had raised her.
Elizabeth was terrified of breaking away completely. Kenneth Travers was all she knew. She’d been brought up to believe herself less than human. A weapon forged in flesh and blood, born with only one purpose. She was the Slayer. Nothing more. Nothing less. She wasn’t made to or for love. She was made to die.
It was a callous existence, but it was the only one she’d ever known. And hate it though she did, there was a part of her persistently holding on to it. William understood—truly he did. Her life had been based in this understanding of herself. To grasp something else entirely, to abandon the person she’d been before, was a monstrously huge step. She wanted to do it—he felt how desperately she wanted to be free of Kenneth. But it was still hard for her. God, it was so hard.
And there was bugger all William could do about it other than caress her scalp lovingly and try to keep his manly-giggles restrained to amused chuckles when her fingers manipulated his most ticklish nerves.
In the meantime, he had this. And this was so much more than he’d ever hoped to touch. Lying in a bed they shared. The sunrise she’d painted for him was on proud display on the wall. Elizabeth—his little Buffy—gloriously naked and rubbing his tired muscles. She liked doing little things for him. She liked giving him pleasure in any way she could.
“Why?” he asked belatedly, trying unsuccessfully to bite back a moan when her fingers gently skimmed the arch of his foot. His cock had taken notice of her gentle touches a long while ago—something he knew she’d noticed, as he was rather naked himself. He didn’t know whether or not she’d evaded touching him there out of coyness or because her massage was intended to satisfy a need that wasn’t sexual. Not that it did any good. His Buffy could sneeze and he’d want her.
He always wanted her.
“Why what?” she repeated, playfully pinching his big toe.
“Why shouldn’t I say such things?” William perked a brow and shot her his best seductive look. “You’re gorgeous.”
“You have me. Flattery is unnecessary.”
“An’ the truth? I’d expect you’d still want the truth from me, yeah?”
Elizabeth made another face at him, her hand skimming up the inside of his left leg, her big gorgeous eyes at last landing on his aching cock. “Sometimes I think you say things just to get me to…”
William grinned and thrust his hips forward in a manner that was in no way subtle. “We both know I don’t have to say a bloody thing to get you to—”
“Will!”
“You jus’ take it when you’re hungry.”
He loved provoking her; loved watching her moonlit skin turn red. Loved knowing that the part of her innocence he adored remained untainted. He could be as verbally vulgar as he pleased and he knew she would never become jaded. There was a part of his little Buffy which would perpetually remain the fluttering virgin, and he absolutely adored it.
“You’re a bad man,” Elizabeth declared.
“The baddest.” William offered a wink, wrapping his fingers around his erection and favoring his aching shaft with a long stroke. “Wanna kiss me an’ make it better?”
She slapped his chest and giggled. “You arse.”
“Well, if you’d rather kiss that—”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Will…”
He grinned devilishly and sat up, cupping her cheeks and seizing her lips in a hungry kiss. The world could end several times and he wouldn’t care—the taste of her was too rich to forfeit, and he wasn’t a man who denied himself. “Mmm,” he purred against her mouth. “You taste so sweet.”
She grinned against him, her palm skimming the underside of his erection before her fingers dipped to tease his testicles. “I know what you’re after,” she mused teasingly.
“Well, God gave you this mouth for a reason, woman.”
Elizabeth’s eyes brightened with mirth. “I thought the reason was kissing you,” she replied.
“One of
many reasons.”
“And talking? Or are you the sort who prefers his woman silent and submissive?”
William arched a sardonic brow. “Buffy, sweetling, if that was what I wanted, why in the world would I be here?”
She giggled happily. “I love you.”
His heart lifted and his demon rejoiced. “I love you more. Now suck me.”
She flashed him a look of pure defiance, a smirk stretching those utterly kissable lips of hers. However, rather than shoot him another barb, she dipped her head obediently and licked his erection from root to tip.
“Oh God…”
“Is that enough?” she asked cheekily, her mouth already descending again.
“I said suck me. Not lick.”
“So no licking, then?”
He knew nothing good could come from elaboration or clarification; didn’t stop him from trying. Unfortunately, the most he was able to come up with was an ineloquent, “Bloody hell, Buffy…”
Elizabeth grinned, her sinful lips welcoming his swollen, velvety head into her wet mouth, her tongue immediately crashing against him to explore his sensitive slit. She knew what she was doing—Christ, did she know what she was doing. He’d set out to teach her just how to drive him wild, and she was the best student a man could wish for.
