Crimson Hungers

by Alecia Monaco

  “Well, don’t be a stranger.” The female vampire batted her long lashes at Rex and tossed her dark hair before turning to walk away.

  Katya watched Pele slink away, jealously boiling up inside her like a toxic chemical spilling over the top of a beaker.

  “You OK?”

  “Fine.” Katya shifted uneasily on the booth seat. Who the hell did Pele think she was? Did she just aim her breasts at every guy who came into her bar? Couldn’t she see that Rex was with someone?

  Or did she not count as someone in the vampire world? They were all such flamboyant, glamorous creatures, and she was just… herself.

  Maybe being just herself wouldn’t be enough for Rex, if their situation lasted long enough. Surely he’d tire of her with women like Pele throwing themselves at him.

  But why should any of that bother her? She couldn’t wait for this to end so she could get back to her life.

  Her lonely, sexless, unromantic life.

  “Come on.” He stood up and helped her ease out of the booth. “I want to show you something.”

  She sighed. “Rex, I’ve already seen it several times, and it’s really nice, and much bigger than average.”

  He laughed. “Not that.” Shaking his head, he steered her toward the back exit. “This is something really special.”

  He pushed open a door and led her out onto a deck. The bamboo platform spanned the entire length of the building, and had an overhanging thatch awning. Tiki torches provided light, and the salty tang of the Gulf breeze swirled around them like an old friend.

  Katya watched as a handful of couples swayed together to Linda Ronstadt’s Ooh Baby, Baby. There was something almost hypnotic about the combination of the torches, the ocean air, and the music. Katya found herself rocking slowly to the rhythm of the song.

  “Can I have this dance?”

  She glanced up to see Rex looking down at her. “It would be my pleasure.”

  She followed him onto the dance floor and held her breath as he guided her into a slow dance. His arms enfolded her, and she could feel every inch of him pressed against her.

  “This is one way to solve that pesky physical contact issue.” Rex brushed the top of her head with his lips, stirring the embers of the fire he’d stoked inside her.

  She rested her cheek against his chest, inhaling his scent, reveling in the feel of his body, the hardness of it, the barely leashed strength, the sheer maleness of him.

  A contented sigh escaped from her lips, and for once in her life, she gave herself over to the moment. No second guessing, no weighing of the pros and cons. Just her, just Rex, just this one perfect moment.

  She’d found Heaven in the arms of a vampire.

  Chapter 11

  Katya raced to keep up with Rex as he rushed down the hall of the office area at Crimson Hungers.

  “As much as I want to get you downstairs and in all sorts of interesting positions, I need to check in with security first,” he explained. “Someone should’ve been manning the back entrance.” They stopped in front of the employee break room. Rex gave the door a sharp rap and opened it.

  Katya peered over his shoulder. A cluster of black-clad vampire security guards, including Kadin, were hunched around a small television. A rerun of The Brady Bunch danced across the screen.

  “Kadin, who was supposed to be working the back entrance tonight?” Rex was all authority.

  “That would be Clive, boss.” Kadin’s eyes never left the screen.

  “Clive?” Rex’s tone grew harsher.

  A wiry blond vampire stood up. “Yes, boss?”

  “You left the back door unattended.” Rex leaned against the door frame. “If you want to keep your job, I suggest you get back to your post.”

  “But, boss,” Clive whined, “Bobby and Cindy are lost at the Grand Canyon, and Alice isn’t sure how to find them!”

  “Clive, you’re trying my patience.” Rex jerked his thumb toward the back entrance. “Get to it.”

  Clive raised his hand in a salute. “Yes, sir.”

  “As for the rest of you…” Rex tapped his cowboy boot against the floor. “… don’t you all have something better to do than watch TV?”

  A general rumble of acquiescence went through the assembled group. Rex turned to leave. “Agent Stern and I are turning in early.” He gave Katya a significant look. “See to it that we’re not disturbed.”

