One thrust, two, and Sloane’s moan sliced the heavy, humid air in two. He thrust into her again and again, milking every last bit of pleasure for both of them. Clasping her by the waist, he pulled her back toward him and down until she was lying full length on top of him, his length still embedded inside of her.
Her face a whisper from his own, they stared at each other wide eyed. Isla didn’t have much experience, but still she knew that what had just happened wasn’t normal.
Entranced, she sighed and laid her cheek on his chest, surrendering to him completely.
Sloane could think of any excuse that he wanted for running, but he couldn’t deny the honesty of what had just happened. He wanted her. She wanted him.
For the moment, that was enough.
Chapter 7
Sloane hadn’t run.
Isla couldn’t help the dreamy smile that played over her lips as she lay in his bed, his arms wrapped tightly around her waist. They had made love a second time, and while her knees were weak, she couldn’t stop the seemingly insatiable hunger that worked through her at his touch.
No matter how it ended up, she knew that this vacation—and the parts of her that Sloane had unearthed—was the start of a new phase of her life.
Nuzzling against his chest, she inhaled the herb-laced scent that was uniquely him. Heat washed through her yet again, and with more bravery than she had had even that morning, she slid her hand down the hard planes of his abs to dance her fingers over the length of his cock.
“Well, then.” She could hear the answering smile in Sloane’s voice, and beneath her touch his length hardened much more quickly than it should have, considering how much work it had gotten in the past few hours. He thrust into her hand as she wrapped it tightly around the hot silk of him, and she dampened her lips with her tongue in anticipation.
Sliding up the length of his body, she felt his hard muscles stiffen beneath her softer frame. He grabbed her upper arms in strong hands when she moved against him, holding her still.
“Shh.” He cocked his head to the side, and Isla blew her bangs out of her face with an exasperated sigh. She hadn’t heard anything.
“I wasn’t talking.” Sloane quieted her again, sitting up in the bed, the sheets and Isla herself rumpled and in his lap.
The serious expression on his face was enough to have nerves skittering through her blood.
What was with this resort and this island? There had been enough odd occurrences in the past two days to make Isla thoroughly discomfited.
She even felt different, and she had since she’d set foot on the dock. She’d initially chalked it up to relaxation—she was on vacation, after all—but when she thought about it, she’d had more than her share of stressful encounters since arriving.
She didn’t believe in vampires, but she was starting to wonder if she might be wrong and if there were some on the island—like that woman Luana she’d met earlier that morning.
“Isla, stay here.” Isla’s spine stiffened as Sloane lifted her as though she weighed nothing and moved her from his lap to the edge of the bed. Though his actions had her feeling a bit uneasy, she was still able to appreciate his nude body as he got off the bed and quickly dressed in his discarded shorts and T-shirt.
“What is it? What did you hear?” Sloane’s entire manner had changed from the lazy lover he’d been only moments earlier. In that lover’s place was a man who looked lethal and not a little bit scary.
“I didn’t hear something—I smelled it. I’m not entirely sure what, but it’s not for lack of trying.” He scowled, his eyes darkening.
He had smelled it? Taken aback, Isla clutched the sheet to her naked breasts and scooted to the edge of the bed.
“What are you going to do?” She wanted to think that he was crazy—it’s what her mother would have done and her sisters, too. Normal people just didn’t smell danger, much less take it seriously if they did.
But Isla wasn’t her mother or her sisters. She was going to go with her gut, and it said that she could trust this man with her life.
Following him to the front door with the sheet wrapped around her, she found a hand placed flat against her chest when she tried to follow him out.
“You stay here. I mean it.” Isla narrowed her eyes—she didn’t appreciate being spoken to in that manner. Sloane saw the look and heaved a sigh that she interpreted as exasperation.
“Isla, remember yesterday in the jungle? When I told you that this island can be dangerous?” Hesitantly, she nodded.
