Hot Summer Bites: A Castle of Dark Dreams Novella (A Penguin Special from Berkley Sensation)

by Bangs, Nina

  How did she know her love was for real? She’d deleted both of her stories from her laptop tonight. Didn’t get more in love than that. Of course, what she felt didn’t mean squat, because Taurin hadn’t hinted he felt the same. Yeah, he wanted her body, but he didn’t want her heart and soul as part of a package deal. She sat down on the blanket he’d spread on the sand and waited for him.

  He stopped in front of her and handed her a glass of iced tea along with a plate that had a burger, potato salad, and a chocolate chip cookie on it. Then he dropped down beside her.

  Kristin could see the glow from the fire someone had built on the beach, but a dune hid Taurin and her from view.

  “Looks like Banan and Saffron are stuffing their faces. Should keep them busy for a while.” He didn’t need to add that they should take advantage of their window of opportunity.

  Kristin wanted to think of herself as a romantic, but she had a big, bold, practical streak running right down the middle of all that pink lacy romanticism.

  “Protection?” If the heat he generated wasn’t burning up all her brain cells, she would’ve remembered to bring some herself.

  She had a sinking feeling that his little foil packets were sitting back on his night table, because unless he had them tucked in his cheeks like a sexy chipmunk, he was out of pocket options. She knew, because she’d looked.

  And there was so much to look at. His swimsuit was an insignificant punctuation mark to the complex sentence that was his body. Smooth, muscular, and almost bare, his was a body to launch the sexual dreams of a thousand women.

  The moonlight played with the angles and curves of him, casting some in shadow—teasing and tempting—while highlighting others just enough to make her want to reach out so she could make sure he was real.

  She had to have him, and she had to have him now. “Umm, do you think Eric or Conall might have—”

  Leaning over, he placed his finger over her lips. He should know better than to put any part of his body near her mouth when she was in a serious state of wanting. Grasping his wrist so he couldn’t escape, she drew his finger into her mouth. Swirling her tongue around it, she met his sizzling gaze. He tasted of chocolate chip cookie, her new favorite dessert.

  “Keep that up, sweetheart, and I’ll forget something very important I have to tell you.” He gripped his bottom lip between his strong white teeth.

  And when he released his lip, its sheen and soft fullness called to the savage Amazon in her. She wanted to visit unspeakably erotic acts on his helpless body. Not that she figured his body would be helpless any time soon.

  She couldn’t talk while she lavished all her uncontrolled desire on his finger, so she released him. “This better be good, Veris.”

  He grinned as he stretched out flat on his back beside her. Then he slid his palm over his chest and abdomen, calling attention to his powerful pecs and abs.

  She’d bitten into her cookie in lieu of anything else yummy to sink her teeth into as she watched him slide his fingers over his body. Completely riveted, she carelessly dribbled a few cookie crumbs onto him.

  He paused in his epic journey. “Uh-uh. Littering isn’t allowed. You’ve seen the signs: Don’t Mess with Texas.”

  Kristin looked down at the scattering of crumbs. “Oops. Gotta do my part in keeping Texas tidy.”

  She shivered at the joy of being a one-woman cleanup crew. Bending close to him, she flicked a crumb from his nipple with the tip of her tongue. To make absolutely sure she’d gotten the entire crumb, she gripped his nipple gently with her teeth and then brushed her tongue back and forth, back and forth over the sensitive nub. He groaned his appreciation.

  With what she hoped was a maddeningly slow pace, she put her mouth on random parts of his torso. Some stops had crumbs that she flicked up with her tongue, some didn’t. No matter, because she was into the feel of his warm flesh beneath her lips, the taste of essential male on her tongue, and the scent of an aroused, sexy man.

  When she finally abandoned his body, he glanced down to where his hand still rested on his lower abdomen. “I know I was going somewhere, but now it’s all a blur.”

  Kristin made a wild impetuous guess at his final destination and decided to help. “Let me drive for a while.”

