My Familiar Stranger

by Victoria Danann

  “OK. Must bring partner. Rules. Behave yourself.”

  She had to talk into Ram’s ear to be heard above the noise in the club. He looked at his watch and nodded.

  It was chilly, but not as cold as it had been the night before when they had been carefree sightseers. They jogged the three blocks to the alley because they couldn’t be gone long. They might be undercover, but jobs still come with demands.

  Baka was waiting.

  “Hey,” Elora panted. “What’s up? We’ve got five minutes before we have to start back.”

  “I finished remapping the underground. It’s pretty much the same as it was in the twenties except that somebody has updated the lighting with low energy, storm shelter fixtures. When I reported to your Sovereign yesterday, he ordered me to take E Team on a reconnaissance tour since you had the day off. I told him I thought that was a bad idea. If we were spotted by vampire we’d lose the element of surprise when we need it.

  He said do it anyway. So I took them down for an hour yesterday afternoon. We didn’t encounter vampire, but there are indications that the tunnel system is... in use.”

  “You mean you saw signs of remains?”

  Ram ran a hand through his hair and turned away. “And why are you tellin’ us this then?”

  Baka’s brows knit together. “Because something about E Team doesn’t feel right." He shook his head a little. "Hunches are the hardest sort of thing to explain.”

  Ram glanced at Elora. “Gotta go.”

  Baka looked between them. “Watch out for the entrance. It’s hidden in the wall at the end of the hallway where the restrooms are.”

  “Show me,” Elora said.

  Ram went back to the bar while Baka led Elora toward the tunnel entrance. Halfway down the hall Baka saw movement and knew vampire were emerging from the tunnel, coming their way. He grabbed Elora and shoved her against the wall, covering her body with his. He whispered in her ear giving her unwelcome and untimely shivers.

  “Vampire incoming. If they look close they’ll think I’m an adversary. So make this look good.”

  Taking hold of her waist with both hands, he jerked her up the wall to where they were at eye level and pushed her back again holding her in place with the press of his body. Her legs wound around him in an involuntary reflex. Before she could contemplate the fact that his body heat was surprising, he brushed his lips against hers. She jerked back bumping her head on the wall behind her, but not hard enough to do damage.

  Staring at his mouth an inch away, she swallowed and said in a voice that sounded too raspy to be her own, “If you bite me, I will stake you.”

  He drew back just far enough so there would be no mistaking his meaning. “If I bite you, I'll stake myself.”

  This time his mouth covered hers with demand. For a minute she forgot about everything except the way he was crushing her mouth, ferociously, with an urgency that could only be fueled by desperation. She couldn’t breathe, but didn’t care. He pressed closer so that she could feel the erection he was subtly rocking into her core. While she went mindless, lost in the intensity of the desire coming off of him in waves, two vampire walked behind them.

  After they passed, she tore her mouth away and gasped for air.

  Just before he eased back, he whispered, "So warm," still holding her up until she could regain her footing. “I don’t expect you to love me, Elora.”

  He was still clutching her around the waist, not wanting to let her go, like he was afraid he would never be this close again.

  Her voice sounded hoarse when she spoke. “We need to let the rest of my team know that we've got biters in the building.”

  Baka stepped back with obvious reluctance and dropped his hands without another word.

  Elora went straight to the bar. Ram’s eyes swept over the flush on her face and zeroed in on telltale swollen lips. His eyes flashed with anger as clear and sudden as a lightning strike. She'd never seen him really mad before.

  “What the bloody hell, Elora!”

  “Two vampire came in while we were in the hallway. A couple of minutes ago. We’ve got to find them.”

  B Team searched all three floors of the Club, the restrooms, the kitchen, and the perimeter for three blocks, but did not find vampire. Elora waited with dread, expecting Ram to bring up the subject of what happened in the hallway, but he had apparently decided to let it pass.