His face softened as he bent down to kiss her on the lips quickly. Then the lethal expression returned, and a shiver ran through her frame.
“I meant it. Don’t go anywhere.” And then he was gone, running across the beach and into the trees.
He was fast, so fast that one minute Isla had him in her sights, and then he was gone.
She looked down the beach. It was deserted, not a soul to be seen, but she still felt exposed. Prickles ran over her skin, and with a shake of her head she tried to rid herself of the notion that she was being watched.
Trusting her gut was one thing, and relying on her overactive imagination was quite another.
She could do something about feeling exposed, though. Moving back through the cabin of the boat, she picked up her discarded yoga shorts and slid them back up her hips. Craving more coverage than her camisole provided, she instead reached for one of the T-shirts that Sloane had in a laundry basket beside the bed.
She had a qualm about doing so, though she didn’t truly think he’d mind. Even if he did, it would be worth it, having the scent of him right against her skin.
The knock at the door through which Sloane had just exited made her jump damn near out of her skin. Clutching her hand to her heart, which was now thundering against her rib cage, she inhaled and exhaled deeply, trying to calm herself.
“Um...hello?” From the safety of the bedroom, she called out to the door. Sloane hadn’t said anything about that, but she wasn’t an idiot. She wasn’t going to place herself in danger if there was anything to be concerned about.
“Miss Miller?” The voice was crisp, accented and vaguely familiar. “It is Gaspar. Your concierge. Your buzzer summoned me.”
Isla relaxed slightly as the visitor identified himself. She made her way to the door, her arms crossed in front of her self-consciously.
“I’m so sorry that you came all the way over here, but I didn’t use my buzzer.” She opened the door with a small smile, feeling guilty.
Gaspar smiled vacantly. Up close, she saw that he didn’t look very well—his eyes were glassy and the pupils were dilated.
“May I look at it? Perhaps it is malfunctioning.” Pursing her lips, Isla went to slide her hands into her pockets before remembering that she didn’t have any in the skimpy yoga shorts. That’s right—she hadn’t been back to the bungalow since that morning, and she hadn’t taken the device with her to the aborted yoga session.
“I don’t think I even have it on me.” She looked up into Gaspar’s face to smile apologetically. Instead she found herself yanked against the man, turned so that her back was to his chest. He tied a cloth gag over her lips, and then flipped her over his shoulder with a strength she hadn’t guessed at in his wiry frame.
“You will come with me.”
Isla couldn’t do anything but try to scream.
* * *
Sloane had recognized the vinegar scent the moment it had wafted into his boat. It was the signature of only one of the vampires that he was trying to track, and because of that he was loathe to leave Isla alone.
Where was the second vamp?
Seeing her nerves, though, he determined to end it then and there.
No matter that he had lived for centuries, that he had the experience of active duty in more wars than anyone should ever have to live through—catching a vampire who didn’t want to be caught was not an easy prospect, gifted as they all were with strength, speed and highly tuned senses. Because
of this he was startled to find the figure that the vinegar scent belonged to hadn’t appeared to sense him coming.
“What are you doing?” Building up his vampire speed, Sloane leaped, his movements as full of raw power as a predatory cat. He slammed into the other vampire a moment before the other turned to look at him, eyes wide.
The other vampire slammed into the fat base of a tree, pinned by Sloane’s body. He didn’t struggle much, not even when Sloane cupped his throat in tight fingers and squeezed.
Sloane recognized the other vampire. He was one of those in Lucian St. Baptiste’s inner circle. Why was he in the woods by Sloane’s boat? There was nothing else down here.
“Start talking, Marcus.” Rage was hot in Sloane’s still blood. His fangs sliced down through his gums painfully, as it always was when the flesh parted only to knit back together within instants.
Marcus opened his mouth to speak, but there was no sound. Vampires didn’t need to breathe, but air was still necessary to carry sound.
