The Last Kiss

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

Running through the halls of Ashton’s home, Lindsey finally found the rooms that had been assigned to her. Opening the door she saw that she was alone with her thoughts at last. She was now alone and able to let the tears she had pushed back now flow down her face. Tears of pain, dread and anger soaked into the pill that she had flung her body onto.

The pain of knowing that she had started to fall in love with Ashton and now knowing that she would never be enough for him. She also dreaded the fact that she had given herself to him without even thinking of what might happen to her along the way. The anger she felt inside was mostly at herself for allowing all the other feelings rule her thoughts and the thoughts of her husband. Robert had been telling the truth when he said that no man would ever want her. Her anger grew even more, hitting the pillow did nothing to ease the hurt that was burning deep within her heart. She had been a fool to even allow herself think that Ashton’s feelings for her had been true.

Coming upon the Lindsey’s door, he just stood outside of it instead of bursting through the way his heart had instructed him to. He could hear her sniffing and the heavy breathing of her having a hard cry. Just the sound of her pain cut deep into his heart. All he wanted to do was take her into his arms and make everything that he had wronged right once again. He stopped for a moment and wondered if she would even give him a chance to tell her how much he truly loved her. But he also wondered if she would still be afraid of him and scream in fear. That was something he could not endure, no, he could not stand for her to be scared to even look at him. Not even realizing what he was doing, he slammed his fist against the door.

Inside Lindsey suddenly came aware that someone was outside her door, possibly listening to her cry. It was Ashton, it had to be. He would be the only person that would hit the door but she wondered why he would even be at her door. If he had no feelings for her or at least not the ones she thought he had, then why would he waste his time with standing outside her door. Wanting answers Lindsey raised herself off the bed and walked over to the door. Holding the knob in her hand for a moment, she seemed torn. Torn between opening it and facing Ashton again or locking it in hopes that he would go away. Her mind was made up, she had to know why he was outside her door and against her better judgement she opened the door.

Almost causing Ashton to fall against the floor, he quickly caught himself and turned to face the woman who feared him. Both of their breathes had been taken away with the sight of the other and neither of them had the courage to speak.

Thinking to break the strong silence, Lindsey finally asked, “Lord Manning is there a problem?”

She had spoken with such formal words, those words Lord Manning almost seemed like a foreign language to Ashton. He had grown very accustomed to her calling him by his given name. Looking into her eyes he saw the pain and very much to his surprise the anger. Was she mad at him for something? Lindsey was standing there waiting for an answer from him.

Clearing his throat, “I had to speak with you before you leave in the morning.”

His words struck her hard and very much unexpected.

“I beg your pardon?” she said with an unsteady voice.

Ashton saw from her shocked face that she had not planned to leave or at least not as of yet.

“It is I who should be begging the pardon. When you had ran out of the room, I had assumed that you were angry with me and would wish to leave as soon as possible.”

She stepped back into the room, giving Ashton a hint that she didn’t wish to continue this talk in her doorway. Stepping inside the room, she shut the door behind him and laid back against the door, much the same way he had moments earlier. Much to Ashton’s delight the pain and anger that had filled Lindsey’s eyes was now growing softer, almost to the point of disappearing.

“My sweet, are you angry with me?” he said with his eyes full of sincere wonder.

He had not known how turning away from her made her feel or the memories it would bring back. Ashton truly was in the dark, she sighed. If he didn’t know, she was now going to explain herself to him and here she thought he would be the one doing the dance on eggshells. She took a deep breath trying to get all the thoughts straight in her mind before she spoke them.

Softly clearing the throat, she said, “I do believe that we had a great unspoken misunderstanding.”

That got his full attention, well it would have if she had not already had it.

“I see,” he said awaiting further explanation.

“Yes, well, oh were to start,” she thought again for a moment. “When I was married, no, no, that’s not it,” she sighed heavily. She started again, “when Robert and I had been married for only a few years he had informed me that I was unfit. That is to say that I was never going to be a good lover, nor would I ever be able to please any man. He had told me that no man would ever want me for I was simply a waste of time and could never please them.”

Finally, Ashton understood why she had reacted in the fashion that she had. Robert had made her believe that no one would ever love her. Ashton sighed, now he fully understood why she had ran out of the room and why when he came to the room she had been crying her heart out. Once again Robert had been the source of the trouble between himself and Lindsey. Anger arose once more deep within Ashton. He would have to punish Robert for all the pain that he had caused and soon.

“My sweetest woman, I’ll have you know that you have pleased me beyond any of my wildest dreams. Matter fact,” he paused for a moment. “I was afraid that I had scared you away from me. That the fact that I carry this monster around with me had made you afraid to be near me.”

