“I’d be happy to answer any questions Your Highness or the council members may have.”
When the prince invited him to appraise the gems, he hoped his surprise didn’t show. He refused to let the request rattle him. The Italian service needed the business. “We have several outstanding gemologists on staff, but I’m afraid I’m not one of them. I’d be happy to arrange one to visit at the council’s convenience.”
The prince conferred briefly with his council before he spoke. “Thank you. We’ll contact you if that will be necessary.”
Dante certainly prayed it would not be. He didn’t want to return to this group, and he doubted any of the gemologists would either. As far as he knew, the service he represented didn’t have a single vampire on staff.
He was relieved when the prince stood and left the room. He wasn’t happy to see that Giacomo was the only council member who remained.
Alex swept up to Dante as he pocketed his flash drive. “The prince has arranged a car for me. I’ll drop you off.”
“That won’t—”
“Oh, yes, it will be very necessary.”
The emerald eyes blazed, silently reminding Dante of the bounty Alex had paid for him. No longer caught up in a braid, Alex’s blond hair framed his shoulders and beautiful face in a gleaming, silken fall. A dark angel, Dante thought, and his belly shifted and stirred as his senses awakened. He nodded. “I understand, Signor Nicolaides.”
“Please. Call me Alex.”
“This way,” the vampire Giacomo ordered.
Wariness slid over Dante. He noticed how Alex placed himself between the vamp and him. It strengthened the reality of how vulnerable he would be without his immortal protector.
A blindfold wasn’t necessary. They followed Giacomo down dark passages that twisted and turned until Dante had no idea which part of the complex they’d been in or, finally, exited from. At one point, the soft light from a cell phone glowed in the hand of their guide. He dialed and spoke a few curt words into it.
Relief swept over Dante when they finally stepped out of the complex of stone buildings. A black town car awaited them, and Dante assumed the cell call had alerted the driver—whom he was grateful to learn was human—to pull the car around. As soon as they appeared, the driver opened the car’s back door.
After the door closed and the privacy screen between them and the driver had been rolled up, Dante leaned back and put his hands over his face.
“Oh, God. Oh, my God, I killed that nice man.”
“Not a man, and he was already dead. For all we know, the prince may have liberated him from an existence he’d hated for thousands of years.” Alex paused before continuing, “I’ve seen many things over the years, but I thought it rather gruesome myself. Trust me, it wasn’t your fault, and it’s not worth your pain.”
Alex’s voice was calm, his reasoning a practical and soothing balm to Dante’s fractured nerves.
“Did you notice the prince’s ring?” Alex switched to a more pleasant and captivating subject for anyone who loved precious stones.
Dante’s spirits brightened. “Unbelievable. I’d never seen alexandrite. It must be worth a fortune.”
“I think you can count on it. I’d never seen one either, not even in any of the many museums I’ve visited. A rare treat. I wouldn’t be surprised if Massimo knew Prince Alexandrite and received the ring as a gift. Supposedly, alexandrite changes to bluish-green in sunlight.” He chuckled. “But for an immortal to see it in those colors would be as rare as the jewel itself.”
Dante smiled until he felt Alex’s hand on his thigh. Thoughts of gemstones faded as sex claimed his thoughts. “I could use a drink right now,” Dante said as he realized how dry the night’s experiences had made his throat.
“As could I. Where are you staying?”
“The Vesuvio.”
“I’m at the Stoker. If it’s all right with you, we’ll go there. I’d be more welcome there than at your hotel, and we’ll both be comfortable. I’ll call a taxi for you after we’ve had our drinks.”
The grandeur of the Hotel Stoker a Napoli, the one hotel in town that accommodated the living as well as the undead, amazed Dante. The lobby’s Persian carpets were thick underfoot and crystal chandeliers gleamed overhead. They passed pillars encrusted with gold leaf and white walls with Roman and Greek figures in bas-relief.
Soft candlelight lit the bar. A waiter led them to a small booth where they sat on seats covered in dark green velvet. Alex ordered for them. Dante had a beer, and the waiter brought a wine glass filled with a red liquid as dark as blood rubies for Alex.
