by BJ Wane
“It is because I love you that I want your happiness, and we both know it’s not in my bed.”
Taking her hand, Damien walked back inside and downstairs to the front door. “I have found much happiness in your bed, and, I hope, so have you.”
“You know I have, but it has been three years since you have fucked me, coincidentally three years since you discovered Abrielle was your mate. Do you really intend to go through eternity getting by with blow jobs?”
Damien opened the door, raised her hand to his lips and bit her knuckles before soothing the bite with his tongue then kissing her lips. “I love you, too, Marie. Never doubt that,” he told her without answering her question. Since he had no intentions of walking this earth for eternity, the question was moot anyway.
Marie watched him walk down the dark street, so alone it made her heart break. She knew he loved her, just as she knew he was not in love with her. Her tarot cards had shown her long ago that his destiny was not with her.
Damien headed back towards downtown, this time on foot, intending to meet up with Jacob and the twins, but thirty minutes later somehow found himself veering off course and making his way down one of the quieter side streets that catered to small specialty shops and cafes instead of the full cuisine, larger restaurants, clubs and bars along Bourbon Street. Damn Marie and her meddling, he thought in resignation as he came to the old warehouse Abrielle had converted into a book store and tea shop. She had worked hard at the renovation, enlisting not only his help, but that of Beau, Jacob, Luc, Jon and Mason, the other brethren who were still living at the plantation. The Book Nook, as she named it, had been open and thriving for five years. The customers who patronized it had their choice of new releases or bargaining for used titles as well as being able to enjoy an eclectic choice of exotic teas served with a decadent dessert while they perused different titles.
Damien had had his doubts about her endeavor being successful in this day and age of electronic reading preferences, but she had surprised him by being right. The majority of avid booklovers and readers still preferred their hard or paperback books, still would rather hold a book in their hands despite the space saving convenience of an electronic reader. Of course, there was also the side benefit of having a clientele that came into her shop just for the variety of tea choices she carried, again proving him wrong when he had expressed his doubts about combining the sale of books with teas.
But neither her ideas for her own business nor the success she has had with her shop had surprised him as much as discovering she was his mate. Ever since he had fled with the Book of the Crescent Creed from Isabelle’s mountain fortress where he had wallowed in hedonistic depravity for over a year, he had known there would be a woman who would eventually bear a similar crescent shaped birthmark who was destined for him and him alone. He just never had any intentions of seeking her out or bonding with her if he did meet her.
Yet here he was, looking up at the darkened windows of her loft apartment above her bookstore, aching to be near her. Even with brick walls separating them, his palm throbbed in response to being this close to her, his cock stirring, hardening with lust that only she could sate no matter how many times he went to Marie. He was infinitely stronger now than he had been after the altercation in the alley earlier, his energy level as well as his strength higher than any mortal could conceivably fathom, but nowhere near the full potential he knew he could achieve by fucking his mate and ultimately claiming her.
He might continue to deny himself that ultimate pleasure, but he didn’t have enough willpower to stay away from her completely. After making sure the street was deserted, Damien dissolved into a fine mist and materialized again in Abby’s bedroom, the sight of her sprawled in open, naked abandonment on her bed keeping him rooted in the corner of her room facing her bed. With moonlight shining in from the large, open window and a small nightlight lit on her bedside table, her petite body was lushly displayed.
Damien rubbed his open palm down his jean clad thigh, trying unsuccessfully to ease the throbbing ache being this close to his mate caused. His cock had sprung from a semi-erection into a full blown hard-on pressing painfully against his zipper, harder at just the sight of her nakedness than he had been fully engulfed in Marie’s suckling mouth. Abby’s dark brown, waist length hair was spread out beneath her, her bright blue eyes closed, one arm flung up by her head and the other draped across her waist. He took a moment to suffer through the picture of carnality she made, adding to his self-inflicted torture, and was just about to leave when she moaned softly in her sleep, his name escaping her lips in a tortured whisper.
