Her nimble fingers unbuttoned my shirt, spreading it open. Her palms greedily roamed my exposed chest. My skin rippled under her seductive touch, and all the blood in my body rushed to follow her teasing fingertips. She trailed her hands down my torso to my waistband and quickly unfastened my belt and trousers. My blood continued to follow the path of her hands, and so rushed to fill my already aching cock, causing the skin to stretch taut. She removed her mouth from mine to whisper my name and look into my eyes. In the darkness, her eyes took on an unnatural light—they nearly glowed like an animal’s.
“What are you doing to me?” I whispered to her breathlessly.
“Don’t you like it, Thoven?” she asked.
“God, yes. Don’t stop,” I rasped.
I reached behind her back to loosen the laces holding up her dress. The shoulders and neck slipped down, allowing her luscious breasts to spill out. I was frantic to have my mouth on her. I kneaded one breast while my other hand clutched her pelvis to me. My mouth dipped to capture one turgid peak. She gave a breathy moan in pleasure as her nipple pebbled under the ministrations of my tongue. Her body trembled with need. Soft hands reached inside my pants and released my throbbing shaft. She lightly stroked its length as I shuddered in response.
“Mmm, so responsive to such a light touch,” she moaned in my ear.
She leaned back and to my disappointment, removed her hands from me. My disappointment was only momentary once I realized she needed her hands to lift her full red skirt so her warm, wet center could brush against me. She’d worn no undergarments beneath her dress, and my cock twitched in response.
Without hesitation, my hands dove under her massive skirt of their own volition. My nimble, pianist fingers quickly found her slick folds and began to stroke her. She panted my name and urged me on. One of her hands joined mine under her dress. She gripped my cock and raised her hips to align our bodies. I slid my fingers to the top of her slit, gently circling her bundle of concentrated nerves as she slowly lowered her body onto me. As our bodies joined, her eyes began to swirl golden, red and green. I was mesmerized. Once she sank down, she kissed me deeply. It seemed we were both enjoying the stretching, filling feeling of our bodies joining.
She lifted her body and lips from mine simultaneously. She whispered in my ear, “You must be quiet no matter what so this remains our secret.”
“Yes, Cassandra.”
“I’ve wanted you like this from the moment I first saw you, Thoven. Say you’ll be my lover.”
“I’ll be your lover, Cassandra.”
Her head dropped to my shoulder as her body rode mine. Hot lips pressed to the throbbing pulse in my neck. She began to lick and suck. As my pleasure mounted, I was temporarily distracted by a quick prick on my neck. But the pain barely registered as my heart rate increased, and my pleasure climbed higher than ever before.
“Touch me, Thoven,” she commanded.
I rushed to oblige, drawing her neglected nipple into my mouth and dipping one hand back to her engorged bundle of nerves. Her breaths became heavier, and her moans vibrated against my neck as she continued to suck on my skin. Stars flashed in my eyes.
Sex had never been like this before—it was intoxicating. I could envision myself becoming Cassandra’s love slave if sex could be like this every time.
She lifted her head to look at me. I noticed a drop of red on the corner of her mouth but couldn’t process what it was. She pulled my head from her breast and touched her lips to mine. I licked the seam of her lips and tasted a slight copper taste. The drop of red must have been blood. That should’ve concerned me, but I was so close to falling into a pool of euphoria that I couldn’t be bothered.
“Are you sure you wish to be mine, Thoven?”
“Yes, Cassandra, especially if it’ll always be like this. You’re addictive.”
She stopped moving her body and leaned over to the desk to my right. She opened a drawer and pulled something out. A flash of silver briefly caught my eye, but I was too close to release to think about what she’d grabbed.
Impatient for her to move again, I thrust up into her, eliciting a moan from deep within her. My finger pressed against her center with more pressure.
“Yes,” she encouraged me.
The flash of silver came up and sliced the meaty part of her upper breast, barely missing her nipple. She dropped the letter opener onto the desktop as blood beaded up on her milky skin. She placed one hand behind my head and guided my mouth to her breast. “Drink,” she whispered as she lowered her mouth to suckle my neck.
Prologue Two
Celesta
Six months ago . . .
“Hey, Daddy. I know you told me to steer clear of the house until the craziness died down, but I missed you. I finished my exam early, so I thought we could go grab some dinner. Out of town,” I called out as I walked through the front door. I rolled my eyes as I thought about having to leave our hometown in order to have dinner in peace. The press had been hounding Daddy for days, and I’d been unable to escape the whispers and stares even when I was in class.
Silence greeted me. I knew he was here because his car was in the driveway. If he thought ignoring me would make me leave, then he had another think coming.
Turning right, I checked the kitchen and found it empty. His coffee mug was on the counter, so he couldn’t have long left the kitchen. Daddy always drank a cup of coffee when he got home from work at six. My fingers brushed the ceramic as I walked by. The half-filled cup still retained the heat of the rich smelling liquid. I chuckled to myself as I easily thought of the cup as half-full, just like my optimistic mom, rather than half-empty like my realistic father.
The dining room and living room were both empty. The condition of the living room made me frown. It was a mess—papers scattered on the coffee table, books strewn all over the floor, cushions askew on the couch. Dad wasn’t a neat freak, but he had a definite Type-A personality and kept things pretty much in their place. Maybe the stress of the past couple of weeks was starting to get to him. He’d tried to sound unaffected each time I’d talked to him on the phone, but I knew better.
My voice was hesitant as I walked down the darkened hallway, “Daddy?” Cautiously, I pressed open his bedroom door. All the hairs stood up on the back of my neck. My hand reflexively pulled my phone from my pocket.
His room was a disaster too. Clothes were strewn everywhere. His suitcase was on the bed, half packed. With cautious steps, I entered his bathroom. His toiletries had been packed into the tiny travel case. My mind raced as I tried to make sense of the state of my childhood home. Was he going somewhere?
