Pleasures Untold

by Lisa Sanchez

  As if he were reading my mind, he pulled me closer still, pulling, pushing, grinding, Oh, God, the grinding. The man was a grinding god. Rocking, rubbing, and circling his hips against mine, his diamond-hard arousal pressed against my hot button, a few strips of pain-in-the-ass cotton the only thing keeping him from driving his way home.

  The sensation was so divine, so mind numbingly good, I was sure there was nothing left for me to do but explode. And explode I did, the moment his lips grazed the bite mark he’d left the night before.

  “Ah…God…Xan!” His name blew past my lips in a breathy whoosh as I rode out the most intense feeling I’d ever known. Holy hell! It was like warm, liquid bliss flowing through my body, exploding forth from my center, and radiating outward in strong steady pulses. My body shook, my toes curled, and I’m pretty sure I lost control of most of my faculties. Did I care? Hell, no. I’d just had the most intense, most pleasurable, most intimate experience of my life. As far as first kisses went, I’d say mine was fan-fucking-tastic.

  Cradling my head in his hands, Xan kissed me tenderly before closing his eyes and resting his forehead against my own.

  “You stayed.” His voice was low and breathy, and held a hint of surprise — or maybe it was disbelief.

  “I did.” Still floating on a high from our heated kiss, I unwrapped my legs from around his waist and stood on my own. The sense of loss I felt the moment we separated was instantaneous and altogether wretched.

  He closed his eyes and looked away for a moment before meeting my eyes once again with his own. “Why? Why would you want anything to do with me after what I just told you?”

  I was right. Disbelief. It was clear to me Xan was not only under the impression that I merely tolerated his presence, but was sure I’d bolt after his earlier revelation and want nothing to do with him.

  “Are you really that thick-headed? How could I possibly stay away knowing what I know? Fate dealt you a shitty hand, yet you’ve endured. You’ve suffered untold cruelties — things I — God, Xan, things I can’t even imagine. And you didn’t let any of it change you. It would have been so easy for you to give into anger, hate, and become a monster just like your father, but you didn’t.”

  His face twisted. “Didn’t I?” He pulled his hands from my face as though they’d been burned and stepped back. “I’m every bit as much the monster my father is. His evil runs through my blood. It’s my legacy.”

  I pushed off the wall and narrowed my eyes. “No. You’re not like him.” There was no comparison between the two. Lucian was the epitome of evil — dark, black, void of all goodness. Though he was forced to walk in darkness, Xan was light. He was my light — full of hope, comfort, and the promise that tomorrow would be a better day.

  He balked at my quick defense of him and shook his head. “You don’t have to take a life to be a monster, carino. I’ve done things that would make your skin crawl. I haven’t always been the creature you see before you now.” He turned his back to me then and stared down at the floor, the muscles in his arms and back rippling with tension.

  The hell if I was going to let him push me away. “Stop.” I stepped forward and reached out to touch him but was too slow.

  Sensing my nearness, he sidestepped my touch and teleported to the opposite side of the couch, several feet away. He refused to meet my eyes, focusing instead on the wall behind my head. “Blood banks are a relatively new institution.”

  “Goddammit, stop,” I said, growing angrier by the moment. “I know what you are trying to do, and it won’t work.” He thought to push me away by dredging up his past, throwing his skeletons in my face. That shit wouldn’t fly with me. I’d been around the block a time or two and was an expert in my own right at pushing people away. I knew his game like the back of my hand.

  Finally, his eyes met mine, and I wasn’t prepared for what I saw. “Oh, I think it will, carino.” His voice grew cold, his stare icy and aloof — all traces of warmth and tenderness, any shred of humanity in him gone. Before me stood the type of vampire I was used to dealing with — cold, calculated, cunning.

  “I’ve never drained a human to the point of death, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t fed off of them in more ways than one. Bloodlust and sex go hand in hand, mi amor…and I am a creature with many needs.”

