If he were lucky, he never would again.
“I’m not interested in conversation.” She flicked her finger for him to go away, an apparent universal sign everyone understood because the male took the hint and moved away.
A very long time ago the mystic race had coexisted with humans. Sirens had filtered the scum from society, the criminal debauchery a feast. They’d been worshiped as gods, welcomed into homes, and prayers were sent their way. In return, mystics had received the mortals into their Valhalla—Atlantis. Then an unknown plague had nearly eradicated mankind. When the prayers went unanswered, the mystics had sunk their heaven to escape persecution. They might be stronger and magically inclined, but humans could still kill them.
Swiveling in her seat, she surveyed the room. She sensed the focus of the male beside her, but he remained seated with his back to the dance floor.
Gabriel. What a unique name, nothing she’d hear in Atlantis. She liked it. The way the syllables rolled around in her head was kind of…intriguing.
On the dance floor, bodies were grinding together in the suggestive act of sex, which increased her awareness of the mystic male. Revelers drunk on liquor and pheromones grew more lascivious with one another, less cautious of the company they kept. No way would a syn miss this easy action.
“You have me at a disadvantage, Gabriel.” She shuddered. Shit. Nothing could’ve prepared her for the way his name sounded on her tongue. Even though he didn’t look at her, she felt his attention. “What type of mystic are you?”
He chuckled. The sound vibrated against her clitoris. Odd reaction to him considering no matter how much stimulation she received, she couldn’t climax with anyone except her mate.
Am I growing wet? Nah…couldn’t be.
“I’m not a mystic.” He rotated on the barstool to face her. “I’m a shifter.”
That explained his wild charisma, but not her physical reaction to him. Sirens did not mate with lesser creatures. In laymen terms, that meant any creature not of her race. They were superior, had ruled Atlantis since its inception. Her kind’s preeminence wouldn’t change because she had a small, practically non-existence twitch in her crotch.
I probably imagined the reaction anyway.
Of course, she had invented the response. Humans were gyrating sex acts on the dance floor. That’d be enough to—
“How did you know I’m a siren?” Unease crackled down her spine. No supernatural creature could feel the presence of her species. They weren’t known as reapers without reason, so how had the shifter sniffed her out?
He shrugged. Such a normal affectation, she would’ve thought it too commonplace for him to execute.
She spied her target entering the establishment and watched as he took a seat across the room. “What do you want?”
“You.”
A weird throbbing started between her thighs. Unnerved by the physical response she couldn’t deny, she tilted her lips in a forced smile. “Too bad I’m not available.”
She went invisible.
Gabriel chuckled. “I can still smell you. So you know, my sweet little reaper, once you’re in my database, I can track you.”
Sameya laughed. “Best of fortune with that, shifter.”
Regardless of the fact he couldn’t see her, she sashayed away, feeling his stare in her direction. Coming to a halt beside the unassuming elf, she touched his cheek and coated him in a magical serenade. With a crook of her finger, he followed her out of the tavern without a verbal request.
She led him down the street and into a dark alley. Only when she had him alone did she drop her magic and go corporeal. He presented no expression to her sudden appearance, just gaped blankly, as if she didn’t exist. That lack of recognition proved her serenade placed him in a semi-catatonic state.
A tingling down her spine alerted her to Gabriel’s presence. The nerve of the man following her from the bar! For his audacity, she’d give him a show.
Sidling closer to the fey she’d trapped in her mojo, she pushed him against the damp brick wall and pressed her body against his. With a finger to his jugular, she commanded, “I want to know everything, elf.”
She dug into the creature’s mind, the catch of his thoughts and memories an aphrodisiac to her senses. Heat corkscrewed through her, but it was the shifter’s presence that disturbed her most. Her leader’s life was at stake, and the vibrant male at her back distracted her focus. Her reaction to him was the worst irony, and his interference bad timing.
Gabriel shifted to lean a shoulder against the brick wall beside the elf’s mind she pillaged. He was tall. A good foot taller than her, with broad shoulders that made her feel tiny. She lifted her eyes to his golden orbs. Glowing, they seemed feral in the shadows, but she sensed no threat from him. Not that she feared him when she could serenade him in a split second.
