Part 3
Chapter Five: Come Slowly, Eden
Catherine had, somehow, persuaded the tow-truck driver to drop her at the hotel first before dropping the van at the mechanic's, then distracted the driver as Vincent exited swiftly out of the back of the van and hid in the bushes until she came back.
Now inside their hotel room, Vincent stretched a little, wincing slightly at the wrenched muscles in his upper back. Being in the van while it was being towed had not been a gentle experience, and he knew his back had hit the side of the van at least once or twice as the van turned. "Feeling a little sore?" Catherine asked.
He nodded. "Being cargo does have its disadvantages," he said dryly. "I'm going to take a shower."
Catherine watched as he walked into the bathroom. That walk...she wasn't sure Vincent would appreciate the comparison, so she never mentioned it, but to her, his stride always reminded her of one of the larger cats: smooth, graceful, without any wasted movement. And dear lord, the image of the sinuous movement of his legs and buttocks under a towel...She felt her face warm and by the quick, sultry glance he threw her over his shoulder as he opened the bathroom door, Catherine knew he'd picked up her thought. That's one thing about loving an empath. No chance of him not knowing exactly what I meant. Except I would have pushed those feelings down in the past, tried to bury them so he wouldn't feel them. Not now.
Good girl, Cath. her inner Jenny piped up. He needs to know how you feel.
The warm rush of love and passion that swept back towards her made the sweat break out a bit on her forehead. I'd say he certainly does know.
Catherine heard the water turn on and decided to join him there. As she was halfway to the door, she heard a stunned, high-pitched growl. She burst into the bathroom to find him on the other side of the door. Catherine slipped in the water he'd tracked when he jumped out of the shower and they fell down in a tangle of arms and legs. "Vincent?" she asked cautiously, noticing that he seemed a bit pale. "Are you all right?"
"The shower," he gasped. "It's ice cold."
Thinking at first that he'd confused the shower controls---how many showers had he seen in his life, anyway?---she glanced across the room at the shower stall. No, it was turned to warm. Catherine sighed. "Just one more thing, eh, love?" Abruptly, she realized that she was sprawled on top of him and while the location was pleasing, to say the least, Vincent was shivering. She climbed off him carefully, turned off the shower and held out her hand. "Come on, let's try and get you warm."
Blue eyes danced as he sat up and looked at her. "How do you suggest we...get warm?" Vincent asked.
"Oh, there are ways," she said, leading him out of the narrow bathroom .
It was chilly in the hotel room, but it was early fall; in a few weeks, Catherine knew there would be snow on the ground. "Did they ever turn the heat on in here?" she wondered aloud.
"Why ask?" Vincent said mildly. He pulled back the covers on the bed. She hesitated slightly before deciding to listen to her inner Jenny and remove her clothes. His body temperature was somewhat warmer than her own and between the warmth of his furry body and the covers on top of them, the temperature was warming up. "You feel nice," Catherine murmured against his soft, furry chest. "Are you warming up?"
Vincent laughed, a full-fanged happy laugh that she'd heard so rarely from him. "As you say, there are ways. It's much more comfortable here than in that shower."
It struck her then, that in two years---nearly three—of being together, they had never done anything this simple. Oh, there had been that time when Vincent had watched over her when she was beaten up by the corrupt cops, and the time he had stayed in her bedroom after his days' long spell of delirium and fever. But this? This simple touching, of skin on skin? No, they hadn't done this before---they'd told themselves it was a dream for another lifetime, another universe, and put it carefully on the shelf of other forgotten or delayed dreams.
"This is like something out of a dream," Vincent whispered against her hair, feeling her wistfulness through the bond.
"Your dreams often involve carsickness, shredded tires and ice cold showers?" she teased, relaxing further into his touch.
"No. They involve you and I, together like this." She felt him swallow. "And I am sometimes afraid to awaken, to find I was only imagining."
"This is no dream, love," Catherine said, and kissed him, savoring the taste of him—cardamom and spice and something uniquely him that she would know until the end of her days. She felt she could kiss him a thousand times and never feel it to be the same way each time.