  A dull, achy pain took up residence in my chest, and I shook my head, desperately trying to drown out his disturbing words.

  Persistent and stubborn, Xan kept going. “I am very aware of the power I have over the opposite sex, and I’ve used it to my advantage well.” In a flash he stood before me. “You are no different, mi dulce.” He closed his eyes and took a deep, lingering breath. A shameless smile broke out across his face as he opened them again, searching my own, anticipating my reaction.

  “I can smell your desire for me, carino. You crave me, the way a junkie craves his next fix. I have but to snap my fingers and you would be naked beneath me, begging me to bite you, begging me to take you.’”

  I let out a gasp, desperate to catch my breath, yet unable to fill my lungs. It felt like someone had sucked all the air from the room. I couldn’t breathe. My head spun, dizzy and in shock as I stepped to the side, away from him. He was toying with me, with my feelings, and it was too much. I was a strong girl. I could take a lot of crap, but he’d gone too far.

  “Why are you doing this?” I asked. His words tore through my body like a jagged blade, doling out slow, methodical, shallow cuts — torturing me, wounding me just enough to make it hurt like holy hell, but not enough to kill me outright.

  “Because, carino. I’m no good for you, and it’s time you realized that.”

  “You’re wrong,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “Stop…please. Stop pushing me away.”

  All traces of the Xan I’d come to know were gone. The aura of comfort and sense of ease that normally surrounded me in his presence was long gone, replaced by a smug sense of sexual superiority and a wicked god complex. He knew he was powerful. He knew the effect he had on me. He was being an ass, and though I knew the why of it, it didn’t make it any easier to listen to.

  “Gabriel was right, you know,” he said, continuing on with his agonizing stream of horseshit. “Earlier, when he said there was another choice place on a woman’s body to sink your teeth into.” He closed his eyes and smiled, obviously remembering some instance of debauched crap he wanted to throw at me, to shock me with. “My favorite place to feed is from a juicy vein that runs right down the inner thigh that’s…”

  “Enough!” I held my arms up, cutting him off. I couldn’t hear any more. The thought of Xan feeding from strange, nameless women was bad enough, but to know he’d had them sexually was more than I could take, and he knew it. He was aware of my inexperience as well as the deep feelings I had for him, and he was all but throwing it back in my face.

  Just minutes ago he’d given me my first kiss, my first — God! I couldn’t even think the word in my head let alone say it out loud. The moment had been intense, heated, and fueled with a burning passion that was most definitely not one-sided. He’d been loving and tender and full of desire — for me. I was sure of it. I’d kissed the man, the vampire that I was falling head over heels for, and he’d reciprocated. For him to use my feelings against me now, just moments after such profound intimacy, to use my attraction for him as ammunition against me was a low fucking blow.

  I exploded — a dormant volcano no longer. Anger, frustration, and a fiery sense of betrayal blasted up and out of me in fiery shades of red, like molten lava bursting forth uncontrollably, ready to burn and destroy everything in its path.

  “You bastard! I stayed here tonight because I wanted to show you that you weren’t alone in this world, that there is someone out there that cares for you, someone who cares what happens to you. And what do you do? You use me and then you push me away. You threw my feelings for you in my face and made a moc
kery of them, of me.” I threw my arms up. “Well, no more!”

  He stood stone-faced, and silent — unflinching, unyielding. His rock hard body was motionless like a statue — a beautiful, maddening, infuriating statue.

  I’d been a victim all my life and was now at a crossroads. I could continue down the path I was on, hiding from a killer and pining after someone who saw me as nothing more than a means to pass the time, or I could jump off the crazy rollercoaster that was my life and, for once, take control of my own destiny.

  I turned my back to him and made my way to the front door, pausing for a moment in the doorway before leaving.

