by Mary Hughes
Then his hot mouth—hot breath, hot lips, hot thrusting tongue—found mine, searing churning pools into geysers of explosive desire.
Plans fell away. My body surged, my brain threatened to go offline, and I was overwhelmed by sensation.
His kiss at the clinic was light, effervescent. This kiss was serious. He held my head captive and thrust his tongue deep, claiming my mouth. Claiming me.
Not sensation. Misleading, short-circuiting feeling. But even as I faltered, my body yearned into him, my mouth opening under his. He tasted of raw desire.
His free arm wrapped me from shoulder to hip, a cocoon of strength. My hands fell to his chest. Broad, solid heat under my fingers reassured me, fired me higher.
So much feeling. But strangely, with him, I also felt safe.
“What is it about you?” He kissed down my throat, his steamy breath rumpling my flesh with goose bumps of pleasure. “I can’t keep my hands off you. Or my mouth.”
What is it about you? I wanted to moan in return. I hadn’t felt like this in forever, not since the incident that…not for decades. I could have kept from giving myself to his hands, and, oh yes, that talented mouth—but I decided not to, wanting, no needing to know where this churning, geysering feeling went. I arched my neck to give his lips and tongue better access.
He traced a river of heat along my shivering skin with lips and teeth and tongue, down to the top button of my shirt. Where he stopped.
I held my breath.
“Your breasts…” He took me by my upper arms, bent, and began to kiss and lick me through my shirt. “They’re a feast.”
His heat shimmered through thin cotton and bra. He cupped the globe in one hand and licked and nipped the tip until my nipple was taut and poking hard against damp cloth.
Then he closed his lips around me and suckled.
Desire sang through me. I arched into his mouth with a gasp.
Sex was a nice, enjoyable release of endorphins. With Luke Steel, his mouth and hands on me, sucking my nipple through my clothes like a live brand…it went beyond enjoyable straight to paradise.
“Come inside with me,” he murmured as he sucked and licked and bit. “I have a basement guest room here. The door locks.”
Locked door…privacy…naked flesh writhing on the bedspread flitted through my head.
A more rational part tried to add that, if I stayed, I’d have another chance to confront Julian. But it was only window dressing for the fact that I wanted to go with Luke to his room. Behind that locked door.
To let him spread my thighs and do wicked things with me.
I shuddered greedily at the thought. “All right.”
He lifted his head, gave me a fierce smile and took my hand to lead me into the townhouse and downstairs.
But inside the darkened room, when he moved to flip on the lights, I stopped him.
“Wait.”
I was thirty-nine and kept in shape, but frankly Luke was the kind of man who could have the hottest women he wanted. Women with bodies like new Ferraris. I didn’t want to put him off with my slightly used family-ready Volvo.
He growled with displeasure but did as I asked, leaving the light off. But he also left the door open a crack. As he removed his belt and laid it on a dresser, my eyes adjusted slowly.
Illumination from the hallway dusted a huge bed into reality.
It sent a shock of desire through me. The bedspread was perfect for that writhing, naked flesh. But… “That lock won’t do any good if you leave the door open—hey!”
He swept me off my feet.
Giddy butterflies swooped in my stomach. I laughed and wrapped my arms around his neck, his braid sleek against my skin.
As he carried me to the bed he said, “I don’t want you left in the dark. No one will dare bother us.”
He laid me gently on the spread then immediately climbed on top, as if he wanted me desperately. Yeah, that got me past any self-consciousness or nerves pretty damned fast. He covered me with his big potent body, sending my anticipation soaring. Slowly he lowered himself onto me until his weight was deliciously heavy, pressing me into the bed. He wasn’t controlling, but he was masterful, managing to push all my body’s buttons.
I wriggled under him, to see how far he’d take his possession.
