Sanguine Veritas Read online

I touch just the tip of my tongue to her collarbone and she cries out, reaching for me. I catch her hands.

  “Not yet.” I return her hands to her sides, my thumbs soothing over the veins in her wrists before I let her go.

  “What do you want?” I murmur, calibrating my voice to the exact vibration that winds her up the fastest.

  She squeezes her eyes shut. “Damon…”

  I trail the pads of my fingers over her cheeks. “You have all these sensations and feelings, amped to the nines. Why not enjoy some of them?”

  “I want to,” she protests. “But you’re teasing me.”

  I smile. “Don’t pout. You don’t play a violin with a sledgehammer, Elena. If you’d stop sleeping with football players, you’d know that.”

  She opens her eyes to glare at me, but it doesn’t last long. I touch my lips to her forehead in the lightest of touches, brushing them across her soft skin. She shivers.

  I hover my hands just above her skin, close enough that I bet she can feel the faint heat of them. I draw them down from shoulders over her breasts, pulling back when she leans forward into my touch.

  “Not yet,” I caution.

  She gives me a pleading look that nearly does me in, so I fast forward for her and slide my hands under her skirt. Even before I make contact with her skin, this ratchets up her body temperature by about ten degrees.

  I keep the pressure so light that the calluses on my fingertips don’t flatten when I touch her, starting on the outsides of her thighs and trailing to the inside, drifting higher.

  She swallows hard and shifts her legs apart fractionally, her eyes clenched shut again. I shake my head. She probably has sex in the dark, too. I have so much to teach this girl.

  That thought punches me in the gut and I catch myself staring blankly at the front of her shirt. Do we have a future now? Is that what this means, this whole declaration and blood sharing and her chasing after me for once?

  “Damon?” she asks shakily, her eyes still closed.

  I shake my head. Keep it together, Salvatore. You’ve got your hands up a pretty girl’s skirt. Now is not the time for wondering if you are going steady.

  My fingers have reached the bottom edges of her panties, but I refuse to increase the pressure of my touch.

  Elena shifts restlessly. If I know anything about vampire skin sensitivity, the top of her head is going to blow off with about three more minutes of this. “Damon, hurry.”

  “You afraid I’m going to leave you wanting more?” I challenge. “That I’m not going to take care of you?”

  “No.”

  “Then we’ve got time.” And then, because I can’t help myself, “Don’t we?”

  She looks at me, the haze of lust clearing a little for her tender certainty to shine through. “We do. We’ve got time now, Damon.”

  I wink at her and stroke her thigh, not giving her what she really wants. I may not know what to do with all the revelations of the day, but I know how to do this. I know how to let my body speak to hers.

  “Damon, I need more,” she groans. I’m pretty sure it is only guilt that has her going along with this instead of just attacking me like I know she’s dying to.

  “Do you need it, Elena?” I ask her in a voice that’s rougher than it should be. “Because you’ve driven me crazy a hundred times with just the sight of you. You and I are hot enough together I’m pretty sure I could get you off from across a room if you’d let me.”

  “Oh, I’d let you,” she assures me, her voice higher than normal.

  That pleases me, so I step back and tip her chin up.

  “Now look at me.”

  She obeys immediately, her gaze caught as if I’m compelling her. There’s an answering throb in my chest and I slide my hand up to cup her bottom, and she still doesn’t step away.

  I added the eye contact specifically for revenge, because of all the times in the past that the connection of her eyes to mine has made me feel so much more between us than she would admit to. But she’s not looking away, she’s not flinching and God help me, I don’t think I can take another second of those soft brown eyes looking at me like they don’t want to see anything else.

  But then Elena’s hand wraps around my wrist. “Stop.”

  What? Her eyes are on fire and I know she doesn’t want me to let her go.

  “Not without you,” she breathes.

