That did the trick. Evidently, Rans was hiding an unexpectedly territorial streak beneath that devil-may-care exterior. Maybe I was, too, because when I ended up on my back on the bed a moment later, my immediate response was oh, hell yes.
Glowing eyes blazed down at me, a hard-muscled body caging mine against the softness of the bed.
“What are you doing to me, Zorah Bright?” he asked.
“Feeding you, I hope,” I said a bit breathlessly, “and then fucking you. Maybe between the two of us, we can manage to be a little less broken.”
He let out a sharp huff of breath as though someone had hit him in the chest, and dropped his face to rest against the crook of my neck. Gooseflesh pebbled across my body at the feel of soft lips brushing my sensitive skin. I wanted to flip him over and rip his clothes off so I could get more of that feeling of skin-on-skin, but I suppose the suspense of waiting also had a certain piquancy to it.
A hand tangled in my curls, tipping my head back and exposing the column of my throat. Heat bloomed in my belly as Rans slid fangs into the delicate skin of my neck for the second time in our short acquaintance. And, yes, I knew my slutty reaction was still pretty fucked up, but this time I refused to feel guilty or weirded out about it.
The deep, drawing sensation seemed to have a direct line to my sex. My spine bowed as my body tried to arch off the bed... to get closer to the hard body poised above mine. I didn’t lose consciousness this time—I guess whatever was ailing Rans right now hadn’t left him as ravenous for blood as a gunshot to the chest, at least.
The razor sharp points of his fangs slipped free of my skin, and a tongue rasped over the twin wounds. Vampire blood and saliva have healing properties, I remembered distantly. Indeed, I couldn’t feel any evidence of blood dripping from the wounds, and the burn of sensation that should have been pain—but wasn’t, exactly—was already fading.
The pulse of need between my legs sure as hell wasn’t fading, though. I bucked my hips up, seeking friction, and was rewarded with a rough growl of, “Bloody hell, woman.” Fingers dragged one of the spaghetti straps of my silky nightgown over my shoulder until my right breast spilled out of its cup. Lips closed around the nub and I keened, trying to press more of the soft globe into that cool mouth.
It was so good... so good... but it wasn’t what I really needed.
“Clothes,” I gasped.
Rans made a low noise in his throat and his weight disappeared. The room was spinning, whether due to my blood loss or the fact that whatever blood I had left was currently pulsing and throbbing between my thighs, I wasn’t sure. The vertigo was irritating, because it meant I couldn’t fully appreciate the sight of Rans stripping out of the tailored trousers and button-down he’d worn for the flight from St. Louis.
I guess my blood had helped him, because he didn’t seem to be unsteady anymore—though it was a bit hard to tell with the room moving in ponderous circles around me. I closed my eyes against the dizziness when hands slid the silken fabric of the nightgown up my thighs. My legs fell open of their own volition, making room for the cool body that settled between them.
When lips brushed my sex in a closed-mouth kiss, it drove a sharp, high-pitched noise from me. I arched, trying to get more, but the hands that had pushed my nightgown out of the way closed around my hips with a grip almost hard enough to bruise.
Rans seduced my sensitive folds with his lips the way another man might have seduced my mouth with a kiss. Teasing... questing lightly along the seam until my body bloomed under his touch, parting to invite him deeper.
I grasped handfuls of the green duvet, desperate for an anchor as I was dragged into the riptide and pulled under. The orgasm rolled over me as his clever tongue slid up my length to torture my clit with firm strokes. It left me reeling, still dizzy—unsure which direction was up and which was down.
And it still wasn’t what I needed.
“More,” I begged.
A moment later, he was stalking up the length of my body. One muscular arm hooked my left knee over his elbow, drawing my leg almost double against my body as he braced on his other hand and positioned himself over me.
“I suspect you’re about to learn the meaning of the phrase, ‘Be careful what you ask for,’” he said, and sheathed himself inside of me.
That was what I needed—the sweet nectar of his sexual energy a counterpoint to my body’s pleasure as the heady stretch deepened into a delicious ache.
