Underworld Lover (A Guardian Angel Romance #2)

by haron Hamilton

  “Yes. They were going to do it together, and he talked her out of it.”

  “Wow, I’m surprised the Readers let him in. That’s a Guardianship type of thing, sacrificing for someone else.”

  Josh shrugged. He’d thought the very same thing.

  “Well, I don’t see why this should be a problem. I tell you what, why don’t you get Beau situated in Helena’s house, with Daria, of course. You can stay too, if you want.” Her eyes sparkled with supernatural brightness.

  “No thanks.”

  “Suit yourself. I’ll go see the director and try to head off anything with Felix.”

  Josh nodded.

  All business and armed with a plan, Audray immediately called out to Beau. “Hey big guy.”

  Beau Bradley twirled on his heel, flashing her a grin from ear to ear. “Yes, my sweet?”

  She ran up to him, whispering something in his ear as they both nodded, and briefly kissed. “He’s all yours.” She leaned into Josh and kissed his cheek with more tenderness than Josh thought she possessed. “I’d better go now.”

  He watched as she sprinted down the cobblestone street in her red suit and matching red spiked heels, the sway of her smooth ass and long locks of luscious blond hair swaying to the ministrations of her body. He sighed. It would have been so much easier to fall in love with someone like her, he thought.

  He should be bedding women made of iron, or maybe one Teflon coated. Not one made of soft peach flesh.

  The threesome made it to Helena’s without further incident. The sight of her house always created a safe feeling in the pit of Josh’s soul. Today was not an exception.

  Beau bounded up the front steps like he’d been here before. No doubt he was getting Helena’s place confused with some of the whorehouses he had frequented in his heyday. Instead of knocking, Beau opened the door and stepped into the lavish red parlor at the base of the grand curved stairway.

  Helena descended the staircase with her usual grace and beauty, looking like one of her alabaster statues. She was wearing Josh’s favorite pink peignoir, the petals of the delicate see-through fabric flowing behind her as she wafted down towards them. She greeted Josh warmly with a smile, but was silent.

  “Well, hello there,” Beau blurted out. He stepped toward her, then took her hand. He bowed, as if reaching from somewhere deep in his soul to find a semblance of chivalry, bent his frame over her pink fingertips, and placed a gentle kiss there. “You are absolutely lovely,” he gushed.

  “Why, thank you. That’s very nice.” Helena turned to Daria. “Hello dear. Nice to see you again.”

  “Well, all right then. I need—” Beau began.

  “Would you like some refreshment?” Helena asked. Daria nodded her head before Beau could protest. He gave Josh a drowning look.

  “Helena, I am not sure if you know this, but Beau’s just been converted,” Josh said helpfully.

  “Yes, I can see that.” Helena reached to Beau’s groin and cupped his testicles through his jeans. “I can feel it too.” She smiled. “A little RedEcstasy will enhance your pleasure, trust me.”

  She melted to him, almost touching his mouth with her pink lips, and then pulled away just before he could get a lock on her.

  “Argh. Why are you doing this to me?” he asked as he followed her down the hall.

  Daria was nonplussed. Josh came over to her, wrapping her shoulders with his long arm, inhaling the intoxicating smell of young dark angel flesh. “He’s crazed, you know. But Helena is a wonder. You won’t be having leftovers.”

  She nodded. “Yes, I know.”

  Josh tensed a bit, working not to show it.

  So be it. Another change.

  Beau and Helena returned with four flutes of red liquid Josh recognized as RedEcstasy. Helena gave one to Josh. Beau gave his extra to Daria, along with a long, languid kiss.

  “To us,” Helena said and she raised her glass. Everyone followed the motion, but unlike the others, Josh did not sip. Helena looked at him, one eyebrow raised.

  “I knew he would need a quick refill,” Josh said as he pointed to Beau’s empty glass.

  “Thanks, man,” Beau said as he took the glass from Josh. “This stuff is wonderful. Very smooth, but boy, does it pack a punch!” As he smiled, his teeth were stained red. The girls tittered. It was obvious Beau thought he was clever.

