Darkest Desire of the Vampire: Wicked in MoonlightVampire Island (Harlequin Nocturne)

by Rhyannon Byrd

  But it gave him a little edge, too, knowing that they were in the open. For someone so unsure of her passions, like Isla, he suspected that it was a newly discovered kink.

  “I—I do.” With one finger he pressed inside of her, submerging the tip into her heat, groaning aloud at how good it felt.

  She was so tight, so hot, so wet. He couldn’t even imagine what her pussy was going to feel like around his cock.

  “Oh.” Isla arched like a cat as Sloane began to move his finger in and out of her. Her breath started to come in quick little pants, and as she bent over the edge of the tub, she buried her face in her arms, seemingly overwhelmed by the sensations.

  “I want you to remember this.” Sloane was hit momentarily by the fragility of the woman beneath him, and surprisingly, it didn’t appeal to his predatory instinct. Rather than smelling weakness, he found that he wanted to make an impression on her life, fleeting as it was when compared to his own.

  He stilled for a moment, waiting for his words to sink in. Only when she calmed beneath him, when the words whispered from her lips, did he again begin his caresses of her body.

  “I will.” A rush of satisfaction moved through Sloane as Isla reassured him. He felt drawn to protect her, to cherish her, something that he didn’t understand but couldn’t seem to fight.

  “Good.” Only then did he cover her with his body, positioning his cock at the entrance to her cleft. He could feel her heat, could tell that she was ready for him.

  When he began to slowly press his length inside of her, his fangs again descended. Try as he might to retract them, he couldn’t bring enough focus to the matter, not when his slow entry into Isla’s slick, welcome heat was the single most pleasurable sensation that he had ever felt in his long life.

  “Oh. Oh!” Isla’s fingers scrabbled for purchase against the slick side of the hot tub as Sloane seated himself inside of her fully. Afraid that he’d hurt her, he stilled, allowing her a moment to adjust to his size stretching her tender flesh.

  She whimpered, but it was not a noise of pain. Inhaling deeply, she then pushed back against him, forcing him inside of her just a tiny bit more, and a strangled groan escaped his lips.

  “Isla.” He wanted to taste her so very badly. But he settled for running his tongue down the nape of her neck. He halted abruptly when his fangs grazed her skin harder than he had meant for them to. A trickle of ruby blood welled up from the scratches, and then that intoxicating scent was there, right there, begging him to take a bite.

  “No.” He barely whispered the word, a verbal reminder to himself that he was more than a slave to his animal instincts. Burying his face in the tender skin that stretched tightly over her shoulder blade, Sloane stilled, every muscle in his body tensed, waiting for her to whip around, see his fully extended fangs and scream.

  Though she paused as she felt the scratch of his teeth, it was brief, and then she was arching into him again, sliding her hips back and then forward, begging him without words to move.

  The movement made the rich scent of her blood travel to his nose. His throat dry, he swallowed thickly.

  He had to have just one taste, had to have that essence of her inside of him.

  Sliding his hands down to her hips, Sloane pulled his cock nearly all the way out of her heat, then pushed back in. As he did so, he bent his head and swiped his tongue over the droplets of blood that spilled bright red against her pale skin.

  “Shit, that’s amazing.” She tasted as she smelled—mangoes and vanilla, sweet and delicious. Denying himself more to drink, that small lick ramped up his carnal hunger, and he began to move faster and harder, sliding in and out of her with purpose.

  “Sloane!” His name was a strangled cry on her lips as she bent as far over the edge of the tub as she could, allowing him as deeply into her body as possible. Knowing that he wasn’t going to be able to last long, he slipped one of his hands into the waves of warm water, down the softly curved expanse of her belly and between her legs. His fingers delved between the soft curls there, finding the hard nub of her clit.

  “Fuck!” He would have chuckled at sweet Isla’s profanity had his own need not stretched every bit as tight. With a firm finger and thumb, he rolled that tender spot between her legs, judging from the irregular jerks of her hips that her orgasm was close.