“Give it to me,” I demanded. “Let me feel all of it...”
He let out a low, breathless noise and lowered his head, teasing the place he’d bitten earlier with lips and teeth as he began to move. I canted my hips to meet each slow thrust, the angle letting him drive deliciously deeper with every stroke.
This. This was heaven. I could feel his body giving itself to me, in counterpoint to the way mine had given itself to him when he’d drunk blood from me. We rocked together, his lips gradually working their way up my neck to tease the hinge of my jaw, brush at my ear, and then slide across my cheek in a series of butterfly kisses.
When his mouth slanted over mine, I shuddered in ecstasy at the intimacy of being connected in both places. God... I could taste myself on him. My lips parted, our tongues dueling as my body urged him ever closer to his own release. I could feel it coming. I wanted it. I needed it.
And then he was jerking free of the kiss, burying his head in the crook of my shoulder as his smooth strokes grew sloppy. His body jerked, the feeling of his pleasure flowing into me like a drug I’d never be able to get enough of. It flowed into my core, spreading to my limbs, making me strong. If I’d harbored any doubts as to what I was, that feeling erased them.
I was drawing sexual energy from his body as surely as he’d drawn blood from my veins.
Eventually he stilled, letting my leg slide free of his grip but not making any move to withdraw. He didn’t let his weight sag onto me as I curled fingers through the dark hair at the nape of his neck, but I could feel his arm muscles trembling faintly on either side of me.
After a long moment, one of his arms snaked around my lower back, and somehow he rolled us over in a single smooth movement. I lay on top of him now, our flesh still joined.
“Thank you,” I murmured into his smooth chest, draping myself over him like a blanket as I reveled in the feeling of completeness and wellbeing.
His hand traveled up and down the length of my spine in slow, firm strokes, and I could feel the rumble of his voice through my cheek as he spoke. “Thanking me already? I’ve just drunk succubus blood, pet. Even worse, my brain is still running in endless circles. Believe me when I say, you’re not nearly done with me yet.”
He rolled his hips as if to demonstrate, and my passage clamped around his cock—still hard and ready. As the sense of the words penetrated my happy cloud of contentedness, I moaned and pushed upright, bracing my hands on his broad shoulders. Fresh hunger rose inside me. When I lifted and lowered myself along his thick length, he looked up at me in challenge, one eyebrow lifting. His hands skimmed up my ribcage to cup my breasts, thumbs swiping across the tight points of my nipples.
I squeezed my inner muscles around him and rode him slowly, never breaking eye contact. “Sure you’re not the one who should be careful what he asks for?” I quipped.
He thrust up, lifting my entire body. “Believe me, luv... I’m absolutely counting on it.”
NINETEEN
WE DIDN’T LAST THE full four hours Nigellus had joked about, but it was definitely more than three hours later when we both lay curled together, sated in every sense of the word. I nestled against Rans’ side, naked skin against naked skin, my head pillowed on his chest as I drew aimless patterns across his skin with my fingertips.
“Brain stopped working yet?” I murmured, scraping a fingernail over his nipple to make him shiver.
“Mm,” he hummed in wordless agreement, burying his nose in my hair.
A nagging worry had taken up residence in the time
since my libido had ceded control back to my intellect a few minutes ago. “Can you kick-start the old gray matter long enough to answer a question for me?” I asked, craning up to look at his face.
His eyes were closed and his expression, relaxed. “Depends on how complicated the question is.”
I shrugged, disturbed that I hadn’t been thinking about this before the fact rather than after. “It’s just... should we have been using protection? I was on the pill until I had to go on the run three days ago. But...” I trailed off.
The hand that had been wrapped around my shoulder lifted to smooth my hair back. “It’s fine,” he said. “I couldn’t do anything to you even if you were fully human—which you’re not.”
I relaxed a bit, but I also couldn’t help remembering that my mother was supposed to have been infertile. That hadn’t stopped her from having me.
“So...” I pressed, rolling up on an elbow so I could look down at him. “Is it an undead thing? Like, you can’t father children because your sperm isn’t viable?”
