“For me?” She reached out tentatively and tried to encircle his shaft with her small hand, but was unable to, due to his impressive girth. Instead her fingers traced the length of a bulging vein following it around the flushed plum-sized crown.
Richard’s hips bucked.
Rose sat up and blew a warm breath over his shaft, firing his skin.
He groaned.
She smiled wide, then proceeded to devour him. Richard closed his eyes, enjoying the moist heat and gentle sucking pressure on his staff. It had been too long since he’d indulged in sexual and blood play without having to use coercion. He reached out, his fingers sinking into the soft red curls on Rose’s head. She swirled her tongue, ratcheting up his pleasure. Richard’s grip tightened as Rose increased her speed. She wrapped both her hands around his thick base and stroked, matching the rhythm with her magical mouth.
Richard thought his knees would buckle from sheer pleasure. Without thought, his hands began to guide her, changing the motion oh so subtly until he could thrust with each downward stroke. If he could sweat, Richard’s brow would have been drenched. His body began to tremble and quake. He pumped again and again into her greedy mouth, striving for that elusive orgasm.
Rose’s teeth scraped him, whether by accident or on purpose, he did not know. The second her incisors made contact with his cock, Richard came. Fluid spilled from his body as Rose continued to suck. The column of her throat worked up and down as she swallowed every last drop. His breath came out ragged and sharp as blood pounded in his ears.
Richard sank to the floor beside her, his mouth immediately seeking hers. He licked and nipped until she opened for him, then plunged his tongue into her mouth. He dipped and swiped, exploring her depths, tasting his own essence. His hands moved of their own volition, pushing Rose back until she lay upon the rug on the floor.
He followed, groping, seeking, and stoking the fire he knew lay within her. Richard found Rose’s clit amongst the mass of copper curls and began to circle it with the pad of his thumb. Her hips tilted beneath him, encouraging without words and she moaned, inflaming Richard further. He reached out with his free hand and slipped on a French letter, his cock hardening as if she’d never administered to him.
Richard closed his eyes, humbled by the fact she’d offered him everything, while he offered her little in return. Guilt slammed him once more, yet he knew he wouldn’t stop, couldn’t stop now. He continued stroking until Rose cried out in release. Richard positioned the head of his cock at her entrance and plunged inside. With his fingers, he played her body, drawing out her orgasm, priming her for another.
Rose gasped as a second orgasm swept her away. Her channel gripped him, velvet heat, moist and scorching, beaconing his body to follow. Richard continued to rock his hips as he teetered on the brink of the abyss.
Her body heated beneath his hands. Rose threw her head back, exposing her neck with a sigh of surrender. Richard’s gaze locked onto the frantic pulse beating beneath her pale skin. He groaned and sank his fangs into her neck, then began to drink. Rose convulsed beneath him as they both came again.
The coppery tang of her blood washed down his throat, filling his starving body with the nourishment it needed. Richard’s hips pistoned, matching the draw against Rose’s neck. He followed the tide as wave after wave of pleasure washed through him, sending him spiraling into oblivion. He continued to feed until he drank his fill, and then with a swipe of his tongue, sealed the pinpoints, momentarily sated.
Rose’s eyes were closed, her face a mask of ecstasy. Little tremors shot through her as the last of her body’s releases fired simultaneously. A smile played at the corners of her mouth. Richard kissed her then lazily lapped at her nipples. The turgid peaks sprang to life beneath the rasp of his tongue.
He heard her heartbeat below the mounds of flesh. It was steady and strong. Richard sucked one areola into his mouth, exploring every bump and ridge. The rosy peak hardened. He released the delightful flesh and kissed his way to the underside of her breast.
There he could smell fresh blood as her heart pumped it out to the rest of her body. The sound of the steady beat was near deafening. Richard’s hand shook as he gently lifted the mound of flesh. Acting on primitive instinct, he once again bit deep. A slight cry escaped Rose’s mouth and then she stilled. She stroked his head while he fed, letting him know without words everything was all right. Richard closed his eyes and fell asleep, content.