With a twist of power, she eliminated the elf and took a step backward. Her victim slumped to the cracked street, his eyes open and glassy. Dead. He’d deserved to suffer, but she hadn’t the time to spare.
Gabriel surveyed the fallen. When his concentration shifted to her, his gaze slithered up her body starting with her boots. By the time he met her eyes, she trembled as if he’d caressed her and stimulated her like in those romance books she imbibed from time-to-time.
“I thought you’d climax before you released him.”
Having no idea what one of those felt like, she shrugged. “He deserved his outcome.”
Dark blond eyebrows elevated. “Did you get what you were looking for from him?”
Not as much as she’d like. “Yes.”
He elevated his hand, and the pads of his fingertips slid from her temple to her jaw, his gawk fixated on her mouth. “You weren’t what I was expecting when Gryphon….”
When Gryphon what? But he didn’t elaborate, and she didn’t ask.
His eyes flashed to hers as his touch scraped across her bottom lip. She shuddered at the tingling his fondling elicited at the base of her scalp. Suddenly, she wanted to know what it felt like to have his hands all over her body. What would it feel like to have him fucking her? He couldn’t be her mate…not a possibility with his race. But he tempted her for the first time in a long time.
“I have someone I want you to meet.”
That request snapped her out of her daze. Shifters weren’t the raping and pillaging type, but she had a job to do. Interruptions weren’t tolerable. And she’d dallied overmuch.
“No.” A moment later, she intentionally lost her visibility and side stepped his attempt to snag her. “Better luck next time, shifter.”
She swiped a fingertip along his chin, and static tingled on her flesh. Snatching her hand back, she peered at him. What the fuck had just happened? Nothing good. In the next second, self-preservation kicked in and she fled.
Chapter Three
Gabriel sipped whiskey straight from the miniature bottle he’d snagged from the hotel mini-bar. He pushed the balcony doors open and stepped out into the humid, New Orleans, Louisiana heat. Past midnight, the revelry on Bourbon Street kicked into overdrive. Tourists swilled liquor like a cheap whore sucked cock. Fast and hard.
He hated this city with its overpowering stench of rotting garbage. The corpses buried in mausoleums irritated his oversensitive sense of smell, and the human congestion increased their risk of exposure and they couldn’t chance being discovered.
No self-respecting shifter would reside in this cesspool of iniquity. Following their quarry wherever she went, left them with no other choice but to venture within the territory lines. Being a tracker had landed him in many unsavory locales over the years. Who was he to complain over a little inconvenience when the profits were enormous? Not that Sameya would gross them a single dime after the way they ended things with Tyron Gryphon. When he’d mentioned Gryphon’s name, there hadn’t been an ounce of recognition on her features.
She did not know the man. Curious that Tyron Gryphon claimed they were more than acquaintances. Were
nefarious schemes afoot? No other prospect came to mind. Griffins were known charlatans, willing to do anything to gain what they desired. If Gryphon knew how to collar a siren, then he and Maximus needed to proceed cautiously.
Sirens were known among the mystic community as ‘reapers’ because by the time mankind or fey realized they peered at a siren, it was too late, they were a goner. They could enthrall almost all species, leading to a willing demise. Sirens had been known to eradicate an entire fey breed. Or so the myth went. He’d never actually met one until tonight. And watching her do her thing to the elf…fuck it’d been hot. Only for a moment had he pondered what the fey had done to deserve his demise. In the end, he simply hadn’t cared enough to intercede.
Only a vampyr was immune to a siren’s song. That afforded Maximus a safety net, but not himself. As a tiger shifter, she could lull him as easily as another. He could track her now that he had her scent in his nostrils…and goddamn what a scent it was. But what would hunting her down gain him if she could serenade him?
If he wasn’t mistaken, she was the third part to his and Maximus’s triune. The way his body reacted to her tonight, the tiger pressing against his skin, roaring in his head to get free and claim her. He’d damn near lost control in the pub. His feline responded to her the same way it had when he’d met Maximus…with the irrational need to claim, dominate and mate.
