That was when Elena gave another thought as to what must have become of the food she had been bringing to him.
Near-scalding coffee seemed to have splashed her hand and arm and soaked her jeans on one thigh. The cup and saucer were laying in pieces on the floor. The tray and the cookies had bounced off behind a chair. The plate of steak tartar, however, had miraculously landed on the couch, right side up. There was miscel aneous cutlery everywhere.
Elena felt her head and shoulders droop in fear and pain.
That was her immediate universe right now - fear and pain.
Overwhelming her. She wasn't usual y a crier, but she couldn't help the tears that fil ed her eyes.
Damn! Damon thought.
It was her. Elena. He'd been so certain an adversary was spying on him, that one of his many enemies had tracked him down and was setting a trap...someone who had discovered that he was as weak as a child now.
It hadn't even occurred to him that it might be her, until he was holding her soft body with one arm, and smel ing the perfume of her hair as he held an ice-slick blade to her throat with the other.
And then he'd snapped on a light and saw what he had already guessed. Unbelievable! He hadn't recognized her.
He had been outside in the garden when he'd seen the door to the storage room standing open and had known that there was an intruder. But with his senses degraded as they were he hadn't been able to tel who was inside.
No excuses could cover up the facts. He had hurt and terrified Elena. He had hurt her. And instead of apologizing he had tried to force the truth out of her for his own selfish desires.
And now, her throat...
His eyes were drawn to the thin line of red droplets on Elena's throat where the knife had cut her when she'd jerked in fear before col apsing right onto it. Had she fainted? She could have died right then, in his arms, if he hadn't been fast enough in whipping the knife away.
He kept tel ing himself that he wasn't afraid of her. That he was just holding the knife absentmindedly. He wasn't convinced.
"I was outside. You know how we humans can't see?"he said, knowing he sounded indifferent, unrepentant. "It's like being wrapped in cotton al the time, Elena: We can't see, can't smel , can't hear. My reflexes are like a tortoise's, and I'm starving."
"Then why don't you try my blood?"Elena asked, sounding unexpectedly calm.
"I can't,"Damon said, trying not to eye the dainty ruby necklace flowing down Elena's slim white throat.
"I already cut myself,"Elena said, and Damon thought, Cut herself? Ye gods, the girl was priceless. As if she'd had a little kitchen accident.
"So we might as wel see what human blood tastes like to you now,"Elena said.
"No."
"You know that you're going to. I know you know. But we don't have much time. My blood won't flow forever. Oh, Damon -
after everything...just last week - "
He was looking at her too long, he knew. Not just at the blood. At the glorious golden beauty of her, as if the child of a sunbeam and a moonbeam had entered his room and was harmlessly bathing him in light.
With a hiss, narrowing his eyes, Damon took hold of Elena's arms. He expected an automatic recoil like the one when he'd grabbed her from behind. But there was no movement backward. Instead there was something like the leap of an eager flame in those wide malachite eyes. Elena's lips parted involuntarily.
He knew it was involuntarily. He'd had many years to study young women's responses. He knew what it meant when her gaze went first to his lips before lifting to his eyes.
I can't kiss her again. I can't. It's a human weakness, the way she affects me. She doesn't realize what it is to be so young and so impossibly beautiful. She's going to learn someday.
In fact, I might accidental y teach her now.
As if she could hear him, Elena shut her eyes. She let her head fal back and suddenly Damon found himself half-supporting her weight. She was surrendering al thought of herself, showing him that despite everything she stil trusted him, stil ......stil loved him.
Damon himself didn't know what he was going to do as he bent toward her. He was starving. It tore at him like a wolf's claws, the hunger. It made him feel dazed and dizzy and out of control. Half a thousand years had left him believing that the only thing that would relieve the starvation was the crimson fountain of a cut artery. Some dark voice that might have come from the Infernal Court itself whispered that he could do what some vampires did, ripping a throat like a werewolf. Warm flesh might ease the starvation of a human.
What would he do, so close to Elena's lips, so close to her bleeding throat?