The Nightlife: London (Urban Fantasy Romance) (The Nightlife Series)

by Luedke, Travis

  “Oh god, I love you so much, Michelle!” He bit her neck deep and clamped on, sucking blood hard and fast as he emptied himself inside her, giving and taking, punishing her with love.

  * * * *

  Michelle held onto Aaron desperately, absorbing all his pummeling passions, never once complaining at the wonderful hurt. She never complained he was too rough. Though she had developed a mental privacy wall, and could keep him out of her mind, she rarely did.

  She knew Aaron sensed her pain, but he also sensed that she liked it rough, mostly.

  She needed this. She needed to take all of him, every ounce he could dish out. His bond with Urvashi had changed him. He had grown stronger, more virile and aggressive. Although subservient to that damn fallen-angel-bitch of a master, Aaron had begun to assume the dominant role with Michelle. She wouldn’t have it any other way.

  He was no longer bound to her commands. Her power over him had been stripped away in the moment of her death. Complaints would only serve to drive him off, and she feared this more than anything. Only love kept them together. She hadn’t truly understood what Aaron meant to her until he disappeared in Paris. Now that she had him back, she couldn’t imagine losing him again.

  Although it hurt, she could take it and heal up right as ready by the following evening. She had endured much worse from her former master, without the benefit of affection. Michelle made herself into Aaron’s perfect lover, willing to do or give anything he might want. There was no one else in the world like him, and she gladly took everything he had to give, even pain. Quivering and moaning, throbbing pleasure and soreness overlapping into ecstasy, she clung to him like a woman drowning.

  Growling, breathing heavy, he slowly surfaced from his frenzy. “I did it again didn’t I?” She nodded. Her claws sank deep into the flesh of his shoulders as she clung to him, too exhausted to speak.

  He carried her from the wall to the bed and gingerly laid her down, exercising the care and caution he had momentarily forgotten in their mad tussle. The best part, he was still buried in her, right where she wanted him.

  “I’m sorry, Michelle. I can’t get enough of you. It’s like I need you so badly, I am fighting to get as far inside you as I can.”

  “Oui.” She managed the one word acknowledgment. He had definitely reached deep inside her. She was still high on him, from his bite, his cock, still twitching with the aftershocks.

  Her arms and legs felt boneless. The man could screw her into a complete stupor. His venom seemed more potent. His bite made her rummy, like being drunk on hard liquor.

  When Aaron took Urvashi’s blood in Paris, he gained an extra measure of strength, and few other things. Michelle had hoped he might provide her the same extra measure of strength, but so far the condition was not contagious. Aaron, alone, retained the benefits of Urvashi’s blood.

  * * * *

  He lay in heaven, deep in Michelle. He wished he could stay between her thighs for the rest of eternity. Though she wouldn’t say it, her whimpers spoke volumes. He had fucked her raw expressing his love.

  {{Are you finished? I have been waiting.}} Urvashi’s voice rang in his mind and destroyed his hard won bliss.

  He had tried to keep her out of his mind, to hold onto some shred of privacy, but he knew the fallen angel had been watching and he sensed her pleasure at his predicament.

  {{You’ve enjoyed enough of her. Now come to me, we must talk.}}

  Unspoken, but fully implied, was the fact that Aaron was not done performing tonight. Urvashi wanted hers, and she would demand everything he could give, no holding back.

  Michelle watched his eyes, seeing the moment his gaze turned inward, distracted. “She’s in your head again. Putaine de merde! Tell her if she wants to watch, I charge two thousand an hour.”

  He chuckled then pulled his hips back, making her gasp and shudder.

  “Oye …” She grunted and gritted her teeth as he slowly slid out. All that slick, wet love oozed out around her thighs as she lay exhausted, legs spread wide in invitation.

  God, she made him hard again, seeing her so vulnerable, rosy pink, wet and ready. She would let him, too, but that wouldn’t be fair.

  Perhaps it was better to work off his need for Michelle on Urvashi. She didn’t seem to mind when he called out the wrong name. Urvashi wanted his cock and obedience, and perhaps something else she wouldn’t admit to.

