Strong hands cupped my shoulders, but I didn’t dare let myself get swept away in the moment—not completely. Not if I wanted to follow through with my plan. Supernatural creatures didn’t take long to get their second wind, and I needed him vulnerable. I straightened and grasped his wrists, guiding them down to rest against the bed above his head.
“Zorah,” he said in that panty-melting voice of his... but he took the hint and left his arms lying where I put them.
He also didn’t protest when I shoved a pillow beneath his hips to raise them—another trick I’d gleaned from trashy erotic romance novels, thank you very much. I noticed the remote for my vibrator sitting discarded an arm’s length away on the large bed, but left it where it was for the moment. This new position required a fresh round of figuring out what the hell I was doing, but after a bit of shuffling, I got my hips into position and slid the dildo back in.
Rans arched beneath me with a low groan.
“Yeah... fair warning—I’m still not even close to done with you,” I informed him as I searched out the angle that dragged the fake cock across his prostate with every thrust.
I knew I’d found it when he curled his hips up to meet me with each movement. Bracing on one arm, I trailed my other hand between us, bringing it to rest over his silent heart. Even after all this time, it was still incredibly odd to feel the stillness where one would expect to feel excited thrumming.
“I love you,” I told him again. “I could do this forever—just keep you here in this bed and make you come, over and over, until you can’t remember your own name.”
A certain haziness was beginning to overtake his gaze, as his body edged toward another release. “I can... think of worse ways to spend the next century or two.”
I trailed my hand up from his chest, over the vulnerable arch of his throat, and rested it over his mouth, quieting him. “Hush. You’re still speaking in complete sentences. Less talking, more falling apart.”
A rough snap of my hips and his spine bowed, his body obeying my command. His cock jerked, smearing the small amount of fluid he still had in reserve across my stomach. My inner succubus purred in satisfaction at the glassy look in Rans’ eyes when he finally opened them. It felt as though the knowledge of how to use this sexual power he’d granted me had finally started to settle into my bones, as I watched his barriers dropping one by one. I let instinct guide me, sliding my hand down and using a touch on his jaw to lift his gaze to mine.
“I love you,” I repeated for the third time. My hips rolled against his, not giving him a chance to recover. “And it’s not your job to have all of the answers... all of the solutions. If we die tomorrow, or a decade from now, or five minutes from now, I’ll still love you just as much.”
He shuddered under me, his eyes dilating until black nearly swallowed the blue. I fucked into him harder, and his chest convulsed in a gasp, drawing air he didn’t need. Another gasp followed, and another. The ring of iris around his blown pupils glowed with unearthly inner light.
“If we die in the next heartbeat,” I told him, “I’ll still thank my lucky stars for the day I stumbled across you bleeding from a shotgun blast inside my garden shed.”
He arched and came again—helplessly. Artlessly. A broken noise ripped free from his throat, his chest still rising and falling on jagged breaths full of oxygen he couldn’t use. I wrapped him up as much as my smaller frame would allow, holding him, still fucking him with slow and gentle undulations of my hips. His arms came around my shoulders in a grip that screamed desperation, muscles quivering as he held me in place, my head resting on his chest, tucked beneath his chin.
Contentment flooded my heart. With a slow sigh, I wormed an arm free just long enough to fumble for the little remote control and turn it on. The pleasant buzz warmed my body, a decadent counterpoint to the warmth already soaking into my soul. In my arms, Rans’ shuddering calmed by slow degrees. He came one final time beneath my gentle movements, his entire body going boneless. I followed him into orgasm immediately afterward, bone-deep pleasure and a rush of happy endorphins flooding my limbs.
As soon as my muscles were back under my control, I carefully slipped the dildo out of him and wriggled free of the harness, kicking it away from the bed. Rans was completely out of it; lying on the wreck of the bedclothes like the fallen angel I’d once compared him to—either asleep or unconscious. Fortunately, the huge mattress meant an equally huge bedspread, so I was able to flip one edge over both of us rather than face the daunting task of getting us under the covers properly.
