The Lady Smut Book of Dark Desires (An Anthology)

by Liz Everly

  As her blood entered him, his erection grew stronger and harder. He plunged into her…

  Plunged? How many times have I used plunged in this book? How about thrust? Or pressed? No, not pressed. It's not forceful enough.

  Thrust it is.

  As her blood entered him, his erection grew stronger and harder. He thrust into her, making her scream with pleasure, him moan with fevered curiosity. He'd taken countless women like this and each one felt different. He enjoyed this one's legs as she wrapped them onto his shoulders, and moved deeper within her. The throbbing of her blood and the throbbing of her sex surged through him.

  Her hips met his in opposite reaction.

  Oooo. He liked this one. She was strong, with hips that moved him, lifted him; hips that made him remember what it was like to be a man, not immortal. And yet so tight, so smooth and grasping at his cock. He would give her all he could in one explosive moment.

  When he came in her, the orgasmic rush was as he expected. But there was more…The clapping of thunder. The rolling noise of heaven meeting hell, with earth couched somewhere in between.

  He jerked away from her.

  "Just who the fuck are you?"

  Good question Xander. Who is she?

  I took another sip of wine. Red mulled wine, thick with spices. I think it was my third of the day. And I left my mind to play with the idea of this woman bringing my Xander to his knees. So to speak.

  This is what my writing life is like. I don't plan it. I don't plot it. I write where the feeling takes me and then sometimes I have to stop and figure out where exactly that is. Like who is this woman? As always, my hunk of a naughty vampire Xander and I would figure it out together.

  In those days, I was writing in my basement. Dark, cool, and without distraction. Until the day he came to me. No. Not Xander. I know it's confusing, but bear with me.

  Now, you will think I'm perfectly mad. And that's okay, because maybe I am. I've wondered if it never really happened at all, if it was nothing more than extended dream, a fantasy I created from too many hours alone.

  We writers spin our tales, never imagining they will take form in quite this way. But really? Once you understand that not everything in life is explainable, what we do takes on a dangerous edge. Is it some form of dark magic? Can we tap into our subconscious in such a way that we create characters that become real not just on the page, but as sentient beings? Can we imagine our perfect lover into a reality of flesh and bones?

  Because I think that's exactly where he came from.

  After three glasses of wine and a long, intense writing session, I fell asleep at my computer.

  After meeting one deadline and launching into my next vampire novel, I simply slumped down in my chair and drifted off. I awakened to an odd buzzing or humming. I jolted awake, blinking at my computer screen, which was snowy and vibrating. I sat up straighter. What the hell? I'd just bought the thing!

  Suddenly the room bristled with energy, but my eyes didn't leave the screen. Something was forming. Its shape looked familiar. A cheekbone. The hollow between it and full, upturned lips, a long nose, eyes, and a forehead. Still blue and gray, the face lifted out of my computer screen and the air in my office crackled as I struggled for breath.

  The room suddenly settled and I felt a soft, warm brush of breath on my neck. The reflection of a man stared back at me from my computer.

  I don't know why I didn't scream or struggle, except that I felt an immediate sense of safety coupled with excruciating longing. Warmth emanated from his soft dark eyes when they met mine and he drew me in to a dreamlike space, where time didn't even seem to exist. He smiled. And it was all over for me.

  He bent down and leaned into me, ever so softly kissing my neck sending prickly sensations up and down my spine. I was mesmerized. He was so beautifully put together that it reminded me of my vampire character, Xander, who had women swooning all over the planet in my books.

  Was I dreaming? Was that it?

  But when he kissed my neck, it felt real. His full lips pressing to my skin, sending tendrils of pleasure through me, down into my very center.

  There was a man in my basement, kissing my neck.

  I wilted beneath his expert touch. His hands ran along my arms as his tongue, then teeth, grazed along the nape of my neck. A small sound escaped from somewhere inside of me. Where did that come from? Was that sound coming from me?