  “Michelle, love, you’re worth every penny of two thousand an hour.” He gave her a lingering kiss. “I want nothing more than to stay, but I must speak to Urvashi. Duty calls.”

  Michelle snagged him before he could move off the bed. She pulled him down into a kiss, her tongue searching, plunging in and around his mouth, scraping on his sharp fangs.

  When he resisted, she let up and pegged him with an unfamiliar look. A look of uncertainty, maybe even fear? “Promise you will never let her come between us.”

  “I promise. All the fallen angels in the world couldn’t keep us apart.” The words had become a nightly ritual. A smile formed on his lips as she fingered herself, a blatant invitation for more.

  He got up quickly before she tempted him to hurt her further. He threw on a bath robe, slipped out the door and headed down the hall towards Urvashi’s suite. His new master preferred a room on the same floor, keeping him on a short leash.

  Staying at The Knightsbridge was like living in a real English manor. Traversing the hallways barefoot, in nothing but his robe, he expected to run into a frowning English butler in a three piece suit. Obviously decorated by professional designers, the walls, floors, and furniture were a collage of subdued pastel colors. A hotel straight out of Martha Stewart magazine. At four hundred pounds a night, you’d think the puke-beige colored pillows were weaved with gold. Good thing Michelle was paying the bill, she could definitely afford it.

  Urvashi answered her suite door in a see-through, white, silk robe and a sly grin.

  “You called?” He smiled, wishing he was back with Michelle. But hey, any man could find pleasure with Urvashi. The gossamer robe barely hid Urvashi’s shapely, golden-tanned curves, full, lush breasts and thighs, and somehow, she always fit his cock like a glove. Did she shapeshift to mold to him precisely? He often wondered.

  No matter how much he loved Michelle, he couldn’t deny the sublime pleasure Urvashi offered. Sex with her revitalized him, like plugging into a battery, literally. An electric exchange crackled his skin wherever they touched.

  She sniffed at his neck as he stepped up for a hug. “You could have showered. If I wanted her pussy in my face, I would fuck her myself.”

  “Yeah, she asked me to remind you she charges two thousand an hour.” He couldn’t help a roguish grin as Urvashi rolled her almond eyes at him. When she started untying his robe, he placed his hand over hers. “Wait. We need to talk first. Business before pleasure.”

  She pursed her lips and kissed him, brushing a static tingle oh-so-gently over the ridge of his lips.

  Aaron faced his Persian sorceress, wishing he could pierce her mind like everyone else. Urvashi had a privacy wall, a solid block. And she never let him in – not voluntarily – not since their first meeting, when he had inadvertently caught a glimpse of several thousand years in the life of a fallen angel. She had brought him to his knees with the crushing revelations of her experiences throughout human history. When she realized her mistake, she shut that door in his face, permanently cut off.

  He sighed at the layers of strangeness and complexity in his life. Itching to return to Michelle, Aaron got down to business. “Why would Mike need a gun? What’s he worried about? Think he knows we’re looking for him?”

  “He is American. They collect guns like I collect shoes.” She shrugged. “You should be more concerned about the Albanians. The UN considers Albanian mafia to be terrorists. They work in large family clans, very difficult to penetrate.” Her dark eyes pierced him with the innuendo.

  When she found him in Paris, he watched her shapeshift into this Ki
m Kardashian persona. Urvashi seemed to enjoy wearing the skin of Kim Kardashian. Well maybe not exactly Kim, but very close.

  Urvashi-Kim ran her fingers down his chest in an electric tickle of energy. She had a thing for touching him. Not really affection, just lust. Lots and lots of lust. Yet he suspected Urvashi’s constant touchy-feely indicated an ulterior motive. Like stealing a pinch of his energy? Maybe more than a pinch?

  “You’re not ready to face these people, Aaron. Not without a massacre. You need professional help.”

  “Michelle’s not gonna like that.” He shook his head. He had maintained peace by keeping the ladies away from each other. Bringing Urvashi into the investigation directly would quickly create problems.

  His life had become a juggling act, and there were only so many balls he could keep in the air before they all crashed into each other.

