She had driven her own, since she had no physical injuries. Outside, the temperature was dropping. Roger had overheard the ER staff mentioning snow predicted before midnight.
The two of them went straight to Britt"s apartment and showered together. Neither one found any erotic stimulation in this activity; emotional and physical exhaustion blotted out all other feelings. They lay together on Britt"s bed, the room converted into a dim cave by the heavy drapes. Hard to believe it was only about noon. Britt reclined on one elbow, looking down at Roger."You did kill him."
"Yes."
"How do you feel about that?"
The memory of the past few hours rushed in upon him. Fury welled up like bile in his throat. "G.o.d, I wish I could bring him back to life and kill him again-slowly!"
"That kind of thinking is counterproductive." Suddenly Britt began to tremble, clinging to him, silent tears streaming down her cheeks. Roger found himself crying, too.
When they"d calmed down, he said, "When I-attacked-what did you see?"
"You, of course." She sounded puzzled. "You, defending me. What else?"
"Peter saw-I don"t know what. A monster."
Britt hugged him tighter. "That was inhim , not in you."
"I"m not so sure about that. Iwanted to terrorize him. I wanted to rip him to shreds. Britt, I killed a man." Speaking the words aloud made the act real to him for the first time. "Not in rational self-defense. In a fit of rage."
"Reality test, Roger. Would you feel guilty if you"d had a gun and shot him to protect me?"
"Probably not, at least not in the same way." A dark wave engulfed him. "But you don"t understand. Ienjoyed it."
"I was cheering you on, so what does that make me? That adrenaline surge is a human thing. So is the drive to strike back at somebody who hurts you. It has nothing to do with your vampire half."
"The way I felt, I could have torn him limb from limb and gloried in it." The memory didn"t stir any echo of that berserk exultation.
Nausea roiled in the pit of his stomach.
"Did it make you hungry? Did you want to drain him?"
"Good G.o.d, no!"
She laid her head on his chest. "Then your anger might have been sinful, but it was a human sin."
"There"s one big difference. No ordinary human being can do that much damage without a weapon. What if, the next time, it"s an ordinary mugger? Or someone who sc.r.a.pes my car in the parking lot? Or simply a man who looks at you the wrong way? Do they deserve instant death, too?"
Britt heaved a deep sigh. "How different is that from a combat vet or a body-builder or a martial arts expert? We all have to learn to curb our instincts. Your problem may not be quite the same as other people"s, but it doesn"t make you a monster. Or absolve you from listening to your superego, for that matter."
The cold lump in his chest began to thaw. "It would be easy to use the "monster" status as an excuse, wouldn"t it? I don"t suppose you"ve changed your mind about serving as my super-ego?"
"No, thanks, I decline that nomination. And Jiminy Cricket is otherwise employed." She stroked Roger"s jaw and teased the corners of his mouth. "Enough, this is too soon to think about it. Do you need to-"
He felt no appet.i.te, only a yearning to sink into the enfolding shelter of her love. "I thought-I didn"t think you"d want to be touched."
"You call that thinking?" she said with mock severity. "I know the difference between rape and love."
"Really, I can"t, not so soon after-that. And you shouldn"t. We both need sleep more than anything. Do you need help relaxing?"
She nestled into the curve of his arm. "Not now."
SLEEP THREW HIM back into that locked room, with his eyes burning from the glare of the sun. Britt lay supine on the floor; this time, though, her arms and legs were immobilized, chained to wooden pegs driven through the rug into the floorboards. She arched her back like a bow, keening her terror and pain. Roger strained to rise from the bed and release her. Like a stake through the heart, the sun pinned him down.
Peter Kovak stood over Britt, straddling her. He aimed the revolver at her chest. It fired. The deafening crack plunged Roger into darkness.
HIS EYES SNAPPED open. Britt, curled against him, trembled and gasped. When he touched her shoulder, she opened her eyes and stared blankly for a second before waking to full awareness.
"Oh, man." She swiped a hand across her face. "Nightmare. You, too?"
He nodded.