"Mmm...hmmm," Vincent murmured against her lips, a faint sound of contentment. When she pulled back from him a bit to catch her breath, he quoted softly, "'There let our amorous kisses dwell/On our lips, begin and tell/A Thousand and a Hundred score/A Hundred and a Thousand More.'"
"Where is that from?" Catherine asked, knowing the answer could be anything from a fortune cookie to some dusty, esoteric book on an out of the way bookshelf in Father's library. Vincent was an adept and indiscriminate absorber of knowledge and forgot very little of what he learned, if anything.
His hand rubbed her bare back and his voice rumbled beneath her. "It's a translation of a poem by Catullus." There was some bright mischief in his eyes as he continued, "Father thought Catullus was...unsuitable for our Latin classes, as the poem was one of a series written for his married mistress. Father kept the book on a very high shelf to ensure that only the adults could reach it."
"And...let me guess. He forgot you could climb?"
Vincent shook his head wryly. "Not precisely. He forgot that forbidding a thing only makes it more desirable and he thought I wouldn't climb up there, because he'd said not to."
Catherine chuckled, picturing Father's likely reaction. Certainly she had seen him angry with her in the past enough to picture it. "How old were you?"
Vincent smiled and there was much in that smile of the mischievous boy he'd once been. "Nine, I think. Father was not amused."
"I'd imagine not," Catherine replied. She folded her arms on his chest and looked up at him. "So, since we're keeping score, where do you suppose we rank?"
For a bare second, Vincent was confused as to her meaning, but then it sank in. "Well, we're well shy of a hundred, I'd say. So Catullus would be disappointed."
"Far be it from me to disappoint a dead Roman aristocrat," Catherine said, green eyes darkening. Before she could say anything else, Vincent kissed her, the soft, beautiful strangeness of his mouth gathering her in.
His lips nuzzled the galloping pulse at her throat. "Are you certain?" Vincent asked softly, pulling back slightly to look at her.
Catherine gazed straight down into his cobalt eyes. "What does our bond tell you?"
Vincent nodded, laying his head against her chest. His voice rumbled as he spoke. "I know. But I wanted...."
"I understand," Catherine said. There were too many fears and too much anguish behind them to be fully conquered by one night—or multiple nights---of making love, but Catherine resolved then and there to spend the rest of her life trying.
"What about..." His hand came to rest on her flat belly.
"Taken care of," she said against his hair. "I saw Peter last month." Her arms enfolded him. "I want your child, but when we are both ready."
"You want...?" His voice was rough with astonishment. After a near lifetime of thinking no woman would ever love him, it had also never occurred to him that a woman might want his child.
"One day," Catherine said against the dense gold silk of his hair. "It's you I want now."
The bond flared open, a river of feeling that could not, would not, be held back. Catherine felt his nervousness, his fear, and his love, and something else, a more ancient emotion that was winding its way through their connection. His eyes met hers, dark and fathomless. It wasn't possession she saw in his blue eyes, that dangerous, hated emotion she'd known in so many of her previous relationships. What she saw in Vincent's gaze was a claiming, an acknowledgment of his right to be there, to join them together.
Mate, she saw in his eyes. Mine. Aloud, he said, "I want you." There was no shyness in his gaze; he might be a virgin, but he was no innocent.
The river gathered her in, and she was lost.
***
Vincent gazed at the woman in his arms, the woman who wanted him as much as he wanted her. A miracle, he thought, opening his mouth slightly and tasting the scent of her arousal in the cool air. She wants me. Mine. My mate. My mate wants me. I want my mate. I want.
Almost without conscious thought, his hands---the hated hands Catherine had claimed as hers and in doing so, changed forever how he viewed them---rose to caress her breasts, the soft kneading causing her scent to spiral further. "It feels good," she murmured, green eyes darkening even as her cheeks and lips flushed to the rose color he loved to see.
Vincent chuckled deep in his throat, feeling the release of the last bit of nervousness. He was pleasuring her, she wanted him and this time would be theirs. "I love you," he said, before taking one breast in his mouth and gently suckling first one, then the other. Catherine arched against him, a lightening touch of love and grace, and her small hands caressed his back, kneading her knuckles into the line of hair that trailed down his spine. It frequently tangled and itched in ordinary times, but her warming, sensual touch there now brought him to full hardness under her.