All at once, the exhaustion of having been awake for well over a day hit me like a freight train. I barely managed to curl against Rans’ side with an arm and a leg thrown over him before sleep claimed me in its muffling embrace.
FOURTEEN
WHEN I WOKE UP, Rans was holding me tightly against him. Not painfully tight, but with the sort of single-mindedness that one holds onto something of great value when one is convinced that it’s about to be taken away.
It was light outside. I had no idea what time of day it was, but my body exhibited the heavy feeling indicative of hours of deep sleep after a long time spent awake. For a few moments, I just lay there, soaking up the grounding sensation of strong arms wrapped around me. Those arms, however, belonged to a vampire—meaning he’d probably been able to tell the instant I’d woken up by the changes in my pulse and breathing.
“I’m also thankful to the powers-that-be for the day I met you, you know,” he said without preamble, as though we were continuing a conversation that hadn’t been interrupted by multiple orgasms and a solid night’s sleep. “And then, in the very next moment, I’m hit with terror at the thought of losing you.”
I clung to him a bit closer, limpet-like.
“Look at it this way,” I said. “If you do end up losing me, at least you won’t have long to worry about it.”
Honestly, I wasn’t sure if that was a kind thing to say or a terrible one. Either way, though, it was the truth. Thanks to the life-bond, whenever I died, Rans would be hot on my heels in the race to the afterlife... assuming there was one.
“It’ll be the longest damned moment of my miserable existence,” he muttered.
“Made considerably longer than it needs to be by the fact that you’re obsessing over it while I’m still happily alive and in bed with you,” I pointed out mildly.
His chest expanded and contracted in a huff.
“I’m right.” I insisted. “Admit it.”
He grumbled something under his breath before addressing me in a more normal tone. “Right? Probably. Smug? Definitely.”
“Well... maybe some fresh new ideas on how to deal with this mess will present themselves, now that everyone’s had a decent night’s sleep,” I suggested, untangling my limbs from Rans’ enough to stretch. “Assuming Guthrie slept okay, anyway. Which reminds me, what time is it?”
Rans eyed the sun slanting through the glass doors leading to the suite’s private deck. “Late enough that he probably won’t shout at us for checking in on him.”
I frowned. “I hope it wasn’t a mistake leaving him alone for so long.”
Rans loosened his grip on me with obvious reluctance. “With easy access to blood bags and no distractions of the warm-blooded variety, he’s fine. And he probably would have made an attempt to eviscerate me if we’d stayed longer—verbally if not physically.”
I couldn’t help my small noise of amusement. “True, that.”
“So... shower, then?”
In my case, at least, showering probably should have happened last night, if I hadn’t slipped straight from ‘orgasm’ to ‘coma’ without much of a transition in between. “Oh, yeah.”
He rolled up on an elbow and looked down at me, his brow furrowing. “And... that reminds me of yet another of the many things I should have thought of before now, and didn’t. Have you ever been to the ocean before?”
I shook my head. “The closest I’ve been is Nigellus’ place
in Atlantic City. Why?”
The corner of Rans’ mouth twitched down. “Because I’m relying on saltwater to keep us safe, without first having checked if it’s safe for you as a demon hybrid. But for what it’s worth, the ship’s swimming pool will almost certainly use filtered seawater. We can have you dip a pinky finger in to make sure it doesn’t burn your skin.”
I reached up and kissed him. “You worry too much. I’ve been eating salt on my food all my life, which includes measuring it into my hand sometimes for cooking. Not to mention handling the salt daggers with no problem. I’ll go for a swim to prove it if you like, but it’s fine.”
He relaxed. “All right. That’s good.”
I lifted a wry brow. “So does that mean if a demon shows up, the three of us are going to do a synchronized swan dive off the deck and into the ocean to get away?”
“Hopefully not,” he replied in the same tone. “No promises, though.”
“Well,” I told him. “That’s certainly reassuring.”