"I"ll bet it was the same one." She stretched, then rested her head on his shoulder. "An unwanted side effect of the bond that I never would"ve expected."
"Nor I." His breathing slowed to normal. "I"m almost afraid to go back to sleep, not if it does that to you. To both of us."
"Something else is bothering you," she said. "Besides com mitting manslaughter and worrying about a homicidal vampire lurking somewhere out there."
"Oh, you don"t think that"s enough?"
"You know I can sense when you"re not leveling with me," she said.
"If so, I"m not conscious of it myself." Under the gentle pressure of her attention, he mulled over the images swarming in the back of his mind. One that he hadn"t expected drifted to the surface. "Good Lord, I didn"t realize-" His lungs tightened.I can"t tell her that. It"s too petty.
"What is it, Roger?"
"It"s ridiculous. I don"t even want to mention something so trivial and self-absorbed, compared to what you"ve been through."
"You might as well," she said, tracing circles on his chest, "because I won"t leave you alone until you talk."
"While your life was in danger, I realized how I"ve-deprived you-destroyed your chance for normal love."
"What!" She brought her unprofessional shock under control. "Explain yourself, and don"t give me any nonsense about home, family, and the patter of little feet. That would be illogical, even for you, since you know I had my tubes tied a month before we met. I have no desire to get pregnant at age thirty-five-plus, and if I ever wanted children after all, I"d adopt." "There"s one other significant thing an ordinary man can give you that I can"t." He drew a deep breath and forced out the next words. "What Peter tried to do-he could hurt you that way, and I can never give you-"
"Oh, Roger!" Britt"s hands ma.s.saged his temples, coaxing him to relax. "I"ve told you over and over that I don"t miss it."
"So you have, and I know you"re sincere-or think you are. Nevertheless, that doesn"t prove you don"t, on some level, feel cheated."
"Why me, Lord?" Britt muttered. "Why couldn"t I have fal len for some nice, straightforward, simple-minded man of action, like my brother-in-law?" She laid her head on his shoulder again.
"I didn"t realize that particular omission bothered you so much."
"Nor did I, until a crisis made me aware of it," Roger admitted.
"The obvious remedy is to take direct action and correct the omission," Britt said.
"You know I can"t-"
"No, I only know you believe you can"t. Why?"
"I"ve explained to you that I"ve been incapable ever since I started-"
Her hard stare cut him off. "There"s that rigid mind-set of yours again. You are unique. Stop limiting yourself to preconceived categories."
"Don"t you always remind me that it does no good to lecture a patient?"
"All right, I got carried away. But why do you insist that your vampire genes make you incapable of penile-v.a.g.i.n.al intercourse? The a.s.sumption is completely untested." She raised her head to look into his eyes. "Isn"t it?"
"Well, yes."
"Then let"s test it."
"Is that what you want? Now, after-all that?"
"I certainly wouldn"t object," she said. "I"d love for you to get my mind off-all that. Wash away the taste of it."
He gave her a fierce hug.
"But right now I"m just the therapist. The point is, would it help you? Would it defuse any of this exaggerated guilt you"re hauling around?"
The thought of sharing that intimacy with Britt excited him more than he would have expected. "If you think it"s possible, I"d be glad to try."
"It"s easy to find out. You role-play the patient, and I"ll ask you the same questions I"d ask an ordinary man being treated for s.e.xual dysfunction, to decide between sending him to a urologist or the Masters-Johnson clinic."
"Well, this is infinitely preferable to your office couch," said Roger as her nails skimmed lightly over his chest. "Fire away."
She sat up and drew his head into her lap. "Do you have morning erections? Or whatever the equivalent should be called."
"Yes." "Any sensation a.s.sociated with it?"
"No."
"Do you have psychogenic erections?"
"No, I need direct physical contact." After a moment"s thought, he revised his answer. "Except where you"re concerned. The touch of your mind has the same effect as the touch of your hand."
"Do you m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e?" She wasn"t as unembarra.s.sed as she tried to appear; her cheeks turned pink.