“I am in no way afraid of you. Why in all the worlds would you ever think me afraid of you?” She asked.

Closing the small distance between them, Ashton took Lindsey into his arms once more and looked deep into her eyes. He could see that he had been a fool for ever thinking that Lindsey would ever fear him. Seeing her eyes now he could tell that there had never been any fear of him. With just the thought of Lindsey’s love for him, ignited more fiery passion than he had every thought he possessed. It was almost more than he could contain and if he wasn’t able to find his release soon he thought he might explode. Holding Lindsey close to him and looking into her eyes, he could tell that she consumed by the same passion.

“My dear, I want you and I fear that once I start there would be no possible way for me to stop,” he whispered softly to her.

Slightly caught off guard, she whispered back, “and you think that I would want to stop you?”

He smiled down at her and then thought that there was something he must tell her before they went any further.

“I don’t want you to fear me in any way,” the smile was gone from his face as he continued. “There is a hunger inside of me and as much as I want you I will try my hardest not to let that hunger take over like before.”

“Is that why you pulled away from me before? You were afraid of the hunger taking over?” She asked.

“Yes,” was all he could say.

“Do not think that I am afraid of what you are. I would never be frightened of you,” she said with all the honesty she held within.

“Dearest Lindsey, I never doubted your bravery but you have not seen the devil within me. I change inside and out, completely,” he said.

“Then show me the ‘devil’ as you say. If you truly want me the way you have spoken of then you can not hide the truth from me. I want to see all of you,” she said.

Letting his arms drop back to his side, Ashton turned away from Lindsey. He was unsure if he should let himself become the monster just to frighten her away again. It hardly seemed worth the effort and less so if she would see the truth and then run again. Ashton kept telling himself that he had never hurt anyone while feeding but then again he had never felt so much passion while in that state. Would he be able to control himself once he was in that state or would this be the one time that he would loose his composure and hurt her.

“No, you must not ever see me like that.” He raised his hand behind him to hold her off of the words he already knew she was going to voice. “Not because I feel you will fear me,” he sighed, “but because once I am the other person I can not be sure I can control myself.”

Rushing to his side and wrapping her arms around him, she said, “I don’t care. I must see. I simply must.”

Turning away from her, he groaned aloud, he knew that he would do as she asked, if not for her but for himself. If she saw the truth and was unable to except it then he would have to let her return to her own life without any more interference of him. But there was also the chance that she would love him for who and what he is. That she would stay with him no matter what sort of difficulties they might have to endure. One of them being his hunger that he was not always able to hide and of course the other problem would be Robert.

His thoughts were interrupted by the soft touch of Lindsey’s hand on his arm. Then he turned back and faced her, Lindsey’s color drained from her face leaving her a very pale ghostly looking. Much to Ashton’s surprise she never moved, he wasn’t sure if it was because she was frozen in fear or if she was about to run and just hadn’t found her feet yet.

Ashton’s face had turned from the very handsome man that Lindsey was falling deeply in love with to a frightening site of a monster. It wasn’t so much his face itself but change in his eyes. They had been the color of perfect emeralds but now they contained the fires of hell. She held her breath again she noticed, slowly relaxing she saw that even though Ashton had showed her how he changed she was not running. For a brief moment she was afraid that she might not be able to control her feet and run from him.

With a slow and unsteady voice she asked, “is this all of it?”

His smile answered her question, it wasn’t all of it but instead there was more. The teeth.

She had never seen a vampire’s teeth before. Well, she admitted to herself, she had never once seen a vampire or even believed in them. Lindsey had thought vampires were something that parents made up in order to scare their children. It had never occurred to her that the old tales were in fact based on true vampires. That made her start to wonder even more, the stories had told of other mysterious powers and more.

“Some of the fables are true but many are not,” Ashton said breaking Lindsey’s track of thoughts.

Stunned she asked, “I am guessing that mind reading is one of the powers?”

He chuckled a little bit then answered, “yes, it is one of my powers. Often times it serves its purpose but there have been a few times that it has felt more like a curse.”

“I hardly see how reading one’s thoughts could ever be a curse,” she smiled at him.

He knew she was teasing him but there had been many times that it had been very bothersome to know what another person had been thinking. There had been times, long ago, that he had thought he found a life-mate but after a quick reading of thoughts he saw that it was not meant to be. Right now he was touched that he had not read any thoughts of fear or hatred toward him.

“There is a bit more I must tell you about myself,” this caught Lindsey’s attention again.

She could tell her was serious again but could tell that he was still in good humor.

