His last glimpse of Angelique before he closed the bedroom door behind him was of her sitting up in bed and beginning to snuff out the candles, shrouding herself in darkness, ready to sleep through the coming day.
Chapter Three
When Angelique reached the address Tom had given her, she wondered if he was playing some kind of sick prank. He’d told her he lived in Kemptown, the residential area in the east of Brighton that had not even been built when she’d first arrived under Hogarth’s protection. In the centuries since, the narrow streets with their splendid collection of Regency buildings had become a haven for actors and artists, and these days were home to many of the city’s gay community. All well and good, but as she turned the corner into a quiet square where a few lights still burned in bedroom windows, she found herself standing in front of a small, redbrick church.
The sight caused her to recoil, and bare her fangs as she hissed out a sharp breath. This couldn’t be Tom’s home, surely.
She dug her phone from her bag and dialled his number.
He answered on the second ring. “Hey, where are you?”
“I followed your directions. I’m standing on the doorstep of a church.” Her tone was sharper than she’d intended. “Merde alors, are you trying to mess with my head, Tom?”
There was a long silence, as if it hadn’t occurred to him that asking her to visit this place, with its crosses and holy water, might cause her problems. “It’s okay, this place hasn’t been an actual church since the 1980s. They deconsecrated it when they turned it into studio spaces and apartments. You’ll be fine to enter, Angelique, I promise you. Wait there a moment and I’ll come and fetch you.”
It went against her every instinct to do as Tom had asked, but as she waited for him, she studied the building’s exterior more closely. He was right. All the things that would have marked it as an active place of Christian worship had been removed. No stained glass in the windows, no sign of a crucifix on the walls. She felt some of the tension leave her shoulders.
The front door swung open. Tom stood there in dark sweatpants and a white T-shirt. His hair stuck up at odd angles, and there were spots of high color in his cheeks. She thought she had never seen someone look so alive, so energized by whatever she’d caught him in the middle of.
Still she hesitated, no longer quite so afraid of her surroundings, but unable to step over the threshold without his invitation.
“Come in,” he said, giving her the permission she sought, whether he was aware of it or not. “I’m afraid the place is a bit of a mess, but I’ve been working pretty much non-stop since I last saw you. The muse struck me and I just had to go where she led…”
She followed him up a long staircase to the vaulted space in the building’s eaves. With each step, she became more reassured that whatever had once made this a holy place, so unwelcoming to her kind, had long gone.
At the top of the stairs, a door stood ajar, and driving rock music came from within.
“How did the show go tonight?” he asked.
“Oh, pretty good. Monday nights are always a little quiet, you know.”
“Well, let me sort you out a drink. I’ve got a nice bottle of Australian red you might like.” Tom led her through into a short hallway. “Hey, Lucas,” he yelled, “d’you wanna turn the music down and come say hello to Angelique?”
“Lucas is here?” She’d caught a hint of the wolf’s spoor lingering on the air as they’d entered the flat, but she’d assumed it had been from some recent visit. She’d never dreamt she might find herself coming face to face with him.
“Yeah, he’s crashing here while they fix some problem with the electrics in his flat. Ah, here he is.”
Lucas ambled towards her, wearing only a pair of jeans slung so low on his hips that they advertised the fact that he had nothing on beneath them. His feet were bare, and he rubbed his eyes as though he’d just woken up. A lazy grin started to spread across his face, then he took a proper look at her and his body stiffened. Quickly, he regained his affable expression, but it was too late. If he hadn’t cottoned on to her true nature the other night at the club, he certainly had now, and she knew it.
Still, he had enough grace to act as though he wasn’t in the presence of a mortal enemy. She had to give him that.
“So, I finally get to meet the woman Tom can’t stop talking about.” He fixed her with a golden-eyed stare that seemed to strip her bare. “Though I have to say I really got off on your performance the other night. You have the most spectacular tits, Angelique.”
