One Bite with a Stranger

by Christine Warren

  “You can ask them at home. Come.”

  He took her by the hand, pushed up from his slouched position against the counter, and began to drag her toward the door.

  “Misha, cut it out!” She tugged against his grip and refused to go any further, for all the good it did her. “I’m serious. I’ve got to figure out what I’m going to do with you.”

  “I have several suggestions for you, which I will explain in very great detail. At home.”

  “I’ll just bet you will, but that was not what I meant.” She tried to inject a tone of firmness and resolution into her words, but that wasn’t so easy when the man swept her into his arms like Rhett Butler and began carrying her down the hall toward the opera lobby. “I just found out my lover is a vampire. I’ve got some decisions to make.”

  Dmitri tightened his arms around her until she could feel the heavy beat of his heart against her chest, but it was the tender heat in his eyes that captivated her.

  “Dushka,” he murmured, leaning down to brush his lips softly over hers. “I am afraid your decisions have already been made. I will not allow you to leave me. You are mine, and I intend to keep you.”

  Chapter 23

  “Keep me?” She blinked. It was twenty minutes and dozens of blocks later and Dmitri was just opening his front door to let them inside. It had taken her all that time to stop gaping like a rubbernecker at his unprecedented, dictatorial declaration. “You can’t just decide to keep me.”

  Dmitri opened the door to his gorgeous, old brownstone townhouse in a hideously expensive, historic neighborhood on the Upper East Side. “And who shall stop me?”

  “I will!”

  Dmitri ushered her into the entry hall, which was a dirty tactic on his part. How was she supposed to keep yelling at him when there was so much to look at in this beautiful place? The golden glow of the entry lights gleamed on the warm, hardwood floors and period wainscoted walls. Above the paneling, the walls were papered in the sort of embossed wall covering that had more in common with expensive fabric than generic wallpaper. She tore her eyes away from the artwork on the wall (which really looked like an original Degas charcoal sketch), and let Dmitri take her coat. He draped it along with his over a settee and took her arm.

  “Welcome to my home, dushka,” he said formally. He stared down at her and tucked a stray curl behind her ear. “You honor me with your presence.”

  She had to fight hard not to melt into a puddle of goo at his feet right then and there, but now wasn’t the time. There were a few important matters that she felt the two of them still needed to clear up.

  “Thank you, it’s lovely. But don’t think it’s going to distract me. I’m serious about this. I’ve never let a man tell me what I can and can’t do, and I’m not about to start now, Mr. Dictator. I’ve got a mind and a will of my own, and I am not your possession!”

  “But I have possessed you, milaya.”

  “Big frickin’ whoop,” she growled. “That doesn’t give you any rights to me. I might like to let you have your way in bed, Dmitri, but outside of it is a whole ’nother story. I’m sexually submissive. I’m not a doormat.”

  Dmitri sighed. “I never thought of you as a doormat. And I have never treated you as one. I love your fire and your stubborn streak. I would not want to rob you of those.”

  His words convinced her to at least stop shouting, not that she seemed to be making any sort of impression on him anyway. “Dmitri, if you love those things about me, then how can you ask me to let you make these sorts of decisions for me?”

  “Regina, how can you expect me to let you go?”

  His softly spoken words and expression of weary longing almost made her melt. She nearly gave up the ghost right there, nearly wrapped her thighs around him and said, “Sir, yes, sir.” But her mind saved her, beating her heart back into its rib cage and holding it at bay until they cleared the rest of this mess up once and for all.

  “Dmitri, you barely know me. We’ve spent a total of about twelve hours together over the course of one week. Why am I supposed to think you want me? For this?” Stepping close, she arched her hips against him and ignored the flash of pleasure it caused. “Somehow I don’t think you have much trouble getting laid.”

  His eyes flashed.

  “Do you think this is merely ‘getting laid’ to me?” he demanded, his frustration clear. “Do you think I feel this way with other women? That you would feel this way with other men? You are my mate. The woman I have never found in all my centuries of living. The one I thought I would never find. And I will not let you go.”

