Vampires Are Forever (Argeneau #8)

Thomas could, and was, competing with work and winning hands down.

"I'm in trouble," she murmured to her reflection, because it certainly felt like trouble to her. Thomas was the first person who had touched the calculator that past boyfriends had claimed was her heart...and he could quite easily smash it. While he had talked about her being his lifemate, he'd never once mentioned love, and Inez feared she was heading down that dark, frightening path. It put a whole new light on everything. Before, she'd just had to decide if she could handle living centuries, now she had to decide if she could live centuries with a man she would no doubt come to love with every fiber of her being, but who might not ever love her in return.

Panic giving way to a solemn mood, Inez turned off the taps, stripped, and slipped into the tub to consider the problem.

"Inez?" The soft question, accompanied by a light tap at the door brought her eyes open and had her sitting up abruptly in the water, and then quickly dropping back down until the few bubbles still remaining covered her to the shoulders.

"Oh, you're awake," Thomas said, peering at her through the door he'd eased half open. "I was afraid you'd fallen asleep."

"No," Inez said quickly, forcing a smile. "How long have I been in here?"

"Well over an hour," he answered. "The food has arrived."

"I'll get out now," Inez said and started to sit up, but came to an abrupt halt as she recalled she was naked.

Thomas smiled faintly and grabbed a towel from the rack. Holding it open, he stepped to the side of the tub. When Inez eyed the towel and hesitated, he said quietly. "Shy? You weren't this morning."

Her eyes flickered to his face at the way his voice had suddenly lowered and she saw that his eyes had that silver glow. Swallowing, Inez hesitated another moment, then stood, knowing her cheeks were blushing furiously even as she did. Much to her relief, he immediately moved the towel forward and she lifted her arms to keep them out of the way as he wrapped it around her. Inez's eyes widened in surprise, however, when he didn't then release her and step away, but lifted her out of the tub like a child. That child image died an abrupt death when he kept lifting her, bringing her up until their lips met.

Surprised, she clutched at his arms with every intention of putting some space between them. Inez hadn't been sleeping, she'd been thinking, and what she'd come up with was it was better if she kept her distance from the man and refused to agree to be his lifemate until she knew if he could come to love her. That grand plan flew out the window, however, when his tongue slipped between her lips, coaxing a response from her.

A little moan of defeat slipping from her lips, Inez gave up her hold on his arms and slipped her hands around his neck, blinking in surprise when she felt that his hair was damp. Obviously, he'd taken a bath too or perhaps a shower. She didn't know which, but in the next moment didn't care. He'd turned with her and set her on the edge of the marble counter and the moment he took his hands away, the towel dropped to pool on the counter around her hips, caught beneath her, but no longer covering anything.

Inez shuddered as Thomas took advantage of the lack and urged her legs open so that he could step between them as he kissed her. His hands slid over her naked back, pressing her closer until her breasts rubbed against the soft cloth of his shirt as he kissed, and she moaned, scraping the nails of one hand through his hair, while the other clutched at his shoulder, urging him closer still.

She felt one hand leave her back and slide around to her side, feathering lightly across the side of one breast. She shuddered and kissed him more eagerly, her upper body suddenly taking on a mind of its own and twisting slightly, pressing one breast tighter against his chest while making space between his body and her other breast.

Thomas accepted the silent invitation, his hand closing warm over the eager orb and Inez moaned and arched into the caress, and then cried out into his mouth as he plucked at the excited nipple. She groaned in protest, however, when he tore his mouth away from hers, but then gasped and arched even more as his head dropped so that his lips could fasten on the nub he'd been teasing.

Catching both hands in his still-damp hair, she held on tightly and shivered as he alternately laved and suckled at first one breast and then the other, gasping little half-phrases of encouragement and need in Portuguese. However, her ability to speak deteriorated even as the excitement he was stirring in her built and Inez was soon merely moaning and then tugging firmly at his hair, demanding he return to kissing her.

Thomas chuckled at the silent command and raised his head to kiss her again, pressing forward as he did so that his chest and groin brushed against hers as his arms enveloped her. Inez groaned into his mouth at the assault to her senses and reached between them to catch the hem of his T-shirt and begin tugging it up.

