by Nina Bangs
Do something. Right now. That smile had the same kind of effect as staring directly at the sun. It could blind her to all the things she should remember. Like making love with a man on top of the Minute Maid Park locomotive could get her fired. Strange, though. She couldn’t seem to remember what her job was. Not a very memorable job. So maybe losing it wouldn’t be a bad thing.
“Mmm.” She sat down, braced herself on the slightly sloped roof, removed her backpack, and opened it. She forced herself not to look at him. She’d watch the game, eat, and forget all about him. Easy. Not even a naked man could compete with a ballpark hot dog with relish, a beer, and a great game. And you are such a liar.
She gazed around the stadium. Funny, not one person was even glancing their way. She gave up and looked at him. “You’re really magic?”
He only smiled. And that smile was a promise of sexual sorcery like none she’d ever experience again. Don’t miss it.
“I’ll trade you.” His gaze shifted to her backpack. “A hot dog, beer, and chips if you have them.” He sat up and leaned over to look inside. “Good. There’s enough for two.”
“And I get in return?”
“Whatever you want, sweetheart.”
An irresistible deal. She pushed the backpack toward him and watched him eat while she worked on her own hot dog and beer. He ate slowly, savoring every bite, and as he slid his tongue across his full lower lip to get the last lingering taste, she imagined what those lips, that mouth, could do to her body.
He finished his last swig of beer and once again fixed his attention on her. “No ice cream? No cake? No chocolate?” His eyes softened, grew smoky with a banked fire behind them. “Then I’ll have to find my dessert somewhere else.”
Anyone who agreed to be his sweet treat would probably not survive, but melting in that beautiful mouth would be a great way to go. She shoved aside the possible pleasure to examine the practical. “And what happens if, right in the middle of dessert, the Astros hit a home run? This old engine will chug across that eight hundred feet of track, whistling, and smoking, and steaming, with bells ringing. You think no one will notice then? The security guys will be waiting to haul us off to jail.”
His smile was a deadly lifting of his lips. “No one will haul us off to jail. Besides, Fosen doesn’t give up home runs. The Yankees don’t have to worry about anything going over the wall when he’s pitching.”
She carefully put their trash in her backpack and just as carefully placed it on the ridge of the roof so it wouldn’t slide off. Fine, so she was playing for time.
Who was she today? The woman who drove to work each day, came home and watched TV, and then went to bed? Or was she the woman who’d said to hell with it and climbed up here because she’d always wanted to do it? The first woman wouldn’t even speak to a stranger; the second was planning to make love with one. It was no contest. The second woman drop-kicked the first off the roof and then brushed the monotony of her life from her hands forever.
She peered over the side of the roof. “We won’t roll off, will we? If we fell, we’d bounce right off the tracks and over the wall and end up on the field. Is having your own personal ice-cream cone worth the risk?”
“I love risk.” He reached over and pulled her to him. “And I hope you see yourself in the ice-cream-cone role.” He put his mouth close to her ear. “You’ll be safe. I’ll take care of you.”
With that assurance, she forgot about the game and the thousands of people watching it, to concentrate on the man. His dark hair shone in the sunlight and his eyes had a slumbering-predator gleam. She couldn’t resist; she skimmed her fingers the length of that hair. The strands felt silky and warm from the sun. “Bet you’re ready for a nap in the sun after all you ate.”
“Not until I get my ice cream.” He kissed the sensitive skin behind her ear. “And I have plenty of incentives to stay awake.”
Up till now she’d kept her hands occupied with food. They were empty now. So she touched his body. And felt righteous doing it. Wasn’t there something about idle hands doing something? Well, her hands wouldn’t be idle.
She closed her eyes so she could enjoy every tactile sensation as she ran her fingers over the side of his face. He clenched his jaw. Patience, patience. Then she followed the pull of gravity along the side of his neck and down over his collarbone. She had to open her eyes to zero in on exactly the right spot. His male nipple drew her. She traced a path around it with the tip of her fingernail and then leaned over to flick it with her tongue.
He didn’t move. He didn’t gasp. But his reaction was so powerful she felt it as a ripple of sensation in her own body, as though someone had touched her nipple. She did gasp. What was that about?
“I can’t do this.” He spoke through gritted teeth. “I thought I could stay still while you grew comfortable with me, but I don’t have that kind of strength.” He put his fingers under her chin and tilted her face up. Then he lowered his head.
She was ready for his kiss, a precursor to better things to come. But as he traced the curve of her lower lip with the tip of his tongue and then took her mouth in a heated plundering that seduced all her senses, she readjusted her opinion of it as merely a precursor.
His lips were firm yet soft, smooth, warm and, as she explored his mouth, she tasted his need. As strange as it sounded, she also tasted the darkness in him. His scent of aroused male stirred something primitive in her that had lain dormant for a lifetime.
Even the smooth slide of her tongue across his fangs was sensual. Fangs? His fangs? She broke the kiss and raised her gaze to his. In another world she would’ve run screaming, but this place, this time was different. “Vampire?”
He nodded, his expression wary.
“Let me see.”