  That was almost good enough, Reggie acknowledged to herself over the flood of pleasure and wonder the statement caused; but almost didn’t count. She wanted the whole shebang. So she prodded the wounded lion.

  “Why not, Dmitri?” Self-preservation be damned. This was her future they were tap-dancing around. If she had to make him furious to get what she wanted, so be it. “Why not let me go? Why not write this off as a couple of nights of good sex and move on to your next conquest? Why not let me move on? Why not let me give Marc a call and arrange to have a real date this time? The kind that doesn’t end at the restaurant but in a bed or on the floor or in the back seat of his car. Why not?”

  “Because I love you!” he roared. “And no man will ever touch you but me!”

  A smile curved her mouth until she probably looked like an idiot. She didn’t care. Especially not when he swept her back into his arms and carried her up the stairs, stalking all the way like an angry bear.

  “Well, okay, then,” she murmured as he shouldered his way into a bedroom and somehow flicked on the light switch.

  “You are going to be my wife, and I refuse to hear—” He jerked to a stop mid-tirade and dropped her without warning onto a pillowy mattress. “What did you say?”

  “I said okay, you big goob.” She grinned. “I love you too. I don’t want anyone else to touch me. And incidentally, if that was a proposal—and if it was, it was a god-awful excuse for one—then the answer is yes.”

  “Yes?”

  “Yes,” she repeated and tugged impatiently at his hands, tumbling him down to the mattress beside her. “I’ll marry you, provided you ask me again properly. And since I plan to celebrate our five-hundredth anniversary at the very least, that means you’ll have to make me a vampire too. Let’s get started. I’m not really looking forward to the blood-drinking part, so do you think we could get that over with first?”

  The man looked positively shell-shocked. “You want to marry me and become a vampire.”

  “Isn’t that what I just said?” She finally tugged her hands free—or, he let her tug her hands free—and wrapped them around his neck. “Now let’s hurry up before I lose my nerve. Not about the marrying part, about the vampire part. I’m really not good with blood. I faint at the sight of it. I won’t have to look at blood when I drink it, will I? Because that might make things kind of tough for me…”

  While she babbled, Dmitri’s expression went from stunned to satisfied. When she finally trailed into silence, his expression shifted into its natural state—wicked.

  “You may keep your eyes closed if you wish,” he purred, pushing her thighs farther apart and settling his hips deeper into the cradle of hers. He hooked a hand into the neckline of her evening dress and tugged it down to expose her breasts to his avid gaze. “But if you do, you might miss something.”

  Reggie groaned and buried her fingers in his thick, dark hair when he lowered his head and latched on to her puckered nipple.

  “Oh, no,” she moaned. “I wouldn’t want to miss a thing.”

  Chapter 24

  No man should be able to make her this horny this fast, Reggie thought while she melted under Dmitri’s warm mouth and skilled fingers. And no man should be wearing his evening clothes while he got her this hot.

  Forcing her hands to give up their compelling nest in his hair, she slid them over his shoulders and between their bodies to the button
at his waistband.

  Dmitri chuckled and lifted his head from her breast. “Is someone feeling impatient?”

  “Someone is going to remove your pants with her teeth if you don’t get them off in the next fifteen seconds,” she grumbled, already tugging at the zipper.

  “Promises, promises,” he teased. Levering himself back onto his knees, he brushed her hands away and finished the job himself, stripping away his dark suit and dropping it over the side of the bed.

  Reggie had to take several deep breaths just to keep from screaming “Take me!” like the heroine of a melodramatic romance novel. Ye gods and little fishes. Would she ever get used to the way this man looked? From the top of his tousled, black hair to the soles of his leather-clad feet, the man oozed masculine perfection. And he was all hers. She offered up a quick and fervent prayer of thanks while he prowled toward her on his hands and knees.

  “Help,” she whispered, a small smile curving her lips while lust darkened her eyes. “I think I’m about to be ravished by a wicked vampire. Help. Somebody please help me.”

  “There is no one to hear your screams, girl.” He grinned at her, wicked and sexy, while he forced her legs wide apart and crawled between them. “I have you at my mercy.”

