by Gina Kincade
“Emma, don’t look away. You are so perfect, so beautiful.”
Her nerve endings, every single one it felt, came alive, like they were exposed as well, making her skin throb in want of touch, the all-consuming brand of a perilous want indulged. Even with all she’d been told, at the end of her seasons still unmatched for marriage, she was an innocent. That was about to change. She welcomed being made a woman.
Emma found herself being lifted by powerful hands before her body was draped over a chair in front of the fire. One leg he caught with his hand, making it fall toward the floor, spreading her thighs open in invitation to his whims. Wanton, she felt no anxiety, no threat of remorse. Oddly unshaken by this change of events, she laid perfectly still, perfectly exposed. Instead her body pulsed in need of this man’s, this vampire’s touch.
As if he could read her thoughts, and what did she know of his kind really but rumors, warnings to stay away, maybe like they claimed, he could. His fingers brushed over her skin with a powerful lightness. The chill of his flesh juxtaposed with the heat coming from the flames in the fireplace. His kiss stifled her cry, but not the shudder of her limps.
She felt his garments move over her exposed flesh one second, then the next, his lips brushed hers, a gentle caress of skin against skin as if she were a china doll he could easily break. Maybe he could. She had heard talk of their strength, beyond that of any human. With his hands braced on the chair on either side of her, his mouth traveled, a light kiss on her chin, a nibble without fangs on her neck, the draw of his tongue over the skin above her breasts. Her tight nipples rose up to meet him as she fought for breath. Never had she been so intimate with anyone, never had a person save her mother and her servants seen her undressing. Yet, in this moment, she wanted to be seen, she wanted to be tasted. His tongue circled the tight rosy buds on her breasts, sending a sensation all the way down to her most intimate place. Her sex swelled, got wet as it had many nights these past weeks when she’d gotten undressed to go to sleep. She wondered if he had watched her then.
“No, but I was close always. You felt me wanting you, but I resisted, even being a gentleman, adverting my eyes, when I could have dared to look undetected,” he breathed out the words between kisses, sending cold air over her chest. “This is the first I have seen your lovely body, all of your flesh at once. You are breathtaking, even to one who no longer breathes.”
“You can read my thoughts?” Finally, she felt the heat rushing over her skin, her face and chest feeling like they were being burnt.
“Every one of them, my love. That is how I knew you were ready for me tonight. You responded mentally to everything I was put out there. You felt me, and your thoughts said yes before your mouth did. I knew you were ready for me and couldn’t wait another minute. I had to have you, make you mine, so we could begin not only our lives together, because that is what I intend to have, but our work. Don’t overanalyze how you are feeling. It is acceptable to want me back, though I fear you have only been told to fear my kind. Social conventions, you know, just like the ones you fight against. Now, relax your mind. I have more of your beautiful, delectable body to savor.”
By the time his mouth hit her lower stomach, her mind was a swirl of undecipherable thoughts. When he kissed the small patch of hair between her thighs, her mind went blank all she knew was the wants of the flesh. Cool fingers separated her folds, making her eyes roll back into her head. She swore a clockwork watch ticked away insider her, each mechanism, each movement, creating some kind of energy making her stomach tight, rushing it to her limbs and making them tingle.
His cool lips and tongue set off a reaction more like a steam-powered machine, all warm and vibrating, causing her skin to flush, though no longer of embarrassment, this heat was of passion. He had flipped some invisible switch she hadn’t known she had, turned her body to on, making it work, overheat even. Her treacherous flesh and bones bucked against him, moved toward his mouth rather than away. The sensations, the tightening and releasing of muscles combined with the tingling feeling all through them, made her light-headed. Emma welcomed the feelings, as lost and as out of control as they made her feel.
Lifted again, her legs curled around his waist as his hardness slid against her wet folds. He backed her into a wall, rubbed his length against her engorged, wet flesh. Startling her with an abrupt movement, he turned his face from hers as a hiss escaped his throat. His fingers bit into her skin, but nothing she couldn’t handle, in fact it excited her more until she caught a glimpse of his face.
His pale shin was pulled tight over his clenched jaw, his eye, from what she could see was as dark as the stormy sky, and against his blood red lip poked a sharp white fang glistening in the light from the candle. Emma waited for the fear to paralyze her, but it never came.
“I am sorry, my dear Emma. I will not hurt you. Arousal got the better of me.”
He turned to face her then, and she became entranced by his face, his mouth open now, his fangs fully extended.
A moan escaped her lips. Only, when she went to cry out his name, she realized she didn’t know what his was. This man, no this vampire, his long hard staff poised to enter her, to take her virginity and she didn’t even know his name.
“James,” he groaned. “Let me hear you say it.”
“James,” she moaned in return.
With that, her breath caught as he pushed into her with an urgency meshing pain with absolute pleasure. With her small screech, he grimaced, and his fangs receded. She gasped into his kiss that came next, tasting the musky scent of herself on his lips. This has to be wrong, since it feels so right. The fire at her side felt warm around her while his cold skin excited her front. In the middle of her being, the two temperatures battled, whirled about like a tempest.
