Immortals After Dark 05 - Dark Needs at Nights Edge

brother—Wroths keep their vows. That would’ve been enough. But there wasn’t much temptation anyway. Healthy women near the front line were scarce. Especially any who weren’t already obsessed with Murdoch.” He contemplated the whiskey in his glass. “And the end was in sight. Service in the Kapsliga is from the age of thirteen to thirty seven. I only had a few more years left.”
    “I’ll bet you were counting down the days.”
    “When there were lulls in the war, I did.” His brows drew together. “But then I died.”
    “There was never a girl that struck your fancy? You never fell in love?”
    “There wasn’t any time even to contemplate emotions like that. I fought in battles all day and then warred with vampires each night. Survival was foremost on everyone’s minds.” He took a drink, his gaze turning distant for long moments. Was he reliving those horrors even now? Just when she was about to prompt him back to the conversation, he blinked and asked, “What about you? Did you love the oil man?”
    “Not at all.” And he hadn’t loved her. That night when Louis had wielded his blade, Néomi had understood him better than she ever had. Louis had been frenzied not because he’d needed to be with her but because he’d wanted to punish her. No matter what sentiments he’d spouted over her body, he’d murdered her out of spite.
    “The men you were with—did you love any of them?”
    “I had great affection for them. But no abiding love for them.”
    “Why couldn’t they win you?” He leaned forward, as if her answer was very significant to him.
    “Oh, they didn’t do anything wrong. I just never found my match.”
    “Did they... satisfy you?”
    If they hadn’t in the beginning, they had eventually. “I made sure of it. I wasn’t shy about what I expected or needed from a man.” He raised his brows. She could tell he was eager to question her about her words, but she wanted to refocus on him. “Conrad, how did you handle the physical need?” When his face flushed, she said, “Oh, I see.”
    “A lot,” he admitted in a husky voice.
    “Were you terribly curious about what it would feel like?”
    He hesitated, then met her gaze. “Still am.”
    She exhaled a slow breath, for once thinking she might be in over her head with a man.
    Néomi had thought she could easily handle Conrad, because men had never given her fits before. And she was experienced while he wasn’t.
    But Conrad Wroth wasn’t an average man. He wasn’t even a man, really. He was an immortal male who’d never had a female—when he’d clearly wanted to. She sensed a volatile passion inside him, just waiting for release.
    How she wished she could be the woman who tapped into it! She’d never lamented the lack of a body as much as she did right now.
    “Did you never touch a woman intimately? Never even... kissed a single time?”
    His shoulders tensed. “That’s enough questions. I’ve told you I don’t want to discuss this subject with you.”
    He hadn’t. “Why not talk about this?” Mon Dieu, no woman has ever even given him her lips. “Does the subject embarrass you?”
    “Should it not?” He glanced away and grated, “Would any man want a beautiful woman to know this about himself?”
    “If I didn’t know better, I’d say comments like that are your way of flirting with me.”
    He scowled. “My way. As opposed to the regular way a man with more experience would go about it? I think you seek to keep me on edge about this. You like that I’m never able to settle in with you.”
    “Conrad, that’s ridiculous.”
    “Is it?”
    “Mais oui. I’ll say this plain. If you were able and I were able, I would be seducing you, right at this very moment.”
    His fists clenched, and his lips parted, exposing white teeth and those sexy fangs. “You love to tease me, don’t you?” He rose and strode to the window, glancing out into the tumultuous night. “You shouldn’t say things you don’t mean.”
    “I never do.” This male was a sexually untutored, six-and-a-half-foot-tall, gorgeous immortal. And she was desperate to have him. There was nothing but truth to that.
    “Then you’re attracted to me because I’m all that’s here.”
    “That’s not so.” She rose, crossing to him.
    “Isn’t it? Then am I similar to the men you used to bed?”
    “Not in the least.”
    “Then why would you want to seduce me?”
    She hadn’t expected that question. “It’s because I’ve never