  She grabs me by the front of the shirt and opens the front door. Then we’re crashing into the far wall, my shoulders crushing drywall. Elena tears my shirt down the front and her mouth is scorching my bare chest, her tongue blistering my skin. When one of her fangs scratches my belly, I hiss and pull her back to my mouth. This kiss is sharp and tastes of blood.

  My hands cup her bottom and boost her up on me, my hips jerking instinctively. I can feel the heat of her through the jeans I forgot I was still wearing.

  Elena’s got a hand in my waistband. She yanks with more force than finesse and the fabric shreds but I’m still all tangled in the remnants of denim. You have to get just the right angle to tear the seams and she doesn’t know this yet but I am miles from complaining.

  I finish the job with one hand, ruining my pants with one jerk and her skirt with another and then angels are singing and pouring gasoline into my ears and the devil is laughing and lighting a match because she is naked against me and she’s gasping my name. My name.

  I slam her into the wall, biting her shoulder with teeth that I’m fighting to keep blunt. She reaches for me, trusting me to hold her up so both her hands can cradle my face as she kisses me, our tongues meeting in the midst of her throaty moans. This is every second of the almost painful need of our kiss in Denver, every moment of every day we’ve been denied pressing me closer to her and this time? She’s not pushing me away.

  She doesn’t stop devouring my mouth even as she lets go of my face and tears her shirt off and as much as I want her, it’s not even about sex right now. It’s just about leaving nothing between us.

  She abandons my mouth for my throat and I think she’s going to bite me. Please let her bite me. Instead her lips are soft against the corded tendons in my neck. She must hear, must feel the blood roaring through my jugular but as hungry as I know she is, she just kisses it softly.

  I spare a hand to tangle in her hair, forcing her head against me.

  “Bite,” I growl through gritted teeth. “Now.”

  I don’t have to ask her twice. Her sweet little fangs are in me, her tongue lapping me up like she could never get enough. The pleasure bursts starbursts behind my eyes, the pull of her mouth drawing velvet lines of contrast inside the firestorm of my need.

  I lose myself in her, completely.

  When my senses reboot, the first thing I notice is a pleasant tingling in my scalp. Elena’s hand is stroking my hair, my forehead resting against the wall next to her head.

  Somehow we are still on our feet, my weight holding her into the wall and my nerve endings humming happily from my head to my heels.

  She shifts, pulling back a little and I just know she’s about to start in about why we shouldn’t have done that. I’m going to dismember half the fucking county if she always-Stefan’s me while we’re naked in my foyer, my blood in her body and hers in mine.

  Instead, all the love I’d tasted inside of her is shining through her eyes. Every bit of it is focused on me. I freeze like prey. I can’t look away or move.

  The last time I was this bone-shakingly flat fucking terrified, Elena was dead on a steel slab.

  Chapter 6: Your Wish

  DAMON

  I need her in my bed, on my sheets. I don’t know what to do about that look, but I know where I want her to be while I figure it out.

  I pull back from her and swing one arm under her legs, cradling her in my arms. I kick the front door belatedly closed, and leave our shredded clothes in the foyer. I should clean up before Stefan comes home but I can’t let go of Elena right now.

  She rests her head against my
shoulder, and I carry her up the stairs at human speed, because that seems appropriate.

  “Do you remember when you carried me out of the hospital like this?” she asks.

  I nod.

  “When they hooked me up to that needle, I knew you’d come. I didn’t even know where you were or if you knew I had been taken, but I fell asleep without a doubt in my mind that I’d wake up to you.” She tilts her head, studying me. “You probably didn’t even consider how much you were pissing off the most powerful vampire in the world when you took me out of there.”

  “Sure I did. I had a fistfight with him in the parking lot before I came in.” I hadn’t come out of that fight too brilliantly, either, but she didn’t need to know that.

  She shakes her head, her pink lips compressed. “I don’t understand why you risk so much for me.”

  I carry her into my room, and a tiny bit of the tension in my chest eases. “That’s because you haven’t been around long enough to realize how weird you are,” I tell her casually, laying her down on my bed like it’s no big deal. Like it’s not the biggest thing I’ve ever done.

