by Lisa Childs
Brandi lifted her bare shoulders in a slight, sexy shrug. “I would bet poor Miss Hamilton got involved with the wrong man—one who broke her heart.”
“So you think she ran off somewhere?” God, he wished she had. If only she would have run away from him…
Brandi tilted her head and pursed those full red lips. “I don’t know. Do you think she could still be alive?”
Biting his lip to hold in a groan of pain, Conner shook his head. He’d shut off the TV, but he could still see the young starlet…in his mind. With her blond hair and wide eyes, she’d been considered an ingénue, but even before he’d met her, just from watching her movies, Conner had noticed that glimmer of mischief in her eyes and her mysterious smile. Miranda Hamilton hadn’t been the innocent the rest of her fans had believed her to be. But she hadn’t been worldly enough to suspect what he was and the danger he’d posed.
“You think she’s dead then?” Brandi asked, her husky voice lilting with salacious interest in the mystery…and something he was too consumed with his own emotions to identify. “Do you suppose the man, the one she fell for, could have killed her?”
She hadn’t loved him; she’d hardly known him. And he’d been crazy to think he’d loved her, that he’d wanted to spend eternity with her. He had never loved before; he’d had no way of knowing if what he’d felt had been real or only infatuation. Like what he felt for the flirtatious and beautiful Brandi. He needed her, for more than a release of the desire she’d built inside him. He needed her for oblivion. “I don’t want to talk about her.”
Brandi damn well bet he didn’t.
He tossed down the remote, not knowing that it wasn’t the one that had turned on the television to the documentary she’d taped. That remote was in her purse. His jaw taut with purpose, he crossed the living room in smooth, long-legged strides—as if stalking her. “I don’t want to talk at all.”
She didn’t want to talk, either—not when she didn’t trust him to tell her the truth. She wanted only her revenge. Then he touched her, just sliding his fingertip along the slope of her shoulder, down her arm to her hand. Goose bumps rose along the path he’d traced on her sensitive skin. Her breath shuddered out in surprise and desire.
How could she be so weak as to let even his brief touch distract her? But no one had ever touched her as Conner West had. No one had ever made her feel what he had. She wanted to experience that feeling again—wanted him—once more. Just once more…
He closed his fingers around hers and tugged her forward. Before her body touched his, he stepped back and tugged on her hand again. Just as he’d followed her onto the dance floor, she followed where he led…across the living room and through an open door into a dark room.
He flipped a switch, but the faint glow from a crystal chandelier that hung from a high, coffered ceiling barely illuminated the bed beneath it. Even if the antique four-poster hadn’t been the only piece of furniture in the room, it would have dominated the space. Her gaze clung to it…as she imagined the two of them in it, as she had imagined so many times in the past fifty years…
She remembered the pleasure…and the pain. But in her mind the pain became his. “I like your bed,” she said, glancing over her shoulder to where he stood at the door, turning the lock. He lived alone. Who was he worried might interrupt them? Miranda? “Let me tie you to it….”
He chuckled. “I don’t think so….”
“I haven’t forgotten—” anything, she thought “—that you’ve been a very bad boy, Conner West. I need to punish you for all your…misdeeds.” And she needed to remind herself that while he’d taken everything from her, he’d lost nothing. His sexual exploits, with mortals and immortals, were legendary, but there had never been any mention of what he’d done to her, any repercussions from his killing her.
“Misdeeds?” He chuckled again. “Tying me to the bed can’t punish me for what I’ve done.”
It was what she would do to him after she tied him up that would be the punishment. She’d take back the blood he’d stolen from her; she’d take his life in exchange for the one she’d lost.
“It sure would be fun trying, though,” she urged him with a smile. She grasped her satin purse tightly in her hand; inside she’d stashed silk scarves…and a wooden stake along with the remote.
He moved up close behind her, and his lips brushed her bare shoulder as his fingers toyed with the hook at the top of her zipper. His voice raspy with desire, he asked, “You’re not wearing anything under this, are you?”
