Roaring Dawn: Macey Book 3 (The Gardella Vampire Hunters 10)(54)

Oh, yes. Macey closed her eyes and held him, lifting her hips in easy, slow movements to match his, reveling in the beauty of this age-old rhythm that could bespeak such love and passion. It was enough to bring tears to her eyes—tears of grief and joy, tears of pleasure and comfort.

And when their movements became more urgent—deeper and harder and faster—she forgot the tears and the grief, and settled into the joy and pleasure building inside her. Macey cried out, arching up into him, pulling him close and hard as she came. He groaned her name with his final stroke, and she dragged her hands through his thick, wild hair, looking up at her love as his face went slack with pleasure and release.

Then, swimming back to reality, her body still humming and hot, her mouth settled on the warm, salty skin of his shoulder, tasting Grady…feeling at last as if she was no longer alone, and would never be alone again. He lowered himself so their damp bodies touched, then eased off to the side, pulling her close with him.

Some time later…much later, after another hot, passionate interlude and another doze…Macey realized sunlight was pouring into the room.

It was morning. And, for the first time in weeks, she’d slept beautifully.

Out of habit, she dragged on a robe and slipped down the hall to the bathroom to freshen up, then down to the kitchen to find something to eat. All of a sudden, she was hungrier than she’d been for a long time.

She was in the kitchen, making a tray of food from the slim pickings in Grady’s fridge—a boiled egg, some good Irish cheddar, some apples, and a half loaf of bread that was almost stale—when she heard the stairs creaking.

“There you are,” he said, coming into the kitchen. When she saw his face, she realized with a sharp pain that he’d been afraid she was gone.

It wouldn’t have been the first time.

“Grady,” she said, setting the tray aside and walking into his arms. He folded her against his strong, naked body and she sighed, bumping her nose gently against his skin as she drew in a deep breath of his scent. “I’m not going to leave—unless you want me to.”

His arms tightened, and he dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “Not until I’m quite finished with you,” he replied, a smile in his voice. “And I’m thinking that will be a while, a rún.”

“What does that mean? A rún?” She looked up at him.

“It means, literally, my secret…as in, the secret of my heart. The deepest, truest secret of my heart.”

“Oh. But…you called me that…before.”

His expression took her breath away more effectively than even the kisses they’d shared. “Yes. But now it’s even truer, is it not?”

“You never forgot me, then, did you?” She shook her head. “Your memory wasn’t…well…” She couldn’t even put into words the travesty of what she’d tried to do. Her stomach felt like a lead balloon had settled in it, and suddenly she was no longer ravenous.

“Wayren gave me the choice.”

“I see.”

He nodded gravely and stepped back a little. His eyes changed, turning to wintry Lake Michigan instead of warm blue sky. “She gave me the choice of living in oblivion—and safety—or staying as I was. When she told me you’d— Well. It wasn’t a difficult decision—I didn’t hesitate. But I’ve been unspeakably angry with you, Macey. I don’t deny it.”

“As well you should be.” Her heart gave a little awkward ka-thump at the thought that he might still, and always, deep inside be unspeakably angry with her. That he might never trust her again. That, despite the last hours of the most beautiful and passionate lovemaking she’d ever had, they might never be the way they once were…or could have been. That it could be the last time they were together thus.

“I tried to understand, but how could I? After what we’d been through?” His voice was hard, and he looked away, curling his fingers over the edge of the kitchen counter. “After all of that, you’d still rejected me.”

Macey’s throat closed up and she couldn’t speak. Tears obliterated her vision and she found she needed a damned handkerchief again.

He sighed and groped in a drawer, then handed her a kitchen towel. “For a lethal Venator, you’re certainly unprepared at times.”

“What I did was inexcusable. I know that. I-I was just trying to protect—”

“Me?” His voice was like flint.

“No,” she whispered. “Me. I was trying to protect myself from having to go through what my father did. From—from being in a situation where I’d have to make a choice about whether to save you or to save the world. From having to live every moment in fear that it might happen, that someone would take you from me. From doing what Victoria Gardella did, when she married Philip de Lacey.”

He was silent for a moment, but his strong, dark hand moved to touch hers in a brief squeeze. “Savina said the same thing.” He looked at the tray and picked it up. “I’m hungry. Let’s sit down.”

Macey released her breath. Now she understood how he felt, walking into the kitchen to find her there—discovering that their passionate interlude was not just a flash in the pan, not just a short, false interval. That they were going to talk, and hopefully heal what had gone between them.

“Savina knew?” Macey asked as she sat on the sofa. He’d set the tray of food on the table next to them.

“She figured it out. We spent a lot of time talking on Sunday—that horrible rainy day. That day you came here.” He looked at her, and Macey blushed, turning away.

“Savina didn’t recognize you, but I did. Why did you come? It made me— It disturbed me. I’d been doing…all right. Even after seeing you at the photo exhibit the night before. That was…impossible. I hadn’t expected you to be there, and there you were. And you looked…” He shook his head. “I thought I was never going to recover.”

Macey needed a handkerchief again. What a damned fool she’d been. Was there any way to turn time backward? To fix this somehow?

“But I made it through that night—I was glad you left the photo show early, you know. I might not have been able to… And then there you were, showing up here the next day, in the rain, looking so forlorn and lost and sad under that blasted hat you were wearing. And after that, after you were gone…well, I said too much, asked too many questions of Savina about your father, and their relationship…and she figured out that you and I had…that we’d been together.”

“She’s quite clever.”

“Your father is mad about her, you know. I suspect very soon she’s going to be your stepmother.”

Macey smiled. “I think I’d like that.” She settled back against a pillow, nibbling on a piece of cheese. Her appetite was slowly recovering. “About that…about my father. Obviously, you know him…but how? When?”

“During the war. We met through Houdini. I was good friends with him, and your father was taking some of the training he did for the soldiers in England. I hadn’t moved from London to Chicago yet, and that’s how we met.”

“Is that how you learned about vampires? Because you’ve always known, ever since I met you.”

He nodded. “Right. I didn’t know for certain for many years, but I suspected after I saw Max stake one in an alley once. I wasn’t really certain what I’d seen, and he wouldn’t answer any questions—but I’d read enough literature about the undead that I was suspicious. And then when I moved here and Linwood and I started talking about some of the injuries on bodies they found…well, it became a certainty. Once I read The Venators, my suspicions were confirmed.”

“Max and Savina were staying here…so it wasn’t an accident that you were involved at the Beedle school?”

“That part was an accident, though I would of course have helped if I hadn’t been involved otherwise. Max needed a place to stay when he came to Chicago, and he didn’t want to take the chance of being seen or recognized by any undead. Though he never mentioned anything about you at first, I guessed you were his daughter—I’d suspected that since I saw the photograph you had in your flat of him and your mother. I never had the chance to ask you about it, because—well—you weren’t really talking much to me, were you? About all of this?”

“No. But that’s how it’s supposed to be,” she said weakly. “With non-Venators.”

He snorted. “It might have saved some grief if you’d been more forthcoming, Macey, lass.”

“But you never told Max that we—that we knew each other.”

“By the time he got here and contacted me, we weren’t supposed to know each other. And so I… Well, you’d made your choice. Who was I to go against your decision?” The bitterness was back, and Macey’s belly pitched down once more.

Could they ever get past this?

“And then, all indications were that you and Woodmore were together,” he added in that same voice.

Right. Because she’d told him that. “Chas and I are…friends. Good friends… We’ve been… We have a lot in common. Nothing more.”