Her hands rose again to bury themselves in the length of his hair, a caress that left him feeling as though a circle of heated energy was rising within him. Vincent made a noise, a low rumble of pleasure and joy and Catherine smiled. The dark, warm scents of her passion peaked in the air. "Come here, love. I need you."
Vincent froze then, momentarily afraid that he would do this wrong, that he would hurt her, that she would finally turn from him in disgust when she fully saw what she had brought to her bed. But those worries were dispelled, and ended, as Catherine gently guided him inside her. He opened his mouth, meaning to ask what she wanted him to do now, but her scent instructed his body and his body took the lesson fully. It knew, it had always known, what his mate wanted. Needed. He moved and her body gathered him in, again and again and again as the bond glittered bright and golden between them.
The golden light pushed them onwards, into the fire and over it as his seed loosed deep within her and her hoarse cries mingled with his roar, muffled against the bedclothes. Vincent sagged against Catherine and would have moved, fearing his weight, but her arms held him fast. "I've waited too long for this," she murmured against his throat, caressing his high cheekbones. "Are you all right?"
He swallowed, thinking that if he was ever going to lose his power of speech, it would be now, after he had fully loved his mate. His Catherine. "Mmmm, yes," he said throatily. "I find that I am." His quick gaze passed over her; the worries of a lifetime not easily forgotten. "Did I...hurt you?"
"No, love. You didn't, and you couldn't." She took one of his hands, the lethal claws looking so inoffensive in the dimness. "These hands were gentle." She kissed him and her tongue traced his fangs. "These teeth were loving." Catherine leaned back a little to gaze at him. "And you...you were tender and everything I could have wanted."
Vincent relaxed against her then, feeling in their loving the slow banishment of the most painful and lasting of his ghosts. He pulled her close to him and gathered her under his chin. "Beloved," he whispered. "I didn't know."
"I know," Catherine answered. Her hand caressed his thigh and Vincent thought again how wonderful the miracle of her acceptance, her love, truly was.
His right hand brushed against her breast; the scent of their love hanging heavy and fertile in the air. "So...practice makes perfect, is that it?" he asked, feeling himself stir again, unbelievably.
He could feel her smile against the bare skin of his neck
as Catherine turned slightly to kiss him there. "You better believe it."
Chapter Six: Come by the Hills
They made love twice more that night before being awakened later in the morning by a nervous hotel manager, wanting to know if they'd heard the "cougar" howling in the night. Catherine, with what Vincent decided was remarkable sangfroid, answered the door in nothing more than a smile and his cloak and politely told the manager that she hadn't heard a thing but would certainly let him know should they come into contact with the "cougar." He'd left hurriedly, but not before telling Catherine that the water heater was now working.
"Are there cougars in Connecticut?" Vincent wondered, curiously.
Catherine shrugged. "There have been sightings out here for years, but I don't think any of them have been confirmed. My dad swore he saw one once, coming back from a fishing trip, but since that was also the same trip where he swore he caught a six foot bass---that got away, of course---mom and I had our doubts. "
Vincent chuckled, wondering if all fathers told those stories. He remembered Father, years and years ago, swearing there was a giant fish in the waters beneath the falls and he and Devin, ever so cautiously wading in to see if they could see it, and half-fearful they would. His mind turned to other matters as he watched Catherine take his cloak off and place it carefully on the bed. "I'm going to take a shower," she said. "I'd love to have you with me but the mechanic should be calling to tell us the van is ready."
He rose and wrapped his arms around her, loving the feel of her cool skin against his chest. "I'll wait out here, then." Vincent kissed her and was pleased to see the faint flush climb upwards on her fair skin.
***
Catherine stepped into the bathroom and cautiously turned on the water, pleased and surprised to find that "warm" now actually meant "warm," instead of the glacial temperature it had been just yesterday. She stepped into the shower and leaned for a second against the hard enclosure. Just yesterday...just yesterday, she and Vincent had never been lovers, had never held each other in that caring, intimate way. She had never heard his faint roar of passion and had never heard similar sounds drawn from her own mouth as she arched against him.