“Under satin?” she scoffed. “It’s too revealing….”
Instead of lowering the zipper, he turned her to face him. But rather than looking at her body, he stared into her eyes. “Your dress may be revealing, but your eyes are not, Ms.…?”
“Brandi,” she said, “just Brandi.”
His lips curved into a faint version of his wicked grin. “You’re not just anything….”
Brandi’s breath shuddered out of her lungs in a shaky sigh. He was looking at her exactly as he had looked at her fifty years ago…as if he really saw her. Millions of people had watched her on the silver screen, but no one had actually seen her…until he had. He’d looked deeper than her sophisticated outward appearance and he’d recognized the insecure foster child who’d been abandoned and lost.
She couldn’t risk his seeing her now…and realizing who she really was. She had to distract him as he was distracting her. After tossing her purse next to the bed, she reached between them and touched the tab of his zipper…at his fly. Long, hard flesh strained against the material of his tailored suit pants. She unbuttoned his pants and tugged down the zipper.
He groaned, as his cock sprang free, tenting the silk boxers he wore beneath. His pants dropped, pooled around his ankles and revealed legs dusted with golden hair. He shrugged off his jacket and reached for the buttons of his shirt, dragging them open to the sculpted muscles of his chest. He pulled off the unbuttoned shirt as she pushed down his boxers. Her breath caught, with awe, as he stood before her gloriously, mouth-wateringly naked.
With his golden good looks and lean muscular body, he could have been a movie star. He could have been anything but what he was….
But, at the moment, with heat building from her nipples to pool in her very core, she didn’t care what he was—or even what she was. She only cared how he made her feel—that he made her feel more than anyone else ever had. And she needed to feel him.
She reached out, sliding her palms over his chest. His heart pounded hard beneath her touch. Legs trembling, she knelt before him, skimming her hands over his washboard abs and lean hips…silky smooth skin rippled over muscle. She wrapped her fingers around the length of his cock; it pulsed within her grasp.
And he groaned. “Brandi…”
She opened her mouth to tell him who she actually was as she needed him to say her real name. But before she could give in to the weak impulse, she closed her lips…around him. Her fangs scraped the smooth tip of his penis as she sucked him deep within her throat. With her tongue, she lapped at the beads of passion spilling out of him.
His fingers clenched in her hair, holding her against him as she made love to him with her mouth, sliding it up and down the length of him as she closed her hands around his tight butt.
“Brandi, no,” he protested, his voice rough with passion. “I want you….” As he tried to pull back, she clutched him closer…with her lips and her hands, sinking her nails into the firm flesh of his buttocks. But he was stronger, and his hands grasped her arms and tugged her up. His cock pressed against her abdomen, hot and hard and damp from her mouth.
“Let me finish,” she urged him, licking the taste of him from her lips, “punishing you….”
“You’re not punishing me,” he argued, his eyes hot with desire. “You’re pleasuring me. And that’s not going to happen until I pleasure you first.” His mouth covered hers in a hungry kiss, his tongue sliding between her lips, thrusting in and out of her mouth.
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Brandi’s heart beat frantically as an unbearable pressure built inside her, tight and painful. She needed more than vengeance; she needed the pleasure he promised her. She moaned into his mouth.
And he pulled back again, teasing her with his kiss and then his touch as his fingers trailed down her throat, over the slope of her shoulders to the satin bodice of her dress.
Her breath caught as she waited for him to push the material aside. But instead, his fingers skimmed over it, stroking her nipples until they pressed against the flimsy fabric. Then he lowered his head and through the satin he suckled the sensitive points.
Her breath shuddered out in a sigh as the heat and dampness intensified between her legs. She pressed her thighs together as the ache consumed her. She could think of nothing but the release she craved even more than vengeance.