  “You got it, boss.” Kadin switched off the television.

  She and Rex made their way to his basement quarters, undressing each other as they went. By the time they reached the bedroom door, they were a tumbling mass of buttons flying, zippers sliding down, and lips colliding in fevered kisses.

  Rex lifted her in his arms and kicked the door shut behind them as he carried her into the room. Katya held her breath, and when he dropped her onto the bed, she pulled him down with her, both of her hands knotted in his black T-shirt.

  His lips sought hers again, his tongue seeking entrance to her mouth. She opened for him, letting him lead the kiss. Running her hands up his chest and over his shoulders, she twined the silken strands of his hair around her fingers.

  He arranged himself above her, sliding his hands over her silk top, cradling her breasts against his palms. His eyes met hers in the dimly lit room, and her breath caught in her throat.

  “Why does this feel like the first time we’ve made love?” She stroked the side of his face with her hand, feeling his stubble rasp beneath her fingers.

  His gaze burned into hers. “Maybe it is.” He lowered his head, capturing her lips again.

  He finished helping her out of her clothes like a treasure hunter unveiling a long-sought jewel. His hands roamed her body, finding erogenous zones she hadn’t been aware of possessing. He rained kisses down the back of her neck, over her belly, along her inner thighs.

  She leaned back on the pillow and sighed with bliss. It was no longer about the accident that had brought them together. They weren’t a vampire and a swan feeding each other. Tonight, they were a man and a woman dangling dangerously over the precipice of falling in love.

  She pulled his T-shirt off, revealing the body she’d come to think of as an extension of her own. Hungry for the feel of him, she tugged at his jeans. He kicked off his boots and helped her relieve him of the rest of his clothes, then settled between her legs again.

  “Katya.” He held her face in his hands, his lips hovering over hers. “I’m feeling something here.”

  “I know.” She stroked her hands over his face. “I’m feeling it, too.”

  He answered her with his lips, another kiss burning its way straight through her, all the way to her soul. His lips traveled across her chest until they wrapped around one nipple.

  She ran her fingers through his hair, arching her back as he sucked the tight bud until pleasure ran like an electric current through her.

  He nipped at her with his fangs, using them to awaken every nerve they touched.

  He moved to the other breast, teasing it with his fangs before taking the nipple into his mouth. His expert handling of her nipples had her on the edge of orgasm.

  But he wasn’t done torturing her yet. He left a trail of love bites from her breasts to her belly, then lower until he reached the apex of her thighs.

  She hissed out a breath when he raked his fangs along her inner thigh, moving so close to the aching spot that cried out for his attention, and then moving away.

  Every place his fangs touched practically sizzled with pleasure, and he hadn’t even bitten her, not really. It had to make a girl wonder just how those fangs would feel sinking into her neck.

  But before she could follow that train of thought, she felt his fingers tracing over her mound. She arched her hips, silently pleading for more. He answered, stroking her clit expertly with his thumb while he slid a finger inside her.

  “Rex…” Her hips rose and fell as he stimulated the sensitive spot on her inner wall. “What are you trying to do to me?”

&nb
sp; “Drive you out of your mind with bliss.” He added a second finger to the first, and her body tightened with almost unbearable tension. “Is it working yet?”

  “Can’t you tell?” She felt wetness seeping down her thighs.

  “I think I want to make you come this way first.” His thumb rubbed her clit slowly, sending a ripple of sensation though her. “You’re so close already that it wouldn’t take much to push you over the edge.” He crooked his finger inside her, and her already quivering channel clenched around his fingers, sending her into an orgasm.

  The spasms were sharp and intense. She would’ve been sated if she hadn’t wanted to feel him inside her so badly.

  When the aftershocks subsided, he was still looking down at her, hunger altering the pupils of his eyes, letting her know that he wanted her as much as she wanted him. “Rex… please.” She spread her legs further. “Make love to me.”

