“Katie” (Conclusion)

She took his hands and placed them over her breasts, pressing his fingers to make them close on her flesh. They did—a little harder than she had expected. She flinched but stood her ground and his hair fell around her as he bent his head to her neck. His lips moved softly once, twice, then he licked her throat and dropped a third kiss on her wet skin.

She turned in his arms. He kissed her mouth then, sliding his tongue past her teeth with the cool expertise of a practiced lover. He tasted clean, like glacier water. He tasted good. She opened wide to grant him access, her heart hammering so crazily that she could barely breathe. The wool of his sweater rasped against her swollen nipples, urging them to stand taut should he decide to suckle. She hoped he would; it might relieve their keening ache while she cradled his handsome head in her arms. “I lied,” she gasped when he broke the kiss. “I do want to make love with you.”

“You don’t know what you are asking,” he told her.

“I do,” she insisted. “Oh, yes, I do. Oh, please, make love to me.”

He kissed her again and she felt a disorienting rush like a hot wind blowing through her. It had been some years since she had last felt it, but she remembered it well: it meant she was aroused and hungry for a man.

She yanked on his sweater, freeing it from his jeans. His chest was hairless beneath it, the muscles sculpted and firm. Her hands roamed over the pectorals and abdominals, then slid around his waist to crawl up his back. He was big and strong and beautiful; the most beautiful man she had ever met. And she wanted him. Badly.

This came clear when he stopped her from unzipping his jeans. The hand that clamped onto her wrist actually hurt her. Startled, she looked up. “What?”

His face was severe in the shadow of his hair. “No,” he said, quietly. Firmly.

“What do you mean? Why not?”

“It won’t work this way,” he said.

Bewildered, she glanced down. His splendid, flawless body showed absolutely no sign of arousal. She hadn’t noticed the fact and was suddenly embarrassed at having to be told. “You mean—you—that you—” she stammered, flushing hot.

His hands landed on her shoulders again, holding her steady while he made her meet his eyes. “I mean that I am not what you think I am.”

“I know what you are,” she said stupidly.

He smiled slightly. “Then tell me.”

“You’re—I—You’re the one who—I don’t—” She faltered helplessly, unsure what he wanted her to say. She had been about to label him her husband’s murderer but, true though it was, she doubted that he needed to be reminded.

“Do you want me, Katherine?” he asked.

She was no longer sure but fear born of habit kept her mute.

“Because I do want you,” he added softly. He slipped his hand up her neck, under her damp hair to cup the back of her head in his palm. His thumb left a tingling trail along the path of her jugular.

“But, you don’t have a—”

“I don’t need one,” he whispered. “Do you still want me?”

She shook her head, struck dumb by fright and unable to wrench free from his darkening gaze. It didn’t matter what she wanted anymore; he would have his way with or without her consent. Dale had taught her so. She wouldn’t be pregnant now if what she wanted had mattered. “The baby,” she whimpered.

“I won’t hurt the baby and I won’t hurt you.”

“Wh—What are you going to do?”

He gently kissed her lips. She obediently parted them and let him slide his tongue under hers. Her body began to shake in defiance but she forced herself to submit, suddenly, desperately afraid that resisting would end in death. He was trying to suck her tongue into his mouth and she was unconsciously fighting him. Coming aware of the fact, she over-compensated in a rush and hastily shoved her tongue past his teeth. She was rewarded with a searing pain that brought a strangled cry from the back of her throat. The taste of blood filled her mouth.

She jerked back and wheeled toward the mirror. Her tongue was cut and bleeding. “What in God’s name did you do?” she screamed at him. She turned on the cold water and ripped the paper film from one of the glasses on the counter.

Her blood in his mouth had done something to him as well, but not the same as it had done to her. He stood eerily, impossibly still, staring at her with a feral gleam bright in his eyes as she downed a glass of water and went for a refill. The most bizarre thought she had ever entertained crossed her mind when she met those eyes. The glass hit the floor and shattered.

He grabbed her and lifted her bare feet clear of the shards. “Listen to me,” he snapped, shaking her by the shoulders. “I will not hurt you.”

She started to cry, hysterically this time, no longer able to tell what was real and what was a nightmare. She tried to struggle but was no match for his strength. He pulled her into his arms and held her tightly to his chest. She could neither stand nor fall in such a powerful grip and so she went limp, forcing him to bear her weight on his forearms.

“I could have taken you there,” the angel’s voice declared fiercely from somewhere over her head. “I could have killed you and left you with the body but I did not.”

“Why?” she wailed, her anguish muffled by his solid bulk.

“Because, Katherine, you must live, do you hear? You must live.”

She coughed, half-strangled by unshed tears, and shook her head once, violently. “You’ll kill me,” she sobbed. “You have to. I saw your face. I saw your—them!” She put her hand to her mouth and felt between her lips. Her teeth were all blunt, all straight. No points. No razor edges. Not like his. Oh, God, not like his!

He dragged her to the bed and made her sit down. Her bag lay open on one chair and he went to it, rummaging through her clothes until he found her Garfield nightshirt. He brought it to her. “Put it on,” he commanded.

She obeyed.

He stood in front of her, arms folded across his chest, cloaked in his magnificent black hair. She started to slide onto her knees. He caught her before she landed at his feet and replaced her on the bed. “I’m not going to kill you,” he said.

She nodded. When she raised her eyes to his, she quickly lowered them again. He looked like he hated her. She couldn’t blame him. She had bungled this too.

“The child is a girl,” he said.

Her head came up with a start. “How do you know?”

“I tasted her in your blood.”

She placed her hands on her belly and watched her fingers spread wide to cover as much of the cotton nightshirt as they could. “You—tasted her?” She glanced up again. “But it was only a drop.”

“It was enough.”

