He commenced with a song which was recognizable within the first few notes. The song certainly sounded different without all the extra instruments. And Toven’s voice gave a haunting quality to the lyrics about the loss of a life that shone bright and then flickered out like a candle snuffed out. The sincerity he poured into the private performance brought tears to my eyes.
“Did you write that in her honor?” I whispered.
♪ Candle in the Wind by Elton John
“Originally, no. It was originally a private tribute to someone not famous at all. But years after Marilyn’s death, I was approached about penning a tribute with someone, so I dusted this one off. We adapted it to fit her life and death, and history was made.”
Silence filled the room as I considered who he’d originally written the song for.
Shaking myself out of the trance, I asked, “Can you play something on guitar for me? I mean, for the website?”
“Sure. Let me link up the video equipment to the other studios, that way we can capture video in any of the rooms.”
He disappeared into the sound booth for a few minutes then led me down the hall to a smaller studio set up with several guitars—both electric and acoustic—bass guitars and a drum kit. Once all the lights were on, he turned on all the necessary amps and microphones from the control booth.
He leaned against the doorframe, studying me. “What do you want to hear?”
“How about another chart-topper, this time one known for its guitar riffs?”
Perched on a stool with a guitar strapped across his lap, Toven was a rock star vision. I snapped the image. When he brought the pick to strings, the well-known licks filled the room. His edgy rendition of the rock classic was even better than the chart-topping version. As the passion of the music overtook him, he stood and rocked out. Sweat trickled down his brow with the exertion. He’d long since lost his suit jacket and tie. By the time he finished the roaring guitar solo, he was drenched with sweat—and so was I.
♪ Crazy Train by Ozzy Osbourne
Sweat had never been a turn on to me before. But somehow on Toven, it made my mouth water and go dry all at once. I wanted to feel the slickness beneath my skin. I wanted to be the source of the exertion which created the little rivers of perspiration. He used his shirt tail to mop his brow, revealing a strip of rippling muscle and skin.
Walking to the drum kit, he unbuttoned his shirt and rolled up his sleeves. Picking up the sticks, he pounded out an impromptu rhythm. With his shirt flapping to the beat, he made for a sexy vision. My shutter finger pressed repeatedly.
The rest of the day passed with Toven moving from instrument to instrument, playing songs he wrote years ago or things he wrote on the spot. It was thrilling to watch him. His music captivated me. I was spellbound by each song—whether it be fast or slow, fun or sad, it didn’t matter. He had a gift, and it needed to continue being shared with the world. I easily took a hundred photos.
It was after five by the time we finished. “Come on, let’s go get some dinner since I deprived you of lunch.”
I swallowed hard, still a bit dumbstruck by all his glistening muscles. “W-where are we going?”
With a smirk he asked, “How about Sedotti dal Cibo? Have you ever been there?”
“No, but I doubt we’d be able to get a table for tonight. Don’t they have a waiting list?” The trendy Italian eatery was a hot spot.
“You let me worry about getting us in.”
“What about your shirt?” I waved at his appearance.
He looked down at the unbuttoned dress shirt, dampened by sweat.
He chuckled. “Yeah, they won’t let us in with me dressed like this.”
“Well, they might if the hostess is a woman,” I teased. I would.
He waved off my concern. “No worries. I have clean clothes in my suite upstairs.”
“You have a suite upstairs?”
“Yes. For a long time, work has been the only thing in my life. I’ve spent the night here at work at least a couple of times a week for the past ten years. After sleeping in my clothes on the couch in my office a handful of times, I arranged for a few of the unused offices on my floor to be converted into a small living area for me.” He moved around the room, turning off instruments and wiping each of them down.
“Well, then let’s go get you changed so we can have dinner before I faint from hunger,” I joked, laying my hand across my forehead.
Oh, God.
He hadn’t had any blood all day. Was he about to faint from thirst? Would he need some sustenance before we could get to the restaurant? Would he finally want to sample me?
“Yeah, I’m starting to feel the effects of having skipped lunch myself.” His hand patted his toned stomach.