One eyelid peeled open, revealing a sliver of blue. “I’m a vampire,” he deadpanned. “Don’t you read books? I can’t come inside unless I’m invited.”
I blinked at him, torn between erupting into undignified laughter and hitting him in the face with a pillow. After a moment’s debate, I opted for the pillow, and he batted it away half-heartedly.
“That is not remotely funny,” I lied.
“Bollocks,” he said. “That line is god-damned hilarious. But to answer your question seriously, I can’t produce sperm and my body can’t harbor microbes. I’m bloody dead, Zorah—if it could, I would’ve rotted back into the ground centuries ago.”
I shuddered a bit. “Not an image I really needed... but thanks for the reassurance.” I frowned at him. “You’re a big fat liar, though. You waltzed right into my house without so much as a by-your-leave.”
“It was a joke,” he protested. “Ugh. Americans. No sense of humor whatsoever.”
I boofed him again with the pillow for good measure before relenting and brushing a soft kiss against his lips. He smiled, his eyes slipping closed again.
“I’m going to clean up and go down to dinner,” I said. “You should rest. You’ve slept way less than I have in the past couple of days. Do you need some more blood, though? I don’t like this feeling that I’ve turned into some kind of sexual parasite on humanity.”
His smile turned crooked and broken for a moment. “I’m not human anymore, luv. Haven’t been for a very long time. And when it comes to being a parasite, believe me—no one beats a vampire.”
“Even so—” I began.
He waved the words away. “I’m all right, Zorah. Might nap for a bit, though...”
It sounded like he was about two seconds from doing just that. I stroked a few strands of messy black hair away from his forehead. “You do that,” I whispered.
Even after hearing his reassurance, I still wasn’t sure how to feel about the fact that I’d clearly wiped him out with my succubus routine, while I, on the other hand, felt like freaking superwoman. I grabbed a quick shower in the en-suite and dressed, pulling my hair into a damp ponytail and not bothering with makeup. I wanted a word or three with our host, and looking pretty wasn’t going to be a prerequisite for this conversation.
* * *
It was five minutes past seven when I entered the dining room, where Edward was arranging serving dishes in the center of the table. Nigellus sat at the head, with two other place settings arranged on either side of him.
“Good evening, my dear,” he said. “Please, have a seat. Will Ransley be joining us this evening?”
I remained standing. “He’s not feeling himself right now,” I stated, watching Nigellus’ face carefully for any reaction. “I left him napping.”
The smooth, cool lines of our host’s expression didn’t so much as flicker. “That’s unfortunate. Ah, well—I daresay he needs the rest. Our mutual friend does have a tendency to burn the candle at both ends.”
Stepping forward, I let my hands rest on the high back of one of the waiting chairs. “What did you do to him earlier?” I asked.
A faint wash of surprise tipped Nigellus’ eyebrows up. “Do to him?” he echoed. “Whatever do you mean?”
I didn’t shift position or break eye contact. “It’s a straightforward enough question. He was fine when you two left together, and when he came upstairs afterward he was a wreck. What did you do to him?”
Nigellus leaned back in his chair, his gaze boring into me. I had a feeling that on a normal day, I couldn’t have stood up to that gaze for five seconds. Right now, though, I was pumped up on vampire sex mojo and I was damn well getting some answers.
“Ransley is like a son to me, Ms. Bright,” Nigellus said slowly. “I assure you, I’ve done nothing to harm him.”
I narrowed my eyes. “So he was fine when he left you after your little talk, and somewhere between your tête-à-tête and the upstairs bedroom, something happened to make a badass, seven-hundred-year-old sword-wielding vampire lose a chunk out of his memory and nearly stumble over his own feet trying to walk through a doorway? Bullshit.”
Edward was watching me with a slightly wide-eyed expression. “I’ll just go check on dessert, sir, shall I?” he asked, and beat a hasty retreat toward the kitchen.
“Answer me, damn it,” I snapped.
Nigellus continued to regard me like I was a mildly interesting art exhibit, though I couldn’t detect any hint of either anger or defensiveness in his demeanor.