“Wha—What else could you tell?”

He didn’t exactly soften, but he didn’t speak so harshly this time. “I saw that you deserve to live.”

Her brow furrowed and she blinked back fresh tears. “How can you say that? How do you know?”

“Believe me, I know.”

She shook her head, letting her matted hair fall forward to hide her face. This was too much. He could not be what she thought he was, but he was not denying it. She decided she must be losing her mind—and that frightened her more than anything that had happened so far.

He knelt before her and took her hands in his. His long fingers were fragile skin and delicate bone, not unlike hers. Her eyes traced the tendon from his wrist to his elbow and from there to his shoulder. She saw her hand reach out to touch his biceps. She squeezed it, felt it yield only slightly in the manner of toned muscle. And he let her do it.

Surprised, she met his eyes. The irises were bottle green rimmed with charcoal. The pupils were dilated to accommodate the weak light and the whites were so white they were almost blue. But his lashes were black, like his hair. He stared straight into her face with no emotion at all reflected in his. He might have been carved from stone—except for the living, breathing warmth of his flesh.

She leaned forward and kissed him. His mouth was cooler than hers, his lips smooth and soft. She ran her hands along his shoulders and up his neck, holding his head while she savoured his glacial sweetness in a long, exploratory kiss. Again, he let her do it. He let her stroke his hair. He let her touch his breast to feel the heart beating behind his ribs. He let her grow familiar with the pleasure of physical contact when all she had known was pain. And he did it quietly, calmly. When she slid down into his lap, he embraced her; cradled her to his chest. His coarse dark hair brushed like raw silk against her cheek. It smelled of spring rain. Everything about him was clean and pure and intoxicating; even without the physical evidence of desire, she knew that he wanted her. She knew by the way his hands moved over her body; stroking her breasts and her belly, slipping down between her thighs. He was so gentle that it almost hurt and she shifted restlessly in his lap, willing him to probe further.

He kissed her, holding his mouth open in invitation over hers. She was careful not to cut herself on the tips of his incisors but she was brave enough to lick at the surface. There were no jagged edges, no chips or gouges like those her own teeth had suffered. They were as smooth as glazed porcelain and as perfect as the rest of him. Then he was kissing her again, everywhere. Her lips, her eyes, her cheeks, her shoulders—her neck. She instinctively stiffened and he instantly lifted his head until she relaxed once more, lulled from conscious thought by the rhythmic working of his fingers between her legs.

She lay back and stretched her spine, arching her neck over his forearm. She felt his mouth on her breast, teasing the nipple through the thin cotton of her nightshirt. His hair hung, black and gleaming, in front of her and she buried both hands in it, knotting it in her fists as the pulsating throb below her belly surged toward a rare and violent climax. She saw his face above her, his green eyes glittering. She saw the pronounced curve of his fangs and she screamed.

A piercing pain lanced her from shoulder to groin, colliding with the orgasmic burst of energy that blazed through her. She bucked, writhing, crying, jerking on the hair in her hands; then she fainted.

Or thought she did. Later she would wonder. It seemed that the lights went out and that she was floating in a sparkling darkness unlike any darkness she had ever known. She was keenly aware of his body melded to hers, of his mouth locked to her throat, but stronger still was the ebb and flow of life coursing through her. She saw the baby somersaulting in her womb, safe and healthy within the confines of the amniotic sac. She saw herself lying across his lap, lax and hazy, eyes closed above the crown of his dark head. She heard the drumming of her heart beating in time with his, and the thinner, staccato skipping of the baby’s trying to keep up. She fed them both, him and the babe, from the font of her being; and when it was over, she wept.

She lay in the bed, too blissfully weary to do more than watch him pull his sweater on over his head and toss his magnificent mane free of the collar. Weak as she was, she felt stronger than she had ever felt and knew without a doubt that she would be all right. It was as if he had drained her of all fear and pain, and had left her with the courage and passion to live. The baby slept beneath her protecting hands, truly at peace for the first time in its—her—brief existence.

“Sleep,” he said.

“Do you have to go?”

He glanced toward the window. It was still dark, but dawn wasn’t far off. “I can’t stay.”

She understood. She watched him pick up his jacket from the chair. Scuffed, dark brown leather. She didn’t like the brown. It didn’t suit his raven splendour. She boldly told him so.

Her newfound confidence seemed to please him. “I’ll keep it in mind.” But she knew he wouldn’t. He did as he liked, beholden to no one, free to live on his own terms by his own rules. Such freedom had its price, though. He had not admitted it, but she knew he would not have stayed if he had not been lonely.

“Will I see you again?”

He shook his head, shrugging into the brown leather.

“Don’t you want to know when the baby is born?”

“She shall be born healthy and perfect at six-thirty-one in the morning of the twenty-fifth day of June,” he said. He looked straight into her astonished eyes and almost smiled. “You’ll do fine.”

“How do you know?” she whispered.

“She told me.” He dug into his pocket and produced the keys to the Mercedes. They hung on a ring modelled after the vehicle’s hood ornament. “I must go.”

She swallowed, fighting tears, and nodded. She did not ask where he was going. She did not beg him to linger long enough to see her off to sleep. “Thank you,” she said. “For everything.”

He really did smile then. It reached his eyes. Then he was gone.

She lay against the pillows in the motel bed and listened to the car door close. She heard the engine turn over and the transmission clunk as he put it in reverse. The tires crunched on loose gravel. It took a full five minutes before she finally accepted that the engine had faded from earshot.

Her belly rippled under her hands as the baby stretched and turned over. She patted the bulge to soothe the occupant, who responded with a petulant blow from either hand or foot. Katherine smiled. “Did you tell him your name as well?” she asked.

She was so glad the bus had been late.

May 13, 1999