He straddled her, one knee on one side, his other leg stretched out so her cheek was against his boot, her body under the triangle formed by his as he finished the knot at the base of her skull. His fingers followed the line of the rope directly under her jaw, her chin, caressing her sensitive throat. Then he shifted her to her less burned side on the swag he’d folded to create a bed for her.

There was an attractive flush at the base of his neck, and it seemed he was reluctant to slide his hands off her, one resting on her hip, the curve of her flank. His eyes kept returning to the way the rope collared her neck, the arched display of her body. He was fighting his reaction to her with a delicious guilt that was almost palpable.

But even as he fought with his lust, he apparently noticed other things. Like the way she was sweating. For now he brought the cool cloth back, ran it under her chin, into the pockets of her collarbone, the sternum above the beginning swells of her breasts. The soft friction rippled all the way to the hardened points, making them jut at him in a way that only a dead man could ignore. She wondered if he was thinking of how he’d suckled water off them. She knew she was, and the memory wasn’t exactly cooling.

“Touch them,” she whispered, though she knew she was being foolish. If the bloodlust grew too strong . . . But she needed him to touch her, now, when she could still hold the reins on herself, though the grip was getting tenuous. “Torture me the way I tortured you.”

“It’s still torture to me, love,” he said, his voice sexy in its rough need. “Because I can’t do much about it, no matter how hard I get over it.”

“If you were a vampire, you’d take pleasure in my pain, grasp me by the waist, dig your fingers into my burns as you shoved your cock into me.”

His gaze flickered up to hers, and the green in his eyes had become brilliant, filled with lust. Lifting the cloth to her face with great deliberation, he wiped it along the line of cheek, her chin and faintly quivering lips. Then he used her own logic on her. “I’m not a vampire. Strewth, you’re hotter than fire, but you’re pale. You need more blood.”

“Wait a little longer,” she said. “It hasn’t been an hour. Give me too much, and it’ll come back up. Makes a mess.”

“Right.” He pressed his lips together, kept touching her flesh with the cloth. Light, easy, cool, and it was driving her crazy, as if he were deliberately teasing her. Because some touches felt simple, easy. Others exacerbated the burns because even the gentlest of contact hurt.

“Vampires like restraining their servants,” she said, her gaze clinging to his sensual lips, remembering them on her breast, between her legs. God, she was hot, needy, while the burned skin beneath the tight hold of the rope was enough to make her want to writhe and scream. “I’ve suspended a man from the ceiling, his wrists and ankles manacled. Positioned his face over a female servant’s spread legs. She was staked to the ground, so neither of them could move except as I desired. The wheel kept lifting and lowering his cock into her mouth, even while he was straining to bury his face in her pussy.”

“Christ.” He shook his head. “You vampires are strange creatures.”

Dropping the cloth, he cradled her right breast in gentle fingers, an unexpectedly soothing, relaxing touch, a knead of sensation as he weighed it in his palm. It was sexual, creating a liquid yearning, but more than that, it was a reassurance, a demand that wasn’t demanding. As he passed slow fingers over the nipple, they both watched it change to a taut point before he ran his knuckles down the curve, to her flat belly, the indentation of navel. Then further, his fingers passing over her mons, feathering her clit and the lips, her thighs. He’d wrapped a length of rope around them as well, so they couldn’t part beneath his touch, only tremble in reaction.

“You’re right,” he said, low. “You’ll come good, no time. And maybe you’ll let me keep you tied up a bit, see where this might go.

Until then, stop being such a bloody tease. I’m not going to bugger you like this, no matter how you bait me with it.” He brought a smoldering gaze up to hers. “I’m here with you, to the end of it. All right?”

“Can’t change the nature of man or vampire, bushman.” Danny tried to hold her voice steady. “You’re a pretty interesting man, though.”

He shrugged, gave her an odd smile that twisted something within her. “No different than any other. Just the fool you’re stuck with to get you through this.”

He might be a fool, but she found his presence comforting, amid the roaring pain from her nape to her heels, exacerbated by the tight chafe of the rope. And though she’d said her libido could be kindled no matter her physical state, it was still unexpected, how he’d roused it this strongly amid the discomfort.

If she had the choice of anyone in the world, she would choose this man to watch over her. The startling thought was followed by another, equally disturbing.

From her limited understanding of such relationships, that was the way a vampire felt about her fully marked servant.

6

FIRE. Sun poisoning was like fire rushing through a vampire’s blood, scalding her from inside even as the burns healed rapidly on the outside. The only thing for it was replacing the blood, bringing in new infusions of it, pushing the poison out through the pores.