Gabriel slammed his fingers through his hair. What a fucking nightmare. Her red streaked black hair and flawless skin were exquisite. Eyes like violets, a deep purple no one would mistake for human. And her body in those skin-fucking-tight pants—what had they been crafted from anyway?—was made to give men pleasure. Petite, but curvaceous, her hips were rounded enough he could envision holding them tight as he bent her over and fucked her.
This unexpected outcome complicated their lives further. A shifter and vampyr mating was as unheard of as a siren mating outside her species. Gabriel loved Maximus, would die for him, but Maximus had lost everything to be with him. After almost a millennium together, he still carried guilt for his lover’s loss. With the siren as a potential mate, he worried she’d mess things up rather than improve their relationship.
They’d spent six months hunting the elusive siren, wanting to catch her before Gryphon accomplished the feat. They caught small leads and followed them until the trail grew cold. A few weeks later new information would emerge, and they’d chase another lead for a couple of weeks. After it’d become obvious she didn’t know Gryphon, Gabriel wondered who’d been planting the leads. Had they really been following Sameya’s clues or following one of Gryphon’s goose chases? That the griffin might be yanking their chain pissed him off and made his tiger edgy.
To bump into her tonight by accident—or had it been a chance coincidence? His gut said Gryphon knew where she was at any given time, so why involve them? None of the turn of events made sense.
“What bothers you, Gabriel?” Maximus plucked the miniature whiskey bottle from his hand. He hadn’t even heard the vampyr’s approach. Sneaky like that, it was one of the many things he found sexy about his lover.
With his hands on Gabriel’s shoulders, Maximus turned him away from the crowd below, and left his palms on him after they faced one another. Only an inch shorter than Maximus, Gabriel peered into his silver-blue eyes.
Gabriel ran his hand over his face. “I bumped into Sameya tonight at Dirty Liquor. I….” He expelled a breath. To express his next thoughts would give credence to them. “I believe she’s the one that’ll complete our tri-union.”
Maximus ran the back of his fingers against Gabriel’s cheek. “Naleah….” A vampyr term of endearment that roughly translated into ‘my love’. “You’re vulnerable to sirens. It’s possible she serenaded you.”
“I heard no song.” His cat had felt her the instant she approached the bar and his cock had gone instantly hard.
Maximus wore only a towel hooked about his waist and beads of water ran down his smooth, muscled chest. His wet chin-length, wavy, dark-brown hair clung to his neck. He’d come fresh from the shower, but Gabriel could smell his unique scent. “I doubt you would. It’s not like she’s singing a lullaby.”
“My tiger went crazy wanting out. You cannot imagine her scent. The way it incited my beast. Maximus—”
“We’re already an unconventional couple, Gabriel.” Maximus cupped the back of his head. “What are the chances of our third being another breed totally different from one of ours?”
Gabriel kissed Maximus’s wrist. The odds must be one in a billion. Their mating was rare, so to add another variety would be inexplicable. “You’re probably right. Except….” He sighed. “You’re right.” He pushed his fingers through Maximus’s damp strands and leaned his forehead against the vampyr’s.
“Except your tiger went irrational near her the way it did me?”
Sometimes it felt like his lover could read his mind. “Yeah.”
“We’ll catch her and put this theory of yours to rest. One way or the other. Until then”—Maximus fisted a handful of his hair and wrenched his head back, his dick jerking against his slacks at the vampyr’s aggression—“I’m going to fuck you.”
Gabriel smiled. A hard fuck was what he desired, and he loved that his mate could sense his needs. He sidled closer, kissing the other man’s forehead. “Shall we go inside, Maximus?”
“No.” Maximus ripped his towel off exposing his nudity to Bourbon Street revelers below. “Out here where all of humanity can watch us.”
A heartbeat lapsed between them. Gabriel’s fondness for voyeurism kicked in, and his tiger purred.
“I want you to growl for me when you come.” Maximus nipped his bottom lip and deftly worked the buttons through the holes on Gabriel’s dress shirt. The muggy air kissed his flesh and swirled around him. His shifter senses prickled him with gooseflesh, tingling as if to alert him of being tracked. Crazy notion when they were removing clothing on the terrace and many were below. Of course people would watch!