He curled his lip, exposing the fangs. She traced each one with the tip of her finger. Real. “How? Why?” How can you possibly exist? Why don’t I feel afraid? But in some half-forgotten corner of her brain, she remembered him. And that was the craziest thing of all.
“I said I was magic.” He reached out tentatively to brush a strand of hair from her face.
She didn’t flinch. “Vampires can’t lie in the sun.”
He smiled, inviting her to feel, to taste his magic. “I walked into the sunlight for you. Will you walk into the darkness for me?”
She didn’t understand the question, yet she knew it was important. “I don’t know what you want.”
“You will. Soon.” He breathed the answer as he speared her with a stare that burned down to her soul.
It was one hell of a stare, because it not only burned all the way to her soul, but took her clothes with it. She glanced down. She was as bare as he was. “Magic?”
“Magic.” He ran his fingers through her hair even as he lowered his mouth to her breast. He nipped her gently before drawing the nipple into his mouth.
She sucked in her breath. Obviously he was drawing her strength out through that nipple, because she couldn’t remain upright any longer. She lay back, feeling the warmth of the roof seeping into her, along with a multitude of other sensations. All magnified by his magic mouth.
The woman she’d been would simply lie back and let the pleasure come to her just like her fave TV programs. She wasn’t a proactive kind of person. But she wasn’t that woman anymore.
As he started to lower his head once again, she stopped him. “Me first.” She sat up and then gave him a gentle shove. With a grunt of frustration, he lay down. The frustration wouldn’t last long if she had anything to do with it.
She would’ve liked to give equal attention to every part of the male body spread out for her enjoyment, but this was only a nine-inning game. She had time limitations.
So she licked a path across both nipples and down the center of his chest and stomach, forming a kind of sexy seven. His moan probably meant he’d gotten over his frustration.
He lifted his hips, pointing her toward her next destination. She kissed a path along his inner thigh,
reveling in the heat of his flesh beneath her lips and the awareness of tension thrumming through him. She’d never thought power would be a turn-on for her, but she got a real rush from knowing how every touch of her lips, her tongue, her fingers moved him.
And along with her sense of power came a sense of responsibility. She wouldn’t allow anyone to hurt him. The primal need to protect her mate roared to life. Its ferocity shocked her into stillness.
He started to push himself up, but she took a deep breath and moved on to her ultimate goal.
He was fully aroused. She circled his sacs with the tip of her tongue over and over until he shuddered and reached down to bury his fingers in her hair. Then he forced her head a little higher. Hey, she could take a hint.
Starting at the base of his shaft, she climbed him with her tongue, circling and flicking and tasting. It was amazing how her tongue was attached to every sexual switch in her body, because one at a time they were all flipping on.
He massaged her scalp with fingers that shook. “Any minute now I’m going to explode and launch us right onto the playing field.” He groaned as she finally reached the head. “The umps can give us an inside-the-park home run because we definitely scored.”
While he was busy thinking up baseball metaphors, she was doing more exciting things. She gently nipped the head of his shaft before sliding her mouth over it. Tightening her lips to imitate muscles a lot lower, she took more and more of him in. And when he writhed and made noises of male pleasure, she withdrew while still keeping up the pressure against his flesh.
Up and down, up and down, she mimicked the motions of sex. Her breathing and heartbeats picked up the rhythm while she clenched her thighs to keep her own enjoyment from getting out of hand.
“Enough.”
She could feel his guttural command vibrating through his body, sensed his control slipping further and further toward that inevitable moment. Well, she had nowhere else to slip, because her control had reached bottom first and was waving up at him.
He gazed at her from eyes that had turned completely black, and his fangs were on full display. When he saw her staring at them he turned his head away. “They’re not part of this.”
And before she could comment, he lifted her as though she were no heavier than, well, an ice-cream cone, and planted her on his shaft.
This was no playful knocking at her door and running off to hide. This was a kicking down the door and storming inside to announce, “I’m home, babe.”
He filled her. Completely. But just to make sure, she wiggled and jiggled and bounced until he shouted, “Be still, woman.”
Wow, his speech patterns changed with his emotions. This must be his “I’m this close to orgasm. Make another move and it’s all over.”
He might not be able to do any heavy breathing, but her breaths came in rasping gasps loud enough for both of them. Her heart pounded so fast she barely noticed the voice from the PA system.
“Strike one!”
He smiled up at her, exposing his fangs. “In baseball lingo, I’m ready to slide into home.”
He wouldn’t get an argument from her.
His gaze captured hers, black with heat and something else beyond passion. She lifted herself from him, feeling the delicious slide, the sizzling friction. The return journey was fast and hard. She wasn’t in a gentle mood today. The primitive savage in her had scrambled from its cave and was rubbing two sticks together with wild abandon. The ensuing blaze wiped out all thoughts, all reason, all logic.
She rose and fell, clenching around the long thick length of him as he picked up her rhythm and rose to meet her on the way down.
Harder, harder, harder. And, oh God, faster, faster.
The heavy pressure low in her belly built with each of his thrusts.
Just. A. Little. More. Each word in her mind was accompanied by a blinding blast of light.