“Deeper,” William pleaded, thrusting his hips off the bed. “Take me in deeper.”
She rolled her eyes and did the opposite. And the second his wet cock smacked the cool, unforgiving air that wasn’t his Buffy’s mouth, he could have dusted in frustration. “You’re rather bossy tonight,” she observed.
“An’ you’re a bloody tease.”
“So says the man who…” She broke off and flushed deeply, and despite the heated rage of his need, William couldn’t help but crack a grin. Heaven help the day she ever try to verbally describe a sexual act. Thankfully, he knew exactly what she was trying to talk about.
The way he’d bury his face between her divine thighs and lick her juicy quim until she was trembling hard and bucking off the mattress—so close to fruition…
Then he’d pull away, lick his lips, and leave her aching for him until he decided to take pity on her and give her what she so desperately needed.
He maintained this wasn’t the ideal way to get back at him. No, William much preferred teasing from the other end. When he was the torturer and not the torturee. Still, a part of him couldn’t help but beam with pride.
She certainly had learned from watching him.
“Oh stop,” Elizabeth grumbled, albeit good-naturedly. Her warm hand encircled his erection, pumping him tenderly in the absence of her mouth.
William blinked, the picture of innocence. “Stop what?”
“That look on your face. Don’t think I don’t know what you’re thinking.”
“I have to think it, love. If you’d ever finish a thought…” He grinned. “Sometime I wanna hear you say it. Try an’ say it. Say anythin’, really, as long as it’s right nasty. It’d be bloody adorable.”
“You’re swine.”
“You love me.”
Elizabeth heaved a long-suffering sigh. “It’s my burden to bear, I suppose.”
“You love bearin’ it.” His grin stretched wider as his hands wove through her hair, fingers gently massaging her scalp. “Please, sweetheart. I need to feel you. Need…need your mouth.”
Her eyes danced and her head began to dip again. “Here?” she asked, brushing a hot, wet kiss against his belled head, followed by a sultry lick. “You need my mouth here?”
“Buffy!”
A sinful smile stretched her gorgeous lips as she slowly welcomed his cock into the pleasure-dome she called a mouth. William gasped so hard he could have sworn his heart leapt within his chest, his head flying back to the mattress, his hips thrusting upward in a needful frenzy. There was nothing about her that wasn’t perfect. The stroke of her tongue along the underside of his erection, the way her teeth gently skimmed the length of him the further he slid into her heavenly wetness, the light which sparked her eyes at his every whimper. She closed her lips around him and sucked hard, pulling on his flesh and tugging him so close to paradise he could have sworn the walls around them didn’t exist.
“Oh God, Buffy…”
“Mmm…”
And
God. The way she whimpered and mewled around him. He was completely unmade.
“So hot. So bloody hot, you are.” He bit down on his lower lip, his grip on her hair tightening. “Love you so much.”
“Mpphffe yew,” she replied, winking.
Then the head of his cock brushed the soft, warm back of her throat, and she contracted her muscles around him, squeezing him so right. William howled and bucked, the hand at her head defying reason and dragging her upwards until he was free of her exquisite torture and sitting up again so he could kiss her perfect mouth.
“I wasn’t finished,” she complained when their lips parted.
It took a few embarrassing seconds to remember he didn’t need the breaths he was gulping. “I was gonna—”
“I know.”
“You don’ like—”
Elizabeth winked and kissed him again. “I suppose I’m…acquiring a taste,” she replied coyly, her hands gently shoving him backward until he was pressed against the mattress again. By some divine mercy, her tongue returned to his length, licking him like he was a treat designed to be savored. And as much as he loved the feel of her mouth on his cock, he much preferred it when her wet sheath surrounded him. When her breasts were pressed against his chest and her lips were his for the taking.
“Buffy…need…need to be inside.”
She glanced upward with a pointedly arched brow, but didn’t argue. Instead, she released him completely and began a slow prowl up his body, looking positively catlike, her lips stealing kisses of his body with every pace she made. She sampled his stomach, his abs, bit lovingly at one of his nipples—she drove him out of his sodding mind, and she did it with such tenderness he wanted to weep.
“God, you feel so perfect,” William murmured as the head of his cock rubbed against the fleshy wetness at her center. She was drenched with lust. Lust for him.
“I bet you say that to all the slayers,” she retorted, nipping his mouth.
“Buffy…” He gripped her hips, holding her above him. “Need…”
There was one thing to be said about slayers; they didn’t take to direction very well. At least this one didn’t, and he couldn’t be more grateful. She silenced him with a kiss and sank down, infusing his body in the warmest homecoming it had ever known, or would ever know.