"When you were out of town, I tried it for the first time in over a decade. After twenty minutes with no relief in sight, I decided it was a pointless exercise in frustration." He absent-mindedly rub his head against her thighs. "You already know most of this."
"But I have to pretend I don"t. You"re the patient, remember?" Her hand wandered down to his genitals.
"If you treated your patients this way, you"d lose your license."
"You don"t e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e at all?"
"No-and that you do know."
"But you don"t miss it, do you? You have o.r.g.a.s.ms, very intense ones. I know that from experience."
Growing impatient with her casual caresses, he lifted her hand to his lips and nuzzled the wrist where the pulse throbbed.
Difficulty in breathing made her voice less firm when she spoke again. "I don"t miss it either. Since I can"t get pregnant, it"s irrelevant anyway. What we want is penetration, not the mechanics of a particular kind of o.r.g.a.s.m."
"You think we can achieve-penetration?"
"Why not?" She resumed fondling him. "You obviously have erections sufficient for intromission-I"ve seen plenty of hard evidence for that." She gave the "evidence" a firm squeeze.
"Colleague, spare me the dreadful puns!" He wasn"t so foolishly possessive as to question where she"d gained the experience to judge so confidently. Of course a beautiful woman in the prime of middle age wasn"t untouched. Roger felt gratified enough knowing that she"d had no one else since before they met.
"If you were a human patient," she said, "I would remind you that you have perfectly normal erectile responses. I would diagnose ejaculatory incompetence. However, since you aren"t a typical human male, for you it"s not dysfunction; it"s perfectly normal. So why are you giving yourself h.e.l.l over it?" Shifting his head out of her lap, she lay on top of him and nibbled his shoulders and chest.
"Is this part of the therapy?" he said, running his hands slowly up and down her back. The smoothness of her skin sent electricity quivering through the cilia in his palms. His dormant l.u.s.t awoke with blinding intensity.
"Sure. You"ve heard of s.e.x surrogates?"
"I can"t think of you as a surrogate anything-you are unique." He wanted to touch her everywhere at once, to merge with her, immerse himself in the tidal rhythm of her blood. "Beloved, I wouldn"t want you to feel rushed, but I think I"m in danger of expiring from thirst in the next thirty seconds."
"Physiologically impossible." She scooted down and nipped the inside of his thigh, threatening his already precarious control.
"Two minutes, then. Three at the outside. That"s not fair; I can"t reach you this way." "Then you just have to suffer." Her tongue flicked over his erection, then up his abdomen and chest to tantalize each of his nipples in turn.
He groaned aloud and tightened his arms around her. "Please-now."
She eased out of his embrace, but only to lie on her back. "Like this," she said.
Hesitantly he moved on top of her. "You don"t mind my weight?"
"You never worried about that before." She wrapped her arms around him. "Don"t feel obligated if you don"t want to."
"Oh, G.o.d, you know I do!" She opened to him, and he plunged into her as smoothly as if they had rehea.r.s.ed the maneuver a thousand times. Instead of submerging himself in the sharing of her perceptions, he held a slight distance to savor his own sensations to the fullest. He had touched and tasted her moist heat over and over, yet this intimate embrace seemed an entirely new feeling.
"Don"t try to move," she whispered. "I just want to hold you." Her legs twined around his. She gasped and cried out his name. The imminence of her climax sent his desire spiraling out of control. Tasting the sweetness of her blood, he wondered on some detached level if all women, at the moment of fulfillment, pulsed inside with such ardent strength. It didn"t seem possible.
When she began to rock her hips, he moved slowly, then faster as her thrusts accelerated. She spiraled into a second climax, drowning his doubts in ecstasy.
At last he rolled on his side, bringing her with him. Her cheeks, he found, were damp with tears. He kissed away the drops, reminded, in a low-key, unstimulating way, of what he"d just drunk from her veins. "And you said you hadn"t missed it."
"I hadn"t, in the abstract," she said. "I"m just sorry I waited so long to have it with you."
"Are you ready to go back to sleep?" He no longer feared losing himself in unconsciousness.
She stifled a yawn. "Sounds like a great plan."