  He smelled spicy and musky, as delicious as he looked. His dark hair fell in waves framing his face, with cheekbones that stretched his skin taut and dimples framing either side of his mouth. His eyes were closed as I watched him. He was enraptured with me, attentive like I'd never experienced. With each kiss, each breath, a force traveled to my center, making my hips feel like they needed to move. It was a strong force, rippling, tingling, as my head rolled back and I drew in a breath… was I going to…yes, yes… From just his kisses on my neck and chin, now his mouth on mine, an orgasm ripped through me. I closed my eyes with each rocking, blasting pulse.

  …And suddenly I felt cold. When I opened my eyes, he was gone and a deep sadness and overwhelming sense of loneliness came over me. I felt so incredibly empty.

  My neck ached as I lifted my head. Damn. I'd fallen asleep at my monitor and had had the strongest, most realistic dream ever. And to top it all off, it was a wet dream. Interesting, as that had never happened to me before and I wasn't exactly the most orgasmic woman on the planet. In fact, Josh used to tease me about being an erotic romance writer and not really having many orgasms at all. I could describe them so well that you'd think I was having them all the time. Oh, I had them, just not every time I had sex. Not that I even had sex that much anymore. Face it, writing those incredible sex scenes was often more pleasurable than the real thing. There was just so much bad sex going on these days and I'd had more than my share of it.

  So. Back to my story about him. The man who visited me in my dream. To say that he left an impression would be an understatement. I dreamed about him for three nights in a row. Each time, I woke up shuddering in orgasm. I was getting a little concerned about my trip to New York, hoping that I wouldn't have one of these wet dreams in the room with my roommate, who I was meeting for the first time at the national erotic romance conference. We'd hooked up just to share expenses. I didn't want her to think I was some freaky perv having wet dreams in the neighboring bed.

  ***

  When I disembarked from my cab, I stood a moment on the New York street, as I always do. I love the city, love to soak up the energy I feel there. The doorman took my bag and I turned toward him to offer a tip… and I saw him.

  The man from my dreams.

  My heart lurched and everything around me hummed, vibrated with energy. He walked by me and winked as I stood with my mouth hanging open. I should say something. Do something. But what? "Hey I saw you in my dreams, what gives?"

  "Excuse me, miss, are you alright?" The doorman politely nudged me.

  "Oh, yes," I said, shaking it off, telling myself that the man just looked the hunk in my dreams. I was staring at him like a star-struck schoolgirl. My face heated, as did the rest of me, right to the very tips of my nipples which poked hard at my cotton dress. Way to make an ass out of yourself, Brenna. As the hotel was taking care of my bags, I felt it entirely appropriate to head for the bar. Not just appropriate. Necessary. I needed something to clear my head—and fast.

  Tomorrow I was scheduled to be on the "Sexy Vampire" panel. With all those young writers in the place, and the people I was on the panel with, it could get intense. I needed to be on top of my game. And there I was having hallucinations about that hot guy.

  I ordered a JD on the rocks and the bartender raised an eyebrow. "Make that a double," I said.

  "Are you sure about that? You're a tiny thing," he said.

  "I'm certain and I can handle my liquor. Thank you very much," I said. The place was packed and I couldn't see two feet in front of me because people were packed so close together.
I struggled to find my way through the crowd. Finally, I found a place at the bar so I sat and sipped my whiskey. I thought about seeing the face of the man in my dreams.

  What kind of logical explanation could there be?

  It could just be someone who looked like him, right? There are a lot of people that look like one another on this planet. But the resemblance was uncanny.

  My hand trembled a little as I lifted the golden liquid to my lips.

  "Brenna? Brenna Bang?"

  Oh shit. Someone had recognized me.

  It was a young woman who I guessed was a conference attendee, oh, about twenty-five. She was all coiffed to the hilt. Perfect blonde hair, thin, beautifully dressed in almost all black with a red velvet scarf around her neck. Ah yes, the red velvet around her neck. How blood-like. How vampirish. That's exactly what I'd thought when I wrote my first vampire novel, Red Scarf. So now some fans wore red scarves. Wish I'd thought to license that—I might be a millionaire by now.