Just thinking of it now made her legs wobble. Down girl, her inner Jenny piped up. You still have to drive another couple of hours to your father's house and it'd be nice if you didn't get in an accident first. Concentrate. And she did her best, though knowing Vincent was right outside that door and that the shower stall was almost large enough to hold the two of them nearly did her resolve in.
His azure eyes opened just a bit. "Catherine," he said softly. "This isn't a dream, then."
"No, love," Catherine replied. "Definitely not a dream." She toyed with a lock of hair that had fallen over his shoulder. "I've never seen you smile in your sleep before." Of course, the few times she had seen him sleep were in times of injury or illness, which were hardly smiling times...but still, there had been something so enchanting about that smile on his face.
She traced the feathery, light brows that arched over his high cheekbones, the cleft pad of his lip and the soft, velvet fur of his muzzle. Catherine remembered, with a start, how panicked his eyes had been on that long ago day when she'd pushed back the hood of his cloak and really seen him. Now those same eyes, blue as an autumn sky, were watching her with joy and love in their depths. How far we have come, both of us.
Catherine had asked Father, during the long, agonizing nights of Vincent's illness the previous summer, what Vincent had been like before they had met. Father had considered the question carefully before answering. "He was much more of a loner. Oh, I don't mean that he didn't take part in the community—far from it. But there were times when he'd go off by himself for days, and sometimes weeks, in the caverns beneath us. I never knew quite what triggered those spells, but that was just how he was then. Now he...doesn't stay away so long."
She smiled, remembering that conversation and the the sense she'd had, even then, that her relationship with Vincent was on the cusp of some dramatic change. And so it had been; he'd become slowly more demonstrative in his affection and more forgiving of his own perceived faults. In many ways, Vincent was not the same person she'd first known, but then, neither, was she. They'd come through the crucible together, but forever changed.
"What makes you smile, my Catherine?" Vincent asked, roughened fingers tracing the scar at the side of her face.
She leaned forward and kissed him soundly. "You," Catherine replied. "Always you."
***
The mechanic called late that afternoon to say that the van would be ready in an hour. Vincent had showered and they ate a quick lunch as he and Catherine looked at Devin's map and plotted out an alternate route away from the road which was being resurfaced. "I'll warn you," Catherine said, looking critically at the map, "this is a more rural route. But we should be there sometime today."
Vincent merely looked at her. "Oh, all right," Catherine laughed. "I think we should be there sometime today, if we're not hit by a meteor. Or if space aliens don't kidnap us."
There was a sultry look in Vincent's eyes that clearly said what other activity might delay them. Catherine took his face between her hands and looked straight into his eyes. "Vincent," she said, "when next we make love, I want it to be at the cabin, or under the stars, or on the porch swing---"
"The porch swing?" Vincent's eyebrows climbed nearly to his hairline.
Catherine felt the heat in her face as the vision swirled in her mind's eye: Vincent, hands holding onto her thighs, as the porch swing rocked gently beneath them. "Mmm...wow. Did I say that out loud?"
Vincent's amused gaze and his soft, breathy laughter told her that yes, she had indeed spoken out loud. "What other locations did you have in mind, Catherine?" he asked.
"You'll find out," Catherine said wryly. "Once we get to the cabin."
***
As soon as dark fell, they left for what they both hoped was the last leg of the trip. The road stretched wide and free before them but Vincent found he couldn't enjoy the sight of it, as he had before. He found himself watching the forest on the side of the road intently. Vincent tried to relax; they were less than half an hour's drive away from her father's cabin and surely nothing would happen now.
Catherine picked up on his nervousness. "Vincent?" she asked. "What is it?"
He shook his head. "Nothing. Just a feeling."
She turned down a narrow access road where the woods enclosed the road on both sides and where the pavement was more uneven. "I think this was one of the first roads created up here, back when this was a resort for the robber barons. Gertrude says this used to be a delivery road."
"Gertrude?" Vincent asked, trying to fight down his uneasiness as the forest seemed to close over them.