“Why are you following Isla?” Sloane loosened his grip very slightly. His instincts had been honed to a sharp edge over the years, and though he was certain that Marcus’s scent was one that had been following Isla, the man wasn’t letting off the air that he was a threat to Sloane’s woman.
“You don’t understand. I’m protecting Isla.” Marcus was a strong vampire in his own right—he had to be as the face of Lucian while the sick vampire couldn’t be seen. But he grabbed at Sloane’s hands around his throat, his fingers scrambling.
The beast inside Sloane wanted to snap the man’s neck.
“Am I supposed to believe that the other one I’ve scented with you is protecting Isla, too?” Sloane’s voice was a snarl. He glanced uneasily in the direction of his boat. He hadn’t planned on a lengthy discussion—he wanted to get back to Isla.
Marcus’s face flickered with surprise. Sloane didn’t want to discuss his tracking skills. He wanted information.
“No. Luana—she is the one you have scented. I try to follow her to make sure that she does not cause too much trouble.” Sloane heard truth in the man’s voice and eased the grip on his neck, though he still stood positioned to attack if necessary.
Marcus continued. “Usually when Luana escapes, she runs to the jungle. Given her behavior around Miss Miller, however, I thought that she might have come here.”
Sloane couldn’t have said why, but he believed the man. But he had a question before Marcus was off the hook.
“Who the hell is Luana?” Adrenaline pumped through him as an aborted scream sliced through the heavy air. The scent of a vampire entered his senses before disappearing, and dread washed over him.
The vampire scent wasn’t the one that he had been tracking, and it would have been bad enough if it was. He looked to Marcus to confirm his suspicions.
“That isn’t Luana. I don’t know where she is.”
Sloane cursed and, shoving Marcus away from him, broke into a run, sniffing as he went. The way that the smell was dissipating told him that the strange new vampire was on the move.
Mixed with it was the smell of mangoes and vanilla.
Isla was in trouble, and it was his fault for leaving her alone.
* * *
Isla was still gagged, her cheeks numb from the fabric digging into her flesh. She was bound to a massive cross made of wood, her arms and legs splayed and fastened with iron cuffs.
Fear made her tremble. Gaspar had brought her to the massive ballroom of Lucian St. Baptiste, bound her and left her here. Oh, but she wasn’t alone.
The view in front of her was one that could only be described as an orgy. Scores of figures writhed in scenes that she could not even comprehend. Men cupped the cocks of other men. Women suckled one another. Groups of three and four, the sexes varied, contorted their bodies in ways obviously meant to heighten pleasure. Whips, paddles and other items that Isla had never seen before and couldn’t name were used with heavy hands.
Why was she here? What was about to happen to her?
The vampire legends of the island swarmed through her mind. She couldn’t wrap her mind around the reality of such a thing, not even after witnessing the freakish speed at which Gaspar had run to deliver her here.
But she wasn’t stupid. Of the figures writhing about in front of her, approximately half were the color of snow. The other half had punctures and bruising on their necks, caused by the bites that were delivered often and apparently with much pleasure.
Isla could see the bites, could see the blood that trickled from the wounds. Her mind wanted to think that this was all some sort of very intense role-playing, but a whisper inside of her urged her to open herself to what her eyes told her was real.
What the hell had she gotten herself into?
“Do you like what you see?” The voice was whispered intimately into her ear, the speaker at her back. Isla shivered as a frigid breeze misted her neck.
She felt the pressure of fingers and shouted as the fabric of her gag was ripped from her skin. She wanted to scream for help, but who would she be calling for?
Sloane, of course, was who she wanted. But was he one of them?
“I asked you a question.” As she shivered, Lucian strolled easily out in front of her, a long coil of leather in his hand. When she could do nothing more than stare at him with wide eyes and her mouth agape, he flicked the whip between her legs.
She startled but couldn’t move away. The burn of the lash striped the skin of her inner thigh, and fury lanced through her.