  “And will you be merciful?” Her question made it clear mercy was the last thing she wanted. She reached out to trace a line down the center of his chest before she wrapped her hand around his erect cock.

  “Not even if you beg, milka.”

  Reggie heaved a happy sigh. “Oh, good.”

  “Did you miss me, milaya?” Dmitri asked, his voice a stir of gravel and sin. “While we were apart, did your body ache for me?”

  His hand slid down to palm her breast for an instant before it continued over her stomach to cup her through the fabric of her dress. “Did you dream of me?”

  His touch drove the breath from her lungs. She arched her body, pressing herself against his hand.

  God, if he only knew what she had dreamed.

  “Tell me.”

  She tried, she really did, but the only sound she could make was a whimpering sort of gasp when he touched her. Her eyes drifted shut, and her lids became a screen on which the film of her fantasies ran in all their Technicolor glory.

  She heard Dmitri laugh, a low, rumbling sound. “Ah, milaya, you are a wonder to me. You have such passion behind your conventional little exterior.” His hand moved to the zipper at the back of her dress. “It pleases me.”

  The material gave way beneath his hands, and he tugged the dress away from her and tossed it aside, leaving her sprawled out before him in lewd abandon. She’d gone naked beneath the dress, since the bodice had a built-in bra, and she couldn’t seem to forget his order that she forgo panties even when she wasn’t with him, so now all she wore was her pale skin, her white flesh a stark contrast to the darkness of the man looming over her. She opened her eyes and found him staring, his glance like a pair of hands running over her, raising gooseflesh on her skin.

  “Lovely,” he murmured. He released her hands and sat back, resting against the carved headboard with indolent grace. “But I think I am intrigued by this dream you have had of me, dushka. I would like to make it come true for you. And for me.”

  His eyes glinted with an intensity his lazy drawl had managed to conceal. Reggie twisted into a sitting position and faced him. He raised his eyebrow and remained still. A thrill of excitement ran through her. He expected to lie back and be pleasured, like some pasha with his slave girl, and Reggie’s normally independent nature remained cheerfully silent, offering not a single protest. It shocked her to realize these fantasies of hers—these submissive feelings she’d always felt were so antithetical to her real personality and beliefs—were maybe not so foreign to her nature after all. They certainly felt completely natural in that moment.

  Taking a deep breath, she scooted forward across the mattress until she knelt before him, perched hesitantly between his thighs. She reached up to his collar and tugged loose the knot in his tie. Silk whispered against silk when she drew the fabric free and tossed it on the floor beside the bed. Dmitri merely smiled.

  Her fingers fumbled a little on his shirt studs, but eventually she got the tiny gold clasps unfastened. When she started to slide off the bed so she could set the studs down on the bedside table, Dmitri fastened his hands around her waist and stopped her.

  You are not permitted to get up just now.

  Reggie read the challenge in his eyes. Once he knew she understood, he dropped his hands. Nibbling her lower lip, Reggie hesitated for a second. She braced one hand against the mattress and leaned across him. If she stretched as far as she could without tumbling over, she could just reach to drop the studs on the edge of the table. Stretching in that direction, though, meant she had to drape herself across Dmitri’s torso, bringing her breasts within an inch or two of his face.

  He noticed. His lips latched onto her nipple and tugged in a sweet suckling motion. Reggie moaned, a shiver of pleasure shaking her. Blindly, she groped for the nightstand and dropped the studs onto the corner. She vaguely heard them make contact with the wooden surface and fall, scattering across the floor with tiny pinging noises. She couldn’t have cared less. She wrapped her arms around Dmitri’s head, pressing him closer to her. As soon as she did so, he pulled back.

  “How clumsy of you, Regina,” he murmured, pushing her back to a kneeling position in front of him. “I expect you to take better care of my things. I trust you will not be so cavalier with my cuff links.” He extended his arm to her, wrist turned to expose the decorative clasp.