  Urvashi purred in his ear, brushing her succulent lips over his skin. “Not me.” She slid her tingling fingertips inside his robe, and reached for his cock. “I have friends who can help.” Her warm magical hands stroked him to a rock-hard erection in seconds.

  Her tantalizing power permeated through his cock and balls, worked through his whole body. She made him feel more alive than ever before. Their robes fell to the floor and she went down on her knees.

  Sniffing his cock, she teased with feather soft licks. “Tomorrow night, bring your pet. If I have to smell her sex all over you, I might as well enjoy it too.”

  * * * *

  Chapter 3

  The next evening, right after sunset, lounging on golden-weaved pillows in their pastel striped hotel suite, Aaron explained Urvashi’s plans to Michelle. She reacted as expected – not happy.

  “What is she doing now? Chienne fou. She will kill us all.” Despite her ire, Michelle pecked Aaron on the cheek and held his chin, pinning him with her vivid, emerald green gaze. Her flawless pale skin, elegant, patrician features and golden-blonde hair had never failed to hold his attention, but it was her eyes that always snared him.

  “Michelle, you have to trust her. I trust her.” He wished he could share his connection to Urvashi with Michelle, the way they used to share everything.

  “You are blinded by your bond to her. For me, is simple. She does not love you and I do.”

  “This has nothing to do with love. It’s about getting the job done. You’ve been hot to find Michael Jamison for weeks. We’ve gotten nowhere until last night. This is our first lead since he killed that bank teller.”

  Although the BBC news declared the woman’s death a cardiac arrest, Urvashi had ferreted out the truth. The woman had been left in the alley, short a couple pints of blood, with telltale puncture wounds on her neck. Aaron continually wondered why Jamison murdered the bank teller. Maybe he simply couldn’t stop feeding until he killed her, an accident of sorts.

  Michelle pulled Aaron’s face to her, nose to nose. “Oui, mon amour, we will find him soon enough. But I have always worked alone. I trust no one but you.”

  He took her hands, curling his fingers with hers. Michelle had gone through hell with her master, Julian, decades ago. The man had fucked her head up royally.

  “That was the life Julian taught you. But it is not our life. Michelle, I want to live, with you, for real. No more hiding in nightclubs and back alleys. We are going to start building a life, connecting with people, trusting people. We’ll start with Urvashi. My father said people deserve the benefit of the doubt until they prove otherwise. Trust is a two-way street. You have to give to receive.”

  “You cannot see her. She is dangerous to you, like we are dangerous to people. And you are blind to her as people are blind to us.”

  “I know things about her you don’t understand. She is ancient, older than even she knows. But beneath all those hundreds of years lies a person, a woman, and she can be trusted. I believe she is worthy of our trust.”

  “How do you know she is a woman? Is a mask. She can change shape. She is not human. I smell her. I see her aura. She is something else. A fallen angel? Is très mal. I have not lived a hundred years by being stupid. She is dangerous.”

  “Okay, even if you’re right, it doesn’t change anything. I am bound to her. We have to find a way to make the best of it.”

  Urvashi entered Aaron and Michelle’s hotel suite with divinely impeccable timing.

  Michelle snarled, “Quand on parle du loup!” Speak of the devil.

  Urvashi held her hands in the air with an exultant grin. “And here I am.”

  “Ladies, can’t we just get along?” One of these days he’d have a wicked catfight on his hands. And it’d be ugly. Inevitable.

  “Of course. I just came to make sure you two were ready for our next big adventure.” Urvashi’s static powered fingertips traced his shoulder. “I hope you appreciate how much trouble you have been. Beyond her.” Urvashi pointed towards Michelle, as if it was so horrible to tolerate her presence. Aaron’s autonomy with Michelle had been granted by Urvashi, begrudgingly, at his steadfast insistence.

  The severity of his master’s eyes spoke to serious business. “I called in favors on this one. Albanians are not easy to deal with. But I happen to know people who spent some time in Kosovo. They have dealt with the KLA and the mafia families before.”

  “Friends in low places?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. We meet them tomorrow night. Bring the katanas.”