"An old family friend and a historian of sorts. She and her husband Matt bought a house up here when I was in grade school; they're our closest neighbors." Catherine laughed then. "'Close' up here means they live about five miles away; we passed the exit to their place about half an hour ago. Most of the houses are pretty spread out and normally, they'd all be rented or used in the fall. But with the main road being closed down, it's too much hassle for a lot of people."
Vincent chuckled, thinking of the hassle they'd gone through so far. "I know," Catherine said, in that astonishing way she had of catching his thoughts, even without using their bond, "who'd have thought this trip would have been such an adventure?"
There was a leaping blur in front of the van, a terrible crunch, and the hiss of steam and outraged metal as Catherine steered the van over to the side of the road. His own arm had flown up to brace her in her seat and he felt the shuddering vibrations of the vehicle and the hammering of Catherine's heart through the contact. "Deer," she said tersely.
After several bumps, she was able to steer the van safely to the side of the road. "Are you okay?" she asked as they got out to inspect the damage.
Vincent nodded. "You?"
"I've been better," she said shakily.
He gathered her in his arms and held her close until the shaking stopped. Releasing her, Vincent said, "Let's see what the damage is."
They walked to the front of the van and there they saw it, the full grown deer who was just as twisted and broken as the van he'd jumped in front of. "Oh, no," Catherine said softly, for although the deer should have been dead, he wasn't.
Vincent knelt down next to the deer and Catherine watched as the he touched the animal's head gently, murmuring words she couldn't quite hear. The deer's gasping breaths were loud in the silence as Vincent's eyes met hers. His hands were covered in blood that was dark in the moonlight. "Will he live?" Catherine asked, though she didn't see how. The damage had to be fatal.
"No," Vincent said softly. "He's in pain and suffering." She watched as he took the deer's neck between his large hands and twisted. The deer's painful, shuddering breaths stopped, and Vincent bowed his head.
Catherine went to him then, feeling an odd sense of deja vu as she remembered the first time she'd seen him kill for her. He had that same distant, agonized look on his face and his hands then had been soaked in blood. She knelt down beside him and taking his bloodied hands in her own, she said, "Vincent. It was a merciful thing you did."
He raised his head to look at her and she could tell his thoughts were not just on the deer but on all the people he'd killed, just as easily as he'd ended the deer's suffering. "I know. But I wish I didn't know how to kill."
There was nothing to say in response to that, so Catherine didn't try, though she, too, wished he'd never had to learn. She put her arms around him and held him until his own shuddering stopped.
***
"I think we'll just call a tow-truck driver from the house," Catherine said not long afterward, when Vincent was ready to resume their journey. "We can walk to the cabin from here."
Vincent nodded. "How far away is it, do you think?"
"Probably about an hour's walk. We might even make it in time to see the sunrise."
Vincent smiled at her and held out his hand. "Come," he said. "Sooner begun, sooner ended."
She laughed. "You sound like Mouse."
There was a faint flash of fangs in the moonlight as he smiled. "I'll take that as a compliment," Vincent responded. "I wonder how they're all getting along."
"I'm sure they're getting along well. Mouse has probably driven Father nuts with his plans to build an hydraulic electron microscope and Father is wondering where he hid the tranquilizers, and Arthur has probably run off with William's prize stash of strawberries," Catherine laughed.
Vincent stopped then, and turned to face her. "Wait. Mouse plans to build an hydraulic electron microscope?"
Catherine giggled. "No, I made that up."
Vincent sighed. "That's a relief. Last month, it was a solar powered laser. Though where he expected to find the raw materials, I have no idea."
"Oh, you know," Catherine said airily. "'Not stealing, taking.' I'm sure he'd know of a few places that are just tossing out solar powered lasers by the handful."
He laughed then and they ambled on, as the sky lightened from black to purple and to a pearled grey shot through with orange. "It's the sunrise," Catherine whispered. "Vincent, look."
Vincent pushed back his hood and watched as the sun rose slowly through the trees. The light turned his blond mane into a fiery red where the light struck it. He closed his eyes, feeling the warmth on his eyelids and hearing the faint sounds of the forest coming alive in the morning. "Oh, Catherine," he said, pulling her closer. "To think I might never have seen this."
"I know," she said, snuggling against him. To think I might never have seen you.