by Liz Everly
I felt a complete unraveling against the man on top. He rolled off me and the other began to lick at my breast. I opened my mouth to his cock and tongued around the head, finally took it all in, in all of its beauty and glory. I wanted to taste it, couldn't wait for the spurt in my throat.
He groaned, growled, and gave me what I wanted.
The three of us collapsed onto one another again, a heap of sweat and salt and satiated cock and pussy. I knew it was more than I could ever ask for, but I prayed a night like this would come again.
***
When I woke up, I was back in the hotel room. I don't remember how that happened. Perhaps I traveled through Wi-Fi, too. I laughed out loud.
"Brenna? Are you up?"
Oh, my roomie.
"Yes," I said, amazed at how good I felt after last night's sex romp.
"Don't you have an appointment at seven?"
"Yes."
"It's six thirty, and I'm out of here. Have a good day," she said, and left me alone to gather my wits, shower, dress, and meet my reader for breakfast. Ugh, did I really want to do this?
I grabbed my phone, now completely charged, and the snow pattern I recognized as my "vampire" friend formed as the room sparked with energy.
His arms were around me and all over me.
I met his lips with passion and then pulled away. "I've got an appointment."
"I know," he said. "I felt I should warn you about him."
"He seemed like a nice man," I said, picking up my bag.
"Oh yes, he's very nice," he said with a salacious grin. "He's one of your guardians."
I kept my thoughts to myself.
"Brenna," he said, with a note of warning.
"Okay, if he's my guardian, why are you warning me? They're good guys, right?"
He hesitated. "It's complicated. He won't like that I've marked you."
"Marked me?" I raised my voice. "You what?" I had no idea what that meant, but I didn't like the sound of it.
"Relax," he said. "It just means that among immortal creatures, you are hands-off. You are mine." He said it almost with a growl and he bared his teeth slightly.
I wasn't sure how I felt about that, intellectually, but it made something deep inside me perk up and bloom. Was there time to—? No, I had five minutes to get to the lobby. I wrapped my arms around him. "In that case, you should at least tell me your name."
He gave me a sideways smile. "You can call me Xander."
Then he disappeared. Literally right in front of my eyes. He left behind a brown envelope that contained the evidence and research he told me about.
I marched down to the lobby where I was supposed to meet with the magnificent blonde, and was met by a member of the hotel staff.
"Ms. Bang?"
"Yes?" I said. She handed me a package.
"He sends his apologies," she told me with a pitying look.
I shrugged and made my way to the breakfast buffet, finding a corner to eat in. I was famished. I sifted through the last twenty-four hours and tried to make some sense of it all. Vampires. Sex. Murders. Now, my supposed guardian had just stood me up.
The package, wrapped in a brown paper, sat on the breakfast table. I decide to open it now rather than later. Inside was an old journal tied with a ribbon. On that ribbon was a necklace with a beautiful angel hanging on it. I'm not sure what kind of stones they were, but they were blue and dazzling, even though the piece looked very old. I placed it around my neck. Then I turned my attention to the book, which was a history of a family. Hmmm. Why would he give me this?
I opened the cover and read the inscription.
My dear Brenna,
This book is the history of an important family: yours. I'm giving it to you so that you might understand what happens next.
With all my love,
Micah
'What happens next?' What was that supposed to mean? I flipped through the pages and was dismayed. It was written in a strange language. I'd have to see about getting it translated.
Some mysteries remain unsolved, though.
I haven't been able to find someone to translate my book—not yet. Evidently it's in an ancient form of Aramaic. Which leads me to believe it's not really a history of my family. I've no idea what this person (or guardian) was trying to tell me.
I delivered the envelope with "Xander's" evidence to Detective Karen Stonefield, who took it without argument, said she was glad to meet me, and asked for an autograph. Least I could do.
“Where did you get this?” She asked, nonchalantly. “Or shouldn’t I ask?”
“I have no idea how it came to me. I’ve tried to trace it,” I said. “But it was on my door step one day. It looks legit.”
She sized me up with a long stare. She was not at all what I expected a woman detective to look like. She was almost as short as me, but could have been a model with her glowing mocha skin and amazing physique. “I suppose you get a lot of troubled sorts attracted to you, with all of your vampire writing.”
I nodded. “If you have any more questions, or if I can help you in any other way, please let me know.” I handed her my card.
She seemed satisfied with that. As for me, I hoped this was the end of my involvement in any crime-fighting activities, even for my new vampire friends. I preferred the quiet life.
Just last week, I received an email from her, telling me that they apprehended the young man, along with a few cohorts. Good news. Exciting times for a woman who doesn't leave the basement much.