“Oh Will,” she whimpered, her body beginning a slow dance against his without any need for direction. She’d transformed into a sex goddess overnight. A sex goddess who blushed through her innuendos and couldn’t verbalize anything overly seedy. “You feel…”
“So good,” he finished for her, his hands sliding up over her perfect skin until he had a breast cradled in each palm. “So…hot. I love—”
A shard flew through the sanctuary they’d constructed—a small, nearly indiscernible disruption, but a tangible one nonetheless. William froze immediately, grasping her hips again to cease their lovemaking. When she fired him a questioning look, he merely raised his index finger to his lips to indicate a need for silence.
And just like that, the mood was broken. Reality had settled in. With Elizabeth perched on his lap, her pussy wrapped around him, the fog of their fantasy melted into the real world again. A world where she was the Slayer, he was the vampire, and this thing between them was forbidden.
He hated the way her heart thundered. He felt it, just as he felt the aching rush of her pulse and the way the passion in her eyes faded into fear.
There was a chance he was wrong, but he doubted it.
“Will?” she asked sharply, her voice a harsh whisper.
He waited another beat. And another. And another.
Then it came again. Louder this time. More definite.
It was a quick decision, really. A call he made instinctively without bias. Without weighing the factors and giving into temptation. One he made entirely with his Buffy in mind, forfeiting everything his true nature demanded. Now was not the time to start another argument about confronting her Watcher. Now was not the time to make a rash decision. Now was the time to get up and get her downstairs. Down to the cellar where he spent his days. To the hiding place no one save his mate knew about.
“Will, what—”
William shot up, his arms clamping around her middle, his cock slipping out of her. Her legs impulsively wound around his waist, her arms locking around his neck, and then he was moving. Moving too quickly to be walking, but silently enough not to betray their presence. He refused to let her go—not even when he bent over to move the rug which concealed the trapdoor aside. Not even as he hurried them downstairs. It was only when his feet touched the ground that he felt it was safe enough to lower her to the floor.
If only so he might straighten the upstairs’ appearance as best he could.
Elizabeth was usually the one who situated the rug over the door. Elizabeth had never hidden with him down here. There had never been reason.
There wasn’t enough time to make things look perfect, if such was even possible. He heard voices and heavy footsteps outside and made the final duck downwards with only seconds to spare.
When he turned again and took her in—his beautiful, courageous Slayer—and saw the fear in her eyes, a part of him shattered.
This was killing her. Perhaps so slowly she hadn’t even noticed yet. Perhaps she was ignoring it for the sake of her denial. Perhaps a thousand things; he just knew it was killing her.
Not being with him. That wasn’t it.
It was the fear of the Watcher. A fear she probably didn’t recognize. A fear she likely brushed off as something overly insignificant.
William reached for her and she was in his arms the next second, her face buried in his shoulder, her trembling body pressed so tightly against his that her tremors became his own.
“Shhh…” he murmured into her hair, kissing her temple.
And then, from above, voices.
“Not in here,” one said gruffly. “Though the bed’s all in a tangle.”
“They were here recently,” came another voice. A colder one. One that had Elizabeth freezing against him.
That had to be Kenneth Travers.
“’Spect they got tipped off?”
“No,” Travers replied softly. “I think, once again, you and your men were too bloody loud.”
“We was quiet!”
“’Ey. Look ‘ere,” a new voice said, inspiring a parade of thunderous footsteps as men shuffled toward the attraction. “Pretty. Didn’t think ‘ouses came with murals.”
“They don’t, you simpering buffoon,” Travers snapped. “I told you, one of Elizabeth’s pastimes is painting, didn’t I?”
“Oh. Right.” A pause. “Whassit s’posed to be?”
William couldn’t help it; he rolled his eyes. Honestly…
“She painted the sunrise for her lover. How…sickening.” There was another pause. “Search the premises and the grounds. I doubt they got far.”
“And if we find the girl firs’?”
“Elizabeth is my concern, not yours. You’re to bring her to me.” Travers was quiet for another long, dramatic beat. Then, “The vampire…you may do whatever you want.”
William tightened his grip on Elizabeth to keep her from gasping. She didn’t. She didn’t do anything. She just held onto him.
Trembling.
Cold.
Crying.
But not making a sound.
TBC
Teaser: Anyone wondering where the demon Paimon has been? Tune in next time…