A vision flashed into her mind. Lucas, lying on his bed, his cock gripped tightly in his fist as he wanked himself to the thought of her flashing her breasts to the audience. He was like all his kind—cheap, lecherous and with his animal temperament concealed by only the thinnest veneer of civilization—and damn it all, if that didn’t turn her on.
Tom seemed oblivious to the rising tension between the two of them. He took Angelique’s hand and led her through to the kitchen, Lucas following so close behind that she swore she could feel his hot breath on the back of her neck.
While Tom busied himself pouring them all wine, Lucas bent his head to Angelique’s ear. “I know what you are.”
“And I know you too…lycan.” Though she kept her tone polite, the insult in her words was all too clear.
“Fuck, but you’re gorgeous when you’re angry.”
She didn’t know whether she wanted to slap the smug grin from his face or kiss it away. And how could she even think that when Tom was handing her a glass of wine and smiling at her with such desire and adoration that it awakened in her emotions she’d thought had died along with Hogarth?
Angelique sipped her drink, keeping her gaze downcast so she didn’t have to look at either man. This situation was growing far too complicated, and though she’d come here with every intention to spend as much of the night as she dared with Tom, it might be best just to finish her wine and leave.
Tom, however, seemed to have other ideas. “Let me take you to my studio, Angelique. I need to show you what I’ve been working on.”
Lucas stepped to one side to allow her to pass. When she glanced back over her shoulder, she couldn’t help noticing that the wolf’s gaze was glued to the swaying motion of her arse.
Look all you want, she wanted to tell him. It’s as close as you’ll get.
She followed Tom out of the kitchen and into a workspace with a high, sharply sloping ceiling, its supporting beams exposed. It was dominated by the large, round window she’d seen from outside. During the day, the light here had to be perfect for any kind of artistic endeavor.
But what really drew her eye was the sculpture in the middle of the room. Cast in bronze was the figure of a naked woman who sat on the curve of a crescent moon, one leg raised in the air and bent at the knee, her head thrown back. Her eyes were half closed and her lips open, the expression on her face unmistakably one of erotic bliss. The piece was provocative, sexy, flawlessly executed. She didn’t need to ask where Tom had received his inspiration. His feelings for her were laid bare in his work.
“I’m calling it ‘Queen of the Night’,” he told her.
“Is—is that meant to be me?”
“What do you think?” His tone was tight, anxious for approval.
She broke into a smile. “Tom, I love it. May I touch?”
When he nodded, she ran a hand over the smooth metal, tracing the lines of the sculpture’s hard-nippled breasts and flat belly.
“It’s going to be the centerpiece of my exhibition,” he went on. “And it’s weird to think that only a few days ago, it wasn’t even a thought in my head. Then I saw you.”
“Remind me, when does this Cities After Dark take place?’
“It starts on Friday. They’re opening the Pavilion doors to ticket-holders at midnight, especially for the event, and there’s a bit of a reception for the press and invited before that. I really want you to be there.”
“Okay, I
’ll have to swing it with Mick, see if I can get the evening off so I’m not dashing over there straight from the club.”
“That’s great. I’ll make sure your name is on the guest list.” He came up to her, took the wine glass from her hand and set it down on the seat of a nearby chair. Then he wrapped his arms around her body from behind, just below the swell of her breasts. “You’ll have plenty of time to admire that, and all the other exhibits, on the night. There’s another reason I asked you here tonight.”
His cock was rigid, pressing tight to the crease of her buttocks. She ground herself against it.
“I think I can guess what that might be.”
“I can’t stop thinking about you,” he said. “In fact, I’m dangerously close to becoming obsessed. Lucas keeps telling me I’m getting boring.”
“Tell me about Lucas,” she said.
“There’s nothing to tell, really. I’ve known him for ages, and we get on well… What more is there to say?”
“What does he do for a living?”