“I had read your thoughts and you wondered about my teeth. To satisfy your curiosity, my teeth do become larger than they are now but only when I am about to feed or if I’m very angry. There are times in which I do find it rather hard to keep them hidden.” he said.

“How interesting,” she said.

Trying her best to imagine what a vampire’s teeth would look like but it was one part of Ashton she hope she would never have to see. More so if it caught her fear as much as the death that haunted his eyes, she knew she might not be able to keep herself steady.

Ashton wondered what thoughts could be going through Lindsey’s head now but instead of reading them he chose to wrap his arms tightly about her waist. The love he had for her grew even more when he saw that she did have some qualms about him but it wasn’t fear that ruled her heart. The sweet smell of her skin mixed strongly with his own love gave Ashton the lust of a human man. Not the lusting hunger of a vampire but the lust of wanting to truly have a woman in his arms and make love to her. Repeatedly.

He was smiling in his mind, he leaned down to Lindsey’s pulsing neckline and started to plant small kisses, sending a wave of goose-bums all over Lindsey’s body. Longing for more he pulled back and looked deep within Lindsey’s eyes then leaned down and pressed his lips firmly upon hers.

Not sure what to make of it, Lindsey just turned total control over to Ashton, giving him all of herself. Feeling Ashton tighten his hold around her waist, her body was crushed to his giving her a full sense of his arousal. Lindsey felt herself not caring that she was still married or that Ashton could take her life at any moment but instead she trusted him and wanted him to take her in almost every way he could.

Melting away with each kiss that he placed on her neck, she could feel his hands starting to loosen their grip around her waist and start roaming her body. What they were searching for she didn’t know but she wasn’t sure if she even cared if they never found what they were looking for. She mildly became aware that he was slowly moving the folds of her skirts higher and higher. A small whisper of sound escaped her lips as Ashton slide one of his hands slipped between her thighs and was making its way up.

Bumping her backside against the bed, she suddenly became aware that she had been moving and was now along side of the bed. Her heart leapt in her chest and started to race with excitement when his finger tips touched her intimately. Breathing heavily and unevenly she was hardly able to keep her attentions on Ashton’s kisses but more on what his hands were doing.

Pulling his hands back, Ashton quickly put them to the task of ripping his own clothing off, exposing his very muscular chest. Looking deep into Lindsey’s eyes, Ashton took a deep breath trying to restrain himself from pushing his lust on her too fast. For the first time, in all he could remember, Ashton wanted to take his time and enjoy ever last savory moment.

With her breath caught in her throat, her mind swirled with emotions and thoughts of what exactly was taking place. For a brief moment, ever so slight, the thought of how this was wrong entered her mind. She was still a married woman and not to the man who was standing before her. The sense of wrongness flashed through her eyes when she looked at Ashton but was banished just as fast as it had appeared. Keeping a steady gaze on Ashton, Lindsey kept thinking, there was no way in the world that making love to Ashton would ever be wrong. Not even the fact of her still being married could falter the feelings she had for him.

The enticing and very much engaging gaze they kept on each other was soon broke by Ashton pressing her body closely to his once more. Their kisses soon became more than a simple lust or longing that they had to have but more like air in their lungs. Unable to contain the fire within, Ashton started kissing every inch of bare skin that he could find and when that wasn’t enough his hands made their way to the buttons of Lindsey’s dress.

Fumbling with the buttons, Ashton wanted nothing more than to just rip each and every last one of them off. Matter fact, just rip the entire dress to shreds and not worry about the silly buttons but instead he fought a bit more with the buttons, finally getting them to turn loose. He had never felt such desperation as he did in that moment but if he didn’t get that damn dress off soon he thought he might explode.

Lindsey, on the other hand, was having her own bit of difficulties, with his breeches. She had never attempted to disrobe a man before. With Robert she had always been in the bed, dreading his arrival with the exception of the times he had forced himself upon her. She blinked hard to get those thoughts out of her mind, now surely was not the time nor the place for thoughts of her husband. No. Soon to be ex-husband. Oh, it didn’t matter anyhow, right now was definitely not the time to be thinking of Robert, besides she had other issues to deal with. Like getting Ashton’s breeches to unlace.

Tugging this way and that way, Lindsey was able to get the strings to unlace, somewhat anyhow. She wasn’t sure if a man’s trousers were truly this difficult or if her fingers were the ones to blame. It was most likely her fingers. Her hands had already been shaky but when she felt the cool breeze lightly touch the lower part of her back it sent shivers all through her entire body. Not the type of shivers one would except from being cold but something more like the exotic feeling of being undressed.