"Are you sure?" Dimitri asked. He leaned his shoulder against the doorjamb and folded his arms over his chest.
"Sure about what?"
"About inviting me inside your room?" He smirked.
"This is your mansion, Mr. Norton, and I'm just a guest. And I have thousands of questions that need an answer." Why not? She laughed softly. Why the hell did she look like she was drunk as hell? It was like there was something inside her that wanted out. Jesus, she was indeed getting crazy. Yet, she was warm all of a sudden.
Reading her mind, Dimitri grinned, knowing full well she was still in a heated mood. She was, after all, a werewolf, and a she-wolf on the full moon would be on heat no matter what, and that only their mate could quench their thirst, or whatever those silly canines used to call it. But to someone like Dimitri himself, the woman was his lifemate. The one and only.
"Blanca, you can't expect me to answer that question."
"Why not?" she bit her lip and looked at him with an unseen longing that begged him to just walk into the room and take her.
"You're not supposed to invite anyone into your room, lady."
"Why not?"
"That would fall under the category of being naturally impractical and not too careful."
"Fine... I thought you wanted to talk about something." The dark raven's eyes twinkled with pain before she turned and walked toward the center of her room. Then, with the mastery of a master seducer, Blanca bent over to offer an extraordinary, gut-wrenching view of her excellent butt. "If you want to stand in the doorway all night, knock yourself out."
"Hell..." It was the most understandable bait that had ever been thrown in Dimitri's way. She might as well have a flashing neon sign. 'Fuck me now!' Dimitri, however, was a vampire who had been denied the pleasure of desire for nearly five years. He'd coax any bait, take any chance for a taste of this woman again. "Now that's a temptation I can't resist," he murmured under his breath and grinned. It was now or never, so he stepped into the room and closed the door.
At the sound of the lock settling into place, Blanca swiveled at an amazing rate. Dimitri saw the glint of a silver dagger as she lunged toward him with a pair of silver handcuffs. He could have avoided the cuffs as they snapped around his wrists. One swing of his arm could have launched her and her darned supposed torture devices across the room.
Rather, he allowed her to believe she had managed to constrain him in her wicked silver coils. The cuffs scorched like hell, but they hadn't been drafted precisely to hold a vampire like him, and there were enough other metals mixed in with the silver to tone down its effect. Like those meteor dust that could kill him. Besides, his tolerance for silver was greater than most supernatural beings, especially from the werewolf community, but one question remains, why didn't Blanca feel the burning heat of her silver.
All the more curious, driven from the depths of his soul. This woman was something else, a hybrid maybe. He thought to himself.
Dimitri raised his brow as he emptied his face of anything. He could free himself if needed with a speed Blanca couldn't even comprehend. And if it made Blanca feel more comfortable, well, he would play along.
For now.
Planting her hands on her hips, Blanca regarded him with a smug smile. "Now I got you… W-whoever you are!"
His jaw dropped, "Oh, now this is interesting, I never thought you had it in you?" Dimitri gave a mocking lift of his brows. "Wait… Seriously? A silver dagger?"
"Why not? I believe, supernatural hates silver."
"Oh really now? So who am I now? Superman? Batman?"
"Those aren't even real! And they are not supernatural." Blanca kept her frustration in check.
"Oh, I thought we were talking about super here."
"Unbelievable!" Blanca stepped forward. Her mouth fell open.
Dimitri added, "You know what? You sound like a villain in a cheesy Mexican drama. Do you intend to throw me onto the nearest railway trails while I shout for help?"
She rolled her eyes and said, "What I intend is to get some long-overdue explanations, Mr. Norton. Who are you really? Don't deny it. Something happened between us five years ago."
"Oh, so you remember that steamy-lustful night when you screamed my name to go deeper and faster? Damn! I never thought you had it again."
"Are you fucking serious now? I-I wasn't talking about it." Blanca grumbled as she gritted her teeth.
"I am!" Dimitri smiled.
Unbelievable "So you remembered?" Blanca asked as a muscle in her jaw twitched.
"The mind-shattering sex? Yes!"
Damn if Blanca wasn't blushing. "You know what I'm talking about, Dimitri."
"Ok," he smirked, then added, "-well yes, I remembered, um-just earlier in the living room. No biggie! There's no need to lock me up. Granted, it might be fun under the right circumstances, but certainly, we can sit down and have a reasonable discussion like ordinary, non-crazy people, right?"
"But we're not ordinary, are we, Dimitri?"
"Speak for yourself, sweetheart." He hissed as the cuffs shifted on his wrists and he felt her warm skin.
She struggled to remain in her Jurassic Park mode, but Dimitri didn't miss her small wince or her biting her lips. Even five years hadn't managed to harden that far too delicate soul.
"Does it hurt?" she stressed. "I mean, not that I'm concerned about your well-being, but... well… I read somewhere that if a werewolf-"
"Stop right there… I'm no werewolf. Jesus!"
Dimitri held up his wrists to reveal the blisters that were already healing on his skin and made Blanca widen her eyes.
"It's burning my flesh. What do you think?"
She bit her bottom lip. "What are you? Tell me what you've done to me and I'll release you. And tell me about what happened to me five years ago. Why did I forget those... those memories!"