I followed Toven around as he turned off the rest of the equipment and lights in both studios. He handed me a flash drive. “Everything recorded to this. You can load it onto your laptop. I’ll have my IT department add video editing and production software to it, so you can manipulate it ever how you see fit. We can drop it off on their floor on our way out if that’s OK with you.”
“Sure, but what will I use tomorrow?” I chewed nervously on my bottom lip as I battled the thoughts of Toven needing blood soon.
“I don’t have to be in the office tomorrow, so I can set you up on my system at home.”
“Sounds good. Shall we?” My stomach growled loudly.
He let out a belly laugh, and the sound warmed me from my head to my toes. “We shall. We have a public that awaits us.”
The reminder of our agreement sent a shock of cold through my body. I kept losing track of what was real and what was part of my job—my feelings were clouding things.
Toven took my hand in his, lacing our fingers together, and tugged me into the elevator, interrupting my thoughts. My mind immediately filled with images and sensations from the ride we took down here a few short hours ago. My body anticipated a reprise, and my heart thundered in anxiety at getting a repeat performance, for there was nothing to stop it from ending with a kiss, albeit a heated one. No pressing work, no fear of interruption, nothing to stop the ovation demanding a fitting finale.
He pressed his palm to the pad and commanded the car to take us to the top floor. I stood next to him, only touching where our hands were linked, desperately trying to ignore the heat radiating from him. Watching the numbers slowly increase one by one, I didn’t notice Toven was no longer shoulder to shoulder with me for several moments. He now stood facing me directly. I glanced up at him and lost every thought from my head.
A drop of liquid trickling down his sculpted chest caught my attention. My world narrowed to that single droplet of sweat moving down his rippled, golden skin. I reached out a finger and lightly traced the glistening trail from its origin above his collarbone, down over hard muscles which trembled beneath my touch.
“Celesta.” My name a breath, a plea, a prayer.
I tilted my face up to meet his intense gaze. I was certain the heat in my eyes rivalled his. There was no audience. Whatever happened between us in that moment was purely us, not part of our arrangement.
I didn’t answer, at least not vocally, but my body called out to his. My tongue darted out to moisten my suddenly dry lips. His eyes flared with desire. I didn’t know if it was an invitation or not, but Toven took it as one. Our mouths collided with a clash of lips and tongue. There was no gentle caress, no hesitant exploration. This kiss was all heat from its inception. My body was on fire as I was consumed by Toven’s kiss. Everything inside me clenched in response to the moan that escaped his lips. His hand had dropped mine at some point. I was only vaguely aware of his long fingers tangled in the silky strands of my hair, and his other hand pressing the small of my back, so my body molded tightly to his.
If I could crawl inside this moment and stay in it forever, I could happily let go of every single thing in my life. I’d never experienced a kiss that said so much and made me feel so much.
Wh
at was I doing?
My hands traced all over Toven’s abdomen. One hand drifted around his back and lay flat against it, anchoring him to me. I ran the other through his hair as I changed the angle of the kiss in an effort to explore new depths of his mouth. My fingers gave a light tug, eliciting a growl from his mouth, which rumbled down my throat and settled in my core. I let go of his hair and dragged my fingers down his torso, barely scratching the surface. My fingertips dipped into the edge of his waistband. I felt, rather than heard, his sharp intake of breath at my touch. He made no move to encourage or impede my touch.
I wanted to go further, to explore the contours of his body, to know his heat intimately, but it was uncharted territory for me. Fear kept my hand immobilized. I didn’t retreat, but I didn’t advance, either. Rather I traced slow, tiny circles against his skin.
Toven’s skin was scalding beneath my touch. His mouth devoured mine. The hand gripping my hip had somehow worked my blouse loose from the top of my skirt. His fingers grazed the skin of my side causing a shiver to race across my body. He traced the smooth skin on the small of my back. Those fingers burned a path over my already heated skin. Fire on fire created an inferno which threatened to consume us both. At that moment, I doubted either of us cared.