He awoke before dawn as he always did, only to realize his fangs and cock were still embedded in Rose’s warm flesh. Extricating himself, Richard dressed quickly. He picked Rose up from the floor, threw the covers back and laid her on the bed. He pulled the linens up to her chin and left enough blunt on the bedside table to pay for a fortnight of her services, even though his accounts had been settled last night.
Rose would probably sleep for the rest of the day and into tomorrow, considering his greedy hunger. Richard had fed well, almost too well. He couldn’t afford to wait so long between feedings. It was too dangerous.
Hurley waited out back. Richard jumped in before his valet could swing down and open the carriage door for him.
“Take us home, Hurley,” Richard called out from his seat.
A whip snapped in the air and the team of chestnuts stepped out at a spanking pace. The wheels creaked as they rolled down the cobbles. The carriage feather-edged around corners as they passed manor houses before discreetly turning into a quieter upscale neighborhood. Richard’s home lay at the end of Jermyn Street, an unpretentious medieval revival with fluted Greek columns and molded cornices. The house had been constructed in brick and then covered in stucco, the effect a refined elegance that Richard could call home.
He bounded up the stairs as the first rays of light kissed the sky. For a moment he paused, his hand resting on the door handle, watching the great expanse go from a pale gray-blue to a delicate shade of pink that reminded him of Rose’s nipples. He sighed and opened the door, stepping over the threshold as the bright rays turned a golden yellow. It was going to be a long season.
* * * * *
PARIS AFTER DARK--Excerpt
ONE
Rachel Chang pinched the cigarette between her lips and reached into her pocket for her lighter. Five years of being nicotine free was about to go up in smoke, if she could just get this damn thing to light. She flicked the Zippo and inhaled, then proceeded to choke. Eyes watering, Rachel flicked the cigarette onto the cobblestone as a high-pitched scream pierced the night.
One hand moved to where her weapon should be, while the other automatically reached for the St. Michael medal around her neck. For a moment Rachel saw her partner lying in a puddle of blood. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath as the panic attack eased. This wasn’t New York. The vision wasn’t real. And this wasn’t her problem. Let someone else clean up the mess for a change.
A second scream followed the first, then ended abruptly. Rachel remained immobile, while her conscience called her every foul name in the book. Unfortunately, the voice in her head wasn’t loud enough to drown out the struggle she could hear taking place on the dimly lit road off Boulevard Raspail.
“You have no authority here. You don’t even speak French. Let the Parisian police handle it,” she muttered under her breath as she came upon a man grappling with a woman. The woman’s arms were flailing as she beat at the man’s broad shoulders with her clenched fists.
The dark-haired man wasn’t striking her back, but he was holding her tight to deflect her blows. It looked like a typical domestic dispute. Only a fool got in the middle of those. Rachel had been foolish once and it had cost her dearly. Never again. She shoved her hands in her pockets and kept walking.
Rachel passed the street and saw a sign for the Cimetiere du Montparnasse affixed to a high gray brick wall. She glanced at the sky. “Trying to tell me something, partner?” Of course Paul didn’t answer. No one did. Like the residents of the fancy French cemetery, he was dead. All that was l
eft of him was her memories and the St. Michael medal around her neck.
The patron saint must have been on a coffee break the day her partner caught a bullet in the chest—a bullet that was meant for her. She felt like that bullet had been chasing her ever since.
Rachel glanced at the cemetery once more, then asked herself what Paul would do. The answer was obvious. She cursed, then tromped back to the mouth of the street. This was a bad idea. Her gun and NYPD badge currently resided an ocean away inside her Captain’s desk. She’d have to count on the man fleeing when she confronted him. Rachel ran the odds of that happening in her head and let out a string of expletives.
The woman had stopped struggling and now hung loosely in the man’s arms. Had he struck her after Rachel left? She hated bullies. Hated people who thought their size gave them free reign to do as they pleased. The man stood in the shadows with his back to her, but Rachel could tell he outweighed her and the woman by a good fifty pounds. This was such a bad idea.