  He groaned long and loud when Isla tumbled off the edge, her tight heat milking the length of his cock. He wanted to give her more but was so drunk on the pleasure that both her body and her blood had brought him that he lost control in nearly the same moment.

  Around them the water of the tub calmed, as did the racing heartbeat that he could hear pounding through her veins. Somewhat stunned by the intensity of what had transpired between them, Sloane began to withdraw his cock.

  “Don’t.” Isla protested as he slipped from between her legs. He knew that he should be kicking himself for getting involved, even this far, with a human, but he was very nearly drunk on the taste and feel of her. More relaxed than he had been for years, Sloane settled onto the seat of the hot tub, wrapping Isla in his arms.

  He watched her lift her head to the cool, moist night breeze and thought that she looked happier than he’d yet seen her.

  * * *

  “I don’t normally behave like this.” Isla started to speak, then halted again. She wasn’t embarrassed, exactly—what had just transpired between herself and Sloane had been too intense for that.

  Still, she felt the need to explain to him that she wasn’t the kind of woman who went around having kinky hot-tub sex with men she barely knew. Except that it seemed like, actually, she was.

  She didn’t know what had come over her since she had arrived on the island. Nervous as she had been, the longer she was here, the more it felt...right. Like she was where she belonged.

  She hadn’t felt so sure of herself...ever. Even if it was still layered with her habitual uncertainty.

  She tried again. “I don’t... I mean... The whole point of this trip was for me to step outside of my comfort zone. To break out of my shell.” She squirmed in the thick silence that followed, unprepared when Sloane began to laugh and pulled her onto his lap.

  Isla sputtered as the water rocked around them with the movement. Sitting on Sloane’s hard thighs meant that her breasts rose above the line of the water, and the tips puckered in air that was cooler than the liquid heat.

  “What’s so funny?” She squirmed, not sure how she felt about her torso being bared to the eyes of anyone who might pass by. It had been exciting in the heat of the moment, but now she felt as though she ought to cover up.

  “You fascinate me.” Isla heard that chuckle again and scowled as she wiggled, trying to extricate herself from the arms that were banded around her naked waist.

  “You don’t have to be sarcastic.” Embarrassed now, her face flushed a bright red, Isla rapidly tried to calculate a method to get out of the hot tub and get her clothes on without becoming even more mortified.

  She wasn’t hopeful.

  She gasped when she found herself lifted and spun in the water, turned so that she faced Sloane, one of her knees on either side of a muscular thigh on the bench. His face was deadly serious, even a bit ferocious, and Isla sucked in a breath when she took in the expression on his face.

  He looked like he was about to eat her alive.

  “You fascinate me,” he began, and Isla inhaled sharply again, this time because she could feel his cock becoming hard, pressing heavily into the tender skin of her inner thigh. “You fascinate me because you are beautiful and sweet and funny. You have a wild streak beneath the innocence. And you have no idea how intriguing you are.” He leaned in, nuzzled his nose into her neck and inhaled deeply, and Isla shivered as his lips moved along the tender column of her neck.

  “I—I’m not very interesting.” Those lips moved from her neck, and she tilted her head to the side, hoping that they would return.

  They didn’t. Instead Isla turned to find a very irri
tated Sloane looking at her.

  “Why would you think that you aren’t interesting?” He studied her face intently, then reached to the steps beyond the edge of the tub, where he had left the glasses of champagne. Handing one to Isla, he waited for her response.

  Stalling for time, she gulped at the liquid courage.

  “Isla.” Lacing one finger against her jaw, he turned her face until she had no choice but to look him in the eyes. She was terrified of what she would see there—judgment over her actions, certainly, and most likely laced with a healthy dose of contempt.

  She saw none of those things. Instead she found the pools of copper that were his eyes reassuring, even a bit hypnotic.

  “I don’t for a moment believe that you are the kind of woman who does this regularly. That’s part of your allure. However, I wouldn’t judge you if you were.” Isla cocked her head to one side a bit, searching for the truth in his words.