"Blanca, I've done nothing to you."
"Dimitri stopped playing games. Something happened back there. I have a photographic memory, and there was no way I would forget certain events in my life…"
"And why is that?"
"I was a... It was my first kiss, my first…um-never mind." She swallowed a lump and said, "There is no way I'm going to forget it but I did, so something happened back there!" Her words trailed away as she lifted her hand and pressed it to her neck.
The exact spot where he'd taken her blood all those years ago, he realized with a burst of possessive enjoyment. "Something rather than giving you some substance that can alter your memories? After all, we are in modern times?" Dimitri murmured, still looking at her neck.
"Not that, something more." She glared at him, holding him entirely accountable for her weirdness. "Tell me what's wrong with me…"
"How should I know, dear?"
"Those dreams, those nightmares, those… painful memories that I was on the underground being imprisoned for centuries, alone, I was screaming, begging someone to just end my life! Why do I have those memories, those dreams?"
Dimitri gasped. She had his memories? She had his dreams? That painful past? How? Was it because he bit her? How was it even possible?
"Sweetheart I'm no shrink! I can't tell you about your dream. At the risk of pointing out the obvious, there's nothing at all wrong with you. In fact, you're nothing less than perfection." He lifted his cuffed hands. "Well, except for this handcuff obsession of yours. Next time we go with leather and whips."
"Dimitri! I'm serious here. For once, take this seriously,"
"I'm serious, dear. You are perfect for me." He went to look at her delicate neck where her hands still caressed the spot where he had bit her before. So perfect and delectable. He thought to himself.
Damn, she was indeed blushing! Damn you, Dimitri, and your sweet mouth!
"I know dear, I have a sweet mouth and certainly…"
"See.. that is my point. You can read my mind."
"So?"
"What so, Dimitri? Everything is weird now! Can't you see it?
"Well, I'm not surprised, Blanca. After all, you can read my mind too, so this is just fair, right? But for now…" he added a smirk and winked at her which made the latter roll her eyes as she sat on the bed. "...See, your mind is full of bed scenes right now, and I'm not complaining. Right?"
Fucking unbelievable! The nerve! "I am not thinking about fucking sex, Dimitri" She yelled.
"Ironic, you said-"
OMG! The man was trying to annoy her to death. Where was the shy, aloof Dimitri earlier?
"First of all, I'm not shy, nor aloof."
"Can you stop reading my mind for fuck sake! Stop!"
"There you are again. You said the F word again, and you can't deny that you are thinking about sex every second, yeah?"
"Ah!" She growled in annoyance. "Don't lie to me, Dimitri. Something happened that night." A shiver wracked her tiny body. "Everything has changed since five years ago. Something in me had been changing, but the worst part was forgetting that night and... meeting you."
Dimitri smiled at the ruin in her voice. Anyone would think that finding out she was immortal and a werewolf at the same time was some horrible destiny rather than a remarkable stroke of fortune.
"What changes?"
The gold flecks smoldered at his jet-black eyes as she pointed a finger in his face.
"Everything…Damn you, this isn't funny."
"Blanca, I'm not teasing you," he soothed. "Tell me what happened after I left you that night because I forgot those memories as well. What I remember was the mind-shattering part."
She wrapped her arms around her waist, as if suddenly cold. "I… After we…"
"Made love?" he urged as her words wavered.
"After we had sex," she rectified. "I fell asleep and didn't wake up until almost dawn. I had no choice, I had a fever like I was about to burn and so I returned to my foster parents' house. When I got there…"
Once again, her words broke off, but this time it was an old discomfort, not humiliation, that held her in its grasp.
"What, Blanca?" he said softly, not bothering to try to persuade her. She would be impassable to such mind tricks. "Tell me, please." As he removed the restraint and went to her side of the bed and sat beside her.
"My foster's house had been burnt to the ground." She finally forced the words past her stiff lips.
"Hell, how did it happen?"
"I have no idea… but the police say it was the gang, maybe the same gang who were after me that night."
He grimaced at the realization that he didn't even feel her needs. Was it because of the feral bite? If he had not been bitten, he would have sensed her need. After all, he now remembered that he bound her to him that very same night they made love. He marked her.
"What did you do?"
She gave a shake of her head, her smooth dark hair brushing over her bare shoulders and filling the air with her wonderful aroma. Dimitri shivered, his fangs aching for a taste. The only reason he resisted seduction was the memory of what had transpired the last time he had taken blood from this woman... He had kind of overdriven his senses, her blood was so powerful that he hadn't tasted blood for months. It kept him satiated. But there was something there too that he didn't want to remember. This woman's blood was something too ancient and too powerful for his liking.
He might not be the smartest vampire ever made, but he sometimes learned from his errors.
"I took the weakling's way out... I went to the hospital, but when I got there, my fevers were gone and I was OK to the bone... I think I remember then, I began to notice my senses were heightened to the maximum level that it gave me headaches often, and recently when I turned twenty-three, it got worse and worse." Blanca's voice was bitter as she became lost in her memories. "Dimitri, please, I never tell anyone, I'm scared. What is happening to me? I'm afraid."
"Don't be, sweetheart. I'm here to protect you to death."