Thomas broke their kiss and leaned back, his arms rising accommodatingly so that she could remove the item, but when he started forward again to kiss her after that, she didn't let him. Her hands were now on his chest, holding him back as she explored the muscular surface. His muscles weren't unattractively bulky, but sleek and well defined and his shoulders and chest were wide, a veritable playground for her to explore. Inez ran her hands over all that male flesh with awe, and then leaned forward to press kisses to the firm surface, before stopping to lick and nip at one flat nipple.

Thomas sucked in a breath and immediately caught her head between both hands to force her face up. His mouth then covered hers in a kiss that was hungry and carnal. Inez smiled against his mouth. Emboldened by this small success, she trailed her fingers lightly down his chest until they reached the top of his jeans. She worked blind at his belt buckle, then at the button and zipper and then quickly pushed the heavy material down over his hips until the upper half of his behind was bare. Her hands stopped then for a brief foray over the taut flesh, before slipping back around to the front to find him hard and free of the encumbering jeans.

A sigh of satisfaction slipped from her mouth to his as Inez closed her hand around his arousal, and then she stiffened in surprise as a wave of keen excitement coursed through her. Thomas growled into her mouth and reached down to catch her hand and try to drag it away, but all he managed to do was draw it the length of his shaft and Inez cried out with startled pleasure as another wave of pleasure, this one larger and heavier, poured over her. Her eyes blinked open as she realized that her own cry had echoed a growl from Thomas.

Inez tried to break their kiss to ask what was happening, but Thomas wouldn't let her. He also wouldn't let her touch him again. He forced her hand away from him and brought it up over her head, catching and raising her other hand at the same time. He then switched his hold so that he had both wrists caught in the fingers of one hand against the mirror.

Realizing how he'd trapped her, Inez tried to protest, but it was hard to do with his tongue in her mouth, and then his free hand closed over one breast and she arched and shuddered and forgot all about it as he drove her wild with both his kisses and caresses.

Just when Inez thought she couldn't stand it anymore, Thomas suddenly released his hold on her hands. Gasping with relief, she reached to wrap them around his shoulders, but he wasn't there to hold. He'd broken the kiss to travel her body with his mouth, his lips brushing over her throat, her collarbone, her breasts, and continuing downward as his hands caught her by the hips and pulled her bottom to the edge of the counter.

Gasping breathlessly, Inez dropped her hands to the counter and braced herself to keep from falling back against the mirror, hardly hearing the skitter of the cosmetics she sent skipping across the marble. Her attention was focused entirely on what Thomas was doing as his lips burned a trail over her stomach. When the path continued down over her hip, Inez shook her head and tried to close her legs, but he held them open with his hands, and even urged them farther open to accommodate his shoulders as he dropped to his knees before her.

Inez knew where he was going and what he planned to do, but still cried out and jerked in surprise as his head bowed between her legs. She may have known what was coming, but nothing could have prepared her for the shocking jolt of pleasure that shot through her at the first rasp of his tongue over her sensitive flesh.

That cry was one that seemed to have no end. It became an ululating sound that rose and fell and dropped into breathless gasps, but then rose again as Inez struggled on the counter, her hips and pelvis fighting to rise into the caress or alternately to shrink away when the sensations became too intense. She was allowed to do neither. Thomas held her in place, his grip firm on her thighs as he drove her toward the edge of sanity. When he suddenly stopped and lunged to his feet between her legs, she didn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed. He didn't say a word, simply slid his hand under her bottom and scooped her off the counter.

"What-?" Inez gasped with confusion, quickly wrapping her legs around his hips and catching one ankle over the other to help hold her weight as he turned toward the door.

"We can't do it here," Thomas growled. "You might hit your head on the marble or the mirror."

Inez hadn't a clue what he was talking about, she'd been in no danger of coming to harm that she could tell, but then he took a step to carry her out of the room and froze as the movement made her slide against his erection where it was caught between them. She saw his face tighten, though it looked more like alarm on his face than excitement, then his mouth firmed with determination and he took another step only to pause again as they both groaned.

