by Juliet Lyons
“That’s interesting,” he murmurs. “If she’s genuine.”
“Are there genuine witches and psychics?”
He holds the door to the stairs open for me. “I believe so, though I’ve never met one myself.”
“A vampire witch,” I mutter as he falls into step beside me, our jacket sleeves brushing as we climb the stairs.
“It’s an interesting concept. When a human turns vampire, any special gifts or talents from the human life are magnified. A person with that kind of gift could become quite powerful.”
“What were your special gifts and talents?” I tease. “Excellent cooking and good manners?”
He throws me a sideways glance, smiling. “Is that all I’m good for?”
I blush, thinking of what happened in his car earlier. “No. I can think of something else.”
“I can think of something you’re good at too,” he says, splaying his fingers and lacing them through mine.
I stop at the top of the stairs, our fingers still entwined, a tingly warmth radiating from his touch. “I don’t usually go around doing that in cars, you know? In fact, the whole morning was out of the ordinary.”
A shadow of anxiety flits across his handsome features. “I hope I didn’t make you do anything you didn’t want to, Mila. I—”
“No,” I interrupt. “I didn’t mean that. I liked it. All of it.” I prod his shoulder with an index finger. “How could I not?” Sensing his moral compass is spiraling over our delicate situation, I jerk my head toward the door. “Shall we talk about this at home—I mean, at your home?”
He squeezes my hand. “Yes.”
All the way back to Farringdon, the tension builds, as if the oxygen has been sucked from the air. He stalls the car twice at traffic lights, apologizing and looking flustered, raking nervous hands through his messy hair. I always thought confidence was sexy in a man, but watching him falling to pieces over the idea of us being alone leaves me longing to rip his fly down and bury my head in his lap all over again. By the time we pull into the parking lot, my whole body and every nerve ending is thrumming with want.
I’m almost considering making a move in the elevator up to his apartment, but a woman in gym gear gets in on the first floor and rides all the way up with us. While we’re standing there, politely staring up at the floor indicator, I slip a hand under his suit jacket, hooking a thumb into the belt at his waist. He flinches, staring down at me with burning topaz eyes. Naked fear and desire swirl together in his gaze, instantly robbing me of my cocksureness. My knees tremble beneath my skirt.
When the apartment door slams behind us and Vincent has performed his usual sweep of the apartment to make sure there are no serial killers lurking, we turn to face each other. He shoves his hands deep into his pockets, a tiny pulse throbbing in his angular jaw. I slide my gaze over him—the suit jacket stretched tight over his broad shoulders, the planes of muscle visible beneath his shirt, the perfect V of his torso.
I gulp. “I think I’m going to go and change,” I say, jabbing a thumb over my shoulder. He nods, watching me leave. I get so flustered I yank open a closet door instead of the one leading to the bedrooms. I blink in confusion for a few seconds, staring into the gloomy space at the vacuum cleaner and mop bucket.
“I didn’t think overalls were your thing, but if that’s what turns you on, I’m sure Hilda won’t mind you borrowing them,” he says from behind me.
My face on fire, I turn to find him smirking. “You make your cleaning lady wear a uniform?”
He laughs, deep and satisfying. “No, I think she wears it so she doesn’t get her things dirty.”
I shut the closet door and open the right one. “Aha! Got it. I’ll be right back.”
I take the fastest shower of my life, scrubbing at my skin with fruity bodywash and lathering my hair into a frenzy with the shampoo and conditioner. After rinsing, I wrench a comb through the tangles and wrap myself in a towel, stepping back into the guest bedroom.
Now I have a dilemma. Do I slink out there in pajamas or wear a full set of clothes? I stand with my pajama shorts in one hand and a pair of jeans in the other, weighing my options. In the end, I ditch both and settle for a gray sundress I used to wear on Sundays in Australia. Only this time I wear it with ultra-expensive La Perla undies, hidden like secret weapons beneath the soft cotton.