  “What good are swords against guns?”

  “Just bring them.”

  * * * *

  Chapter 4

  The following night Urvashi, Aaron, and Michelle piled into a taxi to go for a ride. Michelle patted Aaron’s leg with a knowing smile when Urvashi directed the taxi driver back to Soho. Aaron recalled Michelle’s little tutorial the first time they hit that neighborhood. “This is the cesspit of London. Strip clubs, prostitution, black market deals. It will be fun.” She had grinned in anticipation.

  Aaron thought it would be interesting at the very least. “Sounds like my kinda place.”

  Now, Urvashi was taking them back to the cesspit, to her friends.

  Staring out the taxi window, he took it all in as they passed through Chinatown and into Soho. He couldn’t really tell the difference from one to another, it all looked much the same. The sign high up on a wall said ‘Brewer Street.’

  He wriggled, trying to get comfortable with a katana sheath digging into his back. Fucking swords. How crazy is that? Urvashi had trained him with a katana for several weeks in Paris, but since coming to London to hunt Jamison, they’d had no practice time.

  “Who are these people?”

  Urvashi ignored him.

  “Vash, who are we meeting?”

  “As you said, ‘Friends in low places,’ mercenaries.”

  “Oh, I bet the swords will really impress them.”

  “Perhaps.”

  Michelle stayed silent, wrapped around his arm. He’d been pressuring her hard to maintain congeniality with Urvashi. She kept her eyes fixed on the passing scene outside.

  The taxi stopped at a boarded up storefront with apartments above. The seemingly abandoned building was sandwiched between a Thai massage parlor and a sex shop showcasing brilliant red BDSM latex and all kinds of interesting accessories. The place caught his eye immediately.

  He tapped at the glass, pointing at the sex shop, and teased, “Are those nipple clamps? That’s just what you need, Michelle, a crotchless latex bodysuit, and electrified nipple clamps.”

  She grinned, no objections. He knew she’d buy it if he asked her to. As of late, Michelle seemed to have lost the ability to say no to him. She’d wear it too. Oh so tempting.

  “Whoever said the English are conservative must have missed Brewer Street.”

  Icy fingers of wind howled and scraped across Aaron’s exposed face and ears as he stepped out into the sidewalk, the ladies right behind him. Burrowing into the high collar of his pea coat to ward off the wind-chill, he thought they should be in Miami, on the beach, feedin
g on drunken tourists. England was a cold bitch in December.

  Urvashi tried the door and found it unlocked. “Come, they are waiting for us.”

  The wind followed them in and whisked the dust off the floors of the mostly vacant room. To one side hung a heavy boxing bag and a faded target board mounted on the wall. Two knives stood out from the center of the bullseye.

  Maybe the swords were a good idea.

  A large grey-blond man sauntered in and stared at them with a steely gaze. “Well, what do we have here? A couple of leeches? Americans suck. But American vampires ...”

  “Definitely leeches.” A dark-haired woman with pale skin and a similar grey-blue gaze stepped out from behind the man to glare at the trio. “Smells like walking death.”

  Urvashi slid up on the man, her electric fingers stroking over his shoulders to embrace him in a warm hug. “It’s been a while, Ivan. Please have patience. Trust me.”

  Aaron snorted derision. “I don’t know what you smell, but this dusty shithole reeks of wet dog.” He glanced around looking for the mangy mutt.

  Both Ivan and the woman growled, as if they’d been personally offended. “You are asking much, woman.” Ivan complained to Urvashi as he stared down Aaron and Michelle.

  “So glad to meet your friends, Urvashi.” Aaron wondered why everything with Urvashi had to be so damn complicated.

  Urvashi held Ivan’s scruffy chin like that of a petulant child, a three hundred pound muscle-bound, petulant child. “If you want to hunt a vampire, then you will have to work with these two.”

  “Why not kill all three?” Ivan winked at Aaron and Michelle.

  As the word kill left Ivan’s lips, Aaron snapped both swords down from the inverted sheaths strapped to the center of his back, his hands suddenly full of surgical-sharp Japanese steel. “I’d just as soon cut you in half right now.”