  “I...I just felt like I needed to...” Her words broke off, and she stared down into the dark water, where she twisted her fingers together nervously.

  “How you choose to live your life is no one’s business but your own.” Sloane’s face was stern, but after one heart-clenching moment, Isla understood that the anger that he felt was directed not toward her but toward those would dare to judge her.

  “Now. What made you come here tonight?” Instead of feeling shame, when Sloane showed no disapproval over her brazen behavior, Isla found herself drawn to tell him about the email from her mother.

  “My... I...” The frustration that Isla always felt whenever she thought about her mother and her sisters washed over her, and she bit her lower lip in consternation. As she did, she felt Sloane hiss in a breath from where he rested his chin on her shoulder.

  Heat simmered inside of her, helping to extinguish the uncertainty that always accompanied thoughts of her mother. Because she was quite happy to simply forget all about the woman, she moved quite deliberately against Sloane, rubbing herself against his erection.

  “Tell me.” Though his voice was rough with lust, Sloane clamped his hands tightly on her waist, halting her provocative movements. “I want to know.”

  Isla considered refusing, not wanting to share something so private with someone who was only asking so that he could get into her pants. However, there was a note of truth in Sloane’s voice.

  Also, her pants had come off more than an hour earlier. He was still here, and so was she.

  “I don’t get along very well with my family.” Isla swallowed the rest of her fizzy drink in one large swallow, and when the warm aftereffect hit her mind, she found bravery along with it.

  “I don’t know if you’re close to your family,” she started and noted that he tensed beneath her. Regardless, she continued, “I guess I’m close to mine, but I’d really rather not be.”

  “Why is that?” Sloane slid his hand from where it was splayed over her belly, tracing up the stripes of her rib cage to skim over the underside of her breast.

  “I’m not good enough for them.” The words came out in a heated rush, and it was a relief to finally speak them to someone. “My mom is a judge. She’s so strong, like a superhero. She raised us alone. She’s done well for herself. Her daughters—at least two out of three—are very successful.”

  Isla waited for Sloane to agree with her mother. He did not, instead cupping her breast in his large hand and gently squeezing, forcing heat to radiate outward from his touch.

  “My sister Angela is an attorney. My other sister, Madeline, is a doctor. They’re both married to successful men. I’ve always been...different. My mother has always treated me differently. Sometimes I really wonder if she loves me at all. And today she sent me an email. She’s very upset that I’ve decided to go on holiday to an island that is littered with vampire legends. She hates all things supernatural. If her friends found out I was here, it would embarrass her to no end.”

  Isla knew that frustration was apparent in her voice, even as she arched her back, pushing her breast into Sloane’s touch.

  “You’re an adult. You chose this resort.” Isla stiffened at the words until she became aware, again, that he wasn’t expressing disapproval.

  She hadn’t realized quite the extent to which she had been conditioned to her mother’s expectations of behavior.

  “Yes. Well...not exactly. It was my friend’s trip. Something came up and she wasn’t able to go, so I came instead. But...well, yes, in the end I suppose I still made the decision to come.” Sloane bent his neck and traced his lips along the nape of her neck, and Isla shuddered at the sensation.

  “I... I... Oh.” She felt a scratching sensation and assumed he had nibbled on her neck. It didn’t hurt—on the contrary, she wished that he would do it again.

  “I don’t particularly like my mother. And she doesn’t care for me either.” Isla had never acknowledged this out loud, and although she felt as though she should feel guilty, she didn’t. “I’m sick of doing what she wants when she doesn’t even seem to love me. And all this fuss over vampires—something that’s not even real. It’s silly.”

  “Well, then.” Sloane shifted Isla until she again straddled his hips. This time he positioned his cock right at the heated entrance to her cleft. She wanted—craved—that moment when he slid inside of her, filled her.

  Made her forget everything else.