That fiery path followed his nimble digits as they moved up my side. Their warmth seeped through the thin satin of my bra as they traveled lightly from the side to the front. He hadn’t even gotten near my nipples, but they were straining against the fabric begging for his touch. He moved at a snail’s pace. Finally, he brushed across one waiting peak, and the moan that escaped my lips was embarrassingly loud. But I couldn’t bring myself to care. I wanted him to keep touching and torturing me.
No, I needed him to keep touching me and torturing me. I needed it more than I needed oxygen or food. I thrust my breast deeper into his hand, relishing the friction of his caress through the fabric.
He emitted a growl then slowed our kiss down. His hands continued their ministrations, but the kiss became shallower. He was banking the fires of our passion. But I didn’t want them banked; I wanted them stoked.
When our lips finally broke free, I drew in a ragged breath. His breathing matched my own as he leaned his forehead against mine. Heated puffs of air bathed my flushed skin for several long moments as his eyes deeply searched mine.
“Woman, what are you doing to me? You consume my every thought. I can’t get you out of my mind. I think about you all the time. Needing you, wanting you . . . over and over again,” he whispered.
“Sounds like song lyrics,” I joked, trying to lighten the mood and reveal nothing of my own feelings.
♪ In Case You Didn’t Know by Brett Young
“I’ll file them away for later. When I allow myself to focus on you, the world disappears. Nothing matters, nothing even registers on my radar. Do you have any idea how long the elevator has been stopped on my floor with the doors open?” His lips tipped up in a mischievous smirk.
I shook my head in confusion. I hadn’t realized the elevator had stopped moving. “I didn’t hear the voice announce we’d arrived,” I offered. The world could’ve ended in an apocalyptic boom, and I wouldn’t have noticed.
“Yeah, me neither. And I have super senses. Nothing gets by me or sneaks up on me. At least not until you. But you definitely snuck up on me. Are you part witch or something?”
“I’m only me. Nothing more, nothing less.” I shrugged slightly, which caused my breast to move within his hand. Delicious friction.
His thumb traced once more across my nipple, and I whimpered, clenching my thighs in response. He smiled and shook his head. “You are definitely not less.” He brushed a kiss on my waiting lips but resisted my attempt to deepen it.
My fingers in his waistband gripped his designer pants, pulling his crotch more firmly to mine.
“Celesta, we can’t. My frame of mind isn’t safe at the moment. My body’s need for you, it’s thirst for you is too strong. It took every drop of willpower I had to stop just now. I wanted much more than a taste. I yearn for it all, and I can’t, at least not right now.” A war raged across his features. One I wanted to win but had no clue how.
“Toven, don’t you think I want you too? My body is desperate for something I know only you can give me. I feel like I am dying inside,” my tone held a pleading edge to it, bordering on whining.
“I’m sorry. The last thing I meant to do was leave you wanting, but I don’t have the strength right now. And I don’t want to hurt you. Please forgive me?” He was truly remorseful.
I let go of his waistband and placed my hands on his cheeks. “There’s nothing to forgive. Come on, let’s get you changed so you can take me to dinner.”
He escorted me past both our offices to a door a little farther down the hall. He pressed his palm to the keypad then click of the lock disengaging filled the room.
“I’ll get security to add your palm print to this lock as well that way you can come here if you need to.”
“Thanks.”
My eyes roved the interior. It was tastefully decorated in a beautiful mixture of wood and chrome.
“Make yourself at home while I go take a cold shower and change.” He winked at me.
“Think of me while you’re gone,” I teased back.
“Always. That’s why the shower needs to be cold, otherwise I may be in there too long.” He unbuttoned the cuffs of his sleeves.
I blushed at the innuendo over what he’d be doing if he thought about me under a hot spray of water. I could stand some private relief within the confines of a shower myself.
“Do you have more than one bathroom?” I asked.
“Yes. There’s one just down the hall on the left,” he directed, pointing to the door.