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” The Isla who would have cowered in fear was not anywhere in sight. She was terrified, but more than that, she was furious. She also had nothing to lose and was feeling an almost animalistic anger rolling over her. She hissed and bit at the air, jerking at her restraints. “Let me go.”
Her words were futile, as she knew they would be. But rage was building inside of her, combining with her fear, hazing her vision with red. She didn’t know what her face displayed, but it must have been ferocious enough to make an impression because Lucian blinked and took a step backward.
As Isla’s stare again flickered to the cavorting couples, however, his confidence was again revealed in the curve of his lips.
“I am pleased at how being on the island, around your own kind, has changed you. Therefore I will allow you to ask a question.” Lucian smiled at her as if he was imparting a great gift.
“What are you...what are you going to do with me?” Isla looked into the icy pale eyes of the man who had ordered her kidnapped and chained. What she saw there was...nothing. The man’s eyes were devoid of any emotion.
Lucian licked his lips, slowly and deliberately, the movement somehow sensual.
Isla shuddered.
“Let me first tell you a story.” Lucian walked toward Isla. When he reached her, he leaned in and sniffed the curve of her neck. Isla tried to jerk away, but her restraints allowed her only limited movement. Slowly he licked her cheek. His tongue was cold on her skin, and she heaved, filled with revulsion.
“I have lived for more years than you can possibly fathom, my dear. For millennia.” Lucian pressed his lips to the hollow of her throat, and as his body moved against hers, Isla felt the evidence of his arousal. “Did you know that vampires can bear young, my dearest? We are not dead, as many think, but simply...more...than we were as humans. Our children, though, are human, as we once were, but still with that touch of...more.”
Isla stared at the man as if he was mad...and actually, she was pretty sure that he was.
“If you’re wondering what any of this has to do with you, Isla dearest, then wonder no more. You are my descendant—my blood runs in your veins. The blood that I had once, before I became so sick. The blood that I have been waiting for, with the latent vampire gene contained within it. Your mother, her mother, and generations before... None has had it until you.”
With a sinking sensation in her gut, Isla saw with complete clarity where
this was going. Before she could wrap her mind around it Lucian flicked the whip again, and she flinched. This time it struck her midriff, slicing through the cloth of her T-shirt—Sloane’s T-shirt.
She hissed as her flesh parted. The copper scent of her blood, welling from the shallow cut, turned her stomach.
Lucian sniffed the air delicately, the movement overly emphasized—for her benefit, Isla knew. Then he turned to face her, his mouth curved into a wide grin.
Protruding from bloodred lips were ivory-white fangs, long and lethally sharp.
Fangs that hadn’t been there moments before.
In that moment, Isla knew. The legends she’d heard were not stories at all.
She thought of Sloane, impossibly attractive Sloane, who was so pale even after hours in the tropical sun. Who insisted that they couldn’t be together.
Whose lips were cool against her own.
Vampires were real.
And she was helpless in a room full of them.
“What—what are you going to do to me?” This...vampire...intended to drink her blood. She now believed this to be true, but she still had trouble accepting it as reality. But what then? And why her?
A tinkling laugh cut through her thoughts. “It’s so very rude to not show more excitement when you’re the guest of honor, Isla.”
Isla had thought that she couldn’t be shocked further that day.
She was wrong.
From one of the groups of copulating creatures, entirely naked and with blood running down the side of her neck, rose a woman with long golden hair, neat features and guileless blue eyes.
“Jessie?” The creature who looked like her friend smiled, but it wasn’t the smile that Isla was familiar with. Feeling as though she had been punched in the gut, Isla watched as Jessie walked up to Lucian and draped her naked frame over the ancient vampire.
“Lucian, you promised you wouldn’t start without me.” Lucian smiled at the woman in the way that someone would look at a favored pet. Stroking a hand down her throat, he cooed softly.
Darkest Desire of the Vampire: Wicked in MoonlightVampire Island (Harlequin Nocturne) Page 21