  “Katya.” He breathed her name, sliding his shaft into her tight sheath until he was seated to the hilt.

  He held still inside her, locking gazes with her. Eternity hung between them, as delicate as a spider’s web. The intimacy was more than she could comprehend, and the need to feel him moving in and out of her body overrode the last vestiges of her of self-control.

  She thrust her hips beneath him, inching backwards until his cock had slid halfway out of her.

  “Oh, no you don’t.” He cuffed her wrists with his hands and pinned them over her head. “Two can play that game, Tiger.”

  He pushed his hips forward, burying his cock inside her as deeply as it would go. She let out a low moan. With every thrust, their bodies rose and fell together, a symphony of physical passion in perfect harmony.

  Insatiable for the feel of him, she wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him deeper. He shifted his hips until he touched that spot inside her that heightened her pleasure, and with each thrust, he ground himself against her clitoris.

  “Does your bite feel as good on the neck as it does everywhere else?” Her voice shook with a potent mixture of emotion and arousal.

  He stilled inside her, his breath coming in rapid gasps. “Better.”

  “I nearly came every time you nipped me with those fangs.” She undulated beneath him.

  “You think you might be ready for the full mojo?” He curled his top lip up at the corner, revealing fully extended fangs.

  A tremor ran through her, part fear and part anticipation. “Will it hurt?”

  He rubbed his pelvis against her, stimulating her clit to perfection. “Yes… in a really good way.”

  She was so turned on, the lines between pleasure and pain had blurred. And if it did feel even half as good as those love bites had felt…”Do it.”

  “Now?” His thrusts slowed almost to a halt.

  “Now.” She crossed her ankles behind his back, holding him captive.

  He brought up one hand, fisting it in her hair. She drew in a startled breath when he turned her head, baring her neck to him. As he slowly withdrew his shaft from her, he opened his mouth, his fangs glistening white in the dimness.

  Then all at once, he slammed back into her, sinking his fangs deeply into her neck at the same time.

  The sensations took possession of her. His fangs brought only the briefest instant of pain. Everything that followed was sheer euphoria. Each movement of his lips on her neck combined with the thrusts of his cock inside her until she was caught in an endless spiral of pleasure, one orgasm rising and peaking, only to fade into the beginning of another. She rocked beneath him, the prisoner of her own thundering climaxes.

  She could feel him reaching his own release, and the warmth of his come filling her. He thrust a few more times, riding out the final contractions, then collapsed on top of her.

  He slowly withdrew his fangs from her neck, and lapped at the tiny wound with his tongue until the pain of removal faded.

  “You were right.” He rolled over onto his back, pulling her on top of him. “We hadn’t made love before.”

  “But we have now.” She planted a kiss on his lips.

  Had they ever.

  * * *

  How had this woman swept into his life and changed it in two short nights? If ever a fallen angel had been given a second shot at Heaven, it had to be him. Rex cradled Katya against him, knowing that he’d never be able to walk away now, not after what they’d just shared. Accident or not, they belonged to each other.

  How could she not see that they belonged to each other, body, heart, and soul?

  “Do you have any more juice in your fridge?” She propped up on one elbow to look down at him. “I feel the need for sustenance.”

  “Does that mean that my awesome sexual skills really took it out of you?” He grinned up at her.

  She rolled her eyes. “You know you took it out of me. It’ll probably take a gallon of juice to make up for all the blood you drank.”

  He couldn’t stop smiling at her. “What can I say? You’re very tasty.”

  “And that…” She wiggled out from under the sheet, “… has to be one of the more interesting compliments I’ve ever received.”

  “Stay put, I’ll get your juice.” He made a motion to climb out of bed.

  “No, I’m already halfway up.” She grabbed his T-shirt from where it had fallen onto the floor and pulled it over her head. “I’d offer to get you a bottle of Vlad’s, but I have no idea where you’d put it.”

  He tossed a pillow at her. “I didn’t drink that much.”

