Page 38 of Kept 3
“I just did.”
I can’t take the smile from my face. I know she is a zombie now, but she will always be my Margarita. Knowing though, that she will arrive tomorrow, I try to conceal my disappointment – I plan to leave with James tonight. A very small part of me wonders if I should postpone my escape, try to convince her to run away with me. But I know there really isn’t any point, Iknowshe won’t come, she loves her vampire. Even as I think this, my chest constricts. I will miss Nicholas.
Watching the play of emotions across my face, he steps close to me.
“What’s wrong?”
“I, ugh, nothing,” I step away and turn back to the portraits.
“Josephine,” he says gently, standing close to me, so close I can smell his delicious breath, the hair on my arms prickling and my skin goosebumping as it always does at his proximity. I glance at him out of the corner of my eye and see him watching me, carefully, his own breath coming faster and, before I can second guess myself, I turn and allow him to gather me into his arms.
His kiss is deep, and soft and intense, and our tongues meet and explore as he gently presses me against the wall. Even as he does so, and I know I’m leaning against the portrait of a former wife, someone he killed, I can’t stop kissing him. I twine my fingers into the hair at the back of his head, pulling him closer, urging his tongue deeper.
Groaning, he pushes harder against me, and I feel his arousal and moan in response as his hands move, one to my backside, pulling me in tightly against him, the other to my breast, cupping, squeezing, driving me wild. I move my hands from his hair and run them down his spine and up under his shirt, feeling the skin of his back, the hard, ropey muscles leading down to his firm arse. But as my hands wander lower and I pull him to me, he groans and pulls away, launching himself to the wall on the other side of the hall, staring at me, panting.
I stare back, my hair and clothes in disarray, my face turning puce.
“Why?” I mutter, “why do you pull away from me? Is this some kind of game to you?”
“Josephine,” he groans, “I want you.”
“I want you too,” I admit, lowering my eyes and blushing all the harder, “obviously. I just don’t understand.”
“I’ve told you,” he says, his voice firmer, angry now, “I can’t. I tried, while I was in London last, I can’t.”
“You tried what?”
“I tried to,” he waves his hands in the air, “without biting.”
“Sex?”
“Yes.”
“You tried to have sex with someone in London without biting them, and you couldn’t.”
He nods.
My face flames again. This time in anger as jealousy courses through my veins. The thought of him, just a few weeks ago, in bed with another woman, makes me crazy as hell.
“Jesus Christ, Nicholas,” I growl, “I thought you went to hunt.”
“I did, but I also wanted to see if there was a way, any way, that I could give you what you want.”
“What I want?” I stare at him, confusion all over my face.
“Yes,” he says quietly, “you said you didn’t want me to bite you, didn’t want to be my Kept. I thought there might be a way for us to be together, without that,” he runs his hands through his hair in frustration, “but there isn’t, and I can’t keep my hands off you. I can’t see any way forward with you or without you, Josephine, and it’s driving me fucking crazy.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, oh,” he sighs, turning and striding down the hall without a backward glance.
I watch him leave, my eyes wide. I’d never heard him swear outside his journals before, never seen his veneer of calm dominance and confidence slip.
‘He wants a relationship, even without biting?’ Is that something I would want too? Yes, no. Yes. I don’t know.
I shake my head at my indecision. The bottom line is, he has to bite, and no matter how attractive I find him, how much I like him and want him, I also want a future, a future where I marry, have sex with someone who doesn’t want to eat me, have babies, grow old. No biting.
‘And you can’t give me that, Lord Montague.’
