Lured

by Ava McKnight

  “Do you read minds?” she found herself asking. “Do you have any special powers or gifts?”

  She realized she was falling down a very dangerous rabbit hole, but she couldn’t stop herself. Despite the obvious hazards surrounding her, she was fascinated by Marcus. And she wanted to know the truth about him, no matter how disturbing it might be or how difficult to comprehend.

  He said, “I don’t read minds. I have exceptional speed, strength and hearing, though. I was on a different floor at the party when I heard your first scream, faint as it was. I caught it over the loud music and the noise. I could single it out, know exactly who it was about to be sacrificed and where to find you. I only wished I’d gotten there sooner, but I ran into trouble with the council’s guards. They monitor the situation to make sure rituals performed don’t become public knowledge. They knew what I planned to do and tried to stop me.”

  “Save my life, that’s what you planned to do.” Cass considered this a moment, then asked, “Does that endanger yours?”

  He nodded. “But I have enough clout with the council to make amends. Unfortunately…” He let out a disgruntled sound that was foreboding and made Cass nervous. “The council won’t protect you. It won’t come after you, the council doesn’t work that way. The members don’t take lives. But they won’t step in if the breed of demons you encountered this evening choose to continue pursuing you out of revenge—and the fact they still need to sacrifice someone.”

  Her stomach plummeted. “Let me guess. The council members won’t support you if you elect to protect me?”

  “No, they will not. And I most definitely elect to protect you,” he said with conviction.

  “Great,” she muttered. She moved from his lap again and this time he let her go.

  Cass quickly tied a bow in the laces of her corset to keep it in place, since Marcus had loosened the fastenings, and paced alongside the fireplace. The sun had to be coming up by now, but the thick window treatments were dark, blocking out the early morning. She gathered she’d been right earlier when she’d surmised sunlight wasn’t this man—this vampire’s—friend.

  The v word sat sharply on her tongue. She’d found it a sexy notion before she’d known anything about demons and she knew it should leave a hint of distaste at the very least. But Marcus—the vampire—had saved her.

  If he’d wanted to suck her dry, wouldn’t he have done it by now? He wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of retaliating against the demons who’d come after her. He’d had ample opportunity to drain her and ditch her body, thereby nullifying everyone’s fear she might talk and leaving the demons with no choice but to find another “succulent sacrifice”.

  Her sensible side didn’t really want to buy into all of this, but then again… The evidence was mounting.

  She pulled up short and turned to face Marcus. “Tell me about yourself. Who were you before and how did you became a…vampire?”

  He groaned. Cass planted her hands on her hips and jerked a brow upward.

  With a low chuckle, he said, “Come back to me and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

  Despite the fact his words sent of jolt of electricity through her, she remained rooted where she stood and countered with, “My blood doesn’t test your restraint?”

  “No.” He held a large hand out and she couldn’t deny she wanted to feel that hand, both of them actually, on her body again.

  As she took a few tentative steps forward, he indulged her curiosity.

  “I honestly was born in Transylvania,” he told her.

  She drew up short. “Get out.”

  Shaking his head, he continued. “It’s a fact. I have a birth certificate, such as it was back then.”

  “Back then, when?” she asked.

  His hand still reached out to her and he wiggled his fingers, silently urging her forward. She didn’t budge.

  With a sigh, he said, “You really are a stubborn thing.”

  “Let’s just say I’ve been too passive in my own life.” She added, “Are you going to tell me you knew Dracula?”

  He grinned. A devilish one that made her toes curl with excitement as much as it made her take a step backward. The emotions that warred within her were intense sexual feelings battling cautious ones. They contradicted each other and made it difficult for her to settle on which was the more sensible to follow, particularly since she liked how her body and soul responded to Marcus, yet she couldn’t forget the peril she’d landed in this evening.

  “Okay,” she prompted, “tell me about Dracula.”

  With a low laugh, he said, “I didn’t know the Dracula. He’s fictitious.”

  “According to some, that character was named after Vlad III Dracula, born in Transylvania. He murdered tens of thousands of people and they called him ‘Vlad the Impaler’.” She’d read the Bram Stoker novel in high school. Though she didn’t remember it well, she could recall some of the class discussions.

  Marcus said, “Vlad III was before my time. He reigned in the fifteenth century. I was born in 1863.”

  She whistled under her breath. “And here I’d never thought I’d be attracted to an older man.”

  His smirk was a sexy one. “I do what I can to stay in shape.”

  Cass had to laugh at that. “Really? Because I just can’t see a vampire pumping iron at the local Gold’s Gym.”

  “Fair enough,” he said with a hint of respect in his eyes, apparently over the fact she continually challenged him. “What you are when you’re turned is pretty much what you are the rest of your existence. In my case, a thirty-two-year-old scholar.”

  “Explains all the books,” she said as she gestured to the tall bookcases that were packed tight with hardbacks.

  “And exactly how old are you?” he inquired with a lifted brow.

  “Twenty-nine. I’m a CPA.”

  He gave a slight shake of his head. “Get out.”

  Surprising herself, she laughed heartily this time at his imitation of her earlier jest. “Which part shocks you?”