  "Big fan, here," she said, almost bouncing with joy. I kid you not. This is what it's like for me as a successful author at the age of thirty-five, someone who never had the time or inclination for make-up, or the gym, or to even keep up with my haircuts. And it's kind of weird for me because most of my fans obviously do. They take obvious pains in creating the "look." You could call it goth. You could call it vampire. Whatever. I called it pretense.

  "Thank you," I said.

  "Red Scarf. Such a classic," she said, sliding her tight little body up to the bar next to me. Boobs all high and firm. Not an ounce of fat on her. Bet she didn't sit in front of the computer for hours on end. "I think it's my favorite."

  I smiled and lifted my glass to her. Bet she wouldn't get a beer, or a whiskey, for that matter.

  "Can I please have a diet coke?" she said to the bartender.

  I rest my case.

  "Although I do prefer the narrative structure in your third book," she went on, taking her coke from the bartender.

  "MFA?" I caught myself saying with disdain. Until that point, I wasn’t certain if she was a fan or a writer.

  She nodded. "I'm studying at NYU."

  "Good for you," I strained to say, then took a large drink of what was left of my whiskey, almost draining it.

  So much for clearing my head.

  "Nice chatting with you," I said, sliding down off the bar stool.

  "See you tomorrow."

  I barely heard as I bolted for the door.

  The thing I’ve found about twenty-five-year-old writer-wannabes in the classes I’ve taught is that most of them really don't want to be writers. They think they do, but they don't want to sit in front of the computer all day every day, wrangling with words.

  I do love to teach writers who want to learn the craft, who work hard and will write as many drafts as they need. There's nothing like witnessing a young writer learning their craft—and even helping them along.

  And, of course, I do love my readers—most of them. Some of them have scared me from time to time. But that’s another story.

  I pushed the elevator button, noting the blurriness of the numbers on the panel. I hadn't had that much to drink, had I?

  I was glad my roommate hadn't checked in yet. I was just going to hit the sack and hope she wouldn't arrive until the morning. After the elevator stopped at my floor I walked to my room, feeling a bit drunk. My legs were heavy and things spun every now and then. Like that pretty plant the hotel had in the corner.

  Well, I guess I'd had more than I thought.

  I slid the card key into the door, once, twice, no, three times before the damned light turned green. I opened the door and headed straight for the bed. Now, in the back of my mind I thought I'd rest a few minutes then get up and get ready for bed. I closed my eyes and heard my cell phone beeping. Fuck. Maybe it was my roommate. Maybe she needed help. Or something. I picked it up and pressed the screen to see who called.

  My screen turned to gray-blue fuzz and, just like in my dream, the blur began to form into a face. The room began to crackle with energy and the next thing I knew he was standing in front of me.

  I was not dreaming.

  There was a man in my room.

  A man that came through my iPhone?

  My heart thumped in my chest. I looked around for a weapon and tried to pick up the lamp—bolted down.

  He laughed.

  "Brenna," he said my name so sweetly that it calmed me immediately.

  "You know me?"

  He laughed again. "Mortals can be so daft. I know you remember me. You just don't want to acknowledge it."

  I stood thinking for a moment. Okay so if this was the guy I thought he was, the man in my dreams at home, what was he doing here? And how did he get into my room? He surely didn't come through the phone like I thought he had. Maybe he was a magician, an illusionist like Houdini.

  "How did you get here?" I asked.

  "You saw how I got here. I came through the phone. You know, these new devices are wonderful for us. Cuts our travel time immensely," he said. He was wearing all black: black jeans, t-shirt, and a black leather jacket. I think that was the outfit he always wore. I think.

  My mind was reeling with possibilities.

  "What do you mean you came through the phone? Talk about daft," I said. My voice was quivering. It was betraying my tough, but totally fake, stance.

  He leaned in and tilted toward me. "We used to fly, turn into bats or crows. Now that was time-consuming, and sometimes a bit tiring." His eyes widened.

  He was fucking with me. Who was this guy?

  "Who are you and what do you want with me?" I said after a few moments of eye contact.