Stepping back into the hallway, I checked the last place in the house my dad could be, but I knew if he was home, he would’ve answered my shouts by now. The doorknob to his office felt cold under my trembling fingers. Somehow, I made my fingers twist the knob, and the normally creaky door silently swung open. My gaze roved over the wreckage his office had become. Every book had been yanked from the bookshelf. The filing cabinets stood open. Every file folder had been upended onto the floor, spilling thousands of slips of paper like party confetti after New Year’s on every flat surface in the room. The blinds hung awry, letting in a sliver of evening sunlight.
The flashing of the computer screen drew my attention. A few steps farther into the room allowed the words on the screen to come into focus enough for me to read them. In the seconds it took to read and comprehend the handful of words typed on the screen, my world shifted, and my heart stopped. Tears filled my eyes as I shook my head. Then I looked farther into the room, and a silent scream escaped my mouth. Noo. I dropped my phone and ran from the room.
1
Toven
Present Day
I stared at the half-finished composition propped on the piano. Absent mindedly, I swirled my glass of brandy before taking a sip. Closing my eyes, I listened to the notes floating around inside my mind. I reached and grabbed a few, transferring them to the score sheet. More n
otes flowed from my mind to the pen. After a few more minutes, the page was full. I set the pen aside and placed my fingers on the keys. I played the edgy melody about blood lust. Then I scratched the guitar chords onto the paper. This song would be perfect for any number of bands in the rock scene.
I grabbed my phone and dialed Lydia to find out her progress with securing buyers for the last batch of songs.
Lydia picked up on the first ring. “Toven, how are you?”
“I’d be better if you had good news for me.”
“I just emailed you the responses from five of the bands you had me reach out to. You should be able to open them on your phone.”
I huffed a breath. She knew I didn’t do email on my phone. I was lucky to be able to send a text message with it, let alone something more complex. Email was for computers.
This employee had been the bane of my existence since I’d hired her. It was Lydia who suggested I needed to modernize my name a couple of years ago. So Thoven Attems ceased to exist, and I became Toven Adams. She’d been trying to drag me into the technological age ever since, refusing to relay information verbally. She even made me get a smart phone, which only made me feel stupid. She thought that emailing when I was away from my computer would force me to learn. I knew how to use email. When I had a damn keyboard. My patience was wearing thin. She could easily be replaced, and it was time I reminded her of that.
“Ms. Summer, I’ll see you in my office in thirty minutes. I expect a full report summarizing each band and their response to the songs. I want all of this printed out and in a file. If you wish to continue working for Lyrical Enterprises, I suggest you do as I wish rather than what you prefer. I’m the boss. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
I hung up without any further words. I’d become too soft in recent years. My employees needed to remember who was in charge and not have the audacity to attempt to force me to do things their way.
I shuffled the music sheets into a binder and strolled to the elevator. I nodded at the various employees I passed scurrying around my corporation. When I stepped into the elevator, I hit the button for the top floor. The elevator stopped after ascending a couple floors. A pretty blond woman with an enticingly short skirt stepped on. I wrinkled my nose at the overabundance of her floral perfume. She shot me a flirtatious glance as she softly said, “Good morning, Mr. Adams.”
I was not in the mood for pleasantries. The businessman and artist inside me was focused on the fact that my last twenty songs had not found buyers. In the past five years, I’d only sold songs to artists who I’d been working with for years, but they were aging and retiring. I needed new clients who still had years of performing ahead of them. While I was well-off financially with the various businesses my corporation owned, I’d lived through far too many financial fiascos in my lifetime. I wanted permanent financial security. It was the only way I knew to ensure I could afford the necessities to keep the monster residing inside of me leashed. Money kept willing donors available so hunting and taking was no longer necessary. Paying for the sustenance which kept me alive was the only way I could assuage the self-loathing over what I was. The artist in me also longed for constant validation that my craft was worth something. Writing songs was the only thing of value in my life. All my family members had long since died or disappeared. I had no friends and no desire to make any. I had no official woman in my life, only one-time snack stops. I never repeated a meal or ride—I enjoyed variety, and my money afforded me that luxury.
The monster in me yanked on its chain as the curvy, blond woman leaned over to brush a non-existent piece of lint from her skirt. The beast took note of the vein pulsing under the translucent skin of her neck. He drooled over the faint scent of her arousal, which slipped out as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other. He was hungry in more ways than one.
I glanced at my watch. With Lydia on the way to my office in a few minutes, I didn’t have time to feed either hunger. The beast would have to take a nap. He snarled inside my mind as the blonde gathered her long hair and swept it to her right shoulder. The movement further exposed her graceful neck and bare shoulder, causing the beast to slam against his restraints.
I tightened the leash. I was certain my companion of the moment would be a willing meal and receiver of the pleasure I could grant her. But I’d made great efforts over the years not to eat or play at work. Mixing business with either indulgence would be bad news. This woman who was tempting me to snack in the middle of the workday wasn’t a viable option.
Finally, I was granted a reprieve as the elevator stopped to let her off. Once the doors closed, I drew in a deep breath. I finished the rest of my ride in solitude.
As I stepped off the elevator, I straightened my tie. My purposeful strides had my receptionist, Mrs. Stephenson, stammering to greet me. I dismissed her words with a quick wave of my hand.
“Ms. Summers will be coming up in a few minutes to go over her latest finds. After that, I think I have a couple of meetings.”
“Yes, sir. You have a meeting with one of your managers at Club Night to go over next month’s calendar. Then you have a meeting with one of the representatives at Casa Del Sol Naciente to go over the financials and blueprints for the new development.”
Blood Song: Prelude (Blood Song Series Book 1) Page 2