  “Both. I thought twenty-five and…” His electrifying gaze roved her scantily clad body as he added, “Definitely not a CPA.”

  “Hooker?” she ventured. “Stripper?”

  “No. None of the above. I know humans tend to dress outside their norm, or in fantasy fashion, when they attend the Hunter’s Moon Ball.” He stood and closed the gap between them. “Your outfit suggests you’re comfortable with showing off your body, but your eyes… Not so much.”

  “I dared myself,” she admitted. “A long time ago, I let someone talk me into being someone I wasn’t. When I was invited to the ball, I decided to step away from the corner I’d been backed into.”

  “Brave girl.”

  His beautiful eyes bore into her, making Cass sigh. With a shake of her head, she said, “Not at all. I went to the ball for something easy. Something I thought I wanted, but I know I only wanted it because it’d been handed to me unexpectedly and I’d only had to play along to enjoy it. That’s not seeking what you’re really meant to have and working at it so you’re fulfilled in the long run.”

  Marcus stared quizzically at her. “Explain that.”

  “It’s really quite simple,” she said, though emotion washed over her, making her falter for a moment. But then she lifted her chin a notch and held herself accountable for her shortcomings. “I decided a while back I wasn’t good enough to hold a man’s interest for any period of time, no matter how ridiculously brief, and so I gave up on personal interactions and ended up getting ‘involved’, if you can even call it that, with someone on the internet. Short, erotic exchanges that made me seem much more sensual and interesting than I believed myself to be in person. And look where it got me…”

  She tried to turn away but, as usual, Marcus didn’t let her off the hook. With his hand lightly clasping her upper arm, he forced her to turn back to him.

  With a deathly serious look on his handsome face, he asked, “You don’t think you can h
old a man’s interest?”

  “It’s practically a scientific, proven fact.”

  He released her, scoffed at her and moved away. Crossing the room to the wet bar, he poured brandy into two snifters and then returned to where she still stood.

  As he handed her a glass, he said, “You realize we’ve spent the majority of the evening and a partial morning together, and I’m still torn between hauling you up against me and kissing you senseless, or stretching out on the sofa with you and demanding you recount every minute of your life from, oh say, about birth.”

  Cass’ stomach flipped. Yet she didn’t give in to the arousal he so easily sparked. She said, “We’ve spent the majority of that time in danger and then I slept for several hours.”

  He gave her a dry look. “You really need to take a closer look in the mirror, and listen a little more intently to yourself. You’re really quite captivating.”

  Her shoulders tensed and she took a sip of brandy in hopes of relaxing a little. “Wait until I get on my tangent about the new corporate tax laws.”

  Marcus grinned. “I could use a good accountant.”

  “You’re really too much.” She eyed him curiously as she asked, “How exactly does a vampire make money?”

  “I used to write books.”

  “Really?”

  He turned away, sauntered over to a bookshelf and selected a novel. Returning to her, he handed it over for her to inspect.

  Cass’ jaw dropped. “Come on, be serious. You’re M. L. Walton?”

  With a nod, he said, “Who, quite tragically, passed on in the early 1950s, after writing for nearly five decades. ‘He’ had been a recluse, supposedly living on a lake in Michigan. Rumor has it, he fell out of his boat one day and drowned. His body was never recovered.”

  “Of course not,” Cass said in a droll tone. She shook her head at him and added, “I read this book in my college British Lit class. Your character’s journey through Europe is brilliant—the descriptions are so vivid, I was transported to London and Paris at the turn of the twentieth century. And when you created all that beautiful imagery of Spain and Italy, I was mesmerized. It made me want to run off and tour Europe.”

  “You should. It’s even more breathtaking than how I described it.”

  She gave him his book back and asked, “So what’s your real last name? Because I’m pretty certain there are no Waltons in Transylvania.”

  He chuckled as he placed the novel back on the shelf. “It’s Ionescu. A very common Romanian surname.”

  “How ironic you’re a vampire from Transylvania.”

  With a grin, he said, “It’s actually a very lovely region—particularly the Carpathian Mountains. Perhaps you’d like to see it?”

  Cass nodded without even thinking about it. She remembered being swept away by the words in M.L. Walton’s books, and now she’d been swept away by the man who’d written those very words.

  “This is a little strange,” she admitted, though her stomach fluttered and a molten feeling coursed through her veins.

  “Fate can be very intriguing. You never know what the universe has planned for you. That’s one of the most interesting things about being a vampire. The longer I exist, the more twists and turns to my journey.”

  Turning away, Cass said, “I’m afraid I’m not so fascinating.”

  He stepped close to her and set his glass on the mantle before brushing her long strands of her hair over one shoulder. “I don’t believe that,” he murmured in her ear.

  She shivered at his nearness and the words he spoke. As his hands clasped her waist, his lips grazed her neck, the touch a cool one against her flushed skin.

  The fear of a vampire’s fangs so close to her jugular didn’t quite register in Cass’ mind. Given the amount of time she’d been in his house, she surmised she would have been dead long ago if that was his intention.

  But, as she placed her snifter next to his, she did ask, “How do you control it? Your thirst, or whatever, for human blood?”

