Bled Dry (Vegas Vampires #3)(15)
Author: Erin McCarthy

Eyes closed, her head went rapidly back and forth. “Don’t stop.”

“No?” Corbin moved his tongue over her sensitive flesh, closing his eyes to savor the taste of her, the triumph of her shudder, the pleasure of feeling her thighs relax, settle open farther for him.

“No,” she whispered. “Don’t stop.”

Disposing of her panties, he traced her thigh, first one, then the other, with his tongue, enjoying the way she spread her legs, the way she arched to him, the way her fingers moved into his hair and gripped hard. When she was shifting back and forth, making little sounds of impatient distress, Corbin finally brought his mouth back to her, stroking his tongue over her clitoris.

Brittany groaned, her voice rising as he moved over her, tasting her thoroughly, stroking up and down with long leisurely licks, then pulling back to tease her. When she yanked at his hair, trying to drag him back, he gave her what she wanted, moving in with increased speed and intensity, nipping and sucking at her, plunging his tongue inside her warmth, pulling it back out. He knew she was going to orgasm, felt the tightening of her legs, her inner muscles, and he maintained his rhythm, his own desire hot and thick and hard as she exploded under him. Her cries were loud and unrestrained, her fingers fisting her bedsheet, hair spread out in all directions and tumbling over her cheeks and lips.

Her passion was beautiful. He loved that she wasn’t insecure or shy about her body, about her desires.

“Oh,” she said, eyes popping open, thighs settling back onto the bed. “That was hot. Take your pants off and give me another one.”

No, Brittany wasn’t shy. Corbin went up on his knees and unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it toward a wicker chair resting in the corner of her bedroom. “It would be my pleasure.”

She pried at his belt buckle, obviously intending to speed up the process. “Take off your watch. It scrapes my skin,” she said as she undid the belt.

Corbin paused, knowing he needed to tell the truth, but feeling a sense of shame. “It cannot come off,” he told her bluntly, turning his wrist a little to show her the titanium-faced wristwatch. Most of the time he was not aware of it, but suddenly he felt its weight most acutely. “It is the way the Nation keeps track of my whereabouts while I am still under the terms of my punishment. To take it off would be essentially a parole violation.”

Brittany frowned and lifted her hair up over her head, revealing cheeks and a chest still flushed pink from her orgasm. “You have an actual sentence?”

“Yes. Forty-five years I must remain in Las Vegas, visible to the government. I have served forty, with five remaining.”

Her fingers still rested on his belt and he felt the sudden urge to shove them away. It was a mirage, his relationship with her. He was not entitled to happiness, as his wristwatch reminded him. Living as a normal mortal man was not his destiny, and he knew better than to think it ever could be.

“Because you killed a woman?”

Corbin flinched. “Yes. I did not realize she was emotionally unstable when I selected her to draw a blood sample from, and to bite to infect with the virus. In those days I was focusing on how the virus was transmitted. But she was unaffected by my glamour, and remembered what I had done. She followed me, offered herself up to me, and when I refused, I thought it was the end of it.” Now was not the time to discuss this, but he knew, could read on her face, that Brittany was not going to let it rest. She was carrying his child, intending to be intimate with him yet again, and he knew she was entitled to the whole truth. “I did not realize she would cut herself open to entice me to feed, did not realize she would beg for the gift of eternity. I did not give it to her. Could not give it to her. So she died.”

He swallowed thickly and looked over at Brittany’s dresser, where she had framed pictures of her and her sister, Alexis. It was foolish to think he belonged here, that he could live a normal life. Not when he could still see that young woman’s face, the desperation in her eyes as she begged him to make her whole, to make her a vampire, to drink her blood, all of it, even as he smelled and sensed she was pumped full of illegal drugs and antidepressants. He had been unable to turn her, had recoiled at the very thought, but she had gone wild, stabbing and slicing herself, her lifeblood bleeding out.

“I let her bleed to death, then I collected blood samples. It was a heartless, cruel thing to do.” At the time, he had been so shocked by her behavior, that he had taken the blood almost automatically, as he had trained himself to do. But afterward, when he was in his apartment, her dead body left in the street, and he had called an ambulance anonymously, he had been appalled at how he had handled the situation.

Corbin had turned himself in to the Nation, disgusted with his useless, aimless life, knowing without a purpose he would go mad, slowly and certainly. Knowing that being vampire and watching so many mortal deaths had changed him, made him immune to the horror of suffering, the tragedy of death. He had even suspected he had grown cold to death because he himself yearned for it, had grown to despise his lonely and futile life. So he had committed himself to going beyond vampire viral transmission to actually finding a cure. The quest for mortality for the dozens of vampires tired of endless life.

And in his new purpose he had come to a new place of peace with himself, a tacit truce with his own eternity.

“I had removed myself so entirely from society that I forgot my humanity.” The irony of his agreement with the tribunal was that he was allowed to continue his research, but he was not entitled to participate in vampire society. So he spent all his time moving among mortals, using charm and persuasion to collect blood samples from women when it was occasionally needed, never allowing himself to get emotionally involved. Until Brittany.

She wasn’t looking at him with disgust, but understanding. “So you decided to pursue the cure to vampirism, didn’t you?”

He nodded, surprised she had reached that conclusion.

Shifting her grip from his waist to his own hand, she squeezed. “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine having to make that kind of decision, that choice, with no time to weigh the consequences. I think it was wrong of them to punish you. From a legal standpoint, you didn’t do anything wrong, in my opinion. But I can see how it must have devastated you… I would have felt the same way. Someone can’t possibly understand what they’re asking for when they request eternity. It’s not a decision you make lightly.”

That was not the reaction he had expected. He’d thought Brittany would have argued that he wasn’t responsible, that he was brooding for nothing. He had certainly heard that from fellow vampires. Then there were those, like the Committee for Fair Feeding Practices, who had condemned him for choosing his victim poorly, for his lack of a controlling glamour, and his poor handling of the situation. They had maintained that he should have wiped her mind completely clean so as not to jeopardize vampire security. Or if that was unsuccessful, turning her to vampire. Letting mortals die hysterical deaths was not something they could advocate without looking draconian.