The silence of the old mansion was not an absence, but a thing, a velvet shroud that waited for the sun to drain away beyond the horizon. Anya always found the night shift the most intimate, a realm of darkness where day's proprieties opened out into shadow. Her new patient, however, was the secret at the heart of that realm. His file was a masterpiece of careful evasion, but his state was one she'd learned about in illicit medical texts and whispered legend. He was a vampire, and his needs were only just beginning to announce themselves.
His name was Valerian, a name as ancient and commanding as the man. He did not rest on the antiseptic bed, but on a low dark-leather divan, his body a marble study of repose until the last flicker of sun had gone. Anya's breath always caught when he stirred. It was not a start, or a gasp, but an easy movement from statue to living flesh. His cognac-colored, older eyes would fly open, and the broad space would narrow, pulling energy into the vortex of his focus.
Tonight, she was his entire focus.
"Nurse," he whispered, his voice a thrumming low that resonated in the hollow of her bones. "Your heart is pounding. And not from fear."
It wasn't a question, it was a statement. Anya's fingers, which had been double-counting the sterile equipment, curled into fists.
She forced herself to meet his gaze, not to break the professional facade. "Vital signs are part of my check, Mr. Valerian. An elevated pulse can have any number of meanings."
A fleeting smile played about his lips, which were pale but well-formed. "Indeed, desire, for one."
He moved, the silk of his robe rustling against the leather. The movement was fluid and powerful. He was recuperating from a rare solar allergy that had sent him to death's door, but his own strength was still a reassuring presence in the room.
"We have discussed my nutritional needs. The plasma substitute sustains me, but does not satisfy me. The hunger comes back, a different type."
Anya's mouth went dry. They'd discussed it in whispered, clinical terminology, they'd negotiated a consensus care plan that recognized his biology. One with safety protocols in place, a painstakingly agreed-upon safe-word, and her absolute power to stop it all with a single word: 'mercy'.
The theory was one thing. Reality however, uttered in that hypnotic baritone, was something else.
"The plan is afoot," she answered, her voice reasonably strong. She moved across to the divan, the scent of him enveloping her, dusty books, bergamot, and some strange and metallic smell, like ozone after lightning.
"If you're prepared to go on."
"I am." He said, his eyes holding hers. "But are you, Anya? There's no nursing book that has this in it. Your consent is not a checkbook. It's alive. I have to hear it breathe."
He was giving the control to her, even as he emanated an unbudging dominance. It was the balance they had constructed so painstakingly: she the caretaker, the one who held the reins, and he the patient whose needs, once unleashed, would demand it all. It was domination that was soft, where yielding was a tactical, powerful offering.
"I'll do it," she capitulated, the words spilling from her lips on a sighing breath.
"I consent to the night-time care routine. I want to."
The air around them sizzled and grew electric.
Valerian's cold, impossibly refined hand reached out to frame her cheek. His thumb stroked over the pounding pulse at the pit of her throat.
"Then let us begin."
His initial mouth contact with her neck was not a bite, but a kiss. A slow, devastating exploration of her skin that made her knees buckle. She wrapped her hands around the divan frame to prevent herself from falling, a shuddering moan wrenched from her throat as his tongue followed the throbbing pulse of her life's blood. He was savoring her, worshipping the vessel before he drank from its depths.
"You smell of jasmine and resolve," he breathed into her quivering flesh, his other arm clutched around her waist to support her quivering form. "A deadly combination."
When his fangs finally pierced her flesh, it was not violence, but finesse. A burning, white pain that instantly dissolved into a crashing wave of the most mind-wrenching pleasure she'd ever known. It was a direct hit to her core, a burning, throbbing pull that synchronized itself with the rhythm of his sucking. Her head tossed back as a moan tore from her throat, feelings detonating through her, a burning, rolling inferno that saturated low in her belly, making her pussy clench around nothing. She was taken, indulged, and possessed, her body surrendering to him in a way more intimate than she ever knew.
After a lifetime of whirling dizziness, he drew away, his tongue sealing the two small wounds with a caress that made her shudder again. His eyes blazed, his pale complexion infused with a pink soft, warm hue. Her blood was dark wine on his lips.
"Your turn," he said, all courtesy leached from his voice and filled instead with a bare, primitive need.