  Reggie hurried to unfasten it, repeating the operation with the other cuff. She leaned forward toward the nightstand, but this time she twisted her body so she presented Dmitri with her shoulder blade, rather than her breasts. If he went for her nipples again, she’d be totally useless.

  She heard him chuckle, and his hand slid swiftly between her legs, penetrating her with two long fingers. She froze in place, dropping her head on a groan. “Are you trying to kill me?”

  “Only in the French sense of the word, dushka. Seulement le petit mort.”

  “Oh. Only a little death,” she translated in her high school French, panting as she set the cuff links carefully on the table. “I feel so much better now.”

  Dmitri laughed, his lips brushing against her nipple as he brought his thumb into play, using it to draw tight little circles around her already aching clit. No, no, milaya. Le petit mort is…well, allow me to demonstrate.

  His free hand slid to her side, cupping one breast and shifting her to face him fully. He raked his thumbnail over the erect nipple even while his teeth nibbled delicately at the bud in his mouth. Reggie shuddered and tried to pull away, but succeeded only in pressing herself harder on the hand between her legs. His fingers sank deeper, and he curled the tips to caress her slick inner walls.

  She felt trapped and overwhelmed and dizzy with the sensations pounding at her. She grabbed desperately at his shoulders, needing an anchor to hold her steady. The pressure inside her built with ridiculous speed, winding tighter and faster with each stroke of his fingers, each glide of his tongue. She became an extension of his touch, existing only for the fingers in her cunt and the mouth on her breast.

  “Misha,” she whimpered, feeling him guide her inexorably to the edge of an enormous cliff. What would happen when he drove her over, she couldn’t imagine. “Please. I—I need…”

  I know, milaya. I know. His thumb pressed harder on her clit, and his fingers closed sharply around her nipple. Come for me, dushka. Now.

  She obeyed, her body drawing tight while the tension inside her peaked and broke, flooding her with pleasure and flooding his hand with the evidence. She slid boneless against him, leaning her cheek against the front of his shirt while her hands still clutched at his shoulders.

  She struggled to catch her breath, shuddering delicately with the aftershocks that still rippled through her. Dmitri comforted her, petting
her back with soothing motions and brushing soft kisses against her hair. He gave her a few minutes to compose herself, but his hands soon moved to her hips and sat her back on her heels again.

  “I do not believe you had yet finished your task, Regina,” he said, glancing down at his shirt, which hung open but still covered his arms and broad shoulders. “I would not want to think you neglect your chores.”

  Because undressing him is such a chore, she thought, biting her cheek to keep from rolling her eyes. She waited for one of his smart comments, but Dmitri remained silent. He was waiting.

  Sliding her hands beneath the two open shirt halves, Reggie took her time, savoring the warm weight of his muscular chest beneath her hands. She savored the feel of him, smooth and hard near his shoulders, rougher and somehow less civilized in the center of his chest where a blanket of masculine fur arrowed down toward his waistband. She leaned forward to strip the cloth from his shoulders and gave in to the temptation to rub her cheek against the sensual, contrasting textures. She felt the rippling of his muscles beneath her touch, but he kept his hands at his sides and let her continue.

  She pushed the shirt down his arms and tugged it from under him, tossing it away near his tie. She sat back to survey what she’d uncovered.

  Great googly-moogly.

  Lord, but the man was gorgeous. He had the musculature of a Greek statue that had decided to take up bodybuilding. She could see the definition of his muscles when they flexed and shifted, and appreciated that they stopped short of exaggeration. His shoulders looked impossibly broad while he lounged there in graceful splendor. His chest was wide and strong, his waist lean and stomach firm. And suddenly she couldn’t wait to see the rest of him again.

  The fingers she lifted to his waistband trembled before she managed to force them into steadiness. Just to be sure they were prepared to obey her, she caressed them down his sides, her thumbs brushing over his nipples before gliding south to his tuxedo pants. She undid the top catch and gripped the zipper tab between her thumb and forefinger and slowly began inching the fastening open. Her eyes were glued to her task, her head bowed, the tension of a child on Christmas morning filling her. She felt his eyes on her while she pulled the zipper down the last few millimeters and spread open his fly.