Kiss of Surrender

  In the heated pitch of excitement, he whispered against her ear, “You are more than I ever expected or wanted, more than any woman I have ever had. You are . . . everything.”

  She wasn’t sure what that meant, but she was pleased nonetheless.

  The hurricane was hitting full-force outside if the whistle of the wind was any indication, but it was nothing compared to the storm in the bedroom. Trond became the wild creature he was beneath the civilized soldier. His eyes were shards of pure silver now. His fangs were extended. His nostrils flared.

  She wasn’t scared of him, though.

  Even while he started the short, pounding thrusts into her body, and she felt herself literally melting around him, her female ejaculation wetting his balls, she gently fingered the edges of his damp, military-short hair and caressed the rigid cords of his neck. Then she held on for life to his wing bumps.

  Trond threw his head back and roared his male triumph as he began the crescendo to his climax. Something pulled deeply inside Nicole, and her inner body welcomed his finish with a nonending series of hard spasms that tried to keep him inside her, and thus increased the delicious friction.

  They came together and he fell upon her, holding her tightly, as if he never wanted to let her go.

  She didn’t mind his weight. In fact, she relished it. And, although she didn’t say the words aloud, as she ran her palms across his back, caressing, she thought them.

  I will love you forever.

  The end was fast approaching . . .

  Four days later, Trond had made love more times and more ways, some of them rather amazing, so that it was a wonder his cock wasn’t worn down to a nub. Instead, it seemed to be growing with each use, so much so it was almost embarrassing. Well, not really.

  They’d changed and washed bed linens so often it was a wonder the threads weren’t worn out. And wasn’t it amazing how many Egyptian cotton sets Zeb had, all with fifteen-hundred thread counts from high-end department stores?

  He had no idea when Zeb had started the “clock” on his five-day shield, but it could be as early as tomorrow when he and Nicole left this bungalow. He had mixed feelings about that. He wanted to go back and complete his missions, and yet this interlude with Nicole had been a time he would never forget, especially since he would be paying for it for God or St. Michael only knew how long. Even so, he wasn’t ready for this time with her to end.

  There were some problems that niggled at him, though.

  One, every time he looked at Nicole, and not just when she was naked and doing something wonderful to him, he got this odd ache in his chest. Like heartburn, but not. He was afraid to think what it might mean.

  Second, he was worried about Zeb. Very. Worried.

  Third, his feeding off JAM when he’d saved him should have lasted him for at least a month, but he had been outside in an extremely hot and bright sun too many hours each day here, including days of clearing up the storm debris. Without Fake-O or a blood ceorl as a backup, his skin was growing paler. He hadn’t lost energy yet, but he would. Feeding would have to be a top priority on his return.

  Four, Mike had been uncommonly absent. It had to be deliberate.

  In the meantime, he was trying to stay away from Nicole. He could literally smell her blood, and it was driving him nigh crazy with the urge to feed on her.

  He was watching a sports channel on the TV, sitting on the low sofa (the recliner posed too many memories), his long legs propped on the coffee table. He wore a shirt with his shorts today because Nicole had told him repeatedly how his chest made her horny, and she had a habit of touching his wing bumps every time she passed by. She came into the room, carrying a basket loaded with tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, onions, green and red peppers, grapes, cantaloupes, and oranges from an overladen tree outside. In fact, grapes were boiling on the stove right now to be made into jelly.

  “Nicole! There isn’t any way we can eat all that stuff before leaving here.”

  “Well, I can’t leave it out there to rot. I’ll put it in the fridge for when Zeb returns.”

  He saw the tears in her eyes, and he didn’t know why, and was afraid to ask, if it was because Zeb might not ever return or because they would be leaving.

  “Do you want to play cards?” she asked.

  “No!” he replied too sharply, then chuckled. “The last time, I lost my . . . Well, never mind.”

  She grinned impishly at him. “Interview with the Vampire is on one of the cable channels at three o’clock.”

  “Pfff! Tom Cruise is the sorriest vampire I’ve ever seen.”

