The realization outraged her so much she had to struggle to rein in her emotions.
She’d already blocked her thoughts. As soon as Alaric told her where they were going, she’d made sure her metaphorical wall was in place. Now, with this immortal trying his best to breach her walls, she focused all her attention on him and keeping him out. Setting her teeth, she met his gaze and held it. She felt the prodding touch of his mind as though he were reaching out to her with his fingers and stroking an errant lock of hair from her forehead.
“Jules,” Alaric said in a quiet voice, “back off.” The threat, though unspoken, was unmistakable.
Jules broke eye contact with her and looked at Alaric. “Who is she, Alaric?”
“My guest. And I’ll have her treated with respect.” Saying this, Alaric scanned the room. It was a look that said as clear as any words he could have spoken that he expected the same from the rest of them.
“She’s not one of us,” Jules hissed, “yet she’s strong. She blocked me from reading her, Alaric. Who is this female you bring into my house that would block me?”
Alaric’s eyes lightened. All humanity drained out of his face as he stepped closer to Jules and opened his mouth to speak. “She belongs to me. That’s all you need to know.”
A fresh wave of lust washed through Al-Kenna at the sound of those words. She marveled that her hormones were active even after everything she’d experienced tonight. The fact that her safety was presently in question wasn’t even enough of a deterrent.
“Keep your distance from her, Jules,” Alaric continued. “If I catch you trying to read her again, I’ll take it as a personal insult.”
“Surely, you don’t expect me to—” Jules began.
“I’m tired, Jules. In the past four days I’ve flown from London to Prague, then from Prague to Baltimore where I remained a scant few hours before I was forced to wake my fatigued pilot because Raven had summoned me to Virginia. I’ve just arrived in New York. I haven’t been here two hours, and already I’ve been attacked by a band of rogue immortals toting guns and riding around in SUVs. My patience is at an end, Jules. We have a crazed fallen angel to worry about, and the threat that he’ll be releasing the imps. My guest isn’t a threat to you. So, I’ll say this only one more time. If I don’t get an answer I like, I’m going to take it as an offense. Is my room ready? My guest is tired, and I’d like her to get some sleep.”
Al-Kenna wanted to protest. She wasn’t tired, not in the least little bit, but she figured now wasn’t the time to contradict him.
The two men stared at each other, and for a moment, Al-Kenna feared Jules had every intention of making an issue of it. After a few beats, though, he took a step back and gave Alaric a slow nod.
“My apologies, Coven Lord,” Jules said.
He jerked his head to the right and two immortals stepped forward.
“Please show our guest to the Coven Master’s room.”
The two nodded and started for the stairs.
Panic flittered through Al-Kenna. Did Alaric mean for her to go off on her own with these unfamiliar creatures? He was mad if he thought she would.
He looked down at her and she narrowed her eyes at him. “No,” she told him silently. To emphasize her point, she tightened her grip on his hand.
This brought a smile to his face.
She had a sudden urge to kick him, see how he liked that. Bet he wouldn’t be smiling then.
“Damon?” Alaric asked.
Almost immediately Damon, dutiful as ever, appeared at her side. Some silent exchange passed between the two, then Alaric slipped free of her and walked toward the throng of immortals who had gathered in the foyer to greet him.
“Come on,” Damon whispered.
She felt Damon’s hand close over hers. A moment later, he led her toward the stairs where the two immortals had paused to wait for them.
“Upstairs,” one of the immortals said. She realized he was the red-haired immortal whose mind she had read. “Alaric’s room is on the fourth level,” he said.
As they proceeded up, all around her was slowly swallowed in darkness. She thanked the stars for her Ikari night sight, otherwise she might have panicked. Not for the first time, the thought flickered through her mind that if the Warlord knew where she was right now, he’d kill her. She hadn’t just broken the rules this time, she’d beaten them into the dirt and spit on them. If the Warlord ever found out about this, he’d do worse than kill her. He’d disown her.