“Hey buddy,” she shouted.
The dark-haired man didn’t acknowledge her, but Rachel saw his broad shoulders tense.
“Yeah, I’m talking to you. Parlez-vous...Anglais? Let the woman go,” she said in frustration, wishing she’d paid attention to the French CD’s she’d checked out of the library.
He slowly turned. Rachel caught a glimpse of shimmering green eyes. The color so unnatural it couldn’t possibly be found outside the animal kingdom. Had to be contact lenses. But it wasn’t his eyes that held her in place. It was his teeth—his long, very bloody teeth.
Rachel watched the blood drip down his chin onto his dark suit before he stepped back into the shadows. What in the hell had he been doing to her? When she’d walked by earlier it had looked like the woman was the aggressor. She’d been wrong...again. How many people had to die for her to get it right?
She automatically catalogued the scene, so she could give her statement to the police later. He released the woman. She slumped to the ground like discarded rags. The man grinned, his attention now riveted on the new arrival.
Rachel knew the fact she was a petite Chinese-American woman made her look like an easy target, but her size was deceptive. “Before you do anything stupid,” she said, knowing it was already too late for that. “I think you should know I’ve called the police. I’m placing you under citizen’s arrest.” She pointed to the sidewalk. “Get down on the ground.”
If the dark-haired man understood her, he didn’t let on. He kept approaching at a steady pace. The light should’ve revealed his face, but the shadows seemed to follow him, obscuring his pale features. It didn’t matter. Rachel was sure she could identify him from his eyes alone, although they didn’t seem as bright as they’d been moments ago. Must’ve been a trick of the light.
“Stay back,” she said. “This is your last warning.” Rachel held her hands up like her Krav Maga instructor taught her to do. It looked like a defensive posture. It wasn’t.
The man smiled, giving her an up close and personal look at his mouth. He had abnormally long incisors that had been filed into jagged points. He used his blood-covered tongue to caress them as he closed the distance between them.
Give an asshole prosthetic fangs and he thinks he’s a fucking vampire.
Rachel took a step back, a chill snaking down her spine. She didn’t dare look over her shoulder. He’d be on her before she could make it twenty yards. She needed to draw someone’s attention. The man must’ve read her mind because in a blink he went from ten feet away to in her face. Rachel didn’t have time to scream as he slammed her into the wall surrounding the cemetery. She landed with a sickening thud. The air rushed out of her lungs with a loud whoosh as pain shot through her body.
She blinked to clear her vision. The shadows still obscured his features. Rachel brushed at them as he approached. He growled. She gagged as his coppery breath fanned out over her face. The guttural sound grew louder. It was the only warning she received.
Instinct made Rachel throw her hand up a second before his teeth clamped onto her forearm. Her leather jacket ripped as he tore through the thick material like it was made of butterfly wings. His sharp incisors punctured her skin. The excruciating pain snapped her out of her initial shock.
Rachel drove her palm into her attacker’s nose and heard something crunch, then saw blood splatter across his face. She wasn’t sure who was more surprised. Her hand came away covered in crimson. She swung again, but her slick palm only grazed his cheek.
Fury filled his glowing green eyes. The grip he had on her tightened and he shook his head, shredding muscle. The human pit-bull was going to break her arm, if she didn’t get him to release her.
Rachel hit his nose, spilling more blood. He grabbed her arm, while his other hand latched onto her throat and began to squeeze. Blood roared in her ears as he tried to kill her. It was one thing to contemplate taking her own life. It was quite another to have him take it from her. Rachel thrust her hips forward and kneed his groin hard. He grunted and released her arm, but the hand around her throat remained.
She tried to break the grip on her neck, using every technique she’d been taught at the police academy, but nothing worked. Rachel hit him until her palm hurt, then hit him some more. His nose was now bent at an odd angle and made a strange whistling snort every time he inhaled. She reached for his fingers and began prying them off one at a time as he tightened his hold. The chain on her neck sliced her skin, then Rachel felt the links snap.
“No,” she grit out.