  She was chopping up some of the vegetables she’d just brought in and washed in the sink. Probably making yet another salad for their lunch. He was going to turn into a rabbit pretty soon. He needed to go out and hunt a boar . . . or something. Of a sudden, he recalled the one winter when he was a boy and food was so scarce that even grass, let alone a salad, would have been welcome. Anything that walked ended up in the kitchen cauldron.

  “Why are you smiling?” she asked.

  “Did you ever eat boiled wolf?”

  “Huh?” she said, then added, “Have I told you how much I like your lopsided smile?”

  Only a dozen times. “I do not smile lopsided.” Leastways no one had ever told him that before. “Nicole! What are you doing now?”

  “Taking off my shirt.”

  “Why?” he choked out, trying not to look at her bare breasts, which was impossible. Is she going to cook bare-breasted? That could be dangerous, but then she’s not cooking over a hot stove. She’s making a loathsome cold salad. Aaarrgh! My brain is melting.

  “Because it’s hot, and because I want to get an all-over tan before we leave.” On those ominous words, she set the bowl of salad greens aside, walked out of the kitchen, shrugged out of her shorts, then pranced right in front of him toward the deck and a waiting chaise longue. At the open doorway, she paused and looked at him over her shoulder, “Want to join me?”

  He shook his head. He could not speak over his long fangs. He put a hand to his mouth to make sure his tongue wasn’t lolling or that he wasn’t drooling.

  Over the next hour, Trond did everything he could to avoid looking at Nicole’s nude body glistening in the sun, including two cold showers. Finally, he did what any good vangel did. He dropped to his knees in the bedroom and prayed.

  “Dear Lord, please help me to resist this woman because the worst possible thing has happened. I love her.”

  Bite me! . . .

  Nicole was hurt and puzzled by Trond’s behavior, and she’d had enough.

  For four days they’d screwed each other like bunnies in every room, on every surface, even outdoors. And now he avoided her like the plague. In fact, he’d gone to bed early, in a different bedroom.

  Well, enough was enough.

  She tried the door handle, and it was locked. That hurt. But it wasn’t about to stop her.

  “Trond, let me in. We have to talk.”

  Silence.

  “I mean it. Let me in, or . . . or I’ll do something drastic.”

  Silence.

  “I’ll cut off all my hair.”

  He laughed. Apparently, that wasn’t drastic enough.

  “I’ll set the door on fire.”

  A snort of disbelief.

  She tried to think of the most drastic thing she could say.

  “I’ll get back with my ex-husband Billy to save my sister.”

  The door flew open. “That wasn’t the least bit funny.”

  Oddly, he was sitting on the side of the bed, his face in his hands. How had the door opened? She shook her head to clear it. Really, it didn’t matter. What mattered was the state Trond was in.

  “What is it, sweetheart?” she asked, coming up to put a hand on his shoulder.

  “Don’t touch me,” he said, jumping up and putting some distance between them.

  Which gave her an opportunity to study his appearance. He looked like hell. His eyes were not just silve
r, but a glowing silver. His fangs were elongated. Perspiration covered his body, and his face was flushed, the flush being more apparent because of the paleness of his skin.

  “You’re sick.”

  “No, Nicole. I’m not sick. I just need to feed.”

  Suddenly, everything became clear to her, based on things he’d told her about vangels over the last few days. And an idea came to her . . . a scary, distasteful idea. “Trond, does your brother Vikar feed on his wife?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Is she a vangel, too?”

  “No, but—”

  “Then you can feed on me.” Oh Lord! Did I just say that? Did I just offer myself up as Dracula bait? No! Trond is the man I love. If he is a Bram Stoker creation, then he’s a good Dracula. Maybe Dracula had a nonevil brother.

  “No! Absolutely not!”

  “Would you hurt me?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then do it.” I don’t like needles. How am I going to bear teeth piercing my skin? Don’t start shaking, Nicole. Do. Not. Shake. “Besides, you’re hurting me now by shutting me out. You have to know that I love you, Trond. Oh, don’t get that sick look on your face. I’m not asking anything from you, and I know we have no future. But there it is. I love you, get over it. And I want to help you.”