He lifted slightly, signaling he’d back off if I wanted. But as counterpoint, he pushed his hips into me. A sizable bulge nestled behind his zipper, and it felt surprisingly, wonderfully potent. He blinked a moment at me, as if he too was surprised. But when I moaned my pleasure, a nonverbal request for more, he snared my wrists and planted them beside my head then took my mouth in a kiss so hungry it thrilled me down to my toes.
Translation, he’d take dominance exactly as far as it aroused me.
His control was exquisite. He knew when to excite me with his considerable strength and when to back off and tease. When to nip and when to caress. He seemed to have an instinct about it.
When he buried his mouth in the crook of my neck, I gasped. Talk about buttons. Desire shot straight to my sex, lust curling hot in my pelvis.
Clever fingers went at my blouse, undoing buttons with speed and ease. His mouth followed their path, lingering on my cleavage, teasing the scalloped edge of my bra, then tantalizing me by skipping to my midriff.
As he shifted down, I used the momentary lift of his body to spread my thighs. When he settled back in, it was with his wide ribcage between my legs, his breastbone against my sex.
Heat and pressure sent what was already awake soaring. I groaned. Damp went to wet and began to spread.
His deep groan twined with mine. Reaching up with one hand, he massaged my breast through my bra, still moist from his suckling, while he deliberately pressed his body into my groin in a slow sensual rhythm.
Oh yes, when it came to lighting a fire, fanning it, making it explode, this man knew how and when, with flawless timing.
Kneading my breast with one hand, he used his tongue to delicately explore my navel, the heat of his breath sending delicious shudders through me. His other hand traced up my ribs, sliding under the bra cup, directly onto private flesh. The pads of his fingers painted fiery lines up the curve until index and thumb closed around my taut nipple and gently, rhythmically pinched.
I gasped and arched. It pushed me into his hands, his mouth, his body. Heat and need crashed deep inside, bursting into a flush of perspiration.
He dragged himself up my body, deliberately grinding. A rumble came up with him, the low, rolling vibration like a lion purring. In the near-dark, his eyes glowed like ingots, searching my face for cues I didn’t know I was giving until he seized my mouth in a searing kiss, not asking but demanding.
My whole body melted in response.
Sex with other men was fulfilling. I knew exactly how to maximize mutual pleasure. Sex with Luke was adventure, daring. The wild unknown, yet I felt absolutely secure.
When I was yielding and panting and pliant, he flipped my bra up, bent and fastened onto one naked nipple.
Bright need splashed, waves of desire slapping against the shore of my body, rising waters pushing me higher. Heart racing in excitement, I took his face, raised him to my mouth, and battled back with tongue and teeth. I undulated against him with the urge to move. His weight, all hard hot muscle, made me feel like I was scrubbing against a cliff.
With a growl of encouragement, he began grinding into me, thrusting his big body in counterpoint to my own rolling hips.
I slid my hands down his neck to his shoulders for purchase in the growing storm. His shirt was damp; he was excited too, driving my own arousal sky-high.
His mouth left mine. I whimpered a protest, but he kissed down my jaw, nipping at my throat, his teeth exquisitely sharp and stinging tiny thrills along the flesh, melting my protest into moans. I was getting swollen and sodden whe
re we banged hips against each other and my breath was coming in soft gasps.
With a hand, he cupped my naked breast. What overflowed most men’s palms filled his perfectly. Glancing up at me, eyes glowing under heavy lids, he licked down my collarbone and breast to the tip…and nipped.
I arched in reaction, smacking against his big body, barely moving him. He growled and nipped again. I writhed, but he contained me with his weight. Frustration added sharp piquancy to my desire, a spiraling arousal so heady I was ready to explode.
And then he slid his hand from my breast, down my ribs onto my hip…and lifted himself slightly, just far enough that he could possibly slip that hand between us. I stopped breathing. His lids lifted again and I could see, not so much a question there, as an offer. He would take me to paradise. All I had to do was give him some sign that I agreed.
Here’s your sign. I grabbed his wrist and pushed his hand into my pants.