  They finished their shifts, caught a whister back to the Unit and, as was their custom, stopped in the lounge to share a drink before calling it a night. E Team was sitting around the fire pit just outside on the lounge veranda. Storm suggested they join them and find out what they learned from their tour of the tunnels.

  After a few minutes Ghost rose and started inside. “Anybody need anything while I’m up?”

  Elora said, “Yeah. My Hot Butter Bacardi should be up if you don’t mind grabbing it.”

  “Done,” he said.

  Half an hour later, Elora was having trouble paying attention and starting to feel a discomfiting tingle paired with a twinge of anxiety. She tried to shake it off, but the feelings were intensifying by the minute. Finally she leaned over.

  “Ram?”

  “Hmmm?” Ram was distracted, noting that E Team was being a little tight lipped about their experience in the tunnels, which was odd.

  Elora leaned over, turned her face away from the group and whispered next to Ram’s ear with a hint of urgency.

  “I need help. You’ve got to get me home. Please.”

  She raised her voice and said to the group in general, “That’s it for me. Some of us actually work for a living delivering booze to letches and drunks. Have a good night then.”

  “Hold on. I’m goin’, too,” Ram said and the others said a collective good night.

  When the elevator doors closed, he looked at Elora.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Not sure, but I’m scared that, I think maybe… aphrodisiac.”

  He took her by the shoulders and turned her toward him so he could get a good look at her face and know if she was joking. He must have seen something disturbing in her eyes. “Fuck.”

  “Exactly.”

  She was becoming more unsettled, even a little afraid, like she was on the verge of losing an internal struggle.

  Ram’s mind was racing.

  Out loud he said, “Okay. We’ll figure somethin’ out.” What in Paddy’s name will we figure out? Shit.

  By the time they reached her door, she was breathing hard. Ram punched in her code, which he knew as well as his own, and opened the door. He looked up and down the hallway to make sure that no one saw him going into Elora’s quarters this late at night or else there would be never-ending gossip, smirking, and cat calls. Humans.

  Once inside, she tore off her coat and let it fall to the floor. Ram was still trying to figure out what to do next when she grabbed the lapels of his leather jacket.

  “You’ve got to help me.”

  She was searching his face with a wild-eyed look bordering hysteria.

  “What do you mean?”

  Having never seen her exhibit any of these emotions before, Ram was looking alarmed himself.

  She made a noise of exasperation. “Don’t you dare pretend naïveté with me, Rammel Hawking. You bloody well know what I mean!”

  She couldn’t stop herself from touching any longer. She ran her hands over aching breasts, down her abdomen, and let a middle finger linger to massage the aching apex between her thighs.

  Ram gawked trying to ignore an unwanted, but suddenly very demanding erection.

  “No.” He ran his hand through his hair in frustration. “I do no’ want the first time to be like this.”

  Elora was unraveling, quickly moving from desperation to full blown panic. She was a bundle of need and nerve endings on fire without enough sexual experience to know what to ask for.

  “Ram! Either help me or get out of the way so I can find somebody else.”

  She
started toward the door. He was in front of her in a flash, blocking the way and exploding.

  “That’s no’ gonna happen!”

  Blackie whined, but decided to stay out of it. He withdrew to his pallet behind the dining desk and curled up. He was a very smart dog.

  Poised and preparing for a fight, Elora gave him a look that said, “Well then?”

  He took her face between his hands. The conflict had to be resolved and fast. On the one hand he had spent months suffering an obdurate lust for this woman, a craving with no respite, a relentless yearning nagging to be satisfied. On the other hand, taking advantage of his mate and dishonoring his partner were equally repelling.

  Growing impatient with his indecision, Elora started to jerk out of his hands, but he held firm. Her own frustration was clawing at him.

  “Shhhh. Hush now. I’m here.”

  Then, for the first time in his life, Rammel Hawking kissed a woman with his heart as well as his lips. The purity and sweetness of it hit such a profound note that it stunned even the drug into submission.