  Trond just stared at Nicole, his heart aching in that odd way it did of late. He could have wept at the pleasure of the love she claimed to have for him, and he could have wept at the pain of knowing he was unworthy and therefore unable to accept what she offered so freely.

  But he needed his strength in order to get them back to Afghanistan and do all that he must in the next day or two. “I accept your generous offer, Nicole.” He held out a hand to her.

  Instead of taking his hand, she rushed at him and clung to his shoulders, burying her face in his neck where he felt the wetness of her tears. “You brute! You louse! Shutting me out like this!”

  “Shh,” he said. “Shh.” That’s all he could say.

  “How do we do this?” his brave girl asked, even as her bottom lip quivered with fear.

  He laughed and framed her face with his hands, kissing her softly. “Not so fast. If we make love, it will be easier for you.”

  “It won’t hurt?”

  “Just the first time. A little.”

  She laughed now, too, and swiped at her eyes. “Sounds like all the guys when they’re trying to talk a girl into giving it up the first time.”

  “I am not like ‘all the guys.’ ” He pretended affront.

  “I know,” she said.

  Trond drew her to the bed and proceeded to make sweet love to her. He paid homage to every part of her body with caresses, kisses, and whispered words of admiration. He started gently, stoking her fires, needing her molten and ravenous for fulfillment before he would take her blood.

  “Did I ever show you the famous Viking S-spot?” he asked silkily at one point, wanting to lighten the somberness of their lovemaking.

  “You’re making that up,” she told him with a laugh.

  “Am not,” he said and showed her exactly where it was. With his tongue.

  That brought her close to her first climax, but he wouldn’t let her go over the top. He had to have her mindless.

  But she was not happy. She pushed herself up and over him, sitting on his belly. With excessive sweetness, she inquired, “Have I ever shown you the Cowgirl Twirl?”

  She hadn’t, but she did, and it took every bit of restraint to lift her off before they both exploded into a mutual orgasm.

  “You’re driving me crazy,” she moaned.

  “I need to.” He used all the expertise he’d gained over eleven hundred years then to bring her to a keening, arms-flailing, hips-bucking arousal.

  He played with her breasts until she grabbed his head and forced him down hard against her, wanting more and harder suckling. Instead, he eased himself away and teased her with light, feathery touches until she reached the point that his breath on her wet nipples brought her close to peaking. Even the hair on his legs rubbing against her legs was enhancing her excitement.

  Once again, he stopped. And this time just stopping wasn’t enough to dampen down his excitement or hers, so he tried a different tactic. Lying on his back with his arms folded under his neck, he asked, “What’s your favorite food?”

  She looked at him with disbelief, then down at his amazingly huge cock and said, “Sausage.”

  He barely stifled a grin. “Your favorite color?”

  “Flesh.”

  “You’re not taking my questions seriously. Your favorite song?”

  “ ‘Sex Machine.’ ”

  “Nicole! Your favorite book?”

  “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus.”

  “I give up,” he said then, and rolled over on his side, staring down at her.

  She resembled a furious tiger kitten as she glared up at him through bruised lips. Her eyes were misty with arousal. Her nostrils flared with either anger or arousal. Probably both. Her hair was bed-mussed, or rather sex-mussed. In other words, she was nigh irresistible.

  “I want you so much, Nicole,” he murmured against her mouth.

  “Not half as much as I want you, Viking,” she murmured back.

  He kissed her ravenously then, and at the same time used his fingers to delve into her soaking folds. Putting first one, then two, then three fingers inside her, he stretched her inner muscles, then began pumping her. Her liquid pleasure coated his fingers. He felt a wetness on her face, as well. Salty tears seeped down to their joined lips. When he raised his head to look down at her, she said only one word, “Please?”