Suppressing a moan of his own, he watched her hand slide from her waist to cup her pussy, her thighs widening further to reveal the pink inner recesses of her damp vagina. Cursing his weakness in being unable to leave, he watched her sift through her damp, mink curls and slip her middle finger past her folds, watched those plump folds close around her digit, listened to another moan echo in the otherwise silent room and swore a blue streak as she arched her hips into her marauding hand. The crescent shaped mark on his palm that matched the one he now saw she bore on the side of her left breast burned with a need that was as desperate as the one aching for release between his own thighs.
Unable to find the will or the strength to pull himself away, he released his cock into his hand, squeezing his fist tightly around his girth in a wasted effort to get himself under control. Abby moved her other hand down to her breast, kneading the soft fullness before taking her distended nipple between her thumb and forefinger and rolling it with a tight pinch. A longer, louder moan escaped with a gasp as her finger pulled from her pussy then thrust back in quickly as if she couldn’t bear to be without it filling her.
“Damien, please,” she whispered softly, her eyes still shut, her body now glistening with a damp sheen as she finger fucked herself with hard, deep thrusts.
That was a hell of a dream she was having, Damien thought, glad that it was obviously centered on him and not another man. Just imagining her masturbating to thoughts of someone else had his eyes glowing red with rage, his incisors aching to take retribution on anyone who commanded her attention other than him. The hypocrisy of his response wasn’t lost on him, but despite his jealous anger at just the thought of her thinking of another, he wasn’t willing to claim her and risk harming the one woman he put above all others.
Damien licked his lips when she pulled back again, the sight of her finger shining with the dampness of her arousal making him want to shove her hand aside and replace it with his tongue and teeth. For three years he had fantasized about the taste of her blood as well as her cream coating his tongue despite keeping her at arm’s length as much as possible since discovering she was his mate. Now, faced with the visual evidence of her lust for him, he felt his body tremble with the herculean effort it took to keep from taking her in every way he had imagined.
With harder, faster strokes up and down his shaft, he pushed his release to the surface, the seepage from his straining head soothing the burning mark on his palm slightly. Abby’s movements sped up also, as if she was trying to keep up with him, match him stroke for stroke, her breathing getting heavier as her hips undulated faster and faster. Stifling a shout, Damien erupted into his hand, his body shuddering with the pleasure, his eyes glued to Abrielle as she cried out with her own climax.
He was still wrestling with the small ripples of pleasure encompassing him when Abby opened her eyes and looked right at him, her finger softly moving in and out of her sheath now, her chest heaving from her powerful orgasm.
“Why Damien?” she asked breathlessly, her eyes filled with both hurt and anger.
“Abby….I’m sorry.” Like a coward, Damien dematerialized before that look could crumble his resolve.
Abrielle knew the minute Damien had entered her room, but had feigned sleep simply to keep him here longer. Rubbing her hand over the red birthmark on her breast, she soothed the ache that had roused her from sleep
, the ache that had been reciprocated in her pussy and nipples. Both felt better now that she had climaxed, but she was far from sated. She knew without a doubt that only by fucking Damien would she ever feel completely replete. She had no idea how she knew that, but ever since he had appeared like an avenging angel that night so long ago and rescued her from a fate worse than death, she had known he was the one. The night he took her out for her twenty-fifth birthday and the mark on her breast had pulsed with an erotic beat that set her nipples and pussy on fire as soon as he had touched her arm and kissed her chastely on the cheek, her suspicions that her benefactor was more than he seemed were confirmed.
Slipping on her short robe, Abby padded to her window and gazed out into the night, wondering where he went.