Shaking his head grimly, Thomas took one more step and this time she felt his shoulders ripple in reaction to the pleasure that shot through them both.

A growl of what sounded like despair and frustration slid from his lips and Thomas suddenly turned. The three steps had taken him to the doorway, his turning placed her back to the doorjamb.

"I'm sorry, this is as far as I can get us," Thomas growled as he lifted her slightly against his chest until his erection sprang free from between them.

Thinking he meant because she was too heavy, Inez felt her face flush with embarrassment and opened her mouth to tell him to put her down if she was too heavy, that she could walk, but the words died on a gasp as he eased her back down and his erection pushed into her.

Inez met his gaze. His eyes were almost silver white now, there wasn't a drop of blue left in them and she suspected her own were probably black, the pupils dilated to erase the color. She knew they'd gone wide with shock at what she'd just experienced. When she'd touched him earlier, she'd experienced a shock of pleasure herself, as if he'd somehow sent his pleasure out to her, but that had stopped when he'd forced her hands away. However, Inez had just experienced it again, a wave of pleasure riding on top of her own pleasure, somehow joining and doubling it.

"I was trying to guard you from it. I didn't want to overwhelm you, but I can't concentrate enough to keep my guards up anymore," Thomas said through gritted teeth.

Inez stared at him blankly, not really understanding what he was talking about, but suspecting she was experiencing his pleasure on top of her own.

"Will you be all right?" he asked with concern.

Inez just stared at him for a moment and then whispered, "Do it again."

Thomas peered at her uncertainly, but then pulled out slightly and drove back in and Inez cried out and tipped her head back as another wave of their combined pleasure rolled over her.

"Again," she cried, digging her nails into his shoulders.

Thomas let his breath out on a sigh that sounded relieved and began to move. Inez soon realized that he'd still been holding back somewhat even when he'd claimed that he couldn't concentrate enough to do so. Suddenly it wasn't just one wave of pleasure with each move, but that wave rolled forward to thunder through her, receded and then poured over her again even as the next wave arrived to crash over her as well.

Inez soon felt she was going to drown in the pleasure swamping her. She couldn't catch her breath, couldn't feel the doorjamb pressing into her spine, couldn't hear the sounds she knew she was making, and couldn't even think. All she could experience was their mounting pleasure as Thomas drove into her, and then suddenly something snapped and the pleasure exploded, blowing out every thought and feeling. Inez screamed, vaguely aware that Thomas was shouting out too and then her awareness was suddenly sucked away, caught in a fiery backdraft.

It was a constant and repetitive tapping on his cheek that woke Thomas. Frowning at the irritating sensation, he blinked his eyes open, the frown fading at once as he found himself peering up into Inez's worried face.

"You're alive," she said with relief, stopping her tapping the moment he opened his eyes. "For a minute I was afraid I'd killed you."

Thomas chuckled, sending her bouncing about where she leaned on his vibrating chest and then he assured her, "I would have died happy."

A small smile curved her lips, but then she arched an eyebrow. "Would you mind explaining what exactly just happened?"

Thomas felt his eyebrows fly up. "Well, the choo-choo went into the tunnel and-" He stopped and laughed as she smacked his chest with exasperation.

"Smart-ass," she accused, her lips twisting, then looked more serious and said, "I mean the brain thing. What was that?"

"That, my dear," Thomas said, catching her by the upper arms and tugging her to lie fully on top of him, "was immortal sex."

"Yes, but-Stop looking so bloody satisfied," Inez ordered on a laugh.

"I can't help it. I am satisfied." He wiggled his eyebrows at her and lifted his hands to slip them into her hair.

"What are you doing?" she asked as he ran his hands over her head, and then down her back, moving lower with every sweep.

"Checking for wounds. You didn't hurt yourself when we fell did you?"

"I don't think so," she said with a frown. "Nothing hurts."

"Good," he murmured, his hands slowing as he reached her behind. He couldn't resist cupping and squeezing the round cheeks. They fit perfectly in his hand and felt so soft and smooth...Little Thomas approved wholeheartedly of the foray and began to lift his head beneath her, making Inez's eyes widen.