Come Closer

Note from the Author: I'm glad to see so many people enjoyed the first part of my little story. This is part two and seemingly more...steamy than the first. The novella was envisioned as a three part story that followed Jordan's relationship with Damien, but depending on the response this section and then next section receive, I may have to reconsider. Please post comments about what you think, even if they aren't necessarily good things!

Enjoy and happy fantasizing.

Love,

XXMarked

--------------------------------

Jordan pulled the last bobbypin out of her hair and sighed as she scrubbed her fingers against her scalp, loosening some of the tension. "Long fucking night." She murmured to herself as she looked in the mirror and arranged the curls that fell down her back. Her eyes fell to the burn on her left forearm and she actually cringed, not from the pain of the burn but the painful thoughts that it brought to mind. She had only recently managed to get the feel of Damien's hands on her body out of her mind. She brought her fingers up and traced the burn on her arm, the curves and the short strokes that almost looked like brushwork. Shaking her head, she stopped herself and threw her hands in the air.

Quickly she threw off her haltertop, her skirt, and remaining clothing until she padded to her bed in her bare feet, wearing only a black lace bra and a pair of matching boyshorts. She needed to sleep it off. It was worse than a hangover. Throwing back the white down comforter, she slipped under the sheets and forced herself to sleep.

His lips found the tender spot on the side of her neck. His hands caressed her sides as he whispered to her, "Don't deny me any longer."

She couldn't have even if she wanted to. Her whole body burned for him. She pressed her hands against the smooth expanse of his chest and felt his lips press to hers. The kiss gave her that same electric feeling that it always did--that chill that ran right down the core of her body and stuck somewhere near her heart. She felt him slip under the comforter and press his body to hers. Every muscle on his body was perfection incarnate. The press of his hips against hers, the feel of his thighs between hers, the way his muscles rippled with every breath...

She felt his lips brush down the side of her neck, over her collarbone and hover over her breast. Each second that passed felt like an eternity until finally he pressed his mouth to her nipple and gave it a hot, wet kiss.

Jordan's eyes opened with a gasp as she felt her heart racing. Breathing deeply, she pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes and shook her head. "You're going insane again, Jordan."

"I wasn't aware that desire was considered insanity. I'll have to make a note of that for the future." Damien's voice whispered across the darkness and crawled over her body like a lover's touch.

Sitting up slowly, Jordan almost fell out of bed when she found him sitting in the armchair near her bed. She pressed a hand to her chest and shook her head.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you..." He smiled a calming smile.

"Do you make a habit of watching all the women you're tormenting while they're sleeping or am I just special?" Jordan ran her fingers through her hair and shook her head.

"You know you're special... I enjoy watching you sleep... you're beautiful when you're so relaxed. Although I suppose I find you beautiful always."

"You need to stay out of my head and out of my dreams... it's been a hard three or so months with you bouncing in and out of my dreams every night."

"Dreams?"

"You know exactly what I'm talking about, otherwise how could you make your little offhanded comment?"

"You were moaning in your sleep. I must admit, I was sorely tempted to wake you by a similar means to the one you were dreaming of."

"Come off it, already... you know you're putting these thoughts in my head."

"I have had nothing to do with it, beautiful. Everything you're feeling or dreaming is you."

"You're such a liar... and so arrogant about it. That little smile of yours can't absolve you of all your sins."

"I leave such a task up to a higher power. I am telling the truth, however... I've done nothing except that little game earlier when you were looking at yourself in the mirror... but who can blame me?" He stood up with a fluid motion and walked over towards her, having a seat on the edge of her bed.

"I don't want to talk to you. You left me in a hard place earlier and it has me out of sorts..."

"Do you think I wanted to leave you? Not for a minute did that thought enter my head... I wanted nothing more than to feel your body in the ways I've craved for an eternity...but you're unreconciled to me, you resist what's happening, you refuse to accept that you are destined by fate to be mine... Until that hesitance disappears, I must resist every impulse to the contrary." Damien sighed heavily as he picked up her left hand and glanced at the burn that had since faded to a scar, the markings bringing a smile to his lips as he bent his head and pressed a kiss to it.