  “You are your own woman. Now it’s time for you to live your life the way that you want to. Step outside the shadow of your family.” Again picking up the bottle of champagne, he suddenly upended the remaining contents over Isla’s breasts.

  “Sloane!” Every muscle inside of Isla clenched at the unexpected coolness of the liquid that now ran in rivulets over her torso. At the same time, Sloane began to inch inside of her with excruciating slowness, and Isla groaned as sensations overwhelmed her.

  As soon as he had seated himself fully inside of her, Sloane lowered his lips to the cleft between her breasts and licked up a stream of champagne. Pressing his forehead to hers so that she could not look away, he grinned at her, and Isla shivered at the carnal promise demonstrated in his devilish smile.

  “If this is the way that you want to start living your life, beautiful, I’m not going to complain.”

  * * *

  Sloane had no idea what the hell he had gotten himself into.

  He watched as the last trace of strawberry-colored hair disappeared behind the heavy door of Isla’s bungalow. After spending the past few hours in her company, he was more convinced than ever that she knew nothing about vampires.

  He was also certain that he had found a human whose eventual death could tear him in two.

  He would never consider turning her. He couldn’t, not after what he had done to Ana.

  Furrowing his brow and scowling, he stuffed his hands in the pockets of the shorts he had pulled back on to walk Isla from his boat back to her bungalow. He didn’t like that her accommodations were so remote any more than he liked wondering why Lucian had allowed her onto the island.

  He couldn’t do much about the wondering and the concern. He could, however, extricate himself from the situation before getting in any deeper. For reasons that he couldn’t quite explain, he knew that eternal separation from the sweet little human who had just kissed him good-night with enough heat to make his head spin would be far worse than it had been with Sully.

  The stench of dry vinegar accosted his nostrils as soon as he stepped from the wood of the dock to the sand of the beach. He stilled, lifting his head to draw the scent deep. Though he had never been a vampire particularly gifted with tracking, he was certain that the vampire whose presence he was detecting was the same one he had first smelled in the woods that afternoon.

  On a hunch, he kept his senses attuned to the smell. As he had suspected, it intensified, and now that he was expecting it, he could discern the change in the smell.

  It was indeed a second vampire joining the first. The proximity to Isla was not a coincidence�
��he didn’t believe in chance occurrences.

  Something in the second scent seemed vaguely familiar, though he didn’t think it was one that he’d smelled before. Sloane waited, still and silent, at the edge of the dock. The hiding vampires would certainly know that he was there and would know now that he was the one who had staked a claim on Isla earlier that day.

  As he waited he growled, just once—a warning to those hiding in the shadows. As he had predicted, the scents soon faded, the interlopers acknowledging the warning.

  After his behavior that afternoon—primal behavior that Isla had somehow managed to drag from him—it was too late for him to pretend that he hadn’t claimed her as his own. Though he had no intention of pursuing her further—no matter that he felt a sharp pang lance through him at the thought—perhaps that claim would keep her safe until he could persuade the innocent woman to leave.

  Chapter 5

  When Isla had first perused the activities listed in the resort brochure, she had thought that sunrise yoga sounded mystical and wonderful. She was now having second thoughts.

  The resort was alive with the sound of birds and fresh air, but she passed very few people on her way to the recreation building. Shrugging, she surmised that she shouldn’t be all that surprised, given the early hour.

  A white tent stood beside the white stone building where yoga sessions took place, and it swayed slightly in the early morning breeze. Though no one else was there yet, Isla could see rolled-up yoga mats, foam blocks and blankets stacked neatly inside the tent. She assumed that this was where she was supposed to be.

  Inside the tent, she looked around tentatively, then slowly unzipped her hooded sweatshirt and, throwing it aside, she took one of the mats in hand. When she went to unroll it she found that it was still bound with plastic—it was brand-new. Pursing her lips, she put the mat back and picked up another one.

  It was the same—brand-new, still in its packaging. A quick survey told her that all of the equipment in the tent had never been used, which she couldn’t think of an explanation for.