  For a moment, she was quiet and still, absorbing the age old message that kiss was sending, that Ram loves Elora. But, the second he drew back, the demand of the chemicals throbbing in her blood came bounding back with a vengeance.

  She seized him like a drowning man grabs onto a floatation device, feverishly coaxing his lips into an open mouthed kiss while pushing his jacket off his shoulders. That accomplished, she proceeded to rip the club logo tee open from neck to navel, exposing bare skin to the hands she was running down his chest and over the ridges in his abs, tracing the beckoning path of golden brown hair that disappeared below his waistband.

  The violence of having Ram’s clothes ripped from him was disconcerting, but compelling and powerfully erotic at the same time, combining to detonate a sexual charge that could no longer be denied. Conflict resolved. He unlocked the cage and freed his own beastly passion that had been crouching just below the surface, painfully, for far too long.

  Wave after wave of desire possessed him, demanding that he yield to his body’s hunger for kisses, for caresses, for the raw sensuality of skin on skin and the ultimate fantasy of plunging inside her.

  He pulled her tank top and bra strap down from her shoulder to reveal a creamy, plump breast and a rosy pink nipple that reminded him of the color of her cheeks when she came in from the cold. When he bent to lave the taut bud with a tongue that was both sweet and pink, just as he had promised that day that seemed so long ago in the hallway outside their apartments, she clutched his shoulders, threw her head back and moaned.

  Hearing that, his cock swelled against the confines of his jeans. When he straightened his back to undo the fly buttons, she reached to fondle the outline of his bulge which responded by throbbing harder as if it was trying to leap through the denim and into her hand. Hissing in a breath, he angled himself away saying, “We can no’ be doin’ that if there’s to be anythin’ left for you.”

  He backed her toward the bedroom, both of them tearing away clothes as they went. By the time they reached the bed, she was wearing only silk little boy undies and knee socks. In one fluid motion, he stripped back the bed covers leaving nothing but a crisp, white bottom sheet.

  He pressed her back to the bed and ran his hand up her inner thigh while resuming the tangle of his tongue with hers. There was plenty of room for fingers to slip between the loose, silk crotch of the lingerie and her own silky folds. The heat and moisture he found there fueled an exigency of his own that caused his breath to hitch.

  When Elora felt his fingers brush her sex for the first time, she gasped and arched up with such force that he was almost thrown back. He jerked the silky drawers down her legs and away from her body just as she began shedding tears and begging in earnest. He quickly cradled himself between her legs. Just as she sobbed the word, “Please,” he thrust into her and she cried out.

  Ram’s body responded like it had a mind of its own, propelling him into an upward spiral, his drive matching Elora’s. He was caught up in a whirlwind of frantic desire to ease his mate's need and it gave him the strength to concentrate on that instead of his own. His hips pistonned relentlessly until she came. Her muscles clenched, giving him permission to release, making him thunder her name as she milked him into oblivion.

  In the brief respite of afterglow, he lay on top of her knowing her extraordinary constitution could easily support his weight. He was so grateful he had lived long enough to understand what motivates men to write love songs and sonnets, long enough to grasp the difference between fucking and making love.

  “Ah, Ram. You feel so good.”

  He thought that, of all the ways that words could be put together, that had to be the most perfect sentence ever conceived. For a few minutes she was satisfied and passive. He kissed the tears away from her cheeks, stroked her hair, and assured her she was, without question, the most magnificent woman to ever have lived.

  Then the next surge began, signaled by low moans in the back of her throat and building in intensity. She grabbed for him. He rolled to the side and used his fingers to massage in tiny circles and thrusts, giving succor and easing her toward a release.

  Over the next two hours he made love to her twice more, once with Elora on hands and knees pushing back so hard he had to struggle to stay on the bed. That was supplemented with his deft fingers, trained to manipulate guitar strings with subtlety or strength, helping her to ride out three more electrifying orgasms, each increasingly taxing her already overwrought body.

  At one point he heard her phone ring in the other room, but let it go to message. Has to be a wrong number. Who would be calling at this hour?

