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Time's Convert: A Novel(88)

Author:Deborah Harkness

“La!” Gerty waved her hand. “Doc will make something up. Something so full of sin it will satisfy even the Brüdergemeine. I will help you, Doc, by sharing some of my own life history with you.” Gerty gave him a salacious wink and strolled away.

“Stay with Dr. Otto and the army, Doc,” de Clermont advised. “They’re family enough.”

For now, Marcus thought. For now.

PART 2

’Tis Time to Part

Male and female are the distinctions of nature, good and bad the distinctions of heaven; but how a race of men came into the world so exalted above the rest, and distinguished like some new species, is worth enquiring into, and whether they are the means of happiness or misery to mankind.

—THOMAS PAINE

18

Fifteen

28 MAY

When Phoebe awoke on her fifteenth day as a vampire, she discovered that the world was somehow more sensual than it had been only the day before. The touch of silk on her skin was so arousing, so provocative, that she sought refuge in nakedness, shedding her nightgown so quickly that the straps broke and the seams tore.

That had been a mistake.

The breath of air that caressed her bare neck reminded her of Marcus. The feel of cool sheets took her back to his bed. But the softness of the pillow where she rested her cheek was a poor substitute for his familiar body.

Phoebe had taken a shower to cool down her heated thoughts, but it only made the throbbing between her legs worse. Her slippery fingers had dipped into her cleft to ease the pressure, but her mind would not be still, and her touch brought no relief. She picked up a bar of soap and threw it at the porcelain wall in frustration, unsatisfied.

It had been a very long day.

Fran?oise delivered a tray to Phoebe’s room shortly before midnight. On it was coffee, dark chocolate, and red wine—the only substances she could stomach at this point in her development besides blood.

“Soon, you will have to feed,” Fran?oise said as she slowly plunged the mesh filter down into the glass carafe. “And not on cat.”

Phoebe was riveted by the suggestive slide of metal against glass. It reminded her suddenly, sharply, of Marcus and sent a ripple of need through her body. Memories flooded her mind.

She was in her flat in Spitalfields. It was the first night Marcus had made love to her. He had been so gentle, never breaking the connection with her eyes as he slowly—so slowly—entered her. They hadn’t made it to the bed that first time, or the second.

Phoebe closed her eyes, but the heavenly scent of coffee set her mind racing down another of memory’s paths.

It was a warm, languid New Orleans morning in Marcus’s house on Coliseum Street. The aroma of chicory and coffee beans was a darkly bitter note in the bright air. Ransome had left them alone after regaling them with tales from last night’s business at the Domino Club. Marcus was still chuckling over one of the stories, a cup of steaming liquid before him, his fingers cool in spite of the heat, one hooked into the waist of the pajama bottoms she’d found in the chest of drawers. They were softly worn, the legs rolled up so that she wouldn’t trip on their length. Marcus added another finger to the first, both moving in a sinuous pattern on her lower back, and pressed a kiss to her damp neck in a promise of the afternoon pleasures to come.

Phoebe’s mouth watered. She swallowed, shifting in her chair.

“You need blood.” Fran?oise’s blunt voice broke memory’s spell.

“That’s not what I want.” Phoebe’s whole body was a single, focused ache. It originated in her core, from an empty place that could only be filled by another creature.

By Marcus.

“These feelings you are having, they are a sign that you are ready to take human blood,” Fran?oise said, lifting Persephone from her nest in the remains of Phoebe’s nightgown and depositing the cat on the armchair. Fran?oise picked up the tattered silk and tossed it in the laundry basket hidden in the wardrobe.

Insatiable lust is the sign that you’ve graduated to two-legged food? Phoebe’s dark eyes narrowed as she considered Fran?oise’s words, which usually carried hidden meaning.

“Vampires are nothing but desire, you see.” Fran?oise returned to the tray and poured some coffee. “Can you not scratch what itches yourself? Your mate cannot always be around, after all.”

But Phoebe wanted Marcus’s deft fingers, his soft mouth sucking at her flesh, the nip of his teeth when he wanted her attention, the way he teased her until she was insane with longing and only then gave her the heart-shattering climax she craved. And what Marcus whispered as he brought her to that precipice, over and over, until she was mad and begging—Phoebe wanted those intimate, dark, seductive words most of all.

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