“Damnation, Emma, I’ve wanted you for so long.”
I have wanted you too. He squeezed the cheeks of her ass, moved her against him. The rhythm of his thrusts bore the resemblance of a song. One dark. One true. One magickal. Nothing like what was played in the dance halls. With grace, as if she weighed nothing, he moved them to the bed, laid his body down over hers.
He whispered in her ear as her core trembled around him. “A steam-powered carriage moves past your townhouse. The couple inside cut you direct this evening. Use the power boiling in your stomach direct it with your thoughts. What do you want to happen? Right now you have only to imagine it to make it so, no words, no elements, no alter. No one needs be hurt, just an inconvenience to their evening.” Thrusting into her again, a great wave of passion tightened her muscles, sent flames erupting throughout her body.
The heat he spoke of, she gathered, toyed with until her experiment brought a bluish glow emanating from her fingertips. In her excitement, with him still buried deep within her, pulsating in time with his groans, her magick and orgasm became one. Eyes closed tight, she imagined the carriage hit by the light coming from her. In her mind, anything else on the road, anyone coming the other way, were unhurt even with the tipping of the carriage. In her mind, there were two horses coming the other way as well. She had heard them neigh. The animals stayed upright, and in their fast departure, kicked up mud onto the couple climbing out of the overturned vehicle onto the rutted road.
A surge of power released from her, and her vampire lover growled. Her stomach coiled, released. Heat traveled through her. Pleasure in some extreme form made itself known. With his release, outside, for real, horses screeched, wood cracked and a woman screamed. Her eyes shot open to find him with a confident grin etched into his chiseled features, pleasure burning behind his dark eyes. What she’d imagined happening, had indeed happened.
“Hell and blast!” she cried, pushing up on her arms, burying him even deeper inside of her. She let out a quiet scream of her own, her insides still convulsing, felt like they’d burst into flame again. She shook, tensed, released, all while he held her, spoke words of love, even congratulated her.
He came, she thought with the possibilities o
f them together swirling through her mind as she came down from her industrious high.
Chapter Two
He’d left before the dawn, promising to return the next night. And here she sat, having faked a chill, home from the dinner party she’d been invited to, waiting for him to show at her glass doors again. No book, no needlework, and not even a spell had been able to truly hold her attentions all day. Her brain was befogged by recollections of passion. Her body ignited at the mere thought of seeing his, feeling his flesh against hers. The way his mouth had felt, cool, bringing about great warmth in her nether regions, making her wet and ready for an invasion into her body like no other. He had barely given her time to think upon the size of him, if the hard staff standing out from his body in a bed of midnight black hair would fit inside her.
It had. Oh, it had, and it had been most delightful. If the sensations, the shudders, the tremors, the fires he brought about inside of her were any indication, no wonder so many spinsters went in to be treated for hysterics. If he didn’t show soon, she might have to sign up, or take matters into her own hands. She had heard there were ways.
However, he did show. Just past midnight as she laid falling asleep in front of the fire, tea gone cold beside her, he came again.
“Emma,” he whispered.
“James,” she sighed. Relief washed over her, and she rushed to the door to bid him entrance. With a whoosh of night air, he came in like he didn’t need to use his feet, but flew over the threshold, landing in front of her, his lips on hers before she could even think what to say next.
His tongue plundered her mouth, warring with her own, fighting for a dominance she willing gave. One built her up rather than tore her asunder. She gave up nothing for no one, that is until now, except for this man, this vampire. Goddess save her!
“I’ve missed you. Pardon my tardiness. I would’ve been here at nightfall, but I found myself engaged in a pressing matter. Please, nothing would ever replace you, it’s just, I have no magick to clean up my messes, and I had clockwork parts stuck in my hair as well as many other places. I didn’t clean up my shop though, was going to come straight to you once I put myself to rights, but then had a confounded incident, a steam-powered mechanism which turns wet hair to dry in minutes, blew up on me, and it was back to the bath a second time. Tomorrow it shall be back to the drawing board. I don’t sleep much. Have no need really other than a few hours during the daylight hours. I have made a room in my basement, a room completely void of the sun where I can work safely during many of the daylight hours.”
“Can you take me there? I love new gadgets. Would you be willing to share such a place with me?”
“I would love nothing more. In fact, if I could, I would take you away forever. But, there is enough time for that sort of talk. I will take you now if you wish. However, I warn you the place is a mess.”
“I don’t mind. To me at least it seems if true work is being done, that it is the way it should be.”
He kissed her again. This time his hands pulled her body to his, and she could already feel his cock coming to life. It pressed against her belly, insistent it seemed to her about being made known.
“Ah, I want you so badly. I have insatiable needs when it comes to your body, and none of them at the moment have to do with blood.”
“You don’t want my blood at all?”
“I can’t say not at all. It smells so sweet, but I am denying that fiercely. Some day we shall try an experiment though. I have a theory. I know that if I bite you during orgasm, your climax will be more powerful. So, I have to wonder then if it would make the magick stronger.”