Dante was afraid to ask about the suspicious liquid. He played with his small cocktail napkin and stared at it as he apologized to Alex for following him. “I caused you a hell of a lot of trouble. Put us both in some serious danger.”
Alex shrugged. “Think of it as part of doing business with vampires.” He reached out and covered Dante’s busy hand to quiet it. His voice was low and sultry. “Which reminds me, we have personal unfinished business, do we not?”
Dante’s skin tingled at his cool touch, at the invitation. He looked into Alex’s beautiful green eyes now smoldering with sensuality and desire and, because they mirrored what he was feeling, he nodded.
Alex signed the tab. “Come. My room is below street level.”
After the elevator doors slid silently shut behind them, Alex used a key to halt the elevator. Dante was standing with his back to one wall, and Alex placed his hands on it on either side of Dante’s face and leaned in to brush a cheek against Dante’s. His hair fell around Dante’s face and onto his shoulders, capturing and enclosing him in its silken fall.
“I hated ending our kiss so abruptly, sensed you also wanted more, but I had to meet the prince.”
“I know,” Dante whispered. “I had to meet him, too.” He smiled. “That didn’t turn out so well.”
“This will.” Alex brushed his lips across Dante’s nose, then his eyelids. His mouth was achingly near Dante’s.
Dante’s tongue began to tingle, along with every other nerve in his body.
“Earlier, the timing was wrong for other reasons—the stimulation from the fight, the driving need to take what I wanted hard and quick without thought for you. Now it will be slow. Right. For both of us,” Alex said.
Seduced by a vampire. The idea enticed even as Alex’s body held him captive. Dante wondered why he was allowing this, but his attraction to the immortal as he’d watched him fight for him on the piazza had been almost drug-like. While his dick had shriveled in terror in the company of the council of vampires, his sensual feelings for Alex had surfaced and solidified the moment he’d stepped in front of Dante and paid the bounty to seal him under his protection.
“You didn’t have to admit you’d fought for me,” Dante whispered against Alex’s lips. He licked the corners of Alex’s mouth and slid his tongue inside his lower lip and out again. When Alex started to protest his words, he said, “Hush. It’s true. You could’ve let it slide about the fight with the brigands.”
“My honor was at stake, and even if I’d hated you, the law required it. If I hadn’t admitted it, your head might have rolled alongside Garibaldi’s just as fast and just as sure.” He traced Dante’s lips with a thumb. “I couldn’t risk that happening.” His tongue tip replaced his thumb and it followed the line of Dante’s upper lip across and back again, slow and wet. It pressed into the corners before slipping down to the lower lip and repeating the sultry exploration. It swept the soft inner tissues and ran across his teeth to the lining of his upper lip.
Dante found himself without breath. Holding it because he wanted, needed more than this. “Damn it, stop toying and kiss me.”
Alex had kissed him after the fight and locked his cock in a hungry, almost bruising pressure against Dante’s, but he hadn’t hurt him. Hadn’t killed the attackers or bitten and drained Dante as myth declared their kind did. And then there had been the bounty. Oh, yes, that expensiv
e bounty. Instinct, something Dante trusted in himself, told him he had nothing to fear from Alex Nicolaides.
So, he surrendered to the pressure of that mouth as it captured his and to its clean, fruity taste and the tongue that plundered like someone seeking a treasure that would make him complete. Dante opened his mouth wider, starved for more as Alex leaned into him. Their chests met, and, with slow deliberation, Alex brought his groin to Dante’s. Dante sighed with the pleasure of it and began to rub his taut erection across Alex’s. The feel of the big, hard cock against his sent arousal shimmering through Dante. When he saw Alex reach a hand to the elevator controls and felt a light bump as it started to move, he reached for Alex’s hand to stop him.
“What’s wrong with a good fuck in an elevator?” he asked in a voice made husky by his arousal.
His reward was a low chuckle. “An intriguing concept, but trust me, I have something better in mind.”