  He shifted his hips as he settled in for the trip. She sucked in her breath at the sensual impact of watching the thin swimsuit material stretch tightly over his growing interest.

  Kristin walked her fingers around the edge of his swimsuit, making sure she didn’t ignore where it marked the border between his inner thighs and protected territory. He spread his legs to make the journey easier.

  “Taking the scenic route is always more rewarding, don’t you think?” She walked her fingers across his personal Mount Everest that was gaining elevation even as she spoke.

  She interpreted his grunt as a negative. “You’re right. Time to head home.” Slipping her fingers beneath the edge of his swimsuit, she paused. Then laughed as she pulled out two foil packets. “Now that we have these, you really don’t need the swimsuit, do you?” Kristin tugged at the waist.

  His smile was a predatory lifting of his lips. “I thought you’d never ask.” He arched his hips so she could skim the swimsuit from his body. Then he reached up to hook his finger in her bikini top. “Take if off.”

  “Wow. Pretty direct, aren’t you?” Kristin kind of liked that about him. She looked down. Mmm. The hard length of him went way beyond like.

  He sat up, his eyes a blaze of hunger that made her nipples pebble without him even touching her. “I’ve spent a week in hell, wanting to rip the clothes from your beautiful body and bury myself deep inside you every freakin’ minute I’ve been near you.”

  Kristin knew her smile bordered on feral. “Whoa. Intense. Very sexy.” She dropped her hand to his erection and wrapped her fingers around him. She squeezed gently, instant messaging a “Me, too.”

  He pulled her close so he could untie her top. She was short on control right now. His fault, all his fault. Jeez, how long did it take to untie a stupid bikini top? To keep from attacking him, she clamped her teeth onto his neck and hung on. She reveled in the warmth and taste of his skin. Would he accept her teeth’s imprints in the spirit they were given? She hoped so. Who knew this vampire stuff would be so easy?

  Even before her top hit the sand, he was working on her bikini bottom. He must’ve used his preternatural speed or something because one minute it was there and then it was lying yards away. Was he hot for her or what? She smiled at the delicious thought.

  Kristin glanced around to make sure they were completely private before relaxing back onto the blanket. Lifting her arms above her head, she stretched, arching her back and savoring the sensual joy of the cool gulf breeze and Taurin’s heated gaze drifting across her bare breasts. She glanced at his strong hands with fingers able to drift over a woman’s body in many different ways. Who needed a breeze?

  Leaning close, he traced her lips with his tongue and then deepened the kiss into a promise of things to come. Kristin thought whatever was to come better come damn fast, because no way did she intend to give Banan or Saffron time to interrupt this.

  Taurin grinned at her, his fangs proof of his own state of arousal. “Don’t worry, if they interrupt tonight I’ll kill them. No one will find the bodies. What happens in Galveston stays in Galveston.”

  She thought he was only half kidding. “Were you in my head? I didn’t feel you.”

  Still holding her gaze, he moved to kneel between her legs. “Nope. I recognized that mess-with-my-orgasm-and-die look in your eyes.” He slid his hands over her feet, gently massaging her heels before smoothing his palms over her calves and inner thighs. He paused there. “I want to make long, slow love to you. I want to show you every single thing I’ve learned in six hundred years about bringing a woman pleasure.”
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  He leaned over to whisper in her ear. “But not tonight. I want you too much. I want to take you fast and hard with lots of thrashing around and screams for more.”

  She tangled her fingers in his hair and pulled him down to her. “Do it. But we’d better delete the screams. Unless we want an audience who’ll break into spontaneous applause with shouts for an encore.” Kristin trailed her fingers down the long length of his back before massaging the cheeks of his perfect ass.

  “Hey, that’s not a bad fantasy. Maybe we should—”

  Kristin slapped that perfect ass. “No audience.”

  “I love it when you act tough, woman.” His sexy murmur was pure seduction by sound waves.