They came to a room at the end of a long hall. The two immortals gave a set of keys to Damon, bowed, then disappeared down the hall. A moment later, she and Damon stepped into the suite of rooms held aside for the Coven Lord.
Though she glanced around, she couldn’t see much of anything. She could make out what seemed to be a sitting area over in a nook of the room, and a study with three floor-to-ceiling bookcases. It was a nice enough space, she decided.
When she turned to face the back of the room, she realized the entire wall had been fashioned of crystal-clear glass. Outside, the moon had risen high above the trees and glimmered off a frozen lake. It was beautiful. She started in the direction of the window while Damon head off toward the couches.
“What a view,” she said.
“I suppose.”
She heard shuffling behind her, but continued to gaze out the expansive windows.
“Is every bedroom as gorgeous as this?”
“The Coven Master’s, maybe, but I doubt it. Being Coven Lord comes with its perks. Alaric has a suite of rooms all his own in every coven house in existence. Al-Kenna, turn around.”
She turned and saw Damon point to two doors beyond the sitting area.
“My room is through that door there. You’ll sleep in Alaric’s room, which is through that door.”
She nodded, but her heart stuttered inside her chest.
She hadn’t thought about sleeping arrangements. Of course, Alaric would expect her to sleep with him. That was the whole purpose of why he wanted her to come in the first place. But sleeping with Alaric would go against everything she’d ever been taught.
“Damon?” she asked. “Maybe I should sleep on the sofa.”
Damon had begun lighting candles around the room. It was nice. As she watched, he went to a wide fireplace and set to lighting a fire.
“You can try,” he said dryly, “but Alaric will have something to say about it.”
She bit her lip nervously. “Surely, he wouldn’t force me—”
He turned to gaze at her over his shoulder. His long dark hair seemed suddenly to be made of spun silk and his face had the look of finely crafted porcelain. “I don’t think he’d have to force you to do anything. I can smell your arousal, Al-Kenna, and so can he.” He held up a hand to stall her protestations. “It’s an intoxicating scent, and it says more of your feelings for him than you care to admit. Why do you think he’s been having such a difficult time controlling himself? He knows you want him as much as he wants you. He’s determined to have you before the night is over.” He shrugged. “You might as well accept it.”
This was disturbing on a variety of levels. “You can…smell me?”
“I can smell your arousal.”
When Damon had a fire roaring in the hearth, he got to his feet and started toward her. “Now to get you to bed.”
“I’m not sleepy.”
“You should rest while you can. Alaric won’t be long downstairs, and when he gets here, he’ll plan to keep you occupied for a while.”
Al-Kenna felt her face grow hot even as Damon took her hand and led her to the room he’d indicated. Once inside, she watched him go to the massive four-poster centered in the middle of the room. He pulled down the covers of the bed and motioned for her to get in.
“I’m not a child, Damon.”
“This June I’ll be a hundred and ten. You don’t have two decades on you.”
She squashed a childish impulse to say, “I know you are, but what am I
?” Instead, she dutifully went to the bed and got in.
She only intended to close her eyes so Damon would leave her alone. Once he left, she’d stare out the expansive windows into the night. But when she found herself waking to the feel of a warm body pressed flush against her own, she realized she’d done precisely what she’d meant not to. She’d fallen asleep.
Dazedly, she tried to recall where she was and what she was doing.
She started to turn, but a set of arms closed tight around her.
“Alaric?” she asked.
His breath flittered across her ear. “I want you, Al-Kenna.”
The smell of leather was heavy on him and Al-Kenna could feel the heat of his body as he shifted. He felt like silk, but was hard and smooth as marble. When he settled one of his large hands across her stomach, a chill of fear ran down her spine. The fear quickly evaporated in the heat of her lust. He had brought her with him to seduce her; to take advantage of her. Though the thought should have incensed her, it only fanned the flames.
