by Cora Zane
“You’re sure of that?”
“Quite sure.” She nodded, then described the vampire in detail. What she didn’t tell Julian was that the man had looked a lot like her ex-Biter. She didn’t want him to jump to any conclusions about why she’d found a strange vampire so memorable.
“I will contact the council about it and find out what’s going on. I’ve heard of them sending people out to conduct similar duties—that’s not so uncommon, but usually there is at least some notice, even if only a day in advance.” He flopped down in his office chair and sighed. “But never mind all that, I want you to open your gift.”
“Well, I know it’s not a puppy,” she teased.
Julian pulled her into his lap, kissed her shoulder, toyed with her long hair while she fished through the bag, rattling the tissue paper. She stopped when she reached his gift—or rather, gifts. “Well... Interesting.”
He leaned his head back and watched her surprised reaction through hooded eyes. “Is that a declaration of approval?”
Eleni leaned over and gave him a kiss, which he greeted with opened-mouthed lust. He caught her chin with his fingers, urged her to kiss him more thoroughly, intimately. Her tongue slid against his, while his hand slid from her shoulder to her breast, then to her thigh and squeezed.
She raked her teeth over her lower lip, felt the start of an impressive bulge in the front of his pants. With her hand, she reached out idly and caressed it, kneaded through the fabric of his trousers.
“Mm,” she murmured huskily. “I hope you didn’t get Gisele the same gift.”
“No worries about that,” he said, and brushed her hair back from her shoulder. Then he fascinated himself with the buttons of her blouse, before parting the fabric and settling his interest on the mounds of her bare breasts.
Julian kissed her temple, his fingers pinching and tweaking her sensitive nipples into hard nubs. “Which color do you want in your pussy first? The green one? Blue?”
It was a tough call. Instead of trying to decide by sight, she rooted in the bag and chose at random, selecting by touch. From the bag, she withdrew a pale purple vibrator. Silver glitter sparkled in the silicone. Judging by the look in Julian’s eyes, he approved.
She leaned back against him, allowing him access to the button and zipper of her jeans. Julian worked the fastenings, and stroked the crotch of her jeans before sliding her hand down the front of her jeans, past the thin barrier of her panties.
He teased her clit until she squirmed on his lap.
“It feels good?” he asked, his voice a hoarse whisper.
Eleni nodded, “Very.”
Julian kissed her again, working his fingers in a slow, sensual exploration of her silky pussy lips and tight, hot hole. His fingers rubbed her swollen clitoris, flicking and teasing. Eleni’s pussy throbbed with need and her inner thighs were slicked with wetness.
Once he had her wet enough, Julian urged her off of his lap. He leaned forward to help her out of her shirt, jeans and panties, then reached for the gift bag and extracted a bottle of vanilla-scented oil.
He massaged oil along her slit, slid a finger deep inside her then slowly added another. Julian’s cock was fully erect, jutting against the fabric of his black trousers. Eleni reached down and freed his belt buckle, button, and zipper, allowing his hard, hot flesh to spill forward. He kicked off his shoes under the desk, lifted his hips, and eased out of his pants. Taking the bottle of oil, he stood up, picked up Eleni’s hand, and pooled the fragrant oil in her palm.
“Stroke me.”
Eleni did as he bid her. She wrapped her hands around his cock and massaged the oil into the velvet skin. Her hands make slick noises over his flesh. Julian sighed with pleasure. His gray eyes had grown hazy with lust. She cupped his balls, gently slicked his sac with her thumbs until it puckered tight and glistened.
Eyes hungry with lust, he urged her to sit on the edge of the desk, and splayed her thighs with a touch of his hand. Cool air touched her pussy and made her shiver, her nipples puckering in response.
Julian stroked his hands over the insides of her thighs, slid her legs apart and rubbed her clit with his fingers, moistening her pussy with the scented lubricant. He then picked up the vibrator she’d chosen and twisted the black base until the toy hummed.