While his mouth teased her breasts, his hands skimmed over her body—down her arching back, over the curve of her hips and butt, down her thighs to the hem of her dress. He toyed with the material and her skin, sliding his fingertips along the backs of her thighs.
“Please…” she begged, trying to reach behind herself for the tab of the zipper. As she arched, her nipple sank deeper into his mouth. He gently bit the point, and a small orgasm rippled through her.
His fingers were there, pushing her thighs apart to trace the trickle of moisture down her leg. Then he pulled back and pulled his hand from beneath her dress. He lifted his wet finger to his lips and licked her passion from his skin.
“Sweet,” he murmured, his eyes dark with desire as he studied her face. “I want more….”
Metal rasped as he finally tugged down her zipper. The dress dropped, leaving her naked before him in nothing but her heels. Cool air rushed over her hot skin, but nothing would reduce the heat of her flesh until she found the release for which her body ached.
As she had done just moments before, he dropped to his knees in front of her. He lifted her left thigh, sliding it over his shoulder as his hands slid over her hips and up her torso. He cupped her breasts in his palms, his thumbs stroking over the sensitive points as his lips skimmed the damp skin of her inner thighs.
She clutched at his shoulders, so that her weak legs wouldn’t fail her, causing her to fall.
His mouth moved, his tongue easing through her folds of sensitive skin—over the very center of her femininity. She jerked in reaction, pleasure radiating from that point throughout her body. His fingers closed around her nipples, tugging as he dipped his tongue inside her.
Her muscles tightened as the pressure built. She arched against his mouth as he thrust his tongue in and out. “Conner!” she screamed, as sensations blinded her to what he was. She could think only of what he was doing to her. The pressure spiraled, winding tighter and tighter inside her until she jerked with the shock of sudden release. An orgasm slammed through her, her body trembling. She tried to pull away from his mouth, but he held her tight against his lips as his tongue continued to thrust in and out of her wet core.
“No!” she screamed, fighting against the realization that only he could bring her this kind of pleasure. Only him…
He pulled back and stared up at her. “Do you want me to stop?”
“No!” She couldn’t stop now…not when she knew there was more. So much more…
He lifted her onto the bed, satin sheets sliding beneath her back as his satiny skin pressed against her front when his body covered hers. Her leg still raised over his shoulder, he guided his pulsing cock into her. His length and girth stretched her, her inner muscles clutching at him as he thrust then pulled out. He pushed the glistening tip against the nub of her femininity, stroking the smooth skin of the end of his penis over her nub—again and again.
She writhed beneath him then reached for him, sliding her fingers over the wet length of his erection to urge him back inside her. She arched her hips, pulling him deep.
Conner leaned forward, taking her mouth with his…thrusting his tongue between her lips as his cock thrust inside her body. In and out. In and out. The pressure built again, her body aching with its painful intensity.
His mouth pulled from hers, his lips sliding down her throat. His fangs scraped across her skin. “I have to taste you—all of you,” he warned her before he bit her.
She screamed, another orgasm coursing through her as he spilled her blood then lapped it up. She reared off the bed—not in pain but ecstasy. Pushing him onto his back on the mattress, she straddled him. He drove deep, deeper than she ever remembered being touched before. But then it had been fifty years – not since she’d made love. There’d been other men—men she couldn’t remember. Men who’d meant nothing to her…as she’d searched for him.
Only he had ever reached her like this, pulling emotions and feelings from her she hadn’t believed existed. Even hatred; she had never hated anyone with the intensity with which she hated him.
He pulled his mouth from her throat and arched his neck back as he thrust his hips up, burying himself deeper inside her. Blood trickled from the corner of his lips. She kissed him, tasting the sweetness of the sticky liquid. Her blood. She had to have his.
She slid her mouth along his jaw, to his throat. Curling back her lips to expose her fangs, she bit him with a passionate violence.
He groaned and thrust faster, pumping inside her as she drank his very essence. Reaching between them, he slid his thumb over her clit—back and forth—until her world shattered.