  He splayed his fingers over her stomach, and she felt her stomach muscles quiver in response to his touch. Jeez, if her stomach muscles got this excited, what would happen when he touched parts of her body given to nervous fits? She found out fast.

  Taurin put both hands over her breasts, and she let the sensation of weight and heat seep through her. Then he did what she’d expected. He put his mouth on her breast. Not that she’d mark him down for lack of creativity. After all, there were just so many things a guy could do to a woman that would . . .

  Oh. My. God! He nipped, he flicked with his tongue—who knew the tongue could do so many things—and he used just enough suction to drive her berserk. “That’s . . . That’s . . .” Her body was on the launchpad, and the countdown had begun.

  And somewhere, what remained of her analytical mind understood that because she loved him, her body automatically super-sized the pleasure every time he touched her.

  At some point she realized he was no longer touching her breasts. Her nipples were still warm and wet from his mouth, and the breeze felt almost chilly moving over them. But the breeze sure wasn’t cooling down her other parts.

  He sounded unsure as he looked down at her. “Will you trust me to enter your mind, Kristin?” Something in his gaze said her trust was important to him.

  Did she trust him? Love and trust went together as far as she was concerned. If she invited him into her body, couldn’t she also invite him into her mind this once? “Yes.”

  She played her fingers over his sweat-sheened stomach and watched his muscles contract. She was doing this to him, and she hadn’t even gotten started yet. Kristin figured she’d need at least a few centuries to exhaust all the ways she wanted to touch him.

  “I want to join my mind with yours as we make love.” He didn’t smile, his gaze searing her with his need. “I won’t tell you what to expect because that would spoil the fun.” Then he did smile, slow and provocative. If a smile could trigger an orgasm, his would.

  Kristin would’ve worried about what was going to happen, but he didn’t give her a chance. He licked his way down her body, and as heat pooled low in her belly, she felt a surge of emotion—overwhelming pleasure and intense arousal. Not hers. Theirs. She growled low in her throat. She didn’t growl. Ever.

  She spread her thighs wide to accept him. And just in case he missed his stop, Kristin had a virtual “You have reached your destination” sign planted in the driveway. Bending her knees, she lifted her hips to meet his imagined thrust. Then she reached down and touched herself, sensually and with lots of special effects. “I’m waiting for you, vampire.” Was that low sexy voice hers? Wow.

  Taurin raised his head to stare at her. “I love you, Kristin. I’m telling you now so you can’t accuse me of saying it in a postorgasmic haze. I’ve never shared a woman’s mind while making love, never wanted to. You’re the first, the last.”

  Kristin’s breath caught in her throat. He’d just said he loved her in her mind. She opened her mouth to tell him she loved him, too, but he shook his head. “Shh.”

  “Later, Kristin. When you have time to think, to understand that you’ll grow old and I won’t, that you’ll still walk in daylight, but I won’t.” His smile hung somewhere between hopeful and sad. “But there would be lots of perks, like this.”

  He knelt up, clasped her bottom, and lifted her to meet his mouth. She wrapped her legs around him as he slid the tip of his tongue back and forth across that spot. She swallowed her screams and almost choked on them. Added to her own unbearable sensations was his spiraling pleasure filling and overflowing her mind.

  And when he slid his tongue into her and then out, in and out, in and out, she couldn’t keep a whimper from escaping. Her body shuddered under the force of their combined physical and emotional arousals.

  Enough! “Nownownow.” She grabbed his hair, forcing him to slide up her body. The friction was so hot she expected to see smoke rising from between them.

  He took ten years, er, seconds to do the protection thing. Way too long.

  She was mindless, nothing more than a pounding heart, ragged breathing, and senses that were stripped to bare-wire essentials. As he rose over her, she wrapped her legs around his waist, and waited for the nudge of his shaft.

  Taurin spread her, easing into her, pushing deeper and deeper, claiming her. His emotions were silent moans in her head. Deeper, and still deeper. Her body clenched around all that hard length, and she joined his mental shouts of pleasure with her own.