“Oh, this and that…”
It was a strangely evasive answer, and it only made her more suspicious. She wanted to put it down to her simple and well-founded distrust of wolves, but she couldn’t help feeling that the relationship between Tom and Lucas was not all it seemed.
Angelique gazed again at the bronze representation of herself. How much would a piece like this be worth, exactly? From what she knew of lycans, they were chancers, always on the lookout for easy pickings, and didn’t worry too much if their activities brought them into conflict with the law. Maybe Lucas had simply latched on to Tom to piggyback off his undoubted talent, but he could just as equally be hanging around with the aim of relieving him of these valuable sculptures.
“Tom, how much do you trust Lucas?”
He paused in the act of kissing her neck. “Do we have to discuss him right now? I thought tonight was about us.”
“It is, I promise you.” She dropped a hand down to his crotch, and smiled to herself at the size of the bulge she found there. Obviously, her talk about his friend hadn’t distracted him too much from the task in hand.
“You know,” she murmured, “I was in such a hurry to come over here and see you tonight that when I got dressed after the show, I might have neglected to put something on.”
At first, he didn’t seem to understand her meaning. Then he ran a hand over her arse. When he didn’t find any evidence of underwear beneath the tight dress, a slow smile spread across his face.
“You wicked minx. You know just how to push my buttons, don’t you?” He took her by the hand, and led her to an antique chaise longue in the corner of the room. She squealed in half-hearted protest as he hauled her over his lap and gave her bottom six slaps in quick succession. The faint sting of each swat sent a delicious little thrill through her, and made her wonder what it would be like if Tom ever decided to give her a serious spanking, rather than just a series of love taps.
Tom guided her into a sitting position on the chaise longue, and eased up the stretchy fabric of her dress, gradually revealing the full expanse of her long, pale thighs. At his instruction, she spread her legs wide, exposing her pussy to his gaze.
His erection pushed at the front of his sweatpants. Dropping to his knees, he wasted no time in sticking his tongue as far inside her tight hole as it would go before pulling out to lick at her clit. He’d obviously decided to put his own needs to one side in favor of satisfying hers.
“Oh, that is fantastique.” She gripped her breasts through her dress, strumming at her beaded nipples with the pads of her thumbs.
Her enthusiastic tone seemed to encourage him to step up the pace, and he moved his tongue-tip in fast, side-to-side strokes over the little nub.
Alerted by a movement in the corner of her eye, she looked in the direction of the door and thought she saw a tall figure silhouetted against its frosted glass panes. When she glanced again, the shadow had gone. She wanted to put it down to a figment of her imagination, but she couldn’t. Had Lucas been standing outside, listening to the noises she made as Tom pleasured her? The lycan’s sense of smell was as keen as her own. He must have been able to scent her excitement from the moment Tom had brought her up to his studio, and she had no doubt that it must have been driving him wild.
Let him spy on what we’re doing. Even better, let him join us. For reasons she could not even begin to express, the thought of Lucas’ hands on her tits, his bearded cheeks nuzzling her sensitive skin turned her on beyond belief. It wasn’t that Tom wasn’t enough for her right now. Just the opposite, in fact, as his steady lapping of her clit took her ever closer to the brink of orgasm. But how would it feel if she were to take Lucas’ cock into her mouth, and suck him while Tom continued to lick her?
Wrinkling her nose, she caught the wolf’s aroused, feral scent on the air. He was so close it was all she could do not to call out his name and beg him to come into the room. Lucas Canning might be up to no good, but, as shameful as it was to admit, even if only to herself, she’d be willing to put her mistrust of him to one side for long enough to let him fuck her senseless.
Then Tom slipped first one finger then a second into her wet channel, and thrust them in and out in time with the fast, flicking motions of his tongue. Unable to concentrate on anything but just how good that felt, she let her head drop back and gripped the back of the low couch with both hands.
As her orgasm broke, Angelique screwed her eyelids tight. Whether to block out the image of Lucas turning her twosome with Tom into a beautifully perverse threesome, or to focus on it all the more clearly, she couldn’t have said.