Alex adjusted the position of his cock in his slacks so his erection was less noticeable, and when the doors opened, he looked both ways down the hallway. Taking Dante by the hand, he pulled him quickly down the carpeted path to his room.
Inside, Dante had no time to think about how the room was furnished. He had the impression of elegance, a high ceiling and openness, and then Alex’s hands were slowly sliding his jacket down his arms as he tongue-fucked him again.
Eyes closed, Dante concentrated on the sensations spearing through his body and settling below his belly button. He moved restlessly as Alex’s fingers made quick work of the buttons on his shirt and removed it. The warm air of the room felt like a caress against his bare skin. Anticipation caused his nipples to tighten. Dante toed off his loafers and reached for the zipper on his jeans.
“Let me,” Alex breathed into his ear.
“I’m not sure I can hold back if you touch me.” Dante groaned.
Deft hands removed his jeans and Hanes faster than Dante could have imagined. There was a rustle, a zipping sound and the soft flutter of cloth falling to the carpet.
“Open your eyes.”
Alex stood naked before him, and Dante discovered the beauty of Alex’s face was a reflection of that of his body. There was an almost translucent quality to his pale skin, golden hairs on his muscled chest that encircled tawny nipples, already erect, and which led to a surprisingly thick nest of tight curls between his hipbones and a cock so stiff it sprang straight up, not out.
Alex bent in to kiss him again, running light fingertips down Dante’s arms. Then he embraced him, and Dante swam with excitement and anticipation.
“You’re so warm. So wonderfully, humanly warm. And your mouth. I could feast on the taste and heat of it for a very long time.”
Dante drank in the coolness of this lover’s body, gripped the iron-hard muscles and sinew of his arms, and then Alex backed him up to the bed and gave him a gentle push. Dante landed on his back as the weight of Alex’s body covered his. Dante ran his fingers through his lover’s golden strands of hair and grew hotter, needier as Alex’s mouth roamed downward until the tip of his tongue met the tip of Dante’s cock and licked away the small, crystal-like droplets there.
“Don’t—” Dante begged.
“I like the taste of you. My kind does not make liquid as men do. It is why vampires are made, not born.”
Dante fought to sit up and stop the raging drive to explode. “Too soon.”
Alex pushed him back and slid his nails up his inner thighs as Dante went crazy for him. He felt a slight lifting as Alex reached for something on the bedside table, and then a slick coolness as Alex’s fingers smeared cream around his sensitive pucker. Dante drew his knees up to give him entrance, felt the slight pressure of Alex’s cock against his hole, felt Alex enter gingerly, pull out, enter again a little deeper this time. Dante willed his body to relax and enlarge to welcome the huge, rock-hard cock.
The essence that was Alex surrounded him, his golden hair splayed in a silken mass across Dante’s skin, his body over him and in him, joining his rhythm to Dante’s as he stroked, stretched and filled. Dante let go of every thought as he opened his senses to all that Alex was doing to him. He reveled in the movements that brought the tight golden nest to mingle with his dark curls and caress his balls while the big cock inside him set every tingling nerve alight.
Dante sensed Alex knew when he’d peaked and understood he’d have cried out a warning that he was going to come if he hadn’t been so intent on everything going on inside him.
Alex took his mouth fiercely and stroked deep, increasing his speed until Dante melded into him. And then the touch of his lover and what they were doing together overwhelmed Dante as they climaxed.
They stayed locked together, enjoying the final pulsations as they slowed and stopped. Alex’s cock slid out in a final small rush of pleasure, and Dante let himself doze.
Fingers playing with his hair awakened him. Alex lay on his side facing him, propped on one elbow and studying him while his hand touched Dante’s hair.
“I like your hair. It’s perfect for you,” he said, “but I would look ridiculous in such a cut.”
He’d apparently showered, and the upper part of his hair, where the diamond had hidden, was braided again.
Dante smiled as he looked at his unnatural lover. “And I’d look strange with my hair long like yours.” He reached over to run his fingers down Alex’s masculine nose and touch his lips.