  “Well, my lovely,” Josh addressed Helena. “He is yours for the next twenty-four hours. He’s ready, he was a legendary lover as a human, and I see no reason to doubt his abilities now. He’s newly turned and been exposed to RedEcstasy. I think the three of you are going to have some fun, am I right?”

  “Fuckin’ A,” Beau shouted, then finished his drink.

  “I was hoping you’d stay, Josh.” Helena’s eyes did look especially appealing. Her dark watery orbs called to him, expressing need. He could almost hear the whispers to his ears, telling him of her deep dark desires. But he couldn’t stop thinking about a little blonde waif in a flower shop, arranging red roses, or clipping the heads off them.

  “Not today.”

  Helena didn’t look affected in the slightest. She directed her gaze to Beau and Daria, taking each of their hands. “Let’s be on our way,” she said as they began to ascend the stairway.

  Josh watched the trio with satisfaction. Beau started asking questions about her hours of operation and how long she had been a madam. Helena rightly corrected him by telling him she was exclusive to only a select few. Before they got to the top, she told him nicely to stop talking. She gave Josh a little wave from the top of the steps without looking down.

  This brought a smile to Josh’s face. “One more thing, Helena,” Josh shouted up the stairs.

  All three turned to peer down at him. “I have a request from the director himself. You are absolutely not to release him for a full twenty-four hours…”

  Helena nodded.

  “Not that it will be much of a problem,” Josh continued.

  “No. No problem at all,” she said curtly.

  Josh knew this would be one of the last times he would grace this house. He knew his relationship with Helena was over. Forever.

  However long that meant.

  Chapter 24

  Melanie saw Peter pull up in the Maserati before she opened the shop. She tried to ignore the lurch in her stomach as she heard his insistent banging on the front door. She regretted not telling Josh about the presence of this man at her parent’s house and the way he’d seemed to insert himself into her life now. Had her mother sent this man? She hadn’t told Peter where the flower shop was.

  She thought she saw a fiery cast to Peter’s dark eyes through the glass door. His jaw was tight and one fist banged on the panes of her shop door, the other held balled tightly at his side. It was obvious from his determined expression he wasn’t going to be denied. Melanie thought he’d break down the door if she didn’t let him in.

  So she did. He burst into the space and walked right past her. “Lock it,” he said, pointing to the door, but his flaring nostrils and beady black eyes bore into her.

  His order wasn’t something she was going to argue with.

  “I just had a meeting with someone you used to know. Felix,” he blurted out.

  Her radar went into high alert. Did this mean this man standing before her was also a dark angel? She was aware of every bony detail of Peter’s ghastly face. Previously, he’d looked almost handsome. Perhaps it was the candlelight at her parent’s home, or the glow of the streetlamp when he’d dropped her off at the apartment. But his face now had a deep purple pallor to it; frown lines were prominent, extending down the sides of his liver colored lips halfway to his jaw line. He smelled like some kind of alcohol. She composed herself just enough to give him a quick response.

  “Felix is dead.” She watched as the red glow in his eyes flared for a second. No mistaking it, something supernatural there, she thought. So here was another dark angel. A dark angel who worked for her father and who her mot
her lusted after.

  Oh, this is just perfect. What else could go wrong with my life?

  He stepped close to her. She could see his teeth were discolored, looking like he’d just eaten a packet of red food coloring. “Yes. I talk to the dead sometimes. He told me you have been a very naughty girl. Seems you’ve given him up for someone else.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She hoped he would believe the lie.

  Peter grabbed her arm, wrenching it up painfully so that she couldn’t wiggle away. He spewed out his message in her right ear. “You can’t trust him. He’s a dark angel. He doesn’t care one wit about you.”

  She attempted to disentangle from his grip, but unable to, she shouted a command that scared her in its strength. “Get your hands off me now or I will call the police.”