  “Look,” I said, caving under the weight of the horrible tugging sensation eating away at my stomach. “I get that you hate yourself, that you’re ashamed of where you come from. I know I’m just a job to you, a promise made to my great-grandmother. Somewhere along the way though — ” I paused, looking down at the ground before meeting his eyes once more. “I thought we’d made a connection, become…friends. Maybe I was wrong, but — Jesus! You can’t always be the hero, you know? Even Superman needs someone to tell him that everything is going to be all right.”

  I sounded like a crazy person — I knew it. I compared a mythical being to a cartoon character and expected him to think I exacted out some deep, meaningful thought — but there was truth in what I said, even if it did sound hokey and full of bullshit.

  My anger receded, nothing but resolution left in its wake. I didn’t want to leave him, but I knew there was nothing else for me to do. Holding onto to the last shred of strength I had, I met his stormy eyes and said my piece.

  “If you want to go through this life miserable and alone, then so be it. I care about you, okay? But I’m done. I won’t throw myself at you anymore. It’s too painful, and — well, I deserve better than that.” Holy…had I really just said that? Was I really just going to turn around and walk away from him?

  Yes…yes, I was. Painful as it might have been to turn away from Xan, I knew I deserved better and was proud of myself for finally realizing I was worthy of something good, someone who could give me everything I needed.

  The silence was deafening, the weight of words both spoken and unspoken hung in the air like a storm cloud, cold, bleak, and oppressive. I stepped through the doorway, closing it behind me, and heard his deep voice mumble from behind the door, “Sí, carino — that you do.”

  Unable to breathe, unable to move, my legs gave out. My back slid down the length of the door, and I fell to a heap on the floor. My head swam, full of emotion: anxiety, loss, fear of the unknown. I needed to get out of there. I needed to move on with my life, to take control, to put a stop to the madness that not only threatened me, but the ones I cared about. My earlier resolve grew once again as I focused on what I knew needed to happen. Lucian was going down, and dammit, I was the bitch that was going to take him out.

  A tingling sensation somewhat reminiscent of a mild electrical shock flowed through my fingers, traveling up the length of my arms and down through my legs. My ears rang, a persistent low-level buzz that grew louder and louder the more I focused on what lay ahead of me. I needed to form a plan. I needed the Book of Light. A burst of energy flowed through me, and the next thing I knew, I was standing at the foot of my bed in my bedroom. I glanced down at the trunk where the book that hopefully held the answers I needed lay waiting for me.

  Holy crap. I did it again. I’d teleported all on my own.

  Chapter 14

  Unwilling to waste another minute standing idly by while my friends, and I were being stalked and attacked, I hopped onto my bed and opened up the Book of Light. Lives hung in the balance, and I hoped to God I could find something within its pages that would help me take down Lucian.

  Unsure of where to start, I held my hands over the book and cast a silent spell ordering the book to highlight any pages where voodoo magic was involved. Dark magic wasn’t my forte, but I had a feeling that it might be the only thing that would help me defeat Lucian. To my utter disappointment, only a small handful of pages illuminated. I needed as much information as I could get my hands on, and what lay before me didn’t seem nearly enough. Most of the entries I came across dealt with reversing voodoo love spells and ridding yourself of various types of bad ju-ju. There were, however, no entries on how to take down your maniacal undead stalker in ten easy steps.

  “Crap,” I growled, shoving the book away from me angrily. “Why? Why can’t I find what I need?”

  Bitterness and frustration filled me, growing stronger by the moment. I wanted to know why — why I was blessed with magical power, yet was unable to take down the monster who plagued my every waking thought.

  “Dammit!” I threw a nearby pillow off my bed and watched it crash into the chair Xan had mangled earlier. It wasn’t until my jaw started aching that I realized I’d been grinding my teeth together. With narrowed eyes, I focused on the mangled piece of metal that once served as my desk chair, raising it off the floor so it floated midair.