  “Shut up,” she protests, swatting my chest lightly.

  “I’m serious, Elena. Come on, who loves the way you do? Jesus. And look where that got him,” I scoff.

  A smile spreads across her face and she rolls her eyes. “Only you could compare somebody to Jesus and make it sound like an insult.”

  Looking at Elena wearing nothing but a bra, panties, and knee-high boots is unarguably the best use I’ve ever found for my eyes, but the primitive part of my brain is flooded with post-bloodshare hormones and it is insisting that she be warm and safe in my cave. Instead of staring, I pull off her boots and tuck the sheets around her.

  She’s watching me with a bemused expression. The shadows under her eyes are still prominent, even after feeding on both me and Stefan.

  “Elena, you’ve got to feed. I know you’re not ready, but we can’t put it off anymore.”

  “I know,” she says in a very small voice. She reaches up and grabs my hand, tugging me down on the bed next to her. I kick my boots off, but don’t resist. “Will you come with me?”

  “Of course. There’s not really any risk in feeding off a human if you’re not alone. I just won’t let you take too much. ”

  She nods. “I still wish I didn’t have to hurt anybody.”

  I grimace. “You don’t. What the hell has Stef been telling you? If you do it right, you can feed without hurting them, and you don’t have to take that much to stay healthy.”

  “Yes, but I’m still taking, stealing from people for my own benefit without giving anything in return.” She doesn’t say it, but I know she’s still feeling guilty for earlier.

  “So give something back,” I say lightly. “Problem solved.”

  She frowns. “What do you mean?”

  “You know you can heal the bites with your blood. And yeah, you have to use compulsion to make them forget, but flip that coin over, Elena.”

  “What?”

  “Use your compulsion to do something good,” I say with exaggerated patience. “Give them what they need. Self-esteem, confidence, even just a day where they feel really great. Then you’re even.”

  She looks at me like she’s never seen me before. “Have you ever done that?”

  I smile scornfully and grab a pillow, stuffing it under my head. I don’t answer her.

  She trails her fingers down my jawline, which makes me want to purr like a cat. “You’re kind of amazing, Damon Salvatore.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure I’m the first one to ever consider that use for compulsion,” I say sarcastically. “If Stefan wasn’t so busy reveling in his hair shirt he might have to admit that there are some good things about being a vampire.”

  “It did get me some great jewelry,” Elena says.

  I touch her new daylight ring, feeling smug. “Like that, do you?”

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “Course it is,” I say, because I can’t resist. “I had it designed for you.”

  Her eyes go wide. “But Stefan gave it to me.”

  “‘Bonnie made this for you,’” I quote. “I bet Bonnie didn’t tell him where she got it from.”

  “You heard us,” she says, looking sad.

  “New vampire tip, Elena: if you want privacy, don’t have vampire roommates. We need to get you an anklet too. Or a pair of little stud earrings. Some kind of backup for the ring, so people can’t steal it every time they want to use you to light a cigarette. The best thing would be a piece of metal they can’t see and wouldn’t guess. Like a piercing.” I nod meaningfully toward her lap and she gapes at me.

  “I can’t believe you just said that.”

  “It would work,” I say unrepentantly.

  She shakes her head. “Always protecting me. I should have been protecting you.”

  “From what? I’m a big, bad vampire, remember?”

  “From me,” she says quietly.

  I tuck a hand behind my head. Lesson learned. Never give Elena Gilbert a guilt trip or she’ll never get over it.

  “Hail Mary, full of grace,” I recite in a mocking falsetto.

  When she doesn’t smack me, I peek down at her. She’s wearing a sexy little smile, and a blush is creeping up her cheeks.

  “You have a Catholic fetish?” I wonder.

  “No, that is the position you lay in whenever you come into my room. Even in Denver. You push my boundaries by showing up in my bed without invitation and then you lay on your hands so you don’t pressure me.” She touches my elbow. “It’s sweet.”

