* * *
Johnny dropped the older man onto the ground. He slumped into a heap near Johnny’s boots. He rarely drank from the homeless. They were smelly and usually ill and their blood was sluggish and tainted. Yet this one must have been recently homeless for he was relatively clean and his blood tasted like wine. Which could be because he sat behind a wine shop. The proprietor must slip him the occasional bottle.
Wiping his mouth, and striding away without a look back to the man who groaned in orgasmic pleasure, Johnny smirked. It was the least he could do for the guy.
When he thought about heading to Club l’Enfer, he remembered it was Sunday. Clubs were closed. Though he had to wonder why l’Enfer didn’t stay open in bold defiance of the mortal religions.
He didn’t want to see her anyway.
Right?
“Wrong,” he muttered as his boots clicked down the cobblestones toward the right bank, west of the Louvre. He wasn’t headed home. He wasn’t sure where he was headed.
He knew where he was headed.
“She hates me.”
How could Dante possibly be right about the throwing down the gauntlet thing? Didn’t make sense. Unless of course, she was controlled by Himself and by saying she hated him that had lured the dark boyfriend off Johnny’s scent?
A sweet move, if that was the case. He owed her for that one.
“Need to thank her. In person. Just…see her. One last time.”
He’d verify she was lost, stolen by the darkest evil of them all, and, knowing he could do nothing to save her, he would then walk away.
But not without one last kiss.
* * *
The buzzer rang and Kam sat up from the black velvet chaise where she’d dozed off. She glanced out the window. The moon was high in the sky. Full? No. One more day to achieve fullness.
The buzzer rang again.
It was the man who, even as he vexed her, attracted her in more ways than she’d thought possible. It had to be.
She rushed to the door and buzzed him in, not bothering to ask who it was. Because she could hear the click of his scuffed heels as they circled the medieval stairs up four stories to her floor. Despite her cruel words, he’d returned to her.
Kam’s heartbeats pattered a drum solo against her rib cage. She didn’t deserve him. She clasped her hands in anticipation as she waited for a rap on her front door. Her body shivered subtly so she inhaled and exhaled to calm herself.
She opened the door to a bouquet of white roses. Johnny pulled them down to reveal his black-shadowed eyes and switchblade smile.
She wasn’t going to ask where he’d managed to find such gorgeous blooms at this time of night. Instead she took them and buried her nose in the soft petals, inhaling deeply as if drawing in an intoxicant.
“I bet you’ve only ever had black roses, eh?”
“How did you guess?” She gestured he enter, making the invitation obvious.
Johnny strolled inside. A vampire could not enter a private residence without an invitation.
“Thought I’d like to see you adorned with something pure.” He stroked her cheek and trailed his fingertips over the tops of the roses. “Your skin is like these flowers.”
“But you think my heart black?”
Miffed he’d pronounced the flowers pure, because they were white? Kam strolled into the kitchen where she set the flowers on the countertop (a little less than gently). She was pure. He just didn’t know that yet.
You’re tainted, and you know it. Your heart is black.
“Is it black?” he called as he slowly followed, taking in the elaborate décor of a place she could change with but a thought.
“It’s not,” she said quietly. “At least, I wish it was not.” She glanced aside, ashamed. Lying to herself would never advance her hopes.
She assumed Johnny took in the black marble floors and walls and guessed the Dark’s mistress lived up to her name. Pouting, she had never thought about it like that before. Why was everything around her black? She wasn’t that person. Inside she was brighter, had once been confident and… And…what was she now?
With a thought, she imagined the floors an icy white marble flecked with glints of crystal mica. Down the walls rolled a soft gray paper, flocked with white velvet. The chandelier above the countertop transformed from black crystals to clear, and all around her furniture and decorations bleached white.
“Impressive. Did your boyfriend give you such skills?”
“He did.” But Kam wasn’t about to boast. She didn’t want the night to go like this. Johnny’s cool demeanor challenged her to put up her best front, when all she wanted to do was relax and enjoy his company.
And seduce him.