"If sex is what you want, we can manage that...but I'm not about to be bound for age upon age to someone I don't know."

"I don't want

sex

..." Damien sneered as he pressed his cheek to the mark and inhaled the smell of her skin. "Sex, is that all your kind believes that such an act is good for?"

"Would it make you happier if I called it making love? I wasn't aware that immortals played semantic games." Jordan shivered a little as she felt his breath brush against the mark on her arm.

"No, it wouldn't make me happier. What you call sex is something entirely different to one such as I... it's an experience that can't be paralleled by anything else. It's a joining of souls, a mingling of essence... I can't describe it to someone who doesn't even believe in souls or in love even..."

"How do you know what I believe?"

"Jordan, we've been over this... I know you as well as I know my own body, my own mind... I know your quirks, I know your little desires, your deepest fantasies... but most importantly I know your heart."

"From the way you talk about me, I was led to believe I don't have one." Jordan let out the softest of groans as she felt his lips caress her skin again.

"You know I don't mean it, lovely... You just can't understand how each passing minute is torture... Maybe I should show you?" He released her arm and looked up at her with that sad smile that had haunted her dreams.

"I don't know..."

"Don't worry, I wouldn't hurt you for all the power in the universe..." He murmured as he pulled back the comforter and slid under with her.

He was still dressed in his clothes from the club, so at least Jordan didn't have to suffer the hell of feeling his bare flesh against hers. Jordan laid on her side and watched him, the way his eyes searched her face. His right hand came to caress her thigh as his left hand pulled her body closer to his. She didn't resist. "You have no idea how I wish you would accept this, accept me..." He whispered against her chest right over her heart as he brushed the tip of his nose against her skin, not noticing or not paying attention to the shivers it caused and how it made her pulse quicken and her nipples harden.

"I can't... I don't know how..."

"You do know how... you know it and you know me." He abandoned nuzzling at her skin.

Turning his head to the side, he pulled her a little closer to him, resting his cheek against the pounding of her heart. He grew very still and Jordan felt herself almost being lulled to sleep by the warmth of his body and slow, steady caress of his hands.

Suddenly, that quiet was disturbed and Jordan felt a jarring pain stab into the center of her body. She gasped for air as the pain increased and was added to by a sudden flood of arousal that made her whole body hyperaware of the smallest touch. Even the rub of Damien's jeans against her skin was a torment she could barely stand. The higher the arousal took her, the more the pain increased until she couldn't reach that delightful peak that she wanted so bad. When the arousal grew intolerable, a sense of sadness swept through her that pushed every other thought away and brought her, literally, to tears.

She was aware of Damien's arms encircling her and his voice whispering against her ear.

"Shhhh, my love... forgive me, I let it go too long." He kissed the hot tears from her cheeks with a tenderness that made another flood of them rush down her face.

"I'm sorry..." She whispered as she pressed her face into the crook of his neck and melted into the strength of his arms around her.

"Don't feel sorry for me, just understand."

Damien's voice faded as Jordan fell asleep listening to the beating of his heart.

She woke with a start as pain radiated through her chest. Damien was gone. The impression of his body in the sheets was still warm.

Over the next few days, Jordan saw Damien over and over again, but not anywhere close enough to her that she could talk to him. He was in the snowy fields or just down the hallway, watching her as if he was waiting. Every time she saw him, her body clenched with longing at the idea of his arms around her. After a certain point, she had taken to ignoring him just to save herself the pain of thinking of his absence and the tears that accompanied it. She was getting too emotionally involved for this whole situation being something she didn't want... or at least something she had convinced herself that she didn't want.

Jordan pounded on the door with her fist as she tried to shake her broken umbrella into a semblance of closure. The rain came down in bucketfuls over her head as she pounded on the door again. The world had officially gone insane. The day before there had been six inches of snow on the ground; today it was 60 degrees and raining like it was monsoon season. The door to the storage shed cracked open and creaked loudly as it slid back.

"Jordan, I'm so sorry, I was talking and didn't hear you knock. Come in, you must be drenched."