“Ms. Bright,” he began in that urbane voice, “you’ve only recently been thrust into this world, and there are many things you don’t yet know about Ransley’s past. This is completely understandable, of course, since there are many things he doesn’t know about his past. Ransley is... somewhat obsessed with unraveling the mystery surrounding his escape from the fate that befell his fellow vampires.”
“And what fate was that, exactly?” I interrupted. “You said they were killed in the war—every single one of them except him. How is that even possible?”
“They fell to a Fae weapon,” he said. “One that utilized a form of magic never seen before.”
My breath caught, but I refused to be sidetracked. “And Rans?”
“That is the mystery, is it not? One he seems determined to solve, no matter the cost.” For the first time, Nigellus looked away, and I thought I could detect a hint of frustration in his manner. His voice was quieter when he continued. “Perhaps I should not support him in his self-appointed quest. Yet whenever I come across anything anomalous that seems as though it might be related, I share it with him.”
“Was that what you wanted to talk to him about earlier?”
“Indeed it was. I think discussing the subject is sometimes... harder for him than he lets on. I assure you, though, that he did seem all right when he left me. Merely distracted.”
I mulled that for a few moments. Nigellus seemed utterly sincere, and it wasn’t the first indication I’d glimpsed that my vampiric knight in black leather was... not completely okay. If he was suffering from some kind of centuries-old PTSD, I supposed it could fit with memory lapses and the desire he’d expressed earlier to shut off his endlessly circling brain for a bit.
“Okay,” I said eventually. “I can understand that. And I apologize for storming in here and spouting accusations at you.”
“You’re his friend, and you’re worried about him,” Nigellus said without rancor. “You may not believe it, but that pleases me. It really does. Ransley has many friends, but none, I think, who might be inclined to protect him from his own worst impulses. His recklessness concerns me at times, as does his single-mindedness when it comes to the subject of the war.”
“Well,” I said, “that recklessness recently saved me from ending up a prisoner of some very nasty characters. But I don’t want to see him hurt, Nigellus.”
Nigellus smiled. “You’ve already proven that most effectively
, my dear. Now, would you care to dine with me this evening? I fear the dishes are getting cold.”
I shook my head, not feeling hungry and not wanting to prolong what was fast becoming an awkward conversation. “I think I’ll pass, though I truly do appreciate your hospitality.”
He shrugged easily. “You’re demonkin, Zorah. There aren’t so many demons that we can afford to turn our backs on our own.”
I tried on a smile, though it felt a bit forced. “I do have one request,” I said. “I don’t suppose you know a way that I could contact my father in Chicago without putting either of us in danger? I have his cell phone and landline numbers, as well as his email.”
Nigellus looked thoughtful. “Perhaps. Why don’t you speak to Edward about it? He’s the expert on such things. Personally, I have a hard time keeping up with human technology these days. Everything changes so quickly.”
“All right,” I said, trying to hide my skepticism. Normally when I was looking for tech advice, asking the eighty-year-old butler wasn’t my first instinct, but... “I’ll, uh, see if he has a moment before he serves dessert.”
* * *
Forty-five minutes later, I ascended the stairs in something of a daze. Edward’s rheumy eyes had lit up with excitement the moment I’d asked about contacting Dad securely, and I now knew more than I’d ever wanted to about using voice over IP across a secure VPN based in the Netherlands.
After hearing me relate the concerns Rans had raised about bringing Fae attention to my father, Edward had insisted that he be the one to actually place the call. We devised a sort of informal code that would make it sound like a routine call relating to a shipping screw-up, but which would—hopefully, anyway—make it clear to my father that I was safe, but couldn’t make it to Chicago.
That had been the plan, at least.
Too bad it hadn’t worked out that way. Now, my heart was pounding with fear, remembering the speed and thoroughness with which Caspian had managed to dismantle my entire life. I stumbled into the guest room, my eyes falling on Rans’ naked form in the bed—the duvet thrown carelessly across the lower half of his body.
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