  I squared my shoulders and held my head high. “It’s not like I’m some weakling with zero power. I’ve got skills,” I spat angrily as I crumpled the already ruined chair into a giant ball of metal and sent it barreling into the nearby wall with my magic.

  I closed my eyes, put my hands to my ears and screamed as loud as my lungs would allow, not giving a damn about the consequences of someone hearing me. The force of my anger shattered the bulb in the nearby lamp as well as the glass mirror that hung behind the closet door. I didn’t care.

  “Why?” I cried out in desperation. “Why can’t I find a way to take down Lucian? I can cast spells, levitate, and transform my appearance. Hell, I can even teleport now. There has to be a way.”

  I cast a sideways glance at the Book of Light that lay open at the foot of my bed, and for an instant I wondered, What if? What if I explored other avenues? Why not take out the source of my suffering with the very thing he himself wields — dark magic. The idea was tempting. Very tempting…until the echo of my great-grandmother’s voice raced through my mind.

  Beware the lure of dark magic, Ainsley. Once you fall prey to its hold, you’ll be forever lost.

  Yeah, yeah, the old “Luke, beware of the dark side” bit. I’d been warned time and time again over the course of my childhood about the destructive, addictive lure of dark magic. It serves no purpose, Ainsley, besides that of meeting your own needs. We use our gift to help innocents, never for harm.

  Lucian was far from innocent. No. He was the epitome of evil, of all things shiteous and wrong. I saw no reason why I shouldn’t give him a taste of his own fucking medicine. There were plenty of resources. All I had to do was look. There was nothing stopping me. Nothing except myself.

  My head fell forward, tears of shame spilling down my cheeks. “God, Grandma,” I whimpered. “I need you. I just — God, I don’t know what to do.”

  After wiping away my tears, I held out my hand, summoning my phone from inside my bag. The small silver contraption flew across the room toward me at light speed until it landed in my upturned palm. My fingers furiously pounded away at the small keypad, punching in the set of numbers that would put me in contact with the one person I knew could make everything all right: my great-grandmother.

  “Please be there. Please, please, please pick up.” I hugged my knees to my chest with one arm and rocked back and forth, my body trying desperately to ease itself of the mounting tension.

  My call went unanswered. Just as before, the line rang and rang and rang. Fuck! I snapped the cell shut, tossed it toward the foot of my bed. Flopping onto my back with a huff, I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes. “God, Gran. Where are you?”

  A nagging sensation took up space in my gut, making my palms sweat, filling me with panic. Something was wrong. My great-grandmother rarely missed my calls. Just like me, she always carried her cell on her in case of emerg
ency. For her to miss two phone calls was virtually unheard of, and a wretched sense of unease filled me. What if something happened to her as well? I couldn’t even entertain the thought. I’d never be able to live with the pain.

  No…focus, Martha. Get your shit together.

  I yawned, doing my best to fight back the sleepiness threatening to pull me under. Sleep was the last thing on my mind, but my eyelids grew heavier by the second. I rolled onto my side, closing my eyes as thoughts continued flooding my brain.

  I didn’t have time to entertain what ifs. I would keep trying to contact my great-grandmother, but in the meantime, I needed to come up with some kind of plan to take out Lucian. What that would entail, I had no idea.

  Before I knew it, I was asleep.

  I must have been out for quite some time, as the early light of morning blared in through a crack in the curtains and pulled me from my sleep. Still groggy, I sat up, raising my arms above my head. I listened to the snap, crackle and pop of my back as I stretched. My body creaked like an old person’s. Great.

  My foot kicked something as I moved, and I looked down to see the Book of Light laying near my feet.

  Deciding I’d take one more look through the book before I put it away, I reached for it once again and gasped when the pages lit up and shuffled before me on their own. “What the — ”

  The pages finally came to rest, an entry about Louisiana voodoo open before me.

  Also known as New Orleans Voodoo, the origins of this dark magic lay in the West African religion of Dahomean Vodou.

  My fingers trailed down the page as I continued reading.