Alex kissed the fingers, then sat up. “There’s one thing about the undead. We’re awake at night, but come morning, we slumber as if truly dead. I need to get you into that taxi before sleep hits me. You have time to shower if you’d like. I’ll order the taxi.”
When Dante emerged from the bathroom in his street clothes, Alex was dressed in worn jeans and a T-shirt that outlined every ab. Dante could have sworn his heart turned over at the sight.
The desk clerk called to tell them the taxi had arrived.
As before, they were alone in the elevator. Alex said, “I want to see you again. Can you meet me here tonight?”
Dante nodded. When the doors opened, he shuddered and said in an undertone, “Well, well, look who’s here.”
The vampire Giacomo was in the lobby. It was evident he’d seen them, but he entered the bar without acknowledging them.
Alex frowned. “Damn him. I wonder what he’s doing in the Stoker. I live in New Orleans, so of course I’m in a hotel here. I’ll be here until the council gives me an answer, but he lives in Naples.”
“I’m sure he followed us.” Dante took hold of his arm. “Alex, I don’t want you to fight him for me.”
Alex gave a derisive laugh. “Giacomo fight me? He’s a coward. What do you want to bet he was a coward when he was human, too?”
They went outside, and Dante stepped into the taxi. Just before the driver closed the door for him, Alex slipped the hotel’s business card into Dante’s hand. “Half-past five tonight? We can chat and you can eat a little later.”
Dante knew Alex was suggesting they have sex before dinner. He felt his cheeks grow hot and flush with embarrassment because the driver was standing there and this was personal. He nodded. “Five thirty. I’ll text you if I’m delayed for any reason.”
The taxi pulled away, and Dante leaned toward the window and waved. Alex lifted his hand. He was still in the same spot when the taxi turned the corner and Dante could no longer see him.
He looked at his watch. In only two hours the sun would rise, but he could sleep until nine today. Excitement rolled through him. Sleep after the wonderful hours he’d spent with Alexandros? He wasn’t sure about that.
The taxi stopped right in front of the entrance to the Grand Hotel Vesuvio a Napoli, but the driver refused the euros Dante tried to pay him.
“The vamp took care of it.”
As Dante exited the car, he discovered that his escape from the thieves and his evening spent with the undead had unnerved him. He found himself looking around to be sure no one had followed him or
was hiding behind the potted trees and lush foliage ready to leap out and hurt him. Assured that no one lurked, he took the steps to the entrance two at a time and hurried through the doors.
He’d undressed for bed before he noticed a text message on his cell phone. He imagined Alex’s voice, its timbre husky and low as he read, “I’m going to bed now. Sleep well, my lover. Tonight, you in me.”
Dante lay down on the bed and chuckled at the sexual innuendo. As he pulled the covers up, he paused to question the wisdom of this relationship with a vampire. It was but a fleeting consideration. Exhaustion caught up with him and whatever god of sleep there was took command of his body.
Chapter Ten
It might be near dawn in Napoli, but it wasn’t quite midnight in New Orleans, and his boss would still be up. As Alex waited for the transatlantic call to Global Diamond Couriers to go through, he fingered through a jumble of diamonds, rubies, and emeralds as they spiked little flashes of red and green amidst the sparkle of diamonds spread across the white silk sheets of his bed.
“This is Hank Walton.” His boss’s voice, hoarse from the damage of too much whiskey and too many cigarettes, came on the line.
“I’m emailing my report of last night, but here’s how things stand now.” Alex detailed the results of his presentation and the unexpected challenge by an Italian courier service. He didn’t mention that instead of presenting the diamond intended to seal the deal with the prince he’d used it as bounty to insure Dante’s safety. Since he was one of only two immortals with Global, he knew no one else would understand the demands of the vampire rule of protection. If his company received the prince’s business and hired him as an occasional appraiser, he’d use one of the jewels on the bed and make up the cost of the other diamond out of his own funds.
Night Train to Naples Page 5