After a quick brush of my teeth, I give my lashes a swipe of mascara and blast my hair with the dryer. This is precisely why a person isn’t supposed to hook up with a housemate. They know exactly how long you’re spending getting ready for them. I take a deep, shaky breath before stepping out into the lounge.
Vincent is in the kitchenette, stirring a teapot. His hand stills as I step into the room, eyes lingering on the hem and neckline of my dress. My heart lurches in my chest. I’m not the only one who’s had a change of clothes, it seems. He’s wearing a faded green T-shirt that strains against his bulging biceps, with a pair of blue Levi’s slung low on his slender hips. His blond hair is damp from the shower, dark and falling in messy waves over the tips of his ears. My insides melt.
“I thought I’d make some tea,” he says.
I don’t want tea. I want him.
I take a few steps closer. “Are you always this domestic?”
“No,” he says, pouring dark-brown liquid into a mug. “But it’s different having you here. Don’t tell Lee Davies or he’ll tell me I need to relocate my balls, but it’s nice having someone to look after.”
“Like a pet?” I ask, smirking.
He shakes his head. “Not like a pet. Like a beautiful woman I’m rapidly becoming a slave to.” He speaks with a twinkle in his eye, but the words are prickly in his throat, as if beneath the joke, he means it.
“Vincent,” I say, my breathing growing faster. “Put the teapot down.”
It lands with a clunk on the countertop.
“See?” he says in a hoarse voice, his eyes piercing mine. “I’m a slave.”
I don’t see him move, not even a blur, but suddenly I’m in his arms, my body pressed tight to his, my toes barely brushing the floor as his lips hover over mine. “Mila,” he whispers. My heart is racing, pulse pounding through every inch of my body, coming alive at his touch. “If there is any part of you that thinks this is a bad idea, you have to tell me now.”
I press my palms into the hard ridges of his back, as if my fingers might sear through the thin material that separates his skin from mine, and inhale his intoxicating scent—aftershave, mint, fresh linen. How can any of this be a bad idea when I feel this way?
“This isn’t a bad idea,” I say, losing myself in the silvery flecks of his eyes, the exquisite angles of his face. “Trust me, I’ve had plenty. I would know the signs.”
“I’m scared, Mila,” he says, running his hands through my hair. “This. You. It scares me.”
My chest tightens. “I’m afraid too.”
Because the ridiculous truth is, the idea of Vincent catching the killer and me going back to my old life scares me more than anything else.
He lifts me off my feet and carries me effortlessly across the room to the sofa—the place we’ve spent so many hours not touching. The spot where I made him watch all those romantic dramas, the movies Laura and I thought real life could never live up to. As he lays me down flat, a knee on either side of my hips, and peels off his T-shirt, I can only think how wrong we were. Real life has played its trump card.
I reach up, tracing fingers across the ridges of his sculpted muscles, satin stretched over steel. His skin is warm beneath my fingers, hot and hard as burning iron.
“You’re beautiful,” I say, resting my hand on the waist of his jeans and twisting open the top button.
He shakes his head and smiles. “No, you’re what’s beautiful in this world, Mila.”
As he reaches down to the hem of my flimsy dress,
a wave of insecurity rolls over me. I grab his hands. “You should know, there are marks and lumps and parts that mean I’ll never be Playmate calendar material.”
“You don’t get it, do you?” he says, placing a kiss at the corner of my mouth. “To me, you’re perfect. Even if there were fish scales under this dress, I will never see you as anything less.”
Jack. Pot.
I arch my back from the sofa, allowing him to lift off the dress, saying a silent prayer of thanks to La Perla and all its lacy magic as he leans back on his haunches, sweeping a drowsy, heavy-lidded gaze over my body.
“This is beauty,” he says, placing burning hands on my hip bones, slipping thumbs beneath the string of my panties and sliding them down over my legs.
I writhe under his touch, the need for him burning away my insecurity. I reach behind my back to undo my bra, and he peels it off, tossing it aside. Hooking an ankle around his hip bone, I drag him close, running my hands over the firm, silky skin of his shoulders and chest.