Running her palms over the purple silk at her hips she lifted her chin and swiped her long, loose hair over a shoulder, but tugged a strand around her forefinger.
“I’m sorry for what I said to you at Nôtre Dame,” she said.
“It was deserved. I shouldn’t have made the awful accusation. Please accept my apology?”
She nodded, bounced on her heels once as her mood lightened. “We’re good.”
He stopped on the opposite side of the counter and leaned onto the white marble. He was dressed in black leathers and a soft blue tee-shirt screen-printed with a gray skull; it imbued the only trace of color into the room. “Listen, I’m here because I can’t not be here. You compel me, Kam. But it’s not like a compulsion orchestrated by…something evil.” He winced.
Getting him beyond the fact her boyfriend was the devil would prove a tough challenge.
“I am attracted to you,” he continued. “I want to be around you. Hell, I’m still trying to prove myself worthy of you. But…”
She knew what the big black elephant in the room was, and she hoped the horned one didn’t show up tonight. He couldn’t know Johnny was here.
Hell, who was she fooling? He knew. And if he did not yet, he would soon enough.
Johnny tilted up her chin with his finger and asked softly, “Kam, do you need someone to love you or rescue you?”
Her lips parted and out hushed a breath. Heartbeats thundered, racing toward what she most desired, and then stopped because—why did she desire him?
“Both,” she finally said. “Oh, Johnny.” She walked around the counter. He straightened, not succumbing to the closeness she desired, but not stepping back when she stepped right up to him. “You sing to my black heart. I think about you all the time.”
“It’s an image,” he said. “Girls always swoon over rock stars. We sing vague lyrics about love and surrender and they think we’re singing directly to them.”
That flutter in her heart slammed against her ribcage in annoyance. “You weren’t singing to me the other night?”
“Then? Hell, yes, I was singing to you. Kam.” He bowed his forehead to hers and slid a hand along her waist, coaxing her toward him. “I’ve done nothing worthy of your constant thoughts. No sonnets or fearless rescues yet. So that makes me believe you need me more than want me.”
“What’s wrong with needing someone?” Their mouths were so close. She wanted to stop talking and speak with her kisses.
“Do you need me to be your lover or your hero?”
Again, the same question. And still the answer was both. But he must only want to take on one task at a time. He shouldn’t think of tonight as a task…
“Be my lover,” she whispered.
His smirk was so sexy. Kam tapped the corner of his mouth then danced her finger over his bottom lip. If her never kissed another woman—save her—she would be gleefully pleased.
He kissed her, not too long, but long enough for Kam’s heart to again quicken in anticipation of the night going well. It must. And it needed to begin now.
“Tonight is for us,” she whispered against his mouth.
“And then tomorrow you return to him?”
“Johnny, why can’t you get beyond that?”
“Because I don’t w
ant to share you with anyone.”
“Then don’t. Take me away from him. Make me yours.”
He gripped her by the back of the neck. Tension tightened his jaw and his blue gaze felt hard, not tender. “At what price?” he asked. “I can indulge my desires, take you right now, woo you and pursue you, but if that results in his anger I don’t want to risk the danger to you.”
“He won’t hurt me. Only—“
“Me?”
Kam didn’t want to agree, but she nodded subtly anyway.
“I don’t care what he does to me. But you can’t make me believe he won’t hurt you. Kam, he’s—“
“The more we speak of him, the greater chance we accidentally call him here. Johnny.” She took his hand and tugged him out of the kitchen. “Come with me.”
Chapter Ten
Kambriel had avoided his suggestion the devil could toss a nasty wrench into this tête-à-tête, yet when she tugged Johnny down the hallway he followed. Because he couldn’t stop himself. Kam was the most forbidden of all fruits and he wanted to crush her against him until she was dripping all over his skin, and then he’d taste her, devour her. Imprison her within him ever after
That she’d changed the interior from black to white was bizarre. She possessed some fierce kind of wish magic. He wouldn’t question it, because he wasn’t stupid. He could guess how she’d gotten her skills.
