Dark Needs at Night’s Edge (Immortals After Dark #5)(17)
Author: Kresley Cole

"Do you often see things that aren’t real?"

"Daily." But if she is real… "Come in. If you wish to."

Her gaze holds his as she drifts toward him. She has sultry blue eyes, knowing eyes. Hypnotic. He finds his body arching toward her of its own will.

She floats into the stall with him. Inside, the water doesn’t wet her, instead sparking off her like minuscule electrical flares, seeming like glitter.

A dream – an erotic one. Can he really be naked with an almost nude dancer? Enjoy it.

Bloody how? He can’t feel lust. He isn’t erect. And… she’s a ghost!

That doesn’t seem to be stopping her. He can sense her energy, as strong as it’s ever felt to him. It radiates off her in waves, slingshotting from her to him and back again.

"Le dément has a magnificent body, n’est-ce pas? So strong, virile."

He feels that increasingly familiar heat on the back of his neck. "Do not call me that again."

"So you speak French among all your many languages?" When he replies with a curt nod, she says, "Well, what shall I call you, then? Conrad the Mad? Conrad the Crazed? Or I could call you my vampire?" Softening her tone, she says, "I think you like that."

How can she read him so well?

She murmurs, "If you can hear me, and you can see me, I wonder what else is possible. Perhaps I can… maybe I can try to feel you?" The yearning in her voice staggers him. "I feel nothing, you see. My hands pass through everything."

She can’t touch, and he can’t get erect. But at least he still experiences pleasure – the tang of blood on his tongue, the exhilaration of a bracing wind.

"Maybe if I concentrate very hard, maybe with you… I could feel." Before him appears a fragile, pale hand with shining dark nails. A petal lies starkly on the back of her wrist, then tumbles away to vanish. "Can I try to touch you?"

At least she asks this time. His voice a rasp, he says, "Do as you will."

Her hand begins to tremble as she inches it closer to him. Electricity pricks his skin as she nears. Can she feel him? Does he truly want this? Yes, Christ, yes, he does. But it glides right through his chest. His skin tingles at the spot, making the muscles tense, but he has no perception of pressure.

She seems to sag with disappointment. Once more she attempts it, running her hand down his torso. He experiences the same electrical feel, which isn’t unpleasurable.

"I suppose it’s not meant to be." Her tone is wistful, and this bothers him – he feels as if he’s disappointed her.

After coughing into his fist, he says, "I could try… to touch you."

In an instant, her expression brightens again. He’s effected that. So easily?

"Where would you like to, Conrad?"

Before he can stop himself, he’s peering hard at her br**sts.

"Then touch them," she murmurs, each sultry word like a stroke.

Her energy begins to make him restless. Strange urges rack him. He wants not only to touch her there, but also to kiss her flesh until she clings to him, to drag his tongue over her jutting ni**les. Would she like that? Could he make her moan?

Chapter 6

He needs to cage her in with his body, to keep her from getting away from him, and finds himself backing her against the shower wall. She could have floated through it, but she lets him surround her. He raises his knee beside her and his chained hands over her head.

Positioned like this, he gazes down into the loveliest eyes he’s ever seen. As if a breeze has swept a path through the fog of memories and confusion, he feels clearer as he beholds her face. He feels centered.

Feels… feels… felt… 

He felt clearer. Conrad felt centered. His very thoughts seemed to arise differently. They were more focused, each one distinct in his mind.

And Conrad wanted to understand why.

Was it her, or the drugs? What exactly was she to him? A suspicion prodded at his consciousness, but he pushed it away.

Her lids grew heavy, her breathing faster, as if she was losing herself in the moment. She was small and perfect. Yet even with his red eyes and scarred, hulking body, she looked at him… hungrily. Could ghosts feel desire?

Not only was she a ghost, a creature he had no experience with, she was a sensual female – again, a creature he had no experience with.

Conrad wanted to try to touch her – because she was both.

With an audible swallow, he eased his hands toward her mouthwatering br**sts.

Had she arched to him? He covered their outline with his big palms, but he only experienced the same electricity.

He saw her lower her gaze, as though to see if he’d reacted. He dropped his hands, shamed that he wasn’t hard. At that instant, he wished he could be. "You can’t get me aroused." He backed away from her, standing under the water. "I haven’t been in three hundred years."

"Do you not wish to be?"

"Do you want me to be?"

"Yes," she began with a smile in her voice. "I was thinking that might be nice to see."

He’d once been so proud. Now a creature who didn’t even have a body made him feel shame. If he was blooded, his shaft thick with lust, what would she think then? "It takes a special female to tempt me back to life. I’m thinking one with flesh and blood. So you’re not her."

"You’re speaking of your Bride?"

"Be glad you’re not," he said, but with this new clarity, he began to wonder.

Tonight Conrad had recalled what he’d once coveted, what he’d been filled with regret never to possess.

I’d wanted a woman of my own.

One to claim and protect. One to pleasure. As a mortal, he’d longed for this constantly. What if this female was his?

His arm injury ached under the spray of the water. If the curse of that mark was true…

Was this little ghost the one his life had been leading toward? He recalled the chills he’d felt when Nikolai had merely uttered the name of her home.

Conrad had been forced here, sensing it was the first step on a doomed path. His dream… her doom.

"You need to stay away from me." I have to escape this place. "For your own good."

Her brows drew together. "Vampire, I don’t know if I can."

Nikolai walked in then, Sebastian behind him. "What’s going on in here?"

Conrad lunged in front of her, snapping his teeth at his brothers. Fury churned at the idea of her undressed and in the same room with them. His fangs sharpened with his aggression. To her he gave a half-growl, half-hiss over his shoulder. "Leave. Now."

"But they can’t – "

"I said now!" he bellowed, making her squeeze her eyes shut. She flickered before she vanished.