  He dropped her arm and took a step backward. His teeth were clenched and his lips formed a grimace as he looked around the room. He straightened the collar of his stiff white shirt, adjusted the turquoise thunderbird string tie that formed a loose garrote around his neck.

  “Felix is worried about you. He wants to be able to speak with you.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “Joshua told you that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he tell you anything about me?”

  This puzzled Melanie. “He doesn’t even know about you, or that I know you.”

  “I’m the one who sent him after you. Bet he didn’t tell you, did he?”

  Melanie shook. She looked around the shop, at evidence of an insignificant life. Little trappings of a being who thought she knew the difference between reality and fantasy.

  Why has he lied to me? The one person in the world she thought she could finally trust had made a fool of her. Slept with her for his own pleasure. Lied. Like everyone else around her.

  She now knew Josh was right about one thing: it was dangerous being around him. Just as it was dangerous to be around this dark angel.

  “Why would you send him after me? You seem to be doing quite a good job of stalking all by yourself.”

  “You haven’t seen what I can do. What I will do to get what I want.”

  “So you send an errand boy to do your bidding? Can’t get the girl without the intermediary? And just what is it you have in mind for me?”

  In a flash, he was pressed against her. He pulled her to his chest and spoke, his gravelly voice piercing the air. “I would lay my kingdom at your feet. I am in need of a companion.”

  “Not interested,” she said to his red teeth. “You are disgusting to me.”

  Peter pushed her away from him so hard she nearly fell on her rear. “No one says no to me. No one.”

  “I just did.”

  “I have the power to cause great harm to people you care about. Your parents. Felix.”

  Melanie watched his dark eyes that seemed to enjoy the struggle going on inside her, as if smelling her fear. She knew the name he would say next. He delivered it with a smile.

  “Joshua. I could hurt him, then destroy him.”

  Even though she knew it was coming, it didn’t make it easy to hear. Tears welled up in her eyes.

  “And in case you’re thinking about steeling yourself from me, I don’t require you like me. I require that you come of your own accord. I’ll let Joshua tell you what the consequences will be. Maybe you don’t care about Felix or your parents. But if you don’t come to me, I will destroy Joshua. Slowly.” He smiled.

  Chapter 25

  Peter tore out of the parking lot at Melanie’s shop, his Maserati squealing and roaring like a speared wild beast. He didn’t bother to look back to see if she was watching him go. He wanted vengeance. He had a taste for killing, a bloodlust burning a hole in his soul, and was contemplating method and strategy. Maybe he should first disable Joshua in case he had designs to take his virgin before Peter could taste her sweetness.

  His cold fingers gripped the leather steering wheel, making it moan. Perhaps she had already been deflowered. Felix didn’t think so. He’d said Josh had sent her home alone. But then the young dark angel had come straight to the Underworld, practically peeing in his pants to tell him the story. Peter should have asked Felix’s help, but it took some constraint just to hold off frying him as he spewed forth the details. The young dark angel slipped away somewhere as Peter concentrated on his plan to confront her. And now he had all the confirmation he needed. She cared for Joshua and she wasn’t going to come to Peter willingly. He doubted Joshua would be able to get her to change her mind, and if he came to harm, Melanie would likely take this as martyrdom and she’d be lost to Peter forever.

  He was certain it was a surprise to Melanie that Joshua was sent to claim her for Peter. He smiled with satisfaction this thought would niggle around in her mind all day and night. Let her think about that for a while. Damn them both.

  He decided to leave Joshua a calling card. He couldn’t bring himself to hurt Melanie. Not yet. Not until he’d had her. But he could hurt one of Joshua’s flock. He decided a quick killing mission before returning to the Underworld would be good for his dark soul.

  Good, then.

  After his completed mission, Peter parked his car an hour later in the garage near the transport station. He owned the building, which had a living unit above the garage, and kept some clothes there. He could freshen up either just before or after his transports.

  The stink of his anger, mixed with blood coming from the vapor spray, was on him. Looking in the bathroom mirror, he noticed the red stains on his teeth too and cursed. He turned on his automatic toothbrush and worked over his mouth until his spit contained no pink.

