He yanked his shirt open, buttons flying, and pulled me to him, groaning as my skin met his. I wrapped my hands around his neck, my instinct demanding more of him, all of him. I snaked my tongue against his and reveled in the pleasure of his penetrating strokes. Had I been here before? Felt this electric touch? Something sparked in my memory, a loose thread that fluttered away before I could grab it.
He lifted me, and I wrapped my legs around him.
Home. This felt like home.
His shaft was against me, thick and taut with desire. And, gods help me, I wanted it. Wanted him inside me. It was as if I was suddenly possessed by some wanton spirit, but I didn’t care. All I knew was his passion for me, and all I wanted was to feel it come into full bloom within me.
He carried me to one of the couches and laid me down. Settling on top, he fell between my thighs as his kiss continued to make me melt. With one hand still at my breast, teasing me into a pleasured moan, his other reached down and got a handful of my backside. I arched against him, relishing the feel of him all over me.
Right. This felt so right.
He broke our kiss but only to move his mouth down my chest and capture a nipple, grazing it with his teeth. I ran my hands through his tousled hair. He released one breast to encircle the other, flicking his nimble tongue across the peak, sending a shock of arousal through me.
Tension built at my center, a sensation unlike any other I could recall. A sweet pressure that promised bliss. I moaned again as he sucked the bud completely into his mouth, the sensation within me growing ever stronger. Like I was a bowstring being drawn back slowly, surely.
But when he relinquished his hold on my aching breast and nibbled at my neck, I froze. Memories of Menelaus binding me and placing his mouth on my neck surfaced like a monster in my dreams.
“Helen?”
The name was wrong on my ears, jarring me back to my senses. I put a hand to his tan chest, pushing him away as I scooted from him until my back hit the arm of the couch.
His brows furrowed, worry dimming the fire in his eyes. “I mean, Elena—”
Before he could continue, a half-naked nymph traipsed into the living room, bowed, and said in a high trill, “Dinner is served.”
Chapter Eight
Paris
I had dreamed of this moment so many times, cried out for her in my sleep on more occasions than I could count. And she was finally in my arms, the living, breathing goddess who had consumed my thoughts ever since our first meeting in that rose garden so long ago. Just the taste of her, that honeyed softness that I would never forget, made me desperate for more. Even though she did not remember our past, didn’t remember the love we shared, she was giving herself to me now, in the present. And gods, did I want to take her, to give her the release I had wrung from her so many times before, to hear her crying out my name.
But she’d turned cold. Daphne had stumbled upon us before I’d even had a chance to ask what I’d done wrong. Elena covered her fair breasts, the pink nipples still plump and wanting. I couldn’t stifle a growl at the loss of that glorious sight.
“Oh, I didn’t know I was interrupting something.” Daphne watched me and Elena with interest, her barely covered breasts bouncing jauntily as she straightened from her low bow. Being a nymph, Daphne was an open creature, enjoying seeing and being seen, especially when there was nudity involved. Despite her youthful appearance, she was hundreds of years old, if not thousands. An excellent housekeeper and general companion. I had grown quite fond of her over the years.
“You weren’t, um, interrupting,” Elena said. She was looking at the tattered remains of her sweater with chagrin.
Before I could make my apologies for the destroyed clothing, Daphne picked right up, never missing a beat. “I have plenty of clothes, and, though I may be older, I still got it”—she shook her behind with a sly wink at Elena—“so I think some of them will fit you.”
To my surprise, Elena smiled at the nymph. “You remind me of a certain sister of mine.”
“I do?” Daphne asked with delight. “Then she must be gorgeous!”
Elena laughed, the sound a salve to my heart. I feared I’d frightened her, overwhelmed her with too much too soon. But when she’d stood in front of her game piece, I could not hold back any longer.
The white queen was the only relic I’d managed to save from our life together, the only thing Menelaus hadn’t shattered. When I awoke in our bedchambers in Troy, the figure lay beside me in a pool of Helen’s blood, more blood than a mortal could ever lose and yet still draw breath. My new vampire senses told me as much, but even without them, I knew she was gone somewhere far beyond my reach, to the fields of Elysium or the Island of the Blessed. There was no body; likely taken by Menelaus to be defiled. I cursed the demon for ever touching her and vowed to end his life. My despair was bottomless, a deep abyss that drowned me in pain and rage.