“You are killing me.” He tipped her head and took command of her lips, his arm constricting around her back so every part of her from breast to thigh felt the hard planes, curves and demands of his body. She whimpered in the back of her throat.

It was the damnedest thing Mason had ever seen. Even after being so traumatized and abused, her sexual nature refused to be denied. It had to offer itself, wanting so desperately to trust, though her damaged mind was far from ready to handle a man’s lust, and definitely not a vampire’s. He didn’t want to frighten her, but he had only so much control.

He’d stayed away two weeks, thinking that would help him gain perspective, as well as give her breathing space. Instead, he’d been instantly, painfully aroused by the spark in her eye when she knocked him off the fence. Despite the flash of fear, she’d maintained bristling challenge and awaited retaliation, to see if he would hurt her. Her laughter as they’d run had been an unexpected treasure, and now this, melting in his arms . . . While he knew her mind drifted in the pages of that damn journal, putting her into the safe place she imagined that to be, it was far from safe, because of the raging need she created in him.

He didn’t coax open her lips. He simply demanded entry and she opened. He swept inside and devoured her, taking possession without hesitation. What a lovely, delicate mouth she had. Perfect for kissing, plundering. It was impossible not to imagine her lips closing over the head of his cock, since she’d already done it once. Only now he imagined her head tilted back over the end of his bed so he could drive in deep, come hard, watching her throat work as she swallowed. Her body would be spread and tied on his mattress, cunt lips glistening as she made moaning whimpers like this, wanting him to take her after she served him well.

Dear Allah. His arm slid down her back, his hand cupping her backside, moving her against his cock.

The need became too much. She jerked back, the soothing swirl of thoughts invaded by darkness, violent demands. He was able to stop her before she scrambled blindly away and toppled off the horse, or spooked Coman into shaking her loose. Fortunately, the horse trusted him, and a soothing word kept him steady as he caught Jess. He didn’t force her to stay, but ensured she had a controlled slide off the horse’s side to a stumbling landing on the sand. Backing away, she had her hand pressed flat against her belly as if she were calming the wild animal there.

Good luck with that, love, he thought. His own beast was barely held on a leash. However, Mason schooled his face to calm as he swung his leg over Coman’s neck and dismounted. He released the horses with a word, let them canter ahead, cavort along the shore. They were well trained enough to come at his whistle and these miles of beach were his.

Perhaps something vital wasn’t broken, habiba . Only changed. Learning and growing. You must not give up on yourself so easily . . .

Jessica spun around and started walking down the shoreline, trying to shut him out. She couldn’t get this close to him, couldn’t relax her guard. She was too fucked up in her head. Hell, she could barely keep reality and fantasy separate. She wanted a man’s touch, a man’s body, and his happened to be every woman’s fantasy. He was a savage, bloodthirsty beast who would turn into a monster.

Farida had felt differently. Or she’d been the same as Raithe’s servants. Deluded, stupid women, like those crazy cult members who popped up on the news all the time. The ones who drank poisoned Kool-Aid after bearing the psycho leader twenty kids apiece. Or followed him into someone’s house to murder an entire family.

But Amara didn’t seem that way. Jessica rolled her eyes at herself. Oh, yeah, Amara was Suzy Homemaker. Her husband shared her body with a vampire. Hell, Mason had probably fucked Enrique, too. Vampires were notoriously bisexual. Notoriously sexual, period. He’d probably screwed his precious horses.

“Now you’re being nasty.”

She snapped out of her mental rant to see him walking alongside her, his hands clasped behind his back, keeping easily apace with his longer legs. “I have never had carnal relations with either of my horses. I expect they would knock me through a barn wall if I became so desperate.” He considered her with a sidelong glance. “I do admit there was a winter storm in Russia where I had to share a hut with a sheep for five days. While she did get exceedingly attractive, on several different levels, I managed to restrain myself.”

“Is this charm?” She stopped, faced him, her fists clenched. The skin of her face felt tight, and there was an ache high in her throat.

“I’m trying to tell you there are no absolutes, habiba.”

“Oh, horseshit. That’s what people say so they can live in a gray world and rationalize what they do.” He sobered. “I didn’t say there is no right and wrong. I said there are no absolutes. Right and wrong is in each man’s heart. And that can differ between culture, circumstances. For every religious tenet, I can give you an example where breaking that tenet is the right thing to do. That’s why you missed that I was a vampire, in Farida’s writings. Your experience up until that moment was that all vampires are incapable of love, compassion, feeling.”