  "You don't recognize me? The great vampire-chick-lit author Brenna Bang doesn't recognize a vampire when she sees one? That's rich," he said, with more than a note of sarcasm and maybe a hint of anger in his voice. Something about him frightened me in that moment. Was it the menace in his voice? Or the firmness his jaw took on?

  "Pshaw. I write about vampires, sure," I said. "But I don't believe in them. You can feed that line of BS to someone else. I'd thank you to leave." My voice was still betraying me. The more I tried to control it, the worse it seemed to shake.

  He walked toward me, stepping out of the half-shadows, and he nearly took my breath away. He looked like my Xander, my imagined vampire, the fantasy man I wrote about. How could that be? A swirl of energy tore through my body as he approached me.

  "Brenna," he said with a softer tone. "You and I have unfinished business."

  "We do?"

  "You know, our lovemaking has given me great joy. Most mortal women don't appeal to me anymore," he said, and reached for my hand. He was cool to the touch yet heat spread through my body.

  "It was you. But I was dreaming," I said, tearing my hand away from him. "I'm dreaming now."

  But I knew that I wasn't. I was wide awake. If I told myself that I was dreaming, it would make more sense. A man in my room. A man who claimed to be a vampire. A vampire! I touched my neck. The impulse caught me off guard—was he really a vampire?

  "You are starting to believe me, then," he said.

  "I'm not sure," I said. I'm a writer, more prone than most to good stories and, more than that, I was a woman, alone. And this man—vampire or not—made my pulse race, my knees weaken, and my center moisten. I hadn't felt so alive in years.

  I leaned closer to him and took a good look. He was pale, with a strong jawline, and his chin was almost square with a dimple in the center of it. His cheekbones high and eyes deep set. It was in his eyes that I saw something—a brew of humanity and animal, tempered by tenderness. A feeling of sweetness overcame me and I touched his face. His full lips pulled back, as if to show me his reality, and there were his fangs, bright, white, menacing.

  Fear shot through me and my body chilled as I trembled from head to toe. He was either a vampire or I was the butt of some very complex joke. But those teeth looked real.

  "Brenna," he whispe
red my name. "I'm not here to kill you."

  I just looked at him. I mean, what else could I do? I couldn't move if I wanted to.

  "If I wanted to kill you, I'd have already done it. It would have been so easy to fuck you lifeless…" he said as if wistful and longing for the killing. "You are, as we say, ripe for the killing."

  My eyebrows knit. I didn't like the sound of that.

  "It's a pity. You barely have any friends. No love life to speak of. No family. You hide away in your basement creating stories all day, every day. Who'd miss you if you were gone?"

  I blinked back a tear. "That's my job. I'm a writer."

  He suddenly hissed at me. I fell back on to the bed.

  "Writer!" he said. "Is that what you call yourself? You and the other vampire maligners have no idea the trouble you've created in my world!"

  The room was thrumming with his anger. I felt the air pressing on my chest. Was I going to pass out?

  "Young people walking around with red scarves is just a part of the problem," he said, calming down a bit. At least he wasn't hissing anymore. "Now everybody wants to be a vampire. People are seeking us out as if we are goddamned celebrities and not cold-hearted murderers. Make no mistake Brenna. That's what we are."

  I swallowed hard. There was mad man in my room!

  He sighed, visibly shifting mood. Now, he was thoughtful, if not serene. "Killing is nasty business. But one must survive."

  I was still trembling. "If you're not here to kill me, then what do you want with me?"

  "Besides the fucking?"

  "That was real?" I said, feeling heat creep onto my face.

  "Indeed," he said with a smirk. "And there's more of it… if you wish."

  If I wished?

  His grin widened. "You have everything wrong about us vampires, Brenna."

  Suddenly, he was behind me on the bed, breathing on my neck. I twisted my head so that I could see his face.

  "All but one thing," he kissed my neck, the tingle traveling from my nape to the center of me. Suddenly I was wet and longing for him. I shivered. "The one thing you have right is that we know how to fuck."