  “It’s a little like losing weight,” he said, his lips skimming her throat as he spoke in his low, sensuous tone. “You have to be very disciplined and learn what works best for you. Then it becomes second nature—if you choose to make it a lifestyle, not a diet.”

  “Do you eat food?” she inquired, her own voice breathy as she responded to his mouth teasing her skin and his hands on her body as they moved forward and he wrapped his strong arms around her.

  “I can, but it has no real effect on me. I’ll drink scotch or brandy from time to time, but it takes quite a lot of alcohol for a vampire to get drunk. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever reached that point.”

  “A couple glasses of wine make me feel like this,” she told him. “Lightheaded and tingly.”

  His mouth moved slowly over her bare shoulder and her nipples tightened from his whisper of a touch.

  “I’ve had decades to learn to get used to being around humans. I like mortals and have respect for their lives. I don’t intend to take any.”

  “You drink animal blood?”

  “For the most part, yes.”

  She considered this as his arms around her waist loosened and his hands swept up to her breasts, massaging them with just the right amount of pressure to make her moan. She almost lost her train of thought, but recalled one tidbit she needed to clear up.

  “You said you wanted a taste of my blood.”

  “A natural compulsion. A sample of something decadent…something I crave.”

  She tensed, despite the fire blazing inside her. “You crave my blood?”

  “I crave your essence,” he said in a strained tone. “And your body.”

  Cass turned to face him. Staring into his glowing blue eyes, she said, “You can make love to me without destroying the bed?” He gave her a quizzical look that made her laugh softly. “Sorry. Pop culture. Something from a vampire movie.”

  “I don’t watch vampire movies,” he told her, his mouth lifting at the corners. “But to answer your question, yes, I can be civilized in the throes of passion.”

  “Not too civilized, I hope.”

  He let out a low grunt. Then he scooped her up in his arms and carried her back to the sofa, saying, “I’ll do my best to satisfy you.”

  “I highly doubt that’s going to be a problem. You’ve barely touched me and I’m already burning up.”

  “Good chemistry,” he muttered as he sank into a cushion, with her in his lap once more. “I’ve never experienced it with a human. You’re unique.”

  No one had ever called her that. Cass smiled at him. “I don’t know what you see in me, but I’m glad you find something appealing about me.”

  “I find everything appealing about you.”

  His head dipped and his lips grazed her mouth, then tangled and teased her own lips with slow, sensual kisses that made her pulse kick up several notches. A prickle of desire along her clit made her squirm in his lap, and a dull throb in her pussy turned her hot and restless.

  “I can smell you,” he whispered against her mouth. “I can smell your arousal. I know you’re wet for me.”

  “Yes,” she said in a breathless voice.

  Cass unbuttoned his shirt and her hand eased over the hard muscles of his chest. A fingertip grazed a small, hard nipple. She scraped it with her nail, soothed it with the pad of her finger. As her palm splayed over the hard ledge of his pectorals, the muscles bunched, thrilling her that he responded to her touch.

  She leaned close to him and the tip of her tongue trailed up his neck, then flicked his earlobe. He groaned. She smiled.

  Marcus said, “I’ve waited a long time for you.” Her mouth pressed to his, but when her lips parted, he whispered, “Careful.”

  She remembered he had fangs that could prick her tongue or her lips—and that might prove detrimental. As though to alleviate that complication, instead of her being the aggressor and kissing him, his tongue delved deep into her mouth. His lips shielded his sharp teeth and
their kiss was a scorcher.

  He had an arm around her shoulders, and the other draped over her thighs, his fingers caressing the exposed flesh below the hem of her skirt. Heat oozed through her veins and her inner walls clenched at the delicious sensations his kiss and intimate touch incited.

  His hand shifted and eased between her legs. His fingers stroked her pussy lips through her thong, making the heat inside her erupt into flames of desire. Tearing her mouth from Marcus’, she gulped in air. His lips were on her throat again as her head fell back on her shoulders. He whisked aside the lace covering her and used the pads of his fingers to rub her clit in a slow, circular motion.

  The hand she’d rested on his chest moved to his head and she threaded her fingers through his thick, silky hair. Her free arm slipped around to his back, between his bare skin and the shirt that hung open.

  Applying more pressure between her legs, his fingertips massaged her clit as Marcus continued to lick and gently suck the sensitive flesh on her neck, finding myriad erogenous zones she’d never known existed and causing breathy moans to fall from her parted lips.

  He quickened his pace on her clit, rubbing a bit more vigorously. Her heart pounded fiercely and her insides blazed.

  “Make me come,” she begged on a sharp breath.

  Marcus made a sound that bordered on a growl. It was dark and sexy, evoking riotous sensations within her.

  His hand moved lower and he pushed two fingers into her wet pussy. Cass cried out.

  “Oh God, yes,” she whimpered. “Just like that.”

  He stroked her more forcefully than she’d anticipated, but it was exactly what she needed. His thumb found her swollen clit. The pad pressed against the knot of nerves, massaging in a quick motion as he finger-fucked her.

  His mouth was still on her neck and she felt the slight scrape of his fangs against her delicate skin. Her body quivered and her pulse raced.