  “You’re not blushing because you think I’m sweet,” I point out, ignoring her interpretation of my body language. “What were you really thinking about?”

  “Sweet and sensitive. Careful, Damon, you’re crushing your reputation here.”

  “Ah, deflection. Such a familiar strategy. Try again.”

  “Fine.” She glances down at my stomach, toying with one of the few buttons left on my shirt. Now that’s a distraction strategy that might actually work. “I probably owe you a secret or two anyway.” She clears her throat. “When you used to come into my room like that, I would always have the same fantasy when you left.”

  “About hiding a shotgun in your closet for the next time I tried it?”

  She shakes her head, smiling guiltily and not looking at me. I am very interested in this fantasy.

  She bites her lip.

  “Come on, whisper it to me,” I encourage.

  She leans up shyly and puts her lips next to my ear. I could keep my own fantasy life pretty busy just on that.

  “I used to think about you making me strip.”

  I pretend to gasp. “Elena Gilbert. I don’t even think I’m old enough to be hearing fantasies this dirty.”

  “It gets worse,” she admits.

  “Let me get some parental guidance on the line for this.”

  She pinches me. “You’re terrible.”

  “But not in bed…” I tease.

  She laughs. “Damon!”

  Things have been so grim lately that I actually forgot that Elena and I have fun together, when we’re not ripping each other’s hearts out.

  “Come on, get to the dirty parts,” I encourage.

  “So, I was usually coming out of the bathroom when I found you on my bed and in the fantasy, you wouldn’t smile or joke or anything. You’d catch my eyes and compel me to strip for you.”

  “You have fantasies about me compelling you? I’m calling the morality police.”

  She looks even guiltier. “You didn’t actually compel me, not even in the fantasies. You just looked at me, and I pretended that you compelled me so that I could act like I had to do it, when really I just wanted to.”

  “Even in your fantasies you can’t admit you actually want me.” I shake my head and get up. I’m instantly furious, too pissed to even care I’m losing my chance to take proper advantage of the combination of Elena and my
bed. “I really am a problem for you, aren’t I? You just fucking hate that you want me.”

  “I only said that at the Mikaelson ball because it would be so much easier to ignore my feelings for you if you didn’t feel the same,” she protests and then I see something flicker across her face faster even than my eyes can follow.

  She sits up.

  “And why shouldn’t I be scared to want you? Stefan’s the safer choice. He’s easier, more considerate.”

  “He’s a pussy!” I explode, tired to the bone of being compared to my little goddamn brother. “He lets you have your way even when you shouldn’t. He doesn’t challenge you when you’re wrong. He’s too scared to get over himself long enough to help you figure out how to be a decent vampire.”

  “That’s because he understands me,” she counters immediately. “He knows I wouldn’t be able to live with hurting anyone.”

  “You wouldn’t hurt anyone if he was man enough to be there and support you!” I shout. “He understands you? He understands the cute little teenager he started dating! He doesn’t understand shit about the girl who was smart enough to stab Ric to death to save his life. He knows enough to know that you would want him to save Matt first, but not enough to recognize you were killing yourself to save us.”

  “What, like you could do better?” she shouts back.

  “I have been doing better!” I grab an empty glass off the nightstand and hurl it into the bathroom, where it shatters on the tiles. “Who the hell taught you to fight back instead of just sacrificing yourself to your enemies? Who taught you to laugh and make bad chili while you were waiting for the next attempt on your life? It sure as fuck wasn’t my-sense-of-humor-didn’t-survive-my-transition Stefan. And if you would open your eyes for one goddamn second you would realize it doesn’t matter whose class ring or necklace or whatever you’re wearing. You and I already have a relationship, and you know it is more real than anything you ever had with Stefan.”

  “Open your eyes, Damon,” she says gently. “I’m wearing your ring.”

  It’s her tone of voice that clues me in. She’s not angry, she’s just getting me to make her arguments for her. I’ve been played.