  She laughed. “Tell it to my neck tomorrow.” She rubbed at the bite mark with her fingers of one hand and tossed the pillow back at him with the other, knocking her silver necklace off the nightstand in the process.

  “Do you see it?” He leaned across the bed, looking at the glint of silver on the red carpet.

  “Yep.” She took a step toward the spot where the necklace lay and stumbled.

  “I’ve got you.” Rex caught her by the wrist at vampire speed, just as she wrapped her fingers around the silver chain.

  Everything happened at once, seemingly in slow motion and at high speed rolled into one. A jolt of energy zapped through Katya straight into Rex, carrying with it a sound like gunfire.

  White light blinded him, and then the world went black.

  Chapter 12

  “What the hell was that?” Katya struggled to sit up on the carpet, shaking her head. She hadn’t felt so utterly rotten since the morning after her twenty-first birthday.

  “It felt like another collision.” Rex’s voice was thick and disoriented. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  Katya heaved herself up from the floor and crawled onto the bed. “I was picking up my necklace.” She looked down to find the silver chain and Star of David pendant in her tightly closed fist. “I stumbled and you grabbed me…”

  “Then everything blew up.” Rex stood up and put his jeans back on.

  “Maybe it had something to do with the silver?” She stared down at the necklace. “Are you highly sensitive to it?”

  “Not as much as a younger vampire, but I can’t touch it without getting burned.” He eased back down onto the other side of the bed.

  “That had to be it, though.” She twirled the chain around her finger. “What else could it be?”

  “You’re probably right.” He frowned, looking like anything but someone recovering from sensational sex. Had round two of their energy collision ruined the night for him? Katya sighed and put the necklace back down on the bedside table.

  “I’m getting that juice. I probably need it more than ever now.” She got to her feet with difficulty. “You want to rethink that bottle of Vlad’s?”

  He folded his arms over his chest and averted his eyes from her. “Yeah, I’ll take one of whatever’s in there. Don’t worry about heating it.”

  She retrieved the two bottles from his fridge and padded on her bare feet back to the bed, holding the container of Vlad’s a careful distance away from herself. “Isn’t th
is stuff really gross when it’s cold?” She held the red bottle out to him.

  He shrugged, taking the bottle from her. “I’ve had worse, believe me.” He twisted the cap off and tossed it onto his nightstand. “Before the days of synthetic blood, I drank from rats, crows, whatever I could dredge up when I didn’t have a swan.”

  A knot twisted somewhere deep inside her. “So I’m not your first swan.”

  His gaze shot up to her face. “They weren’t high order swans, like you. They were just… donors.”

  And what had he suggested she become? A booty call? What was that French term he had used… a liaison dangereuse?

  Had she been just another in a long line of suck ’n fucks for him?

  Now that he’d had her blood, what use would he have for her, if their energy connection didn’t force them to be together?

  “Have you noticed something?” He sat his empty bottle on the nightstand.

  “What?” She’d been too lost in her own thoughts to notice much of anything.

  “We’ve gone several minutes without touching.” His brows knit together. “Are you feeling withdrawal?”

  She thought for a minute. “Other than feeling kind of wiped out, I feel normal.”

  “Same here.” He flopped back onto his pillow. “You think we reversed our accident just now?”

  She considered everything, the events of the past two days running through her mind like a silent film. “Is that even possible?”

  He shrugged. “Mother Rachel said this thing could reverse itself at any time.”

  “Yeah, she also said it could last for years.” Katya looked down at her bottle of juice. It wasn’t as good as the bottle she’d had when they’d risen. That one had tasted like heavenly ambrosia. This one tasted like… juice.

  And if there was even a possibility that their condition had reversed itself, she should feel elated. Overjoyed. Ready to jump for joy. Why didn’t she? Wasn’t this exactly what she’d been telling herself that she wanted?

  Why couldn’t she muster up any other emotion but extreme disappointment?