Had she wished for him to come over tonight? He had been inexplicably compelled here even as he’d struggled with the rights and wrongs of seeing the devil’s girl. But such wicked magic wouldn’t work like that, would it? Allowing the devil’s mistress to invite a lover to her home?
Hell, Johnny, what fuckery are you stepping into?
A smart vampire would turn and walk out and never look back. On the other hand, running like a chicken wouldn’t win him the hero badge. Because beyond the innate desire for the forbidden, her beautiful darkness, he truly wanted to help this woman. She was trapped, and needed him to rescue her.
Both a lover and a hero? It was a challenge. And he’d never resisted a compelling challenge.
The low growl of something beastly alerted Johnny as he was led into another dark room. Something lurked inside. A creature. And to gauge the deep growl, it wasn’t one of those little purse puppies the women liked so much.
The room transformed into soft grays and whites as it had in the kitchen. He took in the sweep of white chiffon from the bedposts to the white marble floor and the elegant curve of white woodwork on dressers and chaises. Gray velvet softened cushions in the bay window.
And a big black thing—leaped for him.
Johnny let out a yelp as the massive creature landed its paws to his shoulders, pushing him down. His back and shoulders hit the hard marble floor. Fangs snarled and whiskers dusted his cheeks. That maw could take his head off in one bite.
And then the six-foot-long beast settled on top of his body, making itself at home as if a pussycat, merely nestling onto its master’s chest.
“Johnny, meet Toad.”
Toad? Johnny couldn’t breath, and he didn’t want to. If he moved so much as a swallow the beasty would think him a delicious morsel. “I’d growl too with a name like that,” he managed through a tight jaw. “What kind of… Nice, kitty. I’m not as tasty as I look.”
“Toad is a hellcat,” Kam said as she stroked the beast’s back and tickled between its ears. “He won’t hurt you. Unless I want him to.”
“Yeah? Let’s keep on each other’s good side, Toad. I’m all about the bloodshed, but not mine. Nice, kitty. You can get off me now.”
“Come!”
The cat pushed off Johnny, forcing out an oomph from his lungs. The thing had to weigh two hundred pounds. It scampered off to jump onto the bed where it filled the entire thing diagonally, crossing its paws and sitting regally. That was when Johnny saw its eyes were red.
“A gift from…you know who?” he asked.
Kam jammed her hands to her hips. “I thought we weren’t going to mention him?”
“I didn’t. Exactly.” He sat up and pushed the hair from his face. “But if I don’t live up to your expectations, do you feed me to the cat?”
“Perhaps.”
She said it teasingly, but Johnny had to swallow down the revulsion rising in his throat. Definitely a deadly task, this seducing of the devil’s girlfriend. But he was in it to win her. Besides, he healed relatively quickly. Hellcat talons to his throat? Probably have to sip blood through a straw for a while, but then he’d be good in a few days.
Kam kneeled over him, and instantly his fears and horrors subsided. She smelled like chocolate and cherries. Her gray eyes twinkled like the moonlight. And he saw something new in her look tonight—a vixen.
Without a word, she bent to him and he pulled her down, much preferring her body on top of his than that of the cat. Just as she was about to kiss him, he bracketed her face with his hands and peered into her eyes. Shadowed yet bright, she smiled at him, and that was all the reassurance he needed.
The kiss landed on his lips but he felt it everywhere. Sexual heat stirred under his skin and permeated his bones. He grew lax beneath the gorgeous seductress and yet she invigorated his desires and quickened his heartbeats. Her kiss tasted sweet. He wanted to taste her forbidden blood.
Willing down his fangs, he teased them across Kam’s lips. She didn’t balk. For two vampires to share blood was the ultimate intimacy. Usually didn’t come until sex, but he knew they were headed that direction, and it was difficult not to race toward the ecstasy.
Kam suddenly pulled away and pressed a finger to his mouth. She tapped his fang. “You’re in a hurry.”
Mmm, if she would slide her finger along his fang... It was akin to her touching his cock. Seriously.