She sat up and lifted her knees, so that his cock sank even deeper inside her as she licked her fingers with the blood she’d taken from him. Then she stroked the tips, sticky with his blood, over her nipples. He reached up until his mouth closed around the sensitive points and lapped up the blood she’d spilled. She shuddered and screamed, convulsing with the longest, most intense orgasm she’d ever had.
He lifted her from his lap and turned her over—then he guided his wet cock back inside her. His hands tight against her abdomen, he thrust inside again and again until he tensed. He bit her neck again as he came, spilling his seed inside her as he spilled her blood.
Conner stared down at the woman in his arms, her pale skin streaked with blood—his and hers. What the hell had he done? What had happened?
He jerked away from her. “I’m—I’m…”
“Speechless?” she asked, tilting her head over her shoulder to meet his gaze. Amusement twinkled in her green eyes like those glints of gold the light from the chandelier caught.
“Sorry,” he admitted. “I didn’t mean to…”
“Ravage me?”
Ravage? That was what he’d done to her. Fifty years ago. He had lost control, just as he’d lost it with Brandi. But Brandi was one of them, one of the secret society. Miranda Hamilton hadn’t been.
“I—I…” He needed distance; he needed perspective because for a moment there, when they’d been making love, he had thought she was Miranda. Her body had felt the same, as tight and soft. And she’d tasted the same: sweet with vulnerability yet with a hint of tart mischief. But it wasn’t possible that she was Miranda. He had made that impossible because of his recklessness. “I’ll be right back….”
His hand shaking, he closed the bathroom door, shutting himself away. He should have done that tonight, should have locked himself inside the apartment so that he wouldn’t do what he had done—use another woman to forget about the one he really wanted. The one he could never have again…
Blood oozed from the fang marks in his neck. He tracked the trails in the mirror above the vanity as he leaned over the sink and splashed cool water on his face. He wasn’t the only one bleeding. He’d bit her, too…as he’d lost control of his senses and his sanity. The woman had pushed him beyond reason…just as Miranda had fifty years ago.
And just as he’d hurt the young starlet, he’d hurt Brandi, too. He reached for a cloth and ran cool water over it. After squeezing out the excess, he pulled open the door and stepped back into the bedroom.
Even though t
he chandelier glowed yet, more shadows seemed to fill the room, cast darkest over the bed. She’d pulled up the blankets, so that he couldn’t see her until he walked up to her. But even then the satin sheets covered her body and her face. He clenched his fingers in the silky fabric and pulled back the covers.
Shock filled him, tensing his body and jarring his mind into numbness. He couldn’t react. He couldn’t move. He could only stare down at the pale, dead face of Miranda Hamilton. Blood covered her throat and smeared across her cheek, even trailing into her pale blond hair. Her eyes, also pale with that unusual amber color, stared back up at him.
But her eyes weren’t dead—they were vibrantly alive and glowing with hatred and vengeance. Suddenly she sprang up from the mattress, a wooden stake clutched tight in her hands. She pressed the sharp point against his chest.
Over his heart…
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Chapter Three
Miranda’s hands trembled as she grasped the stake, her palms damp against the wood from an ash tree. She’d researched everything in preparation for this day…when she would finally exact her revenge. She’d planned for every contingency—most likely his fighting her.
But he didn’t fight. He just stood—naked—before her and waited for her to sink the stake deep in his muscular chest, to pierce his heart. A laugh bubbled out of her throat with her sudden realization.
“I can’t kill you,” she admitted as she pulled away the stake and dropped it onto the bed.
His blue eyes glittered with awe, as he studied her face. “You’re no killer….”
“No, that’s not why,” she insisted. “It’s because you have no heart.” She, of all people, should have known that.
“You’re no killer,” he repeated as if he hadn’t heard her. He reached out, skimming his fingertips along her jaw then across her cheek. “And you’re no corpse.”