Planting a kiss on my forehead, he went in the opposite direction, into what I presumed was his bedroom.
Entering the room he indicated as a bathroom, I turned on the light. Quickly, I relieved my bladder. As I washed my hands, I examined my face in the mirror. My lips were extra full and bruised-looking, but they also appeared so kissable. My fingers traced them and could almost feel the damp heat from Toven’s mouth. I continued to scrutinize my features. My cheeks were flushed with a rose color, and my eyes sparkled with delight and desire. But I was still just me—ordinary, plain old me.
What did Toven see when he looked at me? Why did his eyes flare with hunger and arousal when they looked into mine?
21
Toven
Summoning every ounce of will power, I walked away from Celesta. Every cell in my body cried out for me to sweep her up in my arms and carry her to my bed. I yearned to adore every piece of her. And if I was reading her signals correctly, her body begged for the same thing. But I was barely hanging onto my control by the thinnest of threads with her on a normal day. Each day, each moment with her, increased my draw to her. Every day I resisted the lure to taste her, take her, treasure her. I fought those yearnings because I’d rather die than bring her harm. I knew all too well the danger I posed on a normal day if I let my control slip. Having no blood since this morning made me more dangerous to her than normal. The animal inside was roaring loudly, and my voice of reason had dropped to a whisper.
I grabbed a bottle of blood from the container in my nightstand to slake my raging thirst and purposefully strode into the bathroom to take care of the other part of me that was raging. With haste, I stripped off my sweat-dampened clothes. Then I stepped into the large, aqua-tinted, glass pentagon through the French doors. Twisting the lever to blue, I flipped the shower on. Icy water pounded my body from five different nozzles and rained down from overhead. The frigid water and soap washed the sticky film of perspiration from my skin. Unfortunately, it couldn’t scrub away my thoughts and desires so easily.
I adjusted each jet, directing them so they all sprayed frosty water on the part of my anatomy not so easily cooled. After several minutes of the frigid treatment, the blood flow in my cock finally slowe
d and reversed back to my brain. I remained in the icy bath a few extra minutes for good measure.
As I shut off the water, I took several deep breaths before stepping out of the luxurious enclosure. A quick swipe with a fluffy towel had me ready to find appropriate attire for a romantic date.
What the hell? Romantic? What did I know about romance?
I snatched my discarded clothes from the floor, intending to put them in the hamper. But as I inhaled, I caught a whiff of her scent. Pressing the handful of fabric to my face, I breathed deeply. The scent of vanilla, the smell of her soap and a hint of her arousal from the elevator kiss filled my lungs, making me lightheaded. And that quickly and easily, my raging hard-on was resurrected like a newly-born vampire. There was no way I could tame it with a cold shower this time. I’d have to take matters into my own hands, literally.
I draped the clothing filled with her scent around my neck, so every breath I drew would be filled with her. Stepping back into the shower, I adjusted the knobs to a delicious steamy heat. Grabbing the liquid soap, I filled my palm and set to work relieving the ache deep in my groin. Surrounded by the warm steam and her heady scent, it didn’t take long for my hands to bring release. I’d used my hand more in the few days since I’d met Celesta than I had in all my years as a vampire combined. I hadn’t jacked off this much since I was a horny teenager just discovering the pleasure I could achieve from my own hands.
How long could I be satisfied by my own devices? It was more than my vampire nature screaming for me to find release and fulfillment inside the warm heat of a woman—it was my human desire as well. The man and beast in me both ached to reach that euphoric state which could only arrive with the cresting of an orgasm. But I knew neither man nor beast would be truly satisfied with just any woman. And that scared the hell out of me.
It only took me moments to compose myself and dress in a fresh suit. My hair was still a bit damp, but I couldn’t stand to be away from her any longer. My stride was determined as I made my way back to the living room. I trained my ears on the sounds of her breathing and heartbeat as I quickly walked the corridor. My heartbeat synchronized with hers by the time I reached her side, and that felt just about perfect to me.
Blood Song: Prelude (Blood Song Series Book 1) Page 27