She’d told him the first part before coherence deserted her. She’d forgotten to tell him there’d be weak tracks of blackened blood oozing out all over her healing skin.

He had his hands full, all right. No more than an hour after he tied her, she was thrashing against the restraints, snapping at the stone like a rabid dog. He wished he dared get close enough to wipe away the blood, keep bathing her in cool water, but it was clear he had to limit his risk to what would help her the most. Each hour, he maneuvered over her, held the taut line running from throat to wrists to bent legs against the stone floor with the weight of his boots. As everything tightened, her wild gaze would swivel up to him, watching hungrily as he cut his wrist and let it drip over her mouth again. The blue was gone. Her irises were as red as a sundown, all the way out to the corners, the black pupils huge.

At one point she was too far gone to drink. She wouldn’t stop her flailing, the whipping of her head, the choking against the rope.

Knowing he was being an idiot, still he wrestled her down, twisted her upper body to her back so he could hold a forearm against her throat and bring his cut arm close above her mouth. Christ, she’d been right. She could throw him off with her bucking, even bound as she was. She managed it twice, sending him rolling, before he maneuvered her close enough to the wall so he could put weight and leverage into it, pushing against the cave wall with his heels, his knees digging into the stone beneath them until he forced that first drop to go onto her tongue. That caught her attention, turned her from her delirium to the base desire for food. Still she growled, snarled, raged, even as she convulsively swallowed, watching the slow drip of his blood welling from the cut. Once he was done, he jumped back fast, because he found she could roll herself pretty fast if she wanted, and discomfort didn’t slow her down.

Once he wasn’t cautious enough. She reared up like a striking snake and clamped on his arm like a vise, even as she started to choke from the stranglehold of the rope. He’d had half a mind to let her do it that way, for she settled right down, like a baby on a tit, until he quickly realized how fast she could pull the blood out of him. Yanking back did no good, nor shoving or shouting at her.

Her eyes turned even deeper red, the flaming colors of hell.

Self-preservation kicked in. While he had to close his eyes when he did it, he managed to reach his rifle and brought the butt smartly down against her collarbone. She’d screamed, making his gut wrench as she fell back, wriggling away like a legless crab to hole up against the side of the cave, glaring at him. He scrambled to the opposite wall, holding the rifle in clutched hands, getting his breath while she cursed at him in unintelligible animal noises, blood smeared across her mouth.

Please God, let her return to herself soon. The scars were healing with amazing speed, and as sundown approached, her strength was increasing. Conversely, she’d been right about the weakness. Every hour, he gave her a half cup of blood, until he was feeling dizzy with it. Breaking out his rations, he plowed through them, giving himself energy, watching her out of the corner of his eyes. Jesus. She was like one of those bloody motion pictures, the monster trussed but staring with red, soulless eyes at the hapless soon-to-be victim it would eat when it broke loose, as it always did.

She’d called it hog-tying, right enough. A couple times she’d struggled until the rope dug into the veins in her neck, made them run purple and oxygen-deprived, her breath rattling in her throat. He’d had to fight hard as hell not to go to her. Only the fact she was trying to get free so she could tear his throat out kept him out of her way, watching her roll and gag. Once she’d seemed to pass out, only to revive fifteen minutes later and do it to herself again.

He slid down the side of the cave wall now and decided to stare back, holding that inhuman gaze, watching her lovely chest rise and fall in quick pants. Their wrestling matches over the blood had resulted in her upper body being smeared with it so she had the look of a crazed Pict, or someone who’d escaped from one of those films he’d been thinking about.

I’m not scared of you. I’ve faced far worse things, love. He held on to that fierce determination, even as he knew those ropes wouldn’t hold her forever. The hog-tying had, in fact, kept her from trying too hard, but once or twice he’d feared she might snap them anyway. Would he kill her to save his own skin, if he had to do so? Should he prepare a stake, just in case? She’d tell him to do it, for sure.

She’d never know how close she’d come to seducing him into buggering her, even with her wounds. He didn’t know if that was a nod to her powers of temptation, right up there with Lilith, or how much of a bloody monster resided inside him. That said, any other bloke seeing her right now wouldn’t touch her for all the gold that had ever been dug out of the earth. After the skin beneath knitted, the burned flesh sloughed off in an unattractive fashion, a serpent depositing its latest sheath. Her hair was unbraided again, hanging lank around her feral face. Her fangs were still almost as long as his smallest finger, making her look half woman, half beast.