He rolled them over in a single swift motion, her back to the chill of the divan leather, his body over hers. He was heavy and solid, his chill a burning shock to her warm skin.
His hands, those lovely, lethal tools, danced quickly on the buttons of her stiff white uniform. He tore the material from her, exposing her to the waist, his eyes devouring her.
"So lovely," he growled, as his lips dropped to her breasts.
He showered them with licking, sucking, nipping with blunt human teeth until she was shaking under him, her hips arching off the divan, needing friction. He chuckled, a wicked and dark sound, and he complied to her silent request, his hand following down the flat expanse of her belly to the waistband of her trousers. He paused, their eyes meeting, a final, unasked question.
"Please," she begged, all vestiges of professionalism smoldering in the embers of her desire. "Valerian, please."
He speared his fingers into the waistband of her underwear and trousers and pulled them down over her thighs in a single smooth movement. The night air's coolness was a balm to her heated flesh, but not to be compared to the fire of his eyes as he looked his fill at her nudity.
He knelt between her legs, spreading them and opening her up.
"I'll enjoy every last drop of pleasure you have to give," he swore, his tone a dark promise.
And he did.
His mouth on her was a vampiric ritual of adoration. He didn't kiss her; he drank at her pleasure as he'd drunk at her vein. His tongue was a cold, crafty instrument, lapping at her, circling her clit with a precision that was nearly clairvoyant. He had her hips immobilized, pinned, locking them with his, holding her so that she couldn't escape, forcing her to just absorb the suffocating wave of sensation. She was crying, her fists knotted in his black hair, holding him against her while she dissolved into a million pieces, her orgasm breaking over her like a wave.
Before she could even come down from her high, he was already sitting up, covering his huge cock with a condom in inhuman swiftness.
He inclined over her body, the rigid length of him entering her soaked, throbbing flesh.
"Look at me," he breathed.
Anya struggled to keep her eyes open, her eyes clashing with his burning one.
"This is yours to stop," he reminded her, his forehead against hers, his body trembling with the exertion of his control. "Always."
"Don't stop, please," she gasped, her legs around his waist, pulling him deeper.
He required no further persuasion. He eased into her in one slow, silken glide, filling her to capacity. She screamed, the fullness a burning, stretching ache. He remained still for a moment, deep inside, letting her body accommodate his enormous size, before he started moving.
His penetration was not random, but gradual, deep, and deliberate. They were all seductions, a touch that set off each nerve. He kissed her in motion, his tongue tracing the same pattern as his hips. She could taste herself in his mouth, sour, sensual, with the faint metallic flavor of her own blood.
He shifted the angle slightly, and during the second plunge, he hit something inside her that made her see stars. Her fingernails sank deep into the taut muscles of his back as she came again, a sharper, more intense peak that clenched around him like a fist.
Her climax shattered his grip. His thrusts lengthened and quickened, a violent piston driving her higher. The divan creaked in protest. His fangs were lengthened, his face a cruel, beautiful mask of starvation. He plunged his face into the hollow of her shoulder to her neck, not to bite, but to breathe in her, to stroke her name against her flesh.
"Cum with me," he grated, his voice harsh. "Now, Anya."
It was a command she couldn't resist. The third orgasm took them both, a mutual explosion more of a supernova than a wave. She cried out his name as he roared hers, his body pulsing inside of hers, his cold flesh finally warm against hers. He collapsed over her, his weight a welcome anchor as they both fell back down through the layers of lovely feeling.
The silence returned, but it was not the same. It was now filled with the sound of their breathing, with the smell of sex and satiated desire. Valerian, gentle beneath his coarseness, rolled them onto their sides, holding her close to him. He caressed her hair and her back, then placed a soft kiss on her forehead.
Anya followed the line of his jaw with her fingers, her body humming, totally exhausted and totally at peace.
The plan had worked. More than worked. It had been a revelation.
"The exit plan," she murmured on a sleepy exhalation, a small, half-asleep smile creeping across her lips. "I didn't need it."
Valerian's arms constricted around her. "The escape plan is ever-present," he whispered again, his voice the suave, soft murmur. "Always. But tonight, moving deeper was the only option."
Outside, the moon was high in the sky, silvery-sheening the room. Anya knew night shifts would never again be the same for her.
It was no longer just a job; it was a deal, not one signed in black and white, but one signed on skin, in blood, and in the deep, shared silence between heartbeats.