The buzzing hum seemed to vibrate right to the core of her, to her bones. He slid it through her wet folds in slow torment, then massaged her tender clitoris before tracing her folds again and delving deep. Eleni moaned and arched her back, welcoming the penetration. She tilted her hips to put pressure against the curved head of the toy and rolled her body, savoring the sweet sensations that curled through her.
“Like that, do you?” Julian murmured, his eyes blazing with sensual heat. He slid the vibrator in and out, fucking her with it until finally, he buried it deep enough that the silicon bud along the side of the toy rested against her swollen clitoris. The vibrator buzzed inside her, the swirling head of the clitoral stimulant made her breathing shallow.
“Oh God,” Eleni groaned, her eyelids slipping to half-mast. “I’m… Oh, Julian, it feels so good…”
Julian tugged her forward so her legs hung off the desk. Guiding her with his hands, he turned her around, urged her hand between her legs to hold the toy in place. While he moved in behind her with the oil, he told her she made a gorgeous sight, fucking herself with the vibrator he’d bought for her.
Swirling sweet sensation hit her in all the right places. Eleni was thoroughly turned on, ready to take Julian’s cock in her ass when he added more lubrication to her sensitive rosette. With the toy buried deep inside her pussy, he levered his cock against her asshole and pressed slowly forward, sinking into her depths with a guttural moan.
Eleni flinched only a moment as the head of his cock penetrated, nudging deep. She cried out softly as her stomach muscles clenched, which made her muscles squeeze him tight. But with the steady stimulation of the vibrator buzzing her tender clitoris, she soon found herself melting around the thickness of his hard cock. Her whole body was pulsing with desire, with the need to come.
Gasping with every stroke of his cock, she lowered her head, fingers clenching the vibrator with one hand, the desk blotter with the other. Lost in ecstasy, her eyes slipped shut and she panted. She felt so full, so completely filled by his cock and the vibrator. He rocked inside her, gasped loudly as he pumped his cock in and out. She knew he felt the vibration of the toy through her walls, even while buried deep in her ass. She saw his face reflected in the silver ball paperweight on his desk. Despite the distorted image, his eyes were hot with pleasure.
“Ah yes, ah…Eleni…you’re so tight I can hardly bear it.” His husky confession shot excitement through her. He varied his speed while he fucked her, slow for a while, then fast, but every stroke penetrated her deliberately and deep.
A fine sheen of sweat broke over her body as chills spread across her skin. His fingers toyed with her breasts, tweaked and tortured her erect nipples. The plucking motions made her inner walls contract so that she squeezed both him and the toy.
It was sensory overload—one moment too little, the next too much. Rippling pleasure started deep in some secret core of her. She felt it rolling forward, pushing its way up through her body, shivering along nerve endings until it erupted in overwhelming pleasure that tore an ecstatic breath from her lips.
Her heartbeat pounded in her ears as the tide of erotic sensation crashed over her, shook her down into pool of melted pleasure. Leaning over her, he scraped his fangs against her shoulder blade and murmured softly to her. He told her how beautiful she was, how perfect her breasts felt in his hands, how the smooth glide of her asshole teased him when she flexed her inner walls so that they gripped his cock.
Sparks shot through her, high and sweet, nearly overwhelming. A sharp cry escaped her lips as inescapable pleasure wracked her body in delicious waves.
“Ah, yes,” he ground out, his voice ragged. The walls of her pussy fluttered a
round him, and he laid his head back, closing his eyes, focusing on the sensation. On the brink, he began to groan. Sweating, breathing hard, he gripped her hips, fucked her in hard, furious strokes that made her body lunge with the every forceful thrust of his cock. “My sweet angel…such a good fuck.”
His words drifted away into a string of nonsense muttered through a tide of lust until finally his body quickened, his thrusts became jerky, irregular. He erupted with a guttural moan, his come filling her in hot spurts as bliss wracked his body.
He held himself inside her until he’d spent his last, then withdrew. Eleni pulled the toy away, and weak with satisfaction, turned it off. Julian reached for her, and pulled her down onto his lap as he eased back into the desk chair. For a long time they sat there, holding one another, caressing each other absently until their breathing returned to normal.