The vampyr bit his lip again, hard enough to draw blood. He swiped away the hemoglobin with a lick. He employed his fangs when he was in a playful mood, which countered Gabriel’s animalistic disposition perfectly. “I’ll fuck you over the bannister, Maximus.” The urge to mark, dominate and mate continued to twist through him. He’d sink his cat canines into the mating mark on the vampyr’s neck when he came. It was the only way he’d come close to pacifying his tiger’s needs.
Maximus pulled Gabriel’s shirt free of his pants and pushed the garment over his shoulders, following the material’s descent with his palms down Gabriel’s arms. The vampyr liked to touch and Gabriel loved having his hands on him. His lover tossed the shirt over the railing. Commotion from below and someone squealed, “Look!”
They kissed, tongues tangoing as Maximus released Gabriel’s slacks and pushed them to his ankles, along with his underwear. Gasps from below, followed by, “So, hot.” The clicking and bursts of light evidence photos were being taken. Neither of their faces would turn out, a little bit of magic that always surrounded them.
Gabriel wrapped locks of Maximus’s moist hair around his fingers and jerked his head back. He met the vampyr’s eyes. Fuck, he loved this man. The only problem they’d had to being mated was the difference in species. Mating was about paring two individuals together that’d benefit nature. Gabriel would die for Maximus. Yet, they needed their third to make them complete, but the effects she could have on their established relationship could cause everything to go sideways in a hurry.
“I’m going to fuck you hard, Maximus.”
Eyes shifting from silver-blue to bright green indicated the vampyr had come out to play. His fangs extended. A slight forward tilt of Maximus’s head and he buried his teeth into Gabriel’s neck. He groaned as Maximus’s tongue swooshed against the incisors buried in his flesh. Nothing like having his spouse bite him, feed from him. A vampyr’s bite was painful to all but their mate.
Maximus jerked Gabriel’s
head hard to the right and thrust his fangs deeper. The vampyr’s fingers curled around the base of the tiger’s dick and he stroked in time with his sucks. Glide and suck, glide and suck, with his thumb slithering over the head. Gabriel’s knees trembled and his balls tightened, his crown throbbing. He’d blow any goddamn second, but Maximus only played, and released his length.
Gabriel’s inclination was to bend his spouse over and fuck him hard for the teasing foreplay. Instead, he cupped Maximus’s ass with a hand and ground his pelvis against him. Hard cocks rubbed against one another. The vampyr hissed against his flesh and downed his blood faster.
Fangs retracted with a pop and his tongue swiped down his neck and across his collarbone. Strong fingers clasped the tiger’s cock and gently stroked. Gabriel grew harder. Ached to bury himself balls deep inside his spouse.
Gabriel circled Maximus’s pierced nipples with his thumbs as he kissed him, his cat emitting a low grumble. Licking down the vampyr’s throat, he nipped his collarbone and scraped his teeth over his nipples.
“It’s about you tonight, lover.” Maximus pulled him upward, their mouths connecting.
The kiss went on and on as his lover gripped his butt, his fingers skimming through the crack of his ass, tantalizing him. Maximus moved down Gabriel’s neck, kissing and licking, until he went to his knees in front of Gabriel’s erect cock. Pumping Gabriel’s length with one hand, the vampyr cupped his balls with the other and licked the head of his dick. Gabriel jerked and palmed the back of the other man’s head.
“Let’s give the crowd a show they won’t soon forget.” Maximus gripped Gabriel’s hips and turned him so he stood at an angle to the crowd beneath them, his cock visible to the gawkers.
“When we locate our third mate”—Maximus’s lips glided along his erection, back and forth in wispy teases and he thought his balls would explode with the need to plunge into the vampyr—“she’ll help me suck you.” No forewarning, Maximus swallowed Gabriel’s penis into his mouth, his tongue curling around the head, his tongue-piercing tormenting him further. He tangled his fingers in Maximus’s hair and tried to urge him to take more, but the vampyr failed to cooperate.
Taboo Kisses Page 2