My hands trembling, I undo the rest of the buttons to his jeans, smothering a gasp of delight as his erection springs out, thick and hard, from an explosion of soft, downy hair. I hungrily stroke its satiny length, eliciting a moan from deep inside his throat as he thrusts against my hand.
With a growl, he grasps my wrist. “If you keep doing that, I’ll lose my mind again,” he says in a raspy voice. “And I have plans for you before that happens.”
I sit up to slide his jeans down his hips, and he stands, wriggling out of them and tossing them aside. He leans over me, hands on either side of my shoulders, tendons cording the length of his strong arms. Outside, the sun has almost disappeared beneath the horizon, the light from distant skyscrapers casting his body in a soft, burnished glow.
I gulp, staring into the gap between our bodies, trying to memorize his perfectly sculpted shape—long, muscled legs, lean hips, a firm swell of buttocks. I spread my legs the width of the sofa, inviting him in, wanting nothing more than the feel of his rough fingertips inside me, the bristle of stubble against my thigh.
Lowering himself into the nook of my body, he kisses me on the mouth, hands tangling into my hair, tongue sliding over mine in lazy rhythm.
I meant what I said to Laura about feeling it down to my toes. It’s the kind of kiss that suspends time, scattering every thought like leaves on the wind. I melt in his arms, my core blooming hotter and wetter with every gentle thrust of his tongue, until I’m nothing but a puddle of simmering desire.
By the time his hand works its way between my thighs, I can barely remember my own name. I break the kiss and emit a low hiss of pleasure, my head tipping backward as he glides expert fingers through my soaking folds, rubbing my clit in torturous circles with his thumb.
Then his lips nudge their way down my neck, burning into my skin with the heat of a thousand suns. I twist my body, my hands burying themselves in his damp hair as I guide his mouth onto one of my hardened nipples, moaning as he sucks the tip between his lips, flicking at it with his rough tongue.
When he slides a finger inside my core, my breath catches in my throat. I tug at his hair, a stream of incomprehensible words erupting from my lips. It’s like my brain is living solely at my nerve endings, at all the places his hands and lips and tongue are connecting with my body, abandoning speech and rational thought in pursuit of greater things.
I cry out, feral and wild, as he thrusts his fingers deeper, lapping at my nipples. Unable to take any more, my core spasms around him as I climax, tipping me into an abyss of ecstasy.
“Vincent!” His name explodes from my throat as waves of bliss pour over me. Just when I think it’s slowing down, he moves lower, hooking my trembling legs over his shoulders and licking my soaked opening, his tongue pushing against my sensitive walls until I’m rocked by another white-hot orgasm.
When I return to my body, I fall back against the couch, hands on my head, a sweaty mess of spent pleasure as he ghosts kisses between my hip bone and up over my tummy.
“Wha—” I gulp, unable to recall the English language. “Why—how—oh God.”
Vincent extracts himself from my legs and stares into my face. “Are you okay?”
I laugh crazily at the absurdity of his question, my breathing ragged. “Vincent. I’m ruined.”
Smiling, he circles a thumb into the underside of my breast, brushing wet lips across my nipple. “Then prepare for further ruination, Miss Hart.”
He lifts me up so I’m sitting in his lap, nose to nose, my knees either side of his muscular thighs, his arms wrapped around my waist.
“This is what I was really thinking about all those times we sat watching television,” he whispers, wriggling so that his hard length springs up between us.
I smile. “Even in the middle of Dr. Quinn?”
He grins. “Especially during Dr. Quinn.”
With one hand resting on his chest, I reach down to stroke his velvety length, mesmerized as his jaw slackens, his eyelids fluttering.
“Mila,” he murmurs, his hands moving to grasp me beneath the buttocks, his mouth working its way along my collarbone.
I push myself onto my knees, teasing the glistening tip of his erection along the wet slit of my entrance.
“Yes,” he says, the word coming out like a hiss of steam. “Please, Mila. I need to be in you.”