“Strike two!”
“Now!” He reached up and pulled her down on top of his sweat-sheened body even as he continued to drive into her.
She felt his mouth on her neck and he was shaking uncontrollably. But she didn’t feel the prick of his fangs.
He wanted this. Was she willing to give it? Could she walk into his personal darkness and accept that part of him?
“Taste me.” She guessed she could.
He didn’t ask if she was sure, but he did hesitate, waiting.
“I’m sure.” Her voice was only a murmur, because that was all she could manage. All of her being was focused on her orgasm, building and building until it had nowhere to go, nothing that could contain it.
Everything happened at once.
He thrust into her one last time and she reached her tipping point. Sensation overload gripped her. She cried out as that first huge spasm rocked and twisted her, tying her into a double knot of tight emotions and then cutting her loose.
She felt the momentary sting of his fangs in her neck and then everything flowed into a spasm that threatened to rip her apart with the pure pleasure of it. Could an orgasm kill you?
She felt his own release shudder through him. She wrapped her arms around him and held on. If they rolled off the roof, they’d at least go together.
The crack of a bat.
“It’s going, going, going, gone!”
“Guess Fosen gave up a home run.”
His disgusted mutter barely registered as she trembled through spasm after glorious spasm.
Then the locomotive jerked into motion. It chugged toward the end of its short track with its whistle shrieking and bell ringing, smoking and steaming its little butt off.
As the final spasm died away, she closed her eyes. “Oh, hell, I’m going to jail, and I don’t even know your name.”
Chapter Sixteen
He watched as she sat with her eyes tightly shut and talked to herself. If he could, he’d stop her, but he was still trying to find his own way back. So he said nothing.
“Ohmigod, when this train gets to the end of the track, the police will take us away. My photo will be in the Chronicle. My family will see it. Grandma will think it’s cool, but Grandpa’s heart isn’t too good. I’ll lose my job. I mean, even if I can’t seem to remember what it is, it’s still my job.” She twisted her hands in her lap. “I can’t believe I made love with you. For God’s sake, I don’t even know your name. And I’m naked. Trespassing and indecent exposure. I’ll have a rap sheet. I’ll—”
Finally, he found his voice. “Open your eyes, Cinn.”
“Cinn?” She grew silent, and then slowly blinked her eyes open. She looked around, dazed. “Wicked Fantasy? How did we get here?” Then she stared at him. “Dacian?”
“We never left here. Eric just took us on a wild fantasy ride.” Dacian rubbed his hand across his eyes. “Wow. Just got a lot more respect for my old vampire buddy.”
Cinn’s eyes grew wide. “But it really happened. I lived every moment of it. It felt more real than this place.” She waved her hands in the air. “In some demented parallel universe, it really happened.”
He nodded. “I know.” Dacian could still taste her, feel her muscles tight around his cock, hear her cries, and would always remember the scent of summer, baseball, and wild woman. “It really happened.”
He tried not to stare at her neck, but he couldn’t help himself.
She saw where he’d fixed his gaze and reached up to touch the spot. Her eyes grew even wider, if possible. “The wound is fading, but I can still feel it.”
What the hell? The punctures were barely visible, but they were definitely there. How? He pushed that question aside. Even Eric didn’t know the how of it, so maybe Dacian should concentrate instead on a more pressing issue.
Cinn looked up at him, and he saw the moment when her confusion faded and humor took its place. “I can see it on your face. You want to ask if it was as good for me as it was for you. Hey, it was better.” Her smile faded and something tentative and breathtaking showed in her eyes. “Way better.”
At last she took a deep breath and looked back at him. “Maybe we can take in a night game sometime. I’d like to see the city lights.” She sounded serious.
“Sure.” He smiled while he tried to decide if there was a coded message he’d missed. Dacian never did come to a conclusion because someone opened the door in his mind. From Cinn’s expression, she was feeling the intruder, too.
“Perhaps you should come back to the greenhouse. There’s been an incident.”
Asima didn’t bother to elaborate, leaving both Cinn and him to assume the worst. With a muttered curse, he stood and ran from the club, with Cinn beside him.
Dacian didn’t know what to expect when he flung open the greenhouse door and stepped inside.
Asima sat on the table in the middle of the greenhouse. She looked as though she’d just gone through a windstorm and caught a lot of flying debris. The cot was upside down and the chair was lying against one wall, but other than a few leaves scattered around, all the plants seemed to be in one piece.
“What happened?” Cinn sounded breathless as she moved down the aisles, looking at each plant.
“Airmid came. She thought I’d let her destroy the plants.”
“But you didn’t.” Dacian’s opinion of Asima went up a notch.
“I promised to protect them.” Asima looked militant.
Cinn returned to his side. “Are you okay?”
Asima nodded. “I heal quickly.”
“How did you drive off a goddess?” What Dacian left unsaid was that Asima might be immortal, but she didn’t have goddess power.
Asima’s tail seemed to have a few kinks in it as she whipped it back and forth. One ear looked a little ragged, and bald spots here and there would give her lots of street cred with Galveston’s alley cats.