  Then he started to move. He slid out until only the head of his shaft remained inside her before plunging into her over and over again. She experienced right along with him the almost unbearable friction driving him to thrust faster and faster, felt her own orgasm gathering power, and teetered on the edge.

  But when she felt the slide of his fangs against her throat she stilled. He waited silently for her decision. Riding her sensual high, Kristin didn’t have to do any deep thinking. She trusted him. “Do it, vampire.”

  If there was pain, she didn’t feel it, because the instant surge in erotic sensation was a sexual body slam.

  “We have liftoff.” Kristin didn’t know if she’d said it out loud, didn’t care, because her orgasm grabbed her and shook her until she dug her fingers into his back and hung on. Taurin’s release went on, and on, and on in her head. She only hoped her shouts were also in her head.

  Her last thought before mindless ecstasy took over was that she didn’t know if she could live through this two-orgasms-at-once thing.

  She lived. Barely. Her breathing slowed, her heartbeat returned to normal, she stopped shaking, and her thighs stopped feeling like rubber.

  Sometime during the moments when she was still floating in her own personal nirvana, Taurin rolled onto his back. He was slick, relaxed, and so gorgeous it made her teeth hurt.

  He’d said he loved her. That memory came crashing back. And with it the things he’d told her to think about. She turned her head to look at him. “I love you. I don’t mind the dark. And if you make me a vampire, I won’t have to watch you stay all young and buff while I shrivel up like a prune. Sure the liquid diet might get a little old, but I bet we could spice it up with a little flavoring. Of course, the idea of drinking blood is a total ick right now, but I suppose once you—”

  “No.” His voice sounded suddenly tired.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I won’t turn you now. You have to think about it. For a long time. Think about your family. Think about what you’ll be giving up.” He rubbed his hand across his forehead. “I shouldn’t have told you I loved you. I just went with my emotions instead of thinking about you.”

  She sighed. “I like you big, bad, and bold. Mr. Sensitive doesn’t fit you. Let me decide what’s best for me.” Kristin pulled her swimsuit back on and then stood up. “I knocked over my iced tea. Would you go get me some more?” She needed a few minutes of alone time to get her head together. Her heart was already together, so she wasn’t worried about that.

  He nodded, stood, dressed, and then disappeared around the dune. She stared out at the waves. They looked so cool, and she was so hot and s
weaty. She walked down to the water’s edge and waded in. This time there was no rip current, and the slap of the waves against her body soothed and excited at the same time.

  She was still into her sexual feel-good afterglow, so when the fin sliced the water nearby she almost laughed. Banan must’ve seen Taurin leave and decided that while the vamp was away the shark would play.

  Kristin glanced toward the shore. Banan was standing on the beach peering out at her. He waved.

  Oh shit. Swallowing hard, she frantically searched the dark water. There, there, and there. Three fins. Something slid past her leg and she screeched. Show her a nose and she’d punch it. Ack, no nose.

  She saw Taurin slicing through the water at the same time she heard him in her mind.

  “Hold on. Coming. Love you. Kill, kill, kill. Mine!”

  Every civilized cell in her body shivered at his in-your-face primitive savagery. And mine? What was that about?

  But beneath her surface layer of independent butt-kicking modern woman, something much more primal, more elemental wakened.

  Her man, er, vampire was racing to her rescue. Lips drawn back to expose deadly fangs, eyes black with bloodlust, Taurin was one scary dude. But he was her scary dude.

  She barely had time to mutter a “holy cow” before he reached her side. He crouched over her, his eyes actually glowing. Glowing, for crying out loud.

  Suddenly something grabbed her bikini bottom and swiftly dragged her out into deeper water. Her bikini bottom? Why not her leg? She didn’t question as she tried to wiggle out of the piece of material the shark wanted so badly.

  Taurin roared his rage and dived underwater. The sea became a foaming cauldron of thrashing bodies. Whatever was holding her bikini let go. She should swim for shore, but no way was she leaving Taurin.