  His knees trembled and there was roaring in his ears when he finally, finally, finally mounted her. As tortuous as it had been for Nicole to forestall her orgasm, it had been twice . . . nay, thrice . . . as hard for him. And even now, he had to fight against the coils of tension in his body that yearned to let go, especially when her inner channel clutched at him on each backstroke.

  Her head was tossing from side to side, her eyes closed, as Trond thrust himself hard inside her, his pubic bone hitting her clitoris. He leaned down then and clamped his teeth against her neck. He heard her gasp of shock, then her sigh.

  His strokes into her climaxing folds were short and hard then as he drank greedily from her. So sweet. Her blood was so sweet and nourishing to him. Lifeblood. Forcing himself to stop, finally, when they’d both climaxed together, he licked the bite marks on her neck and lay atop her, his cock now quiescent inside her.

  “Thank you,” he murmured against her neck.

  At first there was no response, but then she slapped him on the shoulder.

  “What?” He raised his head.

  “You didn’t tell me I would enjoy it so much.”

  If Trond hadn’t fallen in love with her before, he would now. Throwing his head back, he laughed joyously. In this moment there were no jagged splinters of his horrid life. This woman, and this woman alone, had shown him what life could be without all the dark shadows.

  Before he could bite his foolish tongue, he kissed her lips and said, “You are mine.” Forever.

  Twenty-three

  He never actually promised her forever . . .

  The following morning, they were back in the Davastan cave where the SEALs and WEALS had hidden before the hostage mission, and it had all happened so easily. She’d dressed in the same tattered Arab robe, and Trond put on the smelly socks and Arab garb he’d worn when “selling” her and Marie and Donita for Najid’s harem. One minute they stood in the garden, Trond holding tight to her hand, and then they teletransported, or whatever it was vangels did. Whoosh, in an instant, they were on the other side of the world.

  Thanks to materials that had been stashed at the back of the cave, they’d been able to contact CentCom and a helo was being sent for them within the hour. She and Trond had rehearsed over and over the story they would tell the commander on their return. They’d been c
aptured by some of the terrorists at the end of the mission and kept in one of Najid’s hidden caves farther away from Davastan. The ragtag band hadn’t been sure what to do with them these past five days, and they kept arguing over whether to torture information from them, kill them as examples of U.S. military intrusion in Afghanistan, or ask for ransom. The tangos had been waiting for word from Najid’s successor who was supposed to arrive from Pakistan when she and Trond had managed to escape, and it had taken them two days to find their way back to the cave hideout near the compound. At least, that was the story they were telling.

  “I hear the helo,” Trond said, helping her to her feet. Instead of walking out immediately, though, he pulled her into an embrace, a tight embrace, as if he didn’t want to let her go.

  “Hey, we have plenty of time for that when we get back,” she said, kissing him lightly on the chin. They both picked up backpacks containing small items left in the cave.

  “They’ll be putting a harness down for us,” Trond said. “They don’t want us rappelling up without gloves.”

  She nodded.

  The helo was already hovering nearby when they walked the short distance to the extraction site.

  “Listen to me, Nicole,” he said against her ear at the last minute. It was hard to hear over the chopper’s noise. “I’m not going back.”

  “What? Wait.”

  “No, listen to me, heartling.” He held her by the forearms. “I must go after Zeb. There will be an explosion any minute now in the cave. You will tell the authorities that I went back to get something, and I must be presumed dead.”

  “Nooooo!” she wailed. “I want to stay with you. We’ll help Zeb together.”

  He shook his head. The sadness on his face was heartrending, for both of them.

  Just then, two things happened at once, a harness was dropped for her about a hundred yards away, and the cave exploded. Into the flying mist, Trond was already beginning to disappear. She couldn’t hear him, but she saw him mouth the words, “I. Love. You.”

  Where there’s a will, there’s a way . . .

  Nicole had been back in Coronado for four days, and following ten different debriefings, her life should have been back to normal, or as normal as it would ever be after the experiences she’d had. Sometimes she wondered if half of it had ever really occurred.