“Each person deciding what’s right and wrong doesn’t always work,” she argued. “What about sociopaths?” At his look, she folded her arms over her chest. “I’m not saying you’re one. I’m just saying.”

“Faith can be a moral compass. I’m not talking about religion,” he interjected, cutting off the derisive sneer on her face. “Though I prefer the name of Allah, I’ve never settled on a religion. I’ve seen enough commonality among all of them to suggest a man’s spirituality rests inside himself. Perhaps that is what life is about, the journey to embrace and explore our own unique and yet common faith.”

“To what purpose?”

His gaze had wandered ahead to the horses but now came back to her. Giving her a faint smile, he responded, “So that maybe we can go back to Eden, and finally be at peace. Jessica, you have experienced love. Can you honestly see what it inspires us to do, and think it’s not worth it, just because we don’t know if death is the beginning of some divine journey, or dust and oblivion? Love is probably the closest we’ll ever get to understanding what divinity is. The same way hatred is the way we understand evil.” They walked in silence for a few moments, before he added, “And my ultimate point is that a healthy young woman feeling desire should be nothing for you to fear.”

“It is if what I want is twisted, perverted. God, I know what you are.”

“You may know what I am, but you don’t know who I am.” His jaw hardened, the amber eyes flickering.

“Still, vampires all have that need to . . .” She swallowed, because it disturbed her to say the word while looking at his handsome face, the stern set of the firm lips.

“Dominate? Yes. For that reason, vampires look for humans who have a compatible personality. A natural desire to submit. To serve. Hence, servants. You’ve been denied a true understanding of what that relationship is meant to be, Jessica.”

“So Amara said. So you say. But you’re trying to take up where Raithe left off, manipulate me into believing this is how I am, what I have to accept.”

“If that was true, you would not be so angry.” While his eyes still showed temper, there was compassion there, too, which made the jagged ache in her chest worse. “I have no intention of forcing you to accept anything, unless it concerns your safety. I only recommend, strongly, that you not shut yourself down to the possibility that your submissive nature existed long before Raithe met you.”

“Why does it matter?” She swung away from him, facing the ocean, the surf far less turbulent than her thoughts. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Yes, it does, and you know why. You cannot take control of your own destiny until you realize your own value. Until you know, in your soul, that who you are, not what Raithe tried to make you, has led you to this moment.” She swallowed, continued to watch the frothy overlay of water. “I can’t believe anything you tell me. I can’t trust anything.” She wasn’t sure what she was seeking, but his words still took her by surprise. “No, you can’t. But I know that Raithe tried to destroy a diamond. Sometimes the more you put a diamond through, the more it glitters, defying you to dim its inner fire. The wise Master would dedicate himself to polishing it until it shines, not shattering it.” She turned and met his gaze. Ten feet between them, but he felt much closer. She wanted him much closer . . . and far away, at the same time.

A muscle flexed in his jaw. “You have the choice, Jessica, to deny or accept any part of who you are. We all do that, to be the person we think we must be. The one we can face in the mirror, so to speak.” His lips tugged ironically. “I merely want you to understand you have the freedom here, and the safety, to explore that choice.” 018

He started walking again. Jessica rolled his words over in her mind, watching him move ahead to the horses. God, he was a strange one. As he bent to pick up a piece of coral, he examined it in the moonlight, then skipped it across the water, a maneuver men usually perfected as boys.

She wasn’t used to being curious about a vampire’s past. For her, monsters sprang up from the underside of the mind and had always existed, fully formed evil. But the past couple weeks, and perhaps the unanswered strands of Farida’s diary, had made her wonder. She already knew from idle staff gossip that he was a born vampire, not a made one. The Council had met in his home, which suggested he was a vampire of some standing.

In vampire hierarchy, a born vampire was accorded greater status than a made one. Raithe had been a made vampire, turned by a female vamp at thirty. Most born vampires, on the other hand, came from a human and vampire parent combination. She wondered how much older Mason was. She knew he was at least three hundred, but in truth, other than his efforts to preserve Farida’s grave, she only knew about two years of his life. Even that had been indirect, through Farida’s journals and the other documents.