He chuffed a surprised laugh. But he was already burrowing down into my pants, fingers thrusting under my panties. Onto my sex.
Into my sex.
“Yesss.” I was live-wired from nipple to slit and the thrust of his finger banged close the circuit. My every nerve and muscle contracted with do me now.
With a chuckle, his hand started moving, hot finger sliding in and out. My thighs clamped around him as his hand rode me. A tide of need rose in my throat. A whimper rose with it and tumbled out.
Clamping on to my nipple with his steamy mouth, he began to suckle, sending more bright bolts between breast and sex. As he sucked, sleek hard fangs grew against my skin, setting everything primitive inside me to begging.
I had a sudden craving to be bitten, to lie naked and writhing under him as he thrust into me and sucked at me and pierced me with his fangs.
“More,” I panted, trying to lever my breast into his mouth, trying frantically to push my flesh into his sleek canines, knowing intuitively that his bite would transport me into ecstasy.
“Yes,” he rasped, teasing his fangs along the globe. As flashes of pleasure sparked in my breast, he pressed his thumb into my clitoris, and he began to ride me even harder with his hand. Driving his finger deeper, he tugged my clit over and over until I was ready to explode.
“More.” I demanded it, grabbing his head and trying to thrust his fangs into me.
Instead, he raised himself with a snarl on one elbow over me, still riding my sex forcefully with his hand. I whimpered and pled wordlessly. In the near dark his eyes were red-gold ingots, and his fangs were more felt by the ancient awareness rippling over my skin than actually seen.
Shivers wracked me, crisscrossing and reinforcing. I was going to come, it was inevitable, and I wanted—no, I needed him to bite me.
“Luke,” I gasped. “Please.”
“Alexis.” He groaned my name. “Come for me, darling. Give me your pleasure.”
“You too. Bite me.”
He stilled instantly. “What?”
“Bite me.” I scrubbed my hips against his hand, seeking that pinnacle of ecstasy, craving his fangs to drive me there. Drive me over. “You’re a vampire. Bite me.”
“Ah.” His eyes closed, and an earthquake shudder went through him. “I don’t know how you know, but…I want to. So much I’m practically mindless with want. But you don’t know what you’re asking.”
Passion brightened my vision; I saw the conflict ride him in the hard bricks of his muscles, the tic in his jaw, the white of his nostrils, the clench of his eyelids.
“You. Penetrate me as I come, fangs or cock. Unless you get naked in the next two seconds, you’d better bite. Bite me now.”
His eyes opened, blood red, beautiful and terrible. “Are you sure?” His fangs flashed as he spoke, long and sleek and fearsome in their elegance.
Was I sure? I trembled, caught between the cusp of climax and terror at the sight. Was I sure, no. But I was determined.
I arched my throat to him.
With a deep groan that seemed to come from his very core, he bent to my neck. His breath heated my throat for an instant. “As you wish.”
His fangs pierced my flesh.
I arched and came so violently I thought I’d turned inside out. My sex clenched and released, crashing waves that shattered me. Climax blew through my brain and detonated in a chain reaction along all the cells of my body. Pow. Pow. Pow.
It demolished me. Shook me into my basic parts, into atoms, into dust.
Slowly I rebuilt, brand-new. As the last bits of orgasm rippled through me, my panties were drenched but my mind was clear and my every ache and pain had lifted.
I felt eighteen again. Before the incident when Lizelle called me monster.
Luke rumbled as he licked my throat. “You taste incredible. I’ve never…”
His lapping slowed. With one final lick, he eased himself off me and stood, broad back to me.
I waited for the rip of a zipper opening, a wordless finish to what he’d never, but nothing followed but his rasping breaths. Finally I said, “Don’t you want…?”
“No. I’m not…I can’t…I’m not interested. I usually have multiple partners.”
The sting of rejection hurt worse because I was vulnerable, because after that orgasm I was open to him like a newborn.
I’d followed those soaring geyser of feelings, wondering where they’d go. Now, as rejection skewered me so hard I gasped, I had my answer.