After several minutes, Eleni smiled up at him in hazy satisfaction. “So I take it you missed me while you were away?”
He kissed her shoulder. “More than anything.”
* * * * *
Toward dawn, Eleni pulled on her jeans and rumpled shirt while Julian straightened his office. He stood at the wet bar and washed and dried Eleni’s new toys and put them back into the gift bag so they could be carried upstairs discreetly.
They were just about to go upstairs together when Julian’s desk phone rang. Cursing under his breath, he hesitated at the gate of the elevator. It rang again and he let out a resigned sigh. “I better answer it.”
Eleni sighed softly, waiting near gate, hoping the call wouldn’t take long
Julian reached the desk in two strides, and halted with his hand on the phone. He had noticed the gift bag still on the edge of his desk and gestured to it as he lifted the phone from the cradle. “Eleni, could you take this to Gisele’s room, please? Leave it on her bed?” He tucked the phone to his ear, “Hello?” Then, covering the mouthpiece with the heel of his hand, he spoke quietly to her. “I will meet you upstairs.”
Contempt flared up in her, but she bit it down, held it back. Regardless of how she felt about Gisele, it was hardly an unreasonable request.
Eleni knew where Gisele’s room was, although she had never gone that far down the eastern corridor before. There had never been any reason to seek her out until now, and since that night she found the woman trying on her clothes, she had made it a point to avoid her as much as possible.
With Julian already on the phone, she took the gift and left the office, closing the door behind her. She paused outside the door and peeked into the bag, curious, because the gift was slightly heavy. Poking through the tissue paper, she saw it was a figurine of a black poodle with green gem eyes, something you’d give to a sister, or maybe a child.
Eleni puzzled over that until she reached the end of the hall, and cut across the marble foyer, which felt cold as ice on her bare feet. Claudette had already dimmed the lights, and the house seemed filled with shadows and a cryptic silence.
On her way past the small parlor, she glanced left into the room where Zander’s representative had threatened her. A tremor of unease skittered through her. The gas fireplace was now a dark cavern at the far end of the room, blocked off by a gold, fan-shaped screen that glinted in the shadows.
By now, Claudette had gone to bed, and Henri had likely returned to his gîte. Alone in this part of the house felt strange and uncomfortable, as if it were a separate entity from the rest of the house and she didn’t belong here. Walking down the carpeted corridor, she glanced at the paintings lining the walls, dozens of them, some of them quite old.
There were eerie red sunsets, crows, Madonna and child, the vineyard at harvest, and bottles of wine with baskets of grapes and cheese. In each painting, the brushstrokes seemed to capture centuries of thought in mottled colors that made Eleni think of ancient despair.
A chill raced over her skin as she reached the corner and turned to her right. Immediately, the bedroom door came into view. Eleni walked to the door and stopped. She reached up to knock but hesitated. She was inexplicably nervous. It wasn’t like the woman could kill her or anything.
Still, dread curled through her as she was reminded of all those times she’d thought about peeking in on Gisele’s room, wondering what it might reveal about her, what sort of a glimpse it might offer into her psyche, perhaps. At the same time, she feared it might tell her things she didn’t want to know, or in some way confirm or at least make sense of her concrete belief that Julian loved her. If there was any proof to the claim, certainly there had to be evidence of it in that bedroom.
It worried her, what she would say if she ran into her. Eleni wasn’t afraid of her, exactly, but the anticipation of weathering her unpleasantness was enough to make her heart race. She didn’t think Gisele was home, but when she stopped in front of the bedroom door, she hesitated before knocking.
She rapped twice against the pocket door and waited. There was no answer. She started to knock again, but at the last second, halted, considering. Glancing back over her shoulder, she assured herself she was alone in the hallway and slipped her hand around the door handle and pressed the latch with her thumb. The door wouldn’t budge.
Oh, really?
Eleni tried again, rattling the door, but it was locked. Slow anger crept through her, a blistering crimson heat that settled in her face.