“Just a taste?” he managed in a wanting yet gentle tone, still aware of the hellcat, watching over its mistress. “Don’t you want to taste me?”
“I do. But you promise we’ll make love?”
“Of course. Kam, I want to make love to you all night.”
“And stay until after the sun has risen?”
“I think I can manage that. Do you think, er...Toad will mind?” He said it, but he wasn’t referring to the hellcat. Rather, the dark menace that loomed over this whole evening.
“I do as I like,” she said. Smiling, her fangs jutted down and over her bottom lip.
That was an image he would never forget. It stimulated every functioning part of him. Made him so hard. Ready. Wanting. Johnny slid a finger along one of Kam’s gorgeous incisors and she moaned at the intimate touch. He stroked the other fang slowly, admiring its whiteness and pin sharp point.
“I can feel that everywhere,” Kam said. She swept a palm down the front of her dress. The silky fabric conformed over her tight nipples
Johnny leaned up onto his elbows and mouthed one of her nipples, being careful not to bite through the fabric—and then he wanted nothing more than to bite. To sink his fangs into her cherries and chocolate skin and drown in her deadly darkness.
“Me first,” she said, and pushed his shoulders back so he lay on the hard floor.
Responding to her demand, Johnny thrust up his hands and crossed them behind his head. The woman wanted the first bite? He had no argument against that.
She bent to kiss his mouth, tonguing him teasingly, and then trailed her tongue down his throat where she paused over the vein. He clutched her at the hips, wanting to thrust up into her, to encourage her to enter his neck, but his heart stumbled when she trailed her tongue lower, away from his pulsing carotid.
Pushing up his tee shirt, she kissed his skin, walking tiny kisses to his nipple, where she suckled him into a moaning frenzy. He was usually the one in control, the one who pushed down the woman and took as he desired, yet always paying utmost attention to her desires as well. For pleasuring a woman fired him on all cylinders. He struggled to keep his hands at Kam’s hips, and not move them to her breasts. In good time. He just wanted
the bite…
Kam’s breasts moved over his chest, the hard nipples electrifying his skin and making it ultra-sensitive to every brush of fabric, every skim of her long, silken hair across his body. Oh, that hair. He plunged his hands into the soft clouds and gripped and teased at it.
Without warning she lunged upward. Fangs pricked his neck. Johnny sucked in a breath, and cried out in pleasure as her teeth slid in deep, puncturing his vein. Blood spilled over his skin and painted her lips. Her body pressed tight against his, breasts crushing his chest and legs tangling with his. He rocked his hips, nudging his erection against her mons. Kam moaned, the vibrations humming a tune against his neck.
Drinking blood from mortals was divine, but it was also sustenance. A means to survival. Two vampires giving blood to another was all about the pleasure. The erotic hum rocketed through his veins from the entry point and vibrated through his system.
As Kam’s fingers moved over his chest, tracing his subtle tremors, Johnny clutched her hair, gripping it as if to pull up into her, to surrender into her abyss. The sucking at his neck commanded he succumb, to release and trip away from reality and into the vivid red bliss.
So he did.
A guttural moan preceded the tremendous orgasm that flooded his system. It wasn’t focused in his loins as sex did for him, but it shivered and shuddered and tumbled and vibrated under his skin and in his bones and took out his thought process. And it was all good, and like nothing he’d ever experienced before, and then it was familiar, and sweet, and soft, and…slowly he began to settle back to earth and into reality.
Kam lifted her head from his neck that tingled as if it had been zapped by lightning. A spot of his blood dropped onto his chest. She smiled and a line of crimson creased at the corner of her mouth.
“Fuck. That was good.” He pulled her to him and kissed the blood away. “Now let me do the same for you.”
Slipping the strap from her dress down her arm, the fabric slid over her skin. Kam thrust back her shoulders and lifted her bared breasts to his mouth. He suckled them, one then the other, carefully, lovingly. She tasted soft and not-dark. He dragged a fang along the mound of her breast and her moan encouraged him.
The Dark's Mistress (The Saint-Pierres) Page 9