Growing up in New Orleans, cutting her teeth on the suspicions and cultural beliefs in voodoo despite her Christian upbringing and beliefs, she hadn’t shied away from the idea that Damien was a vampire. The night he rescued her from her uncle, she had seen his eyes glowing eerily, his lips peeled back, revealing pointed fangs that looked deadly. For years she had thought she had imagined what she saw, didn’t want to believe he was a deadly creature of the night to be feared. As she grew older, his limited visitations at night as well as the way he never seemed to age along with her parents, confirmed her suspicions. Rather than being repelled or afraid, she found herself oddly comforted by the idea.
Come back to me, Damien. We need to talk. Abrielle waited for him to answer. She had always loved the way she could communicate telepathically with him, had found comfort in knowing he was just a thought away if she ever needed him. But now she wanted him here, face to face so they could have this out once and for all. She had spent the past three years wanting him, craving the feel of his larger, harder body possessing hers, his cock filling her, fucking her over and over, putting an end to this torment. Wanting more from him than his guardianship.
Cupping her still damp pussy, she showed him in her mind how desperate her need was, how she still ached even though she had just come, an orgasm that had been stronger, more intense and pleasurable simply because she had known he was close enough to watch.
Stop it, Abrielle. Damien tried to shove aside the image she was projecting to him, the sight of her standing at her window, her hand parting her robe enough to cover her pussy, her middle finger lightly stroking soft, plump lips he knew would feel like heaven wrapped around his cock. I cannot risk giving you what you’re asking for, ma petite. You know what I am. Do you really want to fuck a monster?
He always referred to himself as a monster, always warned her away from him and what he was capable of when she pushed for more, but Abrielle knew him, sometimes better than he knew himself, and she was in no danger from him. You would never hurt me and you know it. You want me as much as I want you. I’m still wet, Damien. I need more than my finger filling me. I need you. Come back to me.
We will talk later, Abby. Go back to bed.
I won’t wait forever. Abrielle slammed her mind closed, blocking out any response he might’ve made. Damn him, she swore as she padded into her bathroom, dropped her robe and stepped into the shower. As much as it would pain her, she meant what she said. She was twenty-eight, old enough to know her own mind and what she wanted. And she wanted Damien. But that didn’t mean she would wait around forever for him to admit he wanted her too.
Filling her hands with soap, she leaned against the tiled wall and opened her mind to let Damien see what she was doing, what he was missing. Cupping her breasts, she circled her sudsy palms over her nipples, shuddering as the light stimulation sent sparks of pleasure down to her pussy, wishing he was here to take them into his mouth. Lifting her foot onto the small corner seat, she grabbed the hand-held shower head, adjusted the spray to hard, pulsating jets, spread her labia and aimed it strategically.
See what you’re missing, she taunted him as she let him look his fill. It took only seconds for her to climax, the warm pounding of the water directly on her exposed clit driving her over the brink within seconds.
Damien didn’t even try to block her image. Glutton for punishment, he watched her hips arch toward the jetted spray of water, could easily see her red, swollen clit and hear her scream as she came over and over. Her petite body looked good wet, her breasts jiggling with her exertions, her delicate white throat temptingly vulnerable as she rested her head back against the shower wall. His fangs ached with the need to penetrate her soft skin as much as his cock ached to penetrate that pink, glistening pussy. The need, the pounding lust that swept through him for both a taste of her blood and to feel that small body writhing under his as he pounded into her was enough to scare him into closing his mind off from her.
Damien heard laughter and splashing coming from the back yard when he returned to his estate. Making his way through the now silent house, he stepped onto the flagstone patio and saw Beau, Emma, Gideon, Ava, Luc, Jon and Jacob playing with his tigers in the huge, kidney shaped salt water pool. The sight of Emma and Ava’s bare breasts bouncing as they tried to pull each other off their perch on Beau and Gideon’s shoulders, didn’t help alleviate the discomfort of the erection Abby was responsible for. There were a few mated couples who occasionally invited one of the single brethren to join them in a ménage, but Damien knew Beau and Gideon were as possessive as he would be of Abby if he were to ever claim her publicly. His friends often kept their women naked or barely clothed simply for the ease of touching them, the need to constantly feel the bare flesh of their mate always present and painful if too long denied. Despite the cock hardening temptation of seeing their women naked and, more often than not, aroused, they all knew and respected the hands off rule of committed mates.