Jordan looked up at her life studies professor with a look of incredulity. Her tunic-length layered tanktop was soaked straight through and huge beads of water dripped off her now very limp hair. Stepping inside the shelter of the shed, she shoved the door closed and threw her umbrella to the side. "It's not a good sign if you're so involved talking to yourself that you can't hear someone knocking."

"Oh! Heavens, I wasn't talking to myself. No, no. We have a decided treat today. Come with me." Jordan's professor smiled broadly in a manner that was particular to him and touched her lightly on the back with his fingertips to guide her towards the open space dictated as the classroom.

Dropping her bag on the ground, Jordan pushed her fingers through her soaked hair and tried to wring some water out of it, needing to get at least a little dry. Her shoes squelched wetly as she nearly slipped and fell on the lacquered floor.

"Sam, who was that? Oh, hello, Jordan."

Jordan stopped dead in her paces and looked over to her left. Damien sat on the model's block, relaxed as ever, his smile not a bit out of place. She glanced over at Sam and then back at Damien. "Is this the surprise?"

"Isn't it wonderful? We've been needing a model with muscular definition the past few weeks." Sam tittered on in his overly enthusiastic way as he started setting up easels across the room.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Jordan murmured as she wrung out the bottom of her shirt and avoided looking at Damien.

"I'm volunteering. Isn't that what good people do? Volunteer?" The sarcasm dripped from his words and practically splattered on the floor along with the rain from Jordan's clothing.

"Good people also don't leave without saying goodbye." She dumped her art supplies out of the waterproof bag and onto a table she had claimed as her own.

"I had no choice, lover... I was too close to you, it was too tempting a situation... When you sleep, I almost believe that you love me, you know... the way you wrap your arms around me and curl into my body... it's almost as if you trust me." Damien half purred this sentiment, his hand coming up to trace a bead of water that ran down the side of Jordan's neck and dripped into the line of her cleavage.

"Stop that, you aren't in a crowded club or my room. This is what I do, Damien, so stop it." Jordan felt her face flush hotly as the touch of his fingertips was enough to send chills down her spine.

Damien came to his feet in that almost too-fluid way and brushed his lips against Jordan's ear. "I don't think he'd mind, do you? How many times do you think he's imagined you spread over his desk like some pornstar that'll scream his name and beg him for more?" That same slow, condescending laugh echoed against the shell of Jordan's ear and made her weak. It wasn't until a moment later that she realized what he had said.

"That's disgusting." Jordan swallowed her revolt as she glanced over at Sam as he pulled canvasses out of a storage closet.

"I speak merely the truth, my love... You are an object of desire for more than just me. While that appeals to my vanity on some level, I must say it makes me insanely jealous... You were meant to be mine." Damien slipped his hands along Jordan's arms until his hands clasped her own.

"You've had your fun, now please leave." Jordan whispered frantically, the closeness of his body making her incredibly nervous.

"I can't do that, I promised Sam I would model for your class today. What sort of man would I be if I broke my promises?" Damien smiled that cool smile against her neck that made her tremble.

"You aren't a man, so you aren't held to that standard." Jordan whimpered meekly, her body tingling so delectably that she almost didn't want it to stop.

Damien smirked and bit teasingly at her earlobe before he pulled away from her and resumed his seat on the model's block. "So, Sam, I think Jordan ought to be responsible for posing me, what do you say? She has such creative vision I'm sure it would be inspiration to those of lesser ambition."

"Oh, yes, yes, of course! Jordan often poses our models." Sam cried from the back of the storage shed.

"Good." Damien said aloud as he smiled at Jordan.

"You're an evil son of a bitch. If I hadn't researched you to death I would have believed you to be the devil himself."

"Whose devil are we speaking of? Because if we're talking Milton's Satan then I would very much agree... save for the being turned into a giant serpent part. You know, suave, intelligent, seductive."

"Don't flatter yourself, Damien." Jordan muttered as she shivered and pulled out the backlights, setting them up around the model's block.

"You need to take better care of yourself, you're freezing." Damien was on his feet again, pacing agitatedly.