  He peeled off his clothes, intending to burn them later, and jumped into the shower. He liked the hot steamy showers of the human world, had duplicated an even nicer one in his quarters in Underworld. He also loved the eucalyptus gel and herbal shampoo. He thoroughly scrubbed his skin with a loofa, preferring to be thoroughly, painfully clean. When he stepped out, a quick check of his reflection noted his need for another shave. His cell phone rang.

  “Peter here.” Only a handful of persons had his private sat phone number.

  “Sir. I believe I owe you twenty-four hours of gratitude.”

  He felt his demeanor soften even as his dick got hard. “Audray, my dear. How lovely to hear your voice.”

  “That’s a good start, sir. Where would you like me to meet you? It sounds like you might be up top.”

  “Yes, I am. But I’m coming back.” He thought about his private chambers with the fur spread over the dark four-poster bed and the huge fireplace. His steam shower with the multiple heads, recently remodeled. He was in the habit of falling asleep watching movies on his eight-foot flat screen TV he could view from his bed or his soaking tub. Lately he’d gotten into some of the former director’s sex films, pleasuring himself, thinking about Melanie coming to him.

  But tonight it would be Audray. Suddenly the thought of pleasuring her was even more enticing, because Josh had never been granted permission. He would take what Josh could never have, or would have second. Tonight Peter would be first.

  “Sir, are you there?”

  “Yes, Audray. I will meet you at the Director’s House. You know it?”

  “No, but I’ll find it.” He heard her sigh into the phone. “What time?”

  “I should be there within an hour. That give you time to…get ready?” he whispered.

  “I’m ready for my training. You will have to show me, sir. You will have to be the one to ready me.”

  The luscious sound of her voice stimulated every cell in his body. He might make it a rule she call him several times a day on his phone from now on, just so he could hear the throaty voice that made him want to do things to himself. And her.

  “I have a few things in mind,” he said and smiled.

  “Are we going to be alone?”

  “Why, yes. What were you thinking?”

  “Nothing, sir. Just asking.”
<
br />   “You want someone else at the party?”

  There was a pause on the other end of the phone. “No,” Audray said softly. “No. I just want you.”

  The limo dropped Peter off at the steps of the black Tudor-style house that former directors of the Underworld had stayed in for centuries. He opened the shiny wooden front door to a black and white marble foyer where he removed his coat, leaving it on an iron coat rack. A red silk raincoat with a hood was already there. He smelled it and immediately felt aroused again. It had the unmistakable scent of Audray.

  She was true to her word, dressed in a red knit dress that didn’t hide a single ripple or nipple or crease or soft mound. It hugged like a scarlet second skin that would have to be peeled from her. She walked with a model strut, one leg crossing the other in exaggerated fashion, holding two flutes of RedEcstasy, aiming straight for him, eyes on his. It was thrilling to know he was the target of her passion.

  “Ah, lovely,” Peter said as he took the flute, brushing over her light pink fingers, the nails polished in high gloss red. “I’ve been looking forward to this for several hours.” It wasn’t exactly the truth, but the thought of being alone with Audray all night and day had consumed his thoughts as he was getting Beau Bradley released and lasted for several hours until Felix found him. That ruined everything. After the young angel had spilled his guts, Peter had felt as miserable as Felix looked.

  But now to the evening at hand. He drew her to him, one arm around her waist, and massaged the surface of her ass, first one cheek and then the other. She leaned into his thigh, slightly spreading her legs so that her mound was sliding up and down, as if riding him. His pants moved in anticipation of feeling the lips of her sex brush against the muscled surface of his thigh.

  She looked up at him, her red lips blazing, slightly parting them to whisper, “I am yours. Teach me, sir.” He had to plant his mouth over hers, sucking the supple skin, tasting her tongue covered in the RedEcstasy elixir. He was glad she liked the liquor. Not all women did, he’d been told.