Damien smiled when Tasha spotted him and left the pool to greet him. Laughing, he tried shoving her away when she attempted to rub her dripping wet three hundred pound body against his legs. “Knock it off, Tasha,” he scolded her, but the big cat merely ignored him by butting her large head against his waist in an attempt to playfully knock him over. “I’m not wrestling with you until you dry off.” His inhuman strength gave him the ability to wrestle with his big cats and hold his own against their massive strength.
“You look better,” Jacob said as he grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his naked hips, “but didn’t Marie take care of that.” He raised an inquiring brow and nodded at the hard bulge still prominently displayed between Damien’s legs.
“Abby’s responsible for this one.” Without embellishing, Damien asked, “Did Mason join you tonight?” Tasha, having given up on enticing Damien into playing, joined the couples and Micah back in the pool as Jon and Luc both stepped out and dried themselves off.
“No. I went by his place but he wouldn’t come out or let me in. Said he didn’t feel like playing nice tonight, whatever the hell that means.”
“It means he’s being his usual dipshit self,” Luc stated dryly, his massive arms bulging as he crossed them over his bare, still damp chest.
All four men were several inches over six feet, but where Damien and Jacob’s muscles were lean and sinewy, the twins were big and bulging. Working their Texas ranch in the eighteen hundreds had hardened and honed their bodies, having Isabelle finish them off after they were attacked by Carpetbaggers had ensured they stayed big and brawny.
Damien heaved a deep sigh, worry for his brethren evident in his dark eyes. “If he doesn’t show up tonight, I’ll go by and talk with him, see if I can get him to open up.”
A few months ago, Mason had moved off the plantation and into the city with no explanation. At one time or another, his pre-Civil War era estate had been home to all of the brethren. Over the decades, as some of them found and claimed their mates, they moved away to take up residence and their fight against evil doers to other cities across the country. Since they could travel swiftly by breaking their bodies down into the minutest of molecules and could communicate telepathically, keeping in touch or getting backup when needed could be done with eas
e and speed and it had been easy to disperse each night to different cities throughout the country. But all had remained close until they found their chosen significant other, which made Mason’s defection and attitude both suspicious and worrisome.
“Good luck,” Jon said. “That son of a bitch has always been a surly, closed mouth ass.”
“Give him some slack,” Jacob snapped in his friend’s defense. “He had a wife, kids as well as brothers he was close to. Having to watch them suffer from his unexplained disappearance and then watch them grow old and die still eats at him.” Jacob ought to know. He had to watch his own fiancé move on without him, marry someone else, have a family with him, and grow old with him. Have the life he wanted with her with another man. At least he had the comfort of knowing she found happiness after the war and he had been declared missing in action, presumed dead. Mason had simply never returned to his homestead in Oklahoma after a trip into town to buy supplies, leaving his wife and kids to think he had run out on them. “Thank God that demon bitch is burning in hell and is no longer able to destroy families.”
“I’m turning in,” Damien said as he watched his cats lope back into the bayou where they spent most of their time hunting prey, marking their territory and guarding his property. Beau picked Emma up and tossed her over his shoulder as he padded toward them.
“We are too. Thanks for the party, Damien.” Emma lifted her head and waved at them with a cheeky grin as Beau carried her inside. A loud, bare flesh smack followed by a high pitched squeal followed their exit, making them all grin.
“Congratulations again you two.” Ignoring the twinge of envy he couldn’t suppress, Damien nodded at Gideon before he and Ava disappeared to return to Columbus.
“You’re not going to be able to get by with your hand or Marie’s mouth forever,” Jacob candidly told Damien as the four of them stepped into the cool interior of the house and headed upstairs to spend the heat of the day in their darkened rooms.