* * *
After a joint shower that only involved a modest amount of groping and kissing, I found a sundress and a pair of gladiator sandals that weren’t too terribly impractical. When I was done, I sat on the bed and watched in appreciation as Rans donned a fresh trousers-and-vest combo, this time in navy blue with a lighter shirt that was more or less the same shade as his eyes.
Fortunately for my ability to focus on other things besides sex, this vest didn’t have corset lacing up the back. However, it didn’t help the state of my raging libido when he left the shirt unbuttoned at his throat and rolled the sleeves up to his elbows.
“I never had you pegged as a clotheshorse before now,” I said, eyeing him up and down. “Guess I probably should have, though.”
“A clotheshorse? Please. Consider it camouflage—nothing more,” he replied. A hint of irony crept into his tone. “Besides, someone has to keep Prada and Versace in business, or where would the world be?”
“Lacking important bits of eye candy, I suppose,” I admitted, before shaking myself free of the distracting levels of pretty currently on display. “Are we ready, then? Do you have the extra keycard for Guthrie’s room?”
He flashed it between two fingers like a magician doing a card trick before pocketing it. After ushering me out of the suite, he closed the door and we headed toward the Seventies Bordello Suite of Doom. It was almost eleven a.m.—a respectable time of morning for even a freshly turned vampire.
Rans knocked on the door. “Guthrie. It’s us, mate. One late morning, as requested.” Without waiting for a response, he swiped the card. The lock clicked open.
At his gesture, I strode past him into the room, only to come to a halt so abrupt that Rans had to steady himself with a hand against my shoulder to keep from plowing into my back.
“Umm...” I said, my eyes fixed on the four figures sprawled across the monstrous hot pink expanse of the heart-shaped bed.
The three women were... very pretty. They also weren’t wearing much in the way of clothing. One was darker-skinned than I was, with short dreadlocks bleached to a coppery blonde color. One was pale with long, raven hair, and one was tanned with a platinum pixie cut. All three were lying motionless in a tangle of limbs with Guthrie at its epicenter.
My grandfather-who-never-asked-for-the-title sat up, a thunderous frown furrowing his brow. Silk sheets slid down to reveal a build that, yeah, I wouldn’t have guessed from seeing him clothed. Apparently, the well-appointed gym in his St. Louis penthouse wasn’t just for show.
I made a ridiculous squeaking noise and covered my eyes, whirling to face the other way and nearly tripping over my own feet in the process.
“Oh my god,” I whispered to Rans. “Please tell me those women aren’t—”
“Suffering from a serious iron deficiency?” Rans finished. “No. They’re fine. Although, based on the empty bottles and the variety of drug paraphernalia scattered around the place, their hangovers are going to be truly epic.”
Apparently, Rans wasn’t overly concerned with the psychological trauma I was undergoing at having unexpectedly walked in on this scene. This was despite the fact that as a vampire, he could hardly have missed the way every ounce of blood in my body had just made a concerted rush to my cheeks.
“Well,” he continued in a voice that was deceptively mild, “I’d say I was sorry I missed the party, except I was quite enjoyably engaged myself last night. Still, you didn’t think it might be wise to have a bit of backup available before locking yourself in a room with three humans?”
“Stop playing nursemaid.” The irritation in Guthrie’s reply was obvious. “I drank a couple of blood bags first, and I was careful not to drain any of them seriously.”
“Maybe not of blood,” Rans said, and I had to resist the urge to lower the hand covering my eyes so I could smack him.
The covers on the bed rustled, presumably as Guthrie extracted himself from last night’s sexual carnage. I absolutely did not turn around to look.
“Go to hell, Rans.” The words came from a different part of the room, hopefully because Guthrie was getting some freaking clothes. “I gave them the private party they wanted, hypnotized them not to remember anything after the third bottle of post-coital tequila, and took a small amount of blood from each so I wouldn’t accidentally weaken any of them too much.”
“There’s quite a bit of information being shared in this conversation that I’d prefer not to have,” I pointed out, a bit desperately.