“Look at me. I want to see you,” he said in a voice she was powerless to disobey. “I’m going to make love to you now, nice and slowly,” he whispered.
Even as she turned to look at him, she knew her lips were quivering. She knew how to tough-talk her way through any situation, but that’s all it was. Talk. Put her in a situation like this and she had no idea what to do. No, that wasn’t precisely true. What she wanted to do was give over to the raging hormones of her body and let him do whatever he wanted. So what if he wasn’t human. So what if he was a vampire.
He met her gaze and grinned. Gentle as a dove, he cupped a breast in one hand, closed a finger and thumb over her nipple and squeezed. She sighed. The pain and the pleasure of that simple touch was exquisite. He did it again, his eyes focused on her, and she let her eyelids flutter shut as the pleasure engulfed her.
“This is what I wanted to do in the library when I first saw you,” he told her. “This is what I would have done had we been alone. Look at me,” he whispered into her ear.
“This is forbidden, Alaric,” she whispered back.
He sucked her lip into his mouth and laved it. It felt so good, she thought she might scream.
Of their own volition, her arms closed around him. She ran her fingers over the planes of his back, marveling at how something so unyielding could feel so silken beneath her touch.
He let his lips trail over her chin, placing wet kisses over her throat. The kisses were soft, tender, and perfect. Her body felt alive with desire, full of erotic cravings. She had to be sated, had to be filled, but she didn’t know how.
He ran his tongue over her inflamed skin and she moaned from the sheer delight of it.
“You are so hot,” he said.
“I want you.”
He pulled away from her and tugged at her tank top. She knew she should stop him, but she didn’t. She squirmed out of it.
When she was bare before him he stared at her, drinking her in.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said, then pressed her into the mattress beneath him. “I want to taste you, feel you in my mouth. But I won’t bite you. You have my word. Do you trust me?”
His face was earnest and she nodded. She did trust him. If he were going to feed on her, he would have done it by now. She knew he would keep his word.
The heat of his mouth encircled her nipple and she arched in surprise. “Ooh, Alaric, that feels so good.”
He pulled her puckered nipple into his mouth and sucked it hard.
She writhed beneath him. “Oh, God!” she moaned.
“You’re mine now, Al-Kenna. I’m never letting you go.”
She didn’t want him to let her go. She’d be happy to stay locked away with him forever. As long as he put an end to the incessant longing she felt deep in the pit of her stomach.
“Tell me you’re mine,” he whispered. “Tell me you’ll never leave me again.” He ran his tongue down the hollow between her breasts and over her stomach. “Tell me you love me.”
“Please,” was all she could say.
He pressed soft kisses into her stomach, then ran his tongue over her belly, pausing to lick her navel. Then he moved down her body, setting a wet trail from her stomach to her thighs.
“I’m going to make you feel so good,” he promised when he was poised at the juncture between her thighs.
He eased his hand under the waistband of her stretch pants and she started at the contact.
“Relax and trust me. This is gonna feel good. I promise.”
His fingers seemed to be searching for something as they roved deeper.
She panted, eager to find out what was next.
When he closed his fingers over her, she arched in surprise and gasped.
“That’s your clitoris. Feel that?”
He ran his thumb over the sensitive nub and she fell back into the mattress and moaned.
“Does that feel good?”
“Alaric,” she gasped, “what are you doing to me?”
He closed his fingers over the throbbing little core and stroked her. She wanted to scream.
“How does that feel?”
“Good.”
He tickled her, let his fingers dance lightly over the surface of that most delicious part of her he’d called her clitoris. Then she felt him prod her with one finger.
“You’re so wet, baby doll. I could be inside of you in seconds.”
She stared down the length of her body and met his gaze. “Penetrate?”
“I could, but I won’t. At least, not before you’re ready. Relax. Doesn’t this feel good?” To demonstrate, he circled her nub with his thumb again.
“God, yes.”
“I want you naked,” he said.