“There are no locked doors. No secrets in my house.”
Apparently that rule didn’t apply to Gisele. Or more likely, it did, but Gisele blatantly disregarded it, and Julian was blissfully unaware of that fact. Eleni imagined there was probably quite a bit going on under Julian’s nose without his knowledge, particularly where Gisele was concerned.
Eleni hung the straps of the bag over the doorknob, hoping that when Gisele found it, she took it for the message that it was. I’ve got figured you out.
Not only did Gisele lock her door, Eleni hadn’t seen her in the house since her argument with Claudette in the garden. Deep in thought, she walked back down the dark corridor toward the foyer.
As she gripped the rail and started upstairs to her room, she wondered where Gisele been going almost every evening. Claudette said Gisele had friends in the village, but if that were true, they must be questionable friends, because Gisele hadn’t once mentioned anyone by name, or brought them to the chateau to visit, not even in passing.
She had to be spending the daylight hours somewhere. Either Julian hadn’t noticed, or didn’t care that his servant went missing for days at a time. When she considered how much Gisele disliked her, it made her feel like she was living under constant threat. No wonder Julian liked transparency.
As much as the double standard annoyed her, Eleni had no plans to get in an argument over it as long as Gisele kept her distance. Her upcoming probationary hearing and Rubio’s vampire representative gave her enough to worry about without Gisele’s secret life—both inside and outside the chateau—adding to it.
Chapter Fourteen
“I want you to go,” Julian told Eleni as he rummaged through the papers on his desk. For the past half hour, he’d been frantically getting things in order for the wine distributor who had called unexpectedly earlier in the evening and was now on his way to the chateau from Bergerac to discuss plans for the new Sévigné vintage.
She understood the importance of this meeting, and hated to bother him when he was so obviously busy and distracted as he was at the moment, but when he’d called her down to his office to cancel their planned outing, she thought that was the end of it. She hadn’t expected him to make other arrangements for her.
“Julian, the whole point of going to the festival was to go with you.”
“I don’t want you to miss it on my behalf.” He glanced up from his desk and papers to gaze at her with a faraway look in his eyes. He moved to the filing cabinet across the room and began to dig through a drawer. “I don’t know why you’re so reluctant to go. I’ve already talked to Gisele about it, and she agreed to drive you. The two
of you can go together and take in the sights. It’s not like it’s a hardship. She’d already planned to go herself.”
Not a hardship, Eleni thought with derision. If only he knew. It was the first night of Le Festival Des Masques, and while she’d been excited about it and wanted to go in the beginning, she’d changed her mind the minute she’d learned Julian expected Gisele to take her in his place. Dread churned in her stomach when she imagined herself stranded with Gisele’s sour attitude for the night.
She folded her arms across her chest and sighed. “I think I’d rather just stay home and watch TV.”
“And have you sulking on me later that you never go anywhere?” He grunted his disapproval.
“When have I ever done that?”
“You haven’t—yet. And that’s the point.”
Annoyed, Eleni watched him pick up a stack of printed pages off his desk. He tapped the loose ends into place on the blotter before shoving everything into a desk drawer. Of course, Gisele wouldn’t tell Julian no to a request to act as a chaperone in the village. That didn’t mean the woman wanted to spend the evening showing her around—and as far as Eleni was concerned, the feeling was mutual, festival be damned.
She was just about to tell him that when a sudden sharp knock on the door had her glancing back over her shoulder. Julian stilled, cursing under his breath. He still wasn’t prepared. The rapping started up again, leaving him no choice but to round his desk and head for the door.
Observing quietly, Eleni backed up toward the sitting area, her arms folded firmly across her chest while he went to the door and opened it.
Claudette stood in the hallway. “The man from Bergerac has arrived,” she informed him quietly.
“Send him in, please, Claudette. Oh, and could you make coffee?”
The housekeeper nodded, her eyes drifting toward Eleni before she backed out of the room and shut the door. When she was gone, Julian took a deep breath to relieve tension before he crossed the room and pulled Eleni into an embrace.