"I wasn't expecting the wind to break my umbrella and to get soaked." Jordan tripped over a power cord and found herself caught up by Damien before she could even fall.

"Please, take care of yourself." He looked down at her as his hands slid up into her damp hair, caressing her temples with his thumbs.

The room seemed to narrow as she felt herself being sucked in again, her body pressing against his even though she was afraid she would get him just as soaked as she was. His mouth was a sore temptation hovering just out of reach. She swallowed hard, her eyes flickering between his mouth and the molten silver of his eyes. He bent in, the warmth of her skin calling to him as he brushed his lips against hers, sending the pulse of electricity through her body and feeling it intensely himself.

Jordan gasped and felt her body flush with heat.

That familiar creak of the door being slid open forced her to pull away from Damien with an actual wince. "You're going to make it so I can't be away from you... I don't want that." She stepped away from him and turned on the lights.

"You aren't meant to be away from me, Jordan..." His voice sent that pang through her body that killed her.

Students slowly filled the storage shed, taking their places by easels and setting up their supplies. Jordan fidgeted at the front of the room, adjusting the drape on the model's block. Some of the female students stared at Damien with awe and lust. Several of them flushed hotly as if aroused.

Jordan felt her whole body tighten harshly in response to seeing their reactions. It was worse than it had been the other night--that was just Alyssa... She took a deep breath and shot arrows at the girls with her eyes as she tried to hide her jealousy.

"Something wrong, my love?" Damien asked as he bent his head and whispered against her ear as she pretended to tighten the base of a backlight.

"No... why would you ask?" Jordan felt her jaw clench when she heard heated whispering behind her.

"You can't lie to me, Jordan. I know you're jealous... They can't help themselves, it's what my presence does."

"Well, can't you control that? It's driving me insane."

"It will end eventually, one way or another." He pressed his hand to her side.

Her heart stopped for a moment.

"Settle down, settle down, mes amies. Today we have the honor of having a guest model with us. This is Damien and he'll be posing for us today." Sam beamed a smile at his class.

Jordan watched as Alyssa snuck in late and took up her place next to her easel. Her mouth dropped a little in surprise as she mouthed at her, "What's he doing here?"

Jordan shrugged and rubbed the back of her neck.

"Since the rest of you lack the experience necessary to take advantage of this opportunity, I've asked Jordan to show you how to best pose a model of this caliber. Jordan, he's all yours."

Jordan felt her face flush at Sam's wording and glanced at Damien whose smile was infallible. Clearing her throat, she murmured to Damien, "Would you take off your shirt, please?"

Damien bowed his head with a smile and reached up, unbuttoning his shirt one button at a time. Each undone button revealed a little more of his defined chest not only to Jordan's eyes, but the eyes of the rest of the women in in the classroom. His warm-hued skin drew in their attention and made them stare at him all the more. Jordan had to bite back her jealousy as she waited and held out her hand to take his shirt from him. Instead of handing Jordan his shirt, however, he stepped forward and put the shirt around her, smiling as he whispered, "There, now you won't be cold."

Jordan could feel the daggers of glares digging into her back.

Slipping her arms through the arm holes, she wrapped the shirt around herself as she motioned to the model's block. "Sit down, please."

Damien sat down and smiled in his satisfied way as Jordan walked around him and looked at his body closely.

"Take off your shoes."

He kicked off his socks and shoes and moved them out of sight next to Sam's table.

Stopping behind him, Jordan glanced at the musculature of his back and a cord of lust tightened in her body. She swore she could hear him laughing even though his face was a perfect mask of calm. Her eyes fell to the dark line that she noticed the night before peeking out from under his shirt collar and she traced its snaking path down the left side of his back. The dark line became a branch with winding off shoots, each ending with a delicately drawn symbol that looked similar in style to the scar on her forearm. The branch came to an end and, at the end of the last offshoot, she saw the symbol that exactly matched her burn. The more she stared, she could make out a very faint, almost imperceptible symbol next to it, linked by a curling line. Shakily, she pressed her palms against his back and bent him forward, her hands gliding along the corded muscle below his skin. She could feel the smallest tremor of his body as he breathed.