He reared back on his heels, grabbed hold of her pants and gave them a tug. She was naked faster than she would have imagined possible. Instead of feeling exposed and vulnerable the way she feared she would feel when she’d been shrugging out of her shirt, the comforter beneath her and the soft glow of the moon made her feel completely at ease. She rested her head against the pillows, bent her legs at the knee, and slowly spread them as he instructed. Alaric crouched between her thighs and stared at her soft triangle of hair. He looked as though he’d forgotten about the Figlio, the rogues, and everything else.
He groaned. “This has to be the most beautiful pussy I’ve ever seen.”
She wanted to thank him, but somehow remaining silent seemed best at this particular juncture. Instead, she gazed at him in his suede pants and leather jacket and grinned. The grin turned into a full smile when she thought about the fact that she’d run away with Alaric the Cruel. Then, all thought evaporated as Alaric forced her thighs wider apart and pressed his face between them.
“Alaric! What are you doing?”
Languidly, as if he had eternity, he ran his tongue over her in deep, long strokes. Her body shuddered beneath him and she bit down on her lower lip to still her moans. Alaric moaned softly into her and sucked delicately on the sensitive folds of her vaginal lips. First one, then the other, pausing only to dip his tongue deep into her moist depths, then pull out. Without forethought, she lifted her legs and wrapped them around him, a move that forced his face deeper into her.
“You’re so wet,” he said, as he lapped at her juices with a hunger that set an inferno blazing inside of her.
When he drove his tongue into her, she screamed out in pleasure. She hadn’t been able to stop herself.
Alaric pulled away from her long enough to chuckle and ask, “Feel good?”
When she could manage a nod, he returned to the task at hand, moving his tongue in and out of her with a slow ease that made her think she’d lose her mind. This felt better than anything she’d ever experienced. Better even than the play they had enjoyed on the plane.
When he closed his mouth over the soft nub between her legs, her world stopped. She closed her eyes, felt her body shudder, and bit down hard on her lip to quiet her moaning.
He sucked the engorged nub into his mouth and flicked his tongue over it, sending her body into small spasms of pleasure. She arched her back even as he suckled the nub deeper into his mouth. With an intensity that made her writhe beneath him, she felt her entire body come alive. Her stomach roiled with erotic sensation, her skin prickled with it, and she lost her inner struggle for calm and quiet because of it. She screamed out as the most intense pleasure she’d ever felt shimmered on the edge of consciousness, just out of reach. She gasped, moaned, and when he began flicking his tongue over her in rapid succession, she felt her body explode. Stars flashed before her eyes, she pulled Alaric’s face deeper into her, and screamed out her release.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“I want to taste you, Al-Kenna. Will you stop me?”
Al-Kenna worked her lips. She could smell the minty aroma of peppermint and sex on his breath, feel the heat emanating from his body and enveloping her as he crawled up the length of her body and settled himself between her thighs.
“No,” she finally said in a low voice.
He pulled her closer until their lips were nearly touching. His breath was cool on her face, making a warm shiver flow through her body. She didn’t struggle against him; she knew from the size of him she wasn’t any match for him physically, so she remained still.
“Are you sure?” His words lighted across her cheek, more a caress than speech.
“Yes,” she said, feeling a little breathless. After what he’d just done to her she was ready to do anything he asked.
He leaned into her, brushing his cheek across her chin so the silken strands of his hair tickled her nose. His skin was soft, free of the annoying pins of stubble that plagued most men. She leaned into him, breathing in his scent. He nuzzled her neck, sending frissons of pleasure through her. Though she knew what he was up to, she didn’t have the strength of will to stop him. She was enjoying it too much. She’d fantasized so long about what it would feel like to kiss him, to be intimately connected to him. When she felt his lips, moist and hot, brush her skin, she moaned. He set butterfly kisses against her neck, then beneath the tender flesh of her earlobe.
Nephilim War: Book 2 Page 22