Excerpt from THE NIGHT OF MAYA

His clutch bruised when he pulled her out of the car near Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade. He hated being rough, but this was the worst time for her to break down. He led into a crowd gathered around a street performer. Turning, he held her tightly against his body so that her thighs brushed against his, her nipples strained against his chest. His fingers soothed the back of her neck, and he pressed his lips to her puncture wounds. Through the scarf, they emanated the scent and taste of Maya’s blood, which unsettled him to the bones. Already, he noticed two new pursuers on the other end of the street, wading carefully toward them.

His razor fangs pressed against the thin fabric on Maya’s neck. She jerked, as if stabbed, but he held her too tightly, his eyes boring into her while his fingers brushed through her hair.

“Maya, look at me,” he whispered in her ear. “You cannot be followed tonight, darling, or we are both lost. Do you understand?”

The trusting need in his piercing eyes propped up her spirit and sanity, but she refused to accept the full meaning of his words by locking her arms behind his neck. “Don’t leave me,” she begged.

She hardly had to beg, but if he didn’t seek shelter and replenish his strength to access his full powers, he would be of no use to her later. Reason, though, couldn’t hold sway over the silent plea of her shivering body, clutching to his with virginal persuasion. With Maya so close, the agony of the burning sun yielded to a new pain. Kiru cursed. He was not supposed to be able to feel this way, not for a mortal woman, not for anyone but Alustra, and definitely not in daylight when he should be delirious. Maya’s embrace, in all its quivering fear, aroused an old need to protect and possess, which filled him with arrogant invincibility.

Like dropping a curtain over a stage, Kiru blocked all unnecessary stimuli from coming through to his senses. He stayed alert to two things only; the vampire posse, and Maya. He tracked the vampires with his mind, he observed Maya with his body. The applause around the street performer blended into the beat of her heart. The hum of passing cars folded into her breath. He thought he knew sunshine when it burned him into madness, but when the last trace of the world around him extinguished and every sensory perception opened to the virgin in his arms, Kiru wished he could scream. Every quiver of her muscles absorbed into his flesh, reminding him so much of the heart’s first swelling with love. He planted his feet harder into the ground lest he pick her up right then and carry her, even though he was long zapped of ability to fly.

Maya moaned and her agile arms wrapped tighter around his neck, bringing her crotch flush against his, scorching him with its heat. Turning his head a little, he sniffed at the air, which was full of her eagerness. Saliva ran down the side of his mouth, and he tensed all over when the urge unlike any Alustra had ever instilled broke loose. Maya’s breath became his breath, her heartbeat echoed in his chest, her whole body fused with his like his very own limbs. They could never separate.

His finger skimmed over her cheek in reverence before he lowered his mouth to hers. Only a lacy caress would have to do before he turned raw with desire he could not appease. Worse yet, he couldn’t mislead Maya by awakening her desire for the kind of sharing he could not give. He only kissed her for reassurance. It would have been an innocent kiss, except her breath caught, and her lips parted in an altogether different plea. Kiru moaned when her lips moved under his. This was no virgin’s kiss. She demanded and took so expertly that an ordinary man would have doubted her innocence, but Kiru welcomed her claim. If only he could be hers, the way she should be his. On a harsh moan, he unleashed the hunger of nearly five centuries.

Maya clung to him, savoring the rainbow of sweetness that washed over her. A thick scent of rubrum lilies filled her nostrils when he responded to her initiative with a harder press of his lips. She had never kissed a man before, but she knew exactly what to do, all those millions of dream kisses blending into this one. If only he would never let her go. She was coming alive all over, only now aware of her body. Even her feet sizzled, every toe awash with energy. When Kiru ground into her harder still, she was right there with him.

“Kiru…” she gasped. “Ohh…”

With hungry hands, she explored his back, needing to feel all of him. He was so strong, yet his immortal flesh responded to her touch, adjusting and moving with her in his thirst for more. Maya was flung into a primordial whirlwind. Grabbing him as hard as she could, she rubbed her throbbing groin against him. He pulled back on a sigh, but his mouth was still urgent on hers. She ached with near agony of fullness. Everything inside her swelled and strained beyond thought, winding her until she heard her own breath cracking deep in her throat. She couldn’t take any more, yet she wanted it all, whatever ‘all’ turned out to be. From her heels to her crown, she writhed. He was real. He was here, and she was in his arms.

He pried her apart on a frustrated sigh and brushed token kisses on her swollen and insatiable lips. The vampires were closing in.

“You must go. Disappear into the crowd now, sweetheart.”

Before she could say anything, he was gone. Only the heat in her body remained as proof that he was there at all.

Download The Night of Maya from Ellora's Cave.