Straight into the shitter.
I scrambled for protection, pulling on rationality and cynicism with an automatic eye-roll and a mental Guys.
That helped. Simple commitment scares them like they’re babies.
Yet Luke didn’t seem like other guys, afraid of a little commitment. Was his thing for ménage the usual guy issues, or something deeper?
You idiot. Who cares? Sex is a nice release of endorphins, and that was better than nice. Be grateful there’s no fuss, no muss, no commitment.
I snagged my bra and blouse and began to dress. As I buttoned, my fingers wandered to my throat. My skin was smooth, whole, as if he hadn’t given me that orgasm-inducing bite. “Aren’t you wondering how I’m aware of…?” I clacked my teeth together.
“A lot of Meiers Corners women are in the know. I figured one of the mates told you.” He shrugged, his broad shoulders sexy as hell. He’d turned but didn’t seem to be interested at all, staring past me, his mind obviously somewhere else.
I stifled a pang. I was a rational being, not clingy or emotionally needy. Great sex was just that. Didn’t mean I had to live with the man. Some guys you bang, some you marry.
Luke was certainly bang-worthy, but as nice as paradise had been, it was time to move on.
I left without another word.
Luke gripped the doorjamb as the luscious doctor slid through. What the hell just happened?
His groin throbbed. He didn’t have to look down to confirm it, but glancing at his pants surprised him yet again. He’d had a hard time concealing it from her. Not just a woody tented his fly, but a whole oak tree of an erection, or maybe a giant redwood.
She’d done that.
Alexis ambled down the hallway, golden hair waving, hips swaying with a liquid roll, as if her joints had been oiled by the orgasm. He stood there, fighting the urge to go after her, his whole being almost glued to her until she disappeared up the stairs.
Damn it, how did she do that? How did she attract him to the point of madness?
How did she give him an erection, when he hadn’t had one since his wife died?
For centuries, he’d been the next best thing to impotent. He’d put around the rumor that he was only interested in ménages to scare off potential lovers. And so the few sexual encounters he did go through with, he had multiple partners for multiple distractions from his flaccid tool.
Centuries of utter disintere
st, gone the moment he’d kissed Alexis.
He’d been shocked, and at first, overjoyed. Then, as he’d lapped the elixir of Alexis’s blood and felt the judder of her sweet climax on his fingers, he’d forgotten his wife.
Totally. Forgotten.
He’d vowed he’d never forget. Spent centuries honoring that vow.
Wiped out by the mere whiff of hair like strawberries.
He slapped the jamb. The sooner he could get this babysitting obligation over with, the better. Then he could get back to Iowa, to Elias’s household. Erections and Alexis would never happen again.
Clamping his eyes and turning inward, he sought his brother’s blood scent/taste, the sense a vampire had of every human or vampire ever tasted. Luke could sense his donors within a half-mile, his brother farther than that. Alexis pinged instantly, only a few hundred feet away… He clamped down on the need to pursue her and worked to locate his brother.
Logan was in the public meeting room in the basement of the second townhouse. Luke hunched his shoulders and headed out the door, through the underground parking and into the next basement over.
Julian sat at one end of the glossy table, black head bent to a pile of papers, Logan next to him, model’s face smug. As Luke entered, the lawyer flicked a glance at him then returned his gaze to the pile on the table before him, expression mournful. “Look at this. Reece printed us a copy of the diags because I couldn’t believe it. Clean. Now I have to believe it, but I still can’t understand it.”
“Told you my system was faultless,” Logan said.
Luke glided up. “The alarm diagnostics? That’s what I came to talk with you about.”
Emerson’s eyes returned to him, his gaze sharp. “What do you mean?”
To make absolutely certain no one was within hearing range, Luke tested the air. He smelled no one nearby.
Still, he leaned in and lowered his voice. “Think about it. Your system is new, and Logan’s best. The chances of it malfunctioning are nil.”