Chapter Four
‘Tom, how much do you trust Lucas?’
Angelique’s words still rang in his ears. Lucas looked across the Pavilion’s ornately decorated Music Room to where Tom stood in conversation with the organiser of tonight’s event. Every now and then, his friend would break off and glance at the door, clearly waiting for the moment when Angelique would step through it. With her obvious dislike of him, the Frenchwoman appeared to be trying to drive a wedge between him and Tom, and right now, that was the last thing Lucas needed.
Of all the women Tom could have fallen for, why did he have to get involved with a vampire? Not that Lucas could blame him. She was sex on legs, after all. Just thinking about those full tits and that round, perky arse of hers had him hard in his trousers. But, lovely as she was, her kind were the enemy, and he couldn’t find a way past that.
Most of this, he supposed, was his own fault. If he’d been honest with Tom right from the start, maybe they could have ironed out some of the misunderstandings. But he’d been travelling under the radar so long, determined to keep his true nature a secret from the humans among whom he lived and worked. So many of them still believed the old myths about his kind that it wouldn’t take much for some jerk, scared witless by thoughts of what Lucas might do to him, to start fashioning a silver bullet with his name on it.
The wariness instilled in him meant that he had never found the right time to sit Tom down and explain to him that, despite whatever his friend might believe, he was not actually human. More than that, he would be overcome with the urge to shift into his lupine form whenever the moon was full, as it was tonight. He couldn’t begin to imagine how Tom would react to the news. Right now, he needed to keep the guy on side, and not go freaking him out with a shocking revelation.
And okay, he might know exactly what Angelique was, but did Tom? Maybe he should confront him with the line, ‘Hey, did you know the woman whose brains you’re fucking out every night, the woman you think you’ve just immortalized in bronze, is immortal anyway?”
Fuck, I need a drink. He was tempted to go over to where the black-clad waiting staff circled with trays of champagne, snatch a bottle from one of them and just down it in one long gulp. But he needed to keep a clear head tonight, and anyway, all the alcohol in the world wouldn’t dampen the raging hard-on he was toting for Angelique du Pre.<
br />
Though the main light in the Music Room was provided by nine extraordinary, lotus-shaped chandeliers, he was still aware of moonlight shining through the windows set high in the walls. The multi-colored stained glass did nothing to dilute the moon’s power to arouse his animal instincts. Lucas felt his hackles rise. Tonight of all nights, the last thing he wanted was to be trussed up in a tuxedo and bow tie, making polite conversation. He should be out on the Downs, running free and howling at the moon.
Running a hand discreetly over one of Tom’s sculptures—a male torso, cast in imitation of the classical Greek style—he reminded himself of the real reason he was here, and why he would be going nowhere else while this event was in full swing.
‘Tom, how much do you trust Lucas?’
He could understand why Angelique would ask that question. It didn’t matter what he chose to tell her about his friendship with Tom—she knew he was a lycan, and her obvious contempt for his kind caused her to treat him with open suspicion, clearly expecting the worst from him.
Intentionally or not, she knew precisely how to drive him wild. Beneath her ice queen demeanor, the vampire was a first-class slut. She’d turned up at the old church with no underwear on the other night. The way her dress had clung to her backside, without even a hint of panty line, had been proof of that. And God, he’d wanted to pull it up to her waist and just drive his tongue straight into her dripping pussy, never mind if Tom was there or not.
He hadn’t meant to linger outside the studio, but the sounds and smells emanating from behind the closed door had been too much to resist. He’d risked a glimpse, seen Tom with his head buried between Angelique’s legs, and he’d been lost.
Images of their lovemaking floated back into his memory. Angelique stripped of that tight-fitting dress, rising and falling in Tom’s lap as she rode his cock. Tom gripping fistfuls of her pale arse cheeks, crying out as Angelique nipped at his neck.
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