“But here’s the part I want to know,” Guthrie continued as though I hadn’t spoken. “Why the hell am I already sober after drinking blood with that much alcohol, ecstasy, and cocaine swimming in it? That was pretty much the entire point of the exercise.”
“You’re saddled with an undead metabolism now,” Rans told him. “Sorry.”
“Fuck.” The word emerged flat.
“Evidently, yes,” Rans quipped.
I raised a finger like a nervous student requesting the teacher’s attention in class. “Can we please fast forward to the part where Guthrie’s wearing clothes and I can pretend I didn’t just walk in on this?”
Guthrie gave an audible sigh. “I’m wearing clothes, Zorah. And for what it’s worth, those three didn’t seem terribly hung up on the whole modesty thing last night.”
I cautiously turned around and peeked over my fingers to find him wrapped in a white terrycloth robe. “Okay,” I said slowly, lowering my hand, but resolutely not looking at the bed. “Next question. Is this, like, way out of character for you, or do I just not know you at all?”
Rans snorted. I glared at him.
“I’m not a saint, Zorah,” Guthrie said, sounding tired. “And given that I’m currently living—or rather, being undead—on borrowed time, does any of it really fucking matter?”
I thought of Rans last night, obsessing over the possibility of my death. Not only was Guthrie stuck in the same shitty no-win scenario Rans and I were, he additionally had to worry about an unhinged demon with anger management issues deciding to reach across the world with her mind and snuff him out of existence without an instant’s warning.
“No. I guess it doesn’t. Not as long as you aren’t hurting anyone else,” I told him, softening my tone as I consciously quashed my irrational mortification. “I’m sorry, Guthrie. I pull life-force from random strangers at sex clubs. I’m not exactly in a position to judge.”
“So,” Rans interrupted smoothly. “If that’s settled, shall we go find some brunch for you, Zorah? It feels like we’ve docked, though I’ve no idea where. I suppose we might as well stretch our legs and enjoy someplace tropical.” He paused, his attention shifting to Guthrie. “Unless you need to see to your... guests, first?”
Guthrie slid a hand over his face, rubbing at his eyes. “No. Just let them sleep it off. Give me half an hour and I’ll meet you in your room, you asshole.”
FIFTEEN
GUTHRIE SHOWED UP thirty minutes later on the dot; his duf
fel thrown carelessly over one shoulder. I still had to fight the heat of embarrassment that tried to rise to my face when I looked at him.
Geez—I was literally the lamest sex demon ever.
For his part, Guthrie appeared to be rockin’ his standard blend of bitterness, sadness, resignation, and the desire to kick Rans’ ass for dragging him into this impossible situation in the first place. I couldn’t help thinking that if last night’s festivities hadn’t managed to cheer him up, maybe it was really a lost cause after all.
Rans, by contrast, seemed totally unfazed by the morning’s events. Of course, he’d known Guthrie for decades longer than I had. For all I knew, this wasn’t the first time he’d walked in on his friend at the center of a drunken foursome. I mean... the guy had slept with Myrial, after all.
After slinging his own bag over his shoulder, Rans gestured to mine. “First rule of being on the run. Don’t leave anything behind that you might need if things went pear-shaped.”
Since I’d violated that particular rule before—to my detriment, I might add—I didn’t argue. I was in no hurry to find myself stuck with nothing more than the clothes on my back for days on end, like I had the last time I’d run off somewhere without taking my belongings with me. It was a bit awkward to lug the carryon bag around, and it did garner some odd looks from the ‘rich douche’ brigade as we made our way off the ship. But I’d grown at least somewhat accustomed to the heavy weight hanging from my shoulder over the past few weeks.
Apparently our current port of call was the island of St. Kitts. The first thing I noticed was that it had considerably more of a touristy, built-up feel than Anguilla. After traversing the long dock leading from the ship to the cruise terminal, the three of us wandered around the bustling city of Basseterre until we found a food shack with a line out the door.
The Last Vampire- Complete series Box Set Page 81