He didn’t respond to her plea. Instead, his head whipped around. He stared into the darkness, his gaze searching the shadows. Beyond the dark side street, the lights of Paris twinkled. One second he was strangling her and trying to rip her arm off, the next, he ran...taking her broken St. Michael medal with him.
Rachel dropped to her knees, clutching her injured arm and coughing as she gulped air into her lungs. It took a second to remember the woman lying on the ground. She didn’t appear to be breathing. Rachel crawled to her and felt for a pulse. There wasn’t one.
“Damn it.”
She dragged herself to Boulevard Raspail and saw her attacker duck into a nearby building. He hadn’t gone far. Rachel had no doubt if he got away he’d be back on the streets in a few days to do the same thing to another woman.
She forced herself to her feet and stumbled down the sidewalk. Rachel gave a quick glance at the oncoming traffic and rushed across the road. Horns blared as the Parisian drivers narrowly missed her. No one braked. She pushed on until she reached a small park that buffeted the building she’d seen the man enter.
Rachel stepped over the low fence, keeping to the shadows. She couldn’t afford to let him catch her off guard. He’d done it once and it had nearly killed her. A taller wrought iron fence ran alongside the green gothic-looking building that resembled an ornate shed. Rachel continued across the garden until she reached the end of the grass.
The wrought iron ended at a small gate, which squeaked in the cool evening breeze. A short nose of an entrance poked out the front of the building. The door was covered in metal mesh. Or at least it had been. The mesh had been ripped away. She glanced down and saw a lock on the ground. It had been smashed. She hadn’t seen a weapon on him—with those teeth he didn’t need one. Yet he’d obviously been carrying something, unless he’d suddenly become a character out of a James Bond film.
Rachel knew she should call the police. It was the sensible thing to do, but by the time she found a phone and someone who could understand her broken French the killer would be long gone, along with Paul’s necklace. She couldn’t allow that to happen, even if all she managed to do was find his hiding place. Despite what the department shrinks thought, she didn’t have a death wish...most days.
She pushed the gate open. The metal screeched, announcing her arrival. He’d have to be deaf not to have heard her. Rachel cringed, but kept going until she could squeeze through. The light over the sign above the building had
been smashed. Broken bits of bulb crunched under her shoes. The main door was open a crack just enough for her to see the darkness beyond. Rachel turned back and grabbed the mangled lock. It wasn’t a perfect weapon, but at least it would aid her punches. Maybe she could manage to knock out his expensive dental work this time.
Rachel walked back to the door and inched it open. She tilted her head and listened. She could hear the soft fall of footsteps growing fainter by the second. He was getting away. She took a breath and stepped through the opening. The door slid shut behind her, extinguishing what little light had been cast.
She pulled out her lighter and flicked it on. A closed door stood to the left. It was flanked by a tiny archway that opened into a crude office, which lay empty except for a lone chair. Rachel raised the lighter and spotted a ramp, leading off to her right. There didn’t appear to be anywhere else he could’ve gone.
She shored up her courage and followed. Rachel stepped lightly, praying the sound wouldn’t carry. The ramp ended abruptly at a set of winding stairs. She couldn’t see the bottom.
What in the hell was this place?
Her neck began to sting, reminding her once more why she was here. Rachel flipped the lighter closed and began a slow, steady descent. Every twenty or so stairs she’d stop and listen. She couldn’t hear footsteps any longer, only the steady drip of water pinging off rock. The air had gone from fresh to stale.
Rachel was just about to call it quits and turn around, when the stairs ended abruptly. Did she dare use her lighter again? What if he was waiting in the shadows? Did she really have a choice? Rachel’s heart began to pound as she flicked on the lighter.
She was standing at the mouth of a tunnel. It appeared to be the only way she could go unless she wanted to climb the hundred or so stairs she’d just come down. If Rachel hadn’t been claustrophobic before, she would be now. The narrow tunnel had a low ceiling like the entrance of a tomb. She couldn’t stretch her arms out without hitting rock walls.
Rose's Rapture: Lords of the Night, Book Two Page 12