“That would be an interesting experiment. Don’t ask me why, but the whole idea of the bite, just like with you, danger be damned, it excites me when I know in my rational brain I should be scared out of my wits. At the site of your fangs last night I should have been in a swoon. You should have had to pick me up of the floor, Instead, I was captivated by them, in fact, I saw you that way in my head several times today if I am to be honest, But, not here. Take me to your place, have your way with me there, vampire. I need not have to explain blood on the carpets to the servants.”
“Mmmm, having the witch in my lair,” he hummed the words, rubbing his thumb and forefinger over the stubble on his jaw.
“You said you had a townhouse,” she put her hands on her hips, teasing him, feeling good to be able to tease a man and get away with it.
“House. Lair,” he winked at her. “What is the difference?”
“I’m coming either way.”
“Well, then hold on to me. Maybe close your eyes. I’ll have us there in no time at all.”
He scooped her up then, her skirt hoops and all swaying around her legs. She didn’t even blush when in reaching her arms around his neck, her blouse, the neckline plunging, showed more skin of her breast than the lace-edged article was supposed to. What did she care now he had seen all of her? It just might take some time to get used to the whole idea of it still.
“There is where I want to bite you. While buried deep inside you, thrusting to make you scream, I want to bend just enough to draw a sip from the rise of your breast.”
“Will be easier to cover the mark than the neck would be. But, what type of magickal mayhem shall we be up to then, another carriage falling over of yet another woman in the aristocracy who cut me direct? It is a long list you know.” She quirked an eyebrow at him, tilted her head for effect, then on second though laid it on his shoulder.
“My dear, any bit of magick you wish. All you can dream, we can do together. I truly believe that, just as I believe in you. Now, close you eyes, and we are off.”
In what seemed like seconds, they were in a basement, a subterranean level, mostly below the street, but beyond that, each window had been filled in. He actually had gas lighting in this part of the house, giving the cool room, as no fire was going, an eerie feel. There was a box to one end, sitting alone. The rest was shelves and tables, each covered with tools and gears and other various mechanical items, most she couldn’t make heads or tails of. Stuff really was everywhere, including the floor. But, she found herself looking back to the box.
“It is a modern-day coffin of sorts. I sleep here too. The rest of the house is really now just for show. The neighbors think I am a rogue, always keeping to gentleman’s hours. Long ago though, they gave up on asking me into polite society. I do attend the occasional dinner party if the hours are suitable. No one tries to find me a lady either anymore. They think I’m the mad inventor down here, and I’m sure they only pray that I don’t blow up the place.”
“So, I have no ladies in competition?”
“No, you do not, Miss Emma.” He kissed her hand then like a gentleman would only dare in private if he was to be married to the woman. The idea of it weighed on her mind. Though she had only met him last night, and after letting him in what a meeting it had been, she knew if she was truthful with herself, it had been in the last months of feeling him, sometime in there, that she’d fallen in love with him.
“So, you really sleep in that box? I mean rather than a coffin?”
“I have tinkered with the box. I no longer have to raise up my hand and close the lid, or even push it open in the morning. The gears on the back do that for me at the touch of a button inside. I’m not lazy mind you, only bored. I tinker by trade. Can’t help myself. This one of course, the one I couldn’t share, the one I make after I’m dead this one works!”
“So, what are all of these things?”
“Oh, most, I daresay, failed ideas. I’m not very good at what I do, a problem I cursed at when I was alive, well a bit, as I had my families wealth, was able to spend a great deal of time doing as I wished. However, the failures were made even more trivial by death. I was not into being the next great inventor, just liked to work with gadgets. Always curious about what will happen if I attach this to that. Of course, that would explain the marks on the walls, floors and tables, but I’m still alive and
the house is still here.”
He got quiet then, looked down at his shoes, and Emma gave him the time he seemed to need to put together what else he wanted to tell her. He cleared his throat, and spoke in a rough, low voice, “This was my parents house, that I came back to claim when they tragically passed on. The accident, well the story was questionable. I went to the worst parts of England tracking down every lead, from gambling hells, to back alleys…it was there that I was attacked. I wasn’t really dressed the part I guess, or maybe I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, but either way they stole what I had and beat me near death.”
He sighed heavily, fingering the edge the gold chain, which hung near the bottom of his vest. Two bob shaped charms that hung off the light chain clinked together, seeming to rouse him from whatever memory he’d been viewing.
“A man came out of the shadows that night. In fact, he was nothing but an unclear shadow to my swollen eyes. I could taste my own blood, though the irony of it now is in that moment, I didn’t like the metallic taste of it. This man, he spoke to me, asked me if I wanted to live or die, and at what price. How else was I to answer that question? I said live. But by the next fall of the sun, I was a killer, knowing only to kill. I saw one woman killed to find I had more humanity than I thought. I started that night fighting my lust for blood, finding other means of satisfying my needs, though none really appeal.”
She put her hand on his arm. When he didn’t flinch, she ran her hand down to his, interlaced their fingers together.
“It is okay James. You’ve done the best you could with what life handed you. There is nothing to be ashamed of here, not failed inventions or failed missions, or the way you are now forced to live. You were with me last night, and I witnessed you overcome your thirst for my blood at the height of passion no less.”