  He lay on his back thinking he was so glad she had drifted off to sleep because no power on heaven or earth could stimulate another arousal. Then she started moaning in her sleep, so tired she was resisting waking, but eventually the drug won and her eyes flew open.

  She rolled toward Ram and grasped his flaccid penis, inanimate velvet, but was not deterred by the lack of response.

  “You truly will be the death of me.”

  She gave him a wicked smile he didn’t know she had in her arsenal of expressions. Then, without warning, fanfare, or foreplay, bent and sucked him into the heat of her mouth where her tongue began teasing a turgid response with lazy circular motions while she cupped and fondled his testicles.

  His eyes widened at the same time he gasped. His shaft bloomed to life like stop motion photography when she took him into her mouth and he laughed out loud in utter surprise.

  “Where did you learn to do that?”

  Her gaze locked on his she pulled her mouth away, keeping the suction strong so that her mouth made a pop on release. She smiled broadly.

  “Romance novels,” she said, looking very self-satisfied as she straddled him and fed the very erect reward for her effort into her very willing self. She began a leisurely glide with an air of conquest he would swear had nothing to do with aphrodisia. The frenzy had subsided. The look of panic was gone.

  He watched her undulating body with hooded eyes thinking there never had been a male so fortunate or a woman so perfect.

  “Beautiful,” he whispered.

  He had spent the wee hours worshiping his female, ministering to every part of body, weaving proclamations of love with murmurs of adoration and devotion. During the minutes when light was first breaking, a hint of pink and gold rising to overtake the gray, they lay on their sides facing each other. Her eyelids were heavy, trying to close, and he knew it was finally over.

  Her eyes opened suddenly like she’d forgotten something. She smiled ever so slightly, and whispered, “Thank you.”

  “Darlin’ girl,” he reached over and cupped the side of her face rubbing his thumb over the softness of her cheek one last time, “these have been the sweetest hours of my life.”

  When Ram woke he was spooning with Elora, his arm thrown around her protectively, covers pushed aside because of her highe
r body heat. Blackie was standing on his side of the bed behind him and whining to go out. He would have liked to spend time savoring waking to a naked Elora tucked into his lap, but Blackie was growing more insistent by the second. Thinking all else had failed, Blackie gave Ram a tentative lick on a butt cheek. Dogs have no sense of propriety.

  Ram jerked in surprise and turned to glower at the dog who, delighted to have gotten his message across, wagged his tail and turned in circles.

  Rising carefully so as not to disturb Elora, he pulled the covers back over her, then smiled at her soft snoring and at the way his clothes had been left in a haphazard trail. He suspected that everything, good, bad, or indifferent, was going to make him smile that day.

  He gathered up her clothes and arranged them neatly on a chair, turned down the flame in the gas fireplace, zipped up his leather jacket to cover what was left of his torn shirt, got Blackie’s leash and headed outside.

  When they returned, she was still sleeping peacefully. So he gave Blackie some kibble and kidney, refreshed his water and left a note on the bar. “Do not be embarrassed. - R.” As an afterthought, under that he wrote. “Or mad either.” Then he left quietly to go next door for a shower.

  When Elora woke the first thing she noticed was that the fire was going, which was odd because she didn’t sleep with it on. She then realized she was naked which was even more disturbing because she’d never slept that way in her life. It was also weird that the clothes she’d worn the night before were folded - sort of - on the chair by the closet. Again, something she wouldn’t do.

  Looking at the time she wondered why Blackie hadn’t awakened her for his regular morning outing. She pulled on her robe for modesty’s sake because Ram sometimes let himself in. On the way to check on Blackie she saw the note and groaned out loud. She reasoned that she must have gotten so drunk that she didn’t remember anything after stopping at the lounge. Hot Butter Bacardi indeed.

  She saw that Blackie had fresh water and food and guessed Ram had taken care of him. Then, she remembered her state of undress and the clothes left on the chair and thought, "Don’t be mad, huh."