Pushing up higher, so that my chest is level with his face, I position myself over his hard length. He presses warm fingers into my lower back, his mouth latching on to a nipple, before thrusting deep inside me.
Stars explode behind my eyes. We both cry out. The feeling of him, hard and thick, is the most perfect thing that’s ever happened to me. This time when I come, I shatter, as if I’m a piece of glass hitting the ground from a great height, fragments scattering like debris after a blast. Then I hear Vincent’s groans clashing with my own as he pours into me, his head collapsing into the space between my shoulder and jaw, the hard swell of his body going limp.
How is it possible to go from being Netflix buddies to this in the space of twenty-four hours?
We don’t make any attempt to move for a long while. His face remains buried in my neck, his moisture mingling with mine, beads of perspiration clinging to our skin.
I’m the first to break the silence. “Hilda won’t be happy we stained the couch.”
Vincent is quiet for a second before bursting into laughter. He sits back, gazing lazily into my eyes. “It’s about time she earned her keep.”
I take a playful swipe at his shoulder. “Beast. I hope she’s in the union.”
He smiles, his gaze never straying from my face. He brushes damp hair from my eyes as I run my fingertips along his jaw. I explore his face with my hands, the exquisite lines of his face—a bump in his otherwise straight nose, the sweep of lashes on his cheek. He is perfect. Like a statue brought to life. A fairy-tale prince.
“So, what shall we watch on TV tonight?” I tease.
He chuckles, leaning forward to brush a kiss against my lips. “Nothing. I’m taking you to bed and we’re not leaving for many, many hours.”
“Is that a police order?” I ask, wide-eyed.
His eyes flash in amusement. “It’s a police command.”
I smile. “You might have to carry me. I’m not sure I’ll ever walk again.”
He rises off the sofa, keeping my jelly legs wrapped tightly around his hips. “Your room or mine?”
Chapter 12
Vincent
“Vincent? How come you haven’t bitten me yet?”
Several hours have passed since making love on the sofa, and we’re lying on the guest bed. Her peachy body is nestled into the nook between my knees and chin, our limbs knotted up like vines. I’ve been drawing lazy circles around her belly button with an index finger, my face buried in the tousled hair at the nape of her neck. She smells i
ncredible, like honeysuckle after a rainstorm mixed with good, clean sweat. Though we’ve been making love for hours, I’m hard and ready to go again.
My hand stills midstroke. The truth is I’ve gotten good at controlling my fangs over the years. The last thing I want to do is scare her off.
“I would never bite you,” I say gently. “Not unless you asked me to.”
I try to keep my tone neutral, as if I’m telling her it doesn’t matter what kind of pizza we order, because of course I want to bite her—the urge comes from the same place as wanting to slide my tongue inside her core, to suck her nipples until she screams with pleasure. But those are human urges, whereas biting and drinking blood are entirely vampiric.
She turns over, resting her head in the curve of my arm and tracing a line through the ridges of my chest with her finger. “So you’d want to if I asked? I mean, it couldn’t turn me into a vampire, could it?”
I sigh, twirling tendrils of her honey-colored hair around my fingertips. The idea of her seeing me fanged is as terrifying as it is arousing. It could change everything between us, bring back memories of the night she was almost killed. It would also reveal me for what I truly am—a freak of nature who can never give her the life she deserves.
“No, it isn’t possible for me to turn you or anyone into a vampire,” I say, frowning. “That’s not the issue.”
“Then what is?” she asks, wide-eyed.
I take a deep breath. “Often when a vampire bites a human, the human loses consciousness for a few moments. There’s this thing we call a life essence. It’s like an exchange: as the vampire absorbs blood, the person he or she is biting sees a vision—a montage of moments in the vampire’s life that are important to them.”
She frowns. “I see.”
“But more importantly, I’m supposed to be protecting you. I’ve already crossed the line.”
Her frown fades as she smiles. “That’s putting it mildly. We’re so far over the line it’s on a different hemisphere.”