My part in the criminal apprehension was minimal. Xander and his crew had done all the leg work. But I felt good that I had a part in bringing justice to the killer, even though it was small. I wouldn’t dwell on the possibility that he might figure out that I had a part in it. After all, Xander said my “guardians” were strong.
I had to laugh at myself. Before this all started, I hadn’t even thought of the possibilities of real vampires, let alone guardians. Now here I was, feeling comforted by the thought of some kind of invisible force keeping me safe. A guardian.
I hadn't heard from my "Xander" since I've been home. But I knew I would. Still, I sit in front of my computer, sometimes willing myself to sleep in hope that he will visit my dreams. Often I just plunk away at my keyboard, feeling the cool metal and stones from my new “guardian” necklace dangling between my breasts.
Yesterday, I woke up and decided to move my office the dining room on a lark. It was the most light-filled room in the house, full of plants and good energy. I had been working on my blog and some short stories, but figured it was time to get back to the novel. It felt like a fresh start as I clicked on the file and read over the last bit, as I always do.
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 to him. He enjoyed this one's legs as she wrapped them onto his shoulder and moved deeper within her. The throbbing of her blood and the throbbing of her sex spun around in him.
Her hips met his in opposite reaction.
Oooo. He liked this one. She was strong with hips that move him, lift 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 into her, the orgasmic rush came 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 moved off of her, jerked away.
"Just who the fuck are you?"
Now at least, I had my answer.
Sexsomnia
By
Madeline Iva
Chapter 1
Her dreams were scalding hot and shameless, leaving her limp and listless by day.
"I'm sorry, what?" Jenny asked the poor woman for the third time.
"I said the machine revealed he kick
ed his leg sixty times in one hour."
"In his sleep you said?" Jenny tried to remember the woman's name. Nadia. Jenny had spilled soup all over her in the lunch line, and they'd ended up eating together. Nadia was a sleep researcher.
"Like a dog trying to run in its sleep. Like that."
Jenny swallowed. "So how do you get to be a sleep subject for one of these studies?"
"Sure, sure, I get that all the time." Nadia said, waving her fork. "Everyone's like, 'you mean I get paid to sleep fourteen hours a day? Sign me up!' It's the secret fantasy of half the adults I meet."
Jenny was aware she should be putting in face time with her own group, the behavior economics crowd, sitting way at the back of the lunch room. Only, she'd started to develop a secret revulsion towards them. The tone they used when saying her name creeped her out, for instance. Not to mention the touching. There was a lot of touching for such a professional setting.
Nadia was saying her love life was in the toilet. She was stuck in the research lab all night, every night.
"And I was thought there would be men here," she added. "I mean, single men." She chewed a sandwich. "You know, waiting on the park benches. And you could pick them up, like fruit in the grocery market." She smiled around her sandwich, eyes twinkling.
Jenny listened sympathetically. Most of the econ guys were single, but she'd rather poke a fork in her eye than suggest Nadia get close to one of them. On the other hand, she refused to look off to her left where the biology folk sat.
Where Turner sat.
"You've got salad dressing on the end of your braid," Nadia told her.
Jenny wiped it off with trembling hands, her eyes focused on the end of her orange tray. She was not going to look at where Turner was sitting. The effect was too overpowering. She could feel his eyes, sure that he looked all easy-going. His faded maroon T-shirt, complete with a constellation of moth holes in the back, screamed laid back. She both envied the way he wore his own skin and half-hated him for being so completely free from self-consciousness. She was stuck in a body that recoiled from any kind of scrutiny, and when he'd caught her watching him in the lunch line it was bad. It'd made her crash into Nadia, spilling hot soup and wet salad all over her. Her face boiled in a blush as she remembered.
"Have you tried the gym?" Jenny suggested. "I think a lot of the guys go over and work out before dinner." She could have reported that the biologist Turner, for example, ran three miles on the track every other day and then did sit ups and tummy crunches. Not that Jenny was stalking him or anything.
"Ah, that must be it," Nadia said, unenthusiastically.
"So Nadia," Jenny said twisting up her napkin in her hands. "After hearing you talk I've been wondering…if I've got a sleeping disorder of some kind."
"Ah." Nadia put the tips of her fingers together, her light Eastern-European accent thickening a tad. "The doctor is in. What seems to be the problem?"
"I'm sleepwalking maybe? I'm not sure. It's probably no big deal, right?"
"No, no, now you've made me curious. Sleepwalking is rare in adults, actually."
Jenny launched into her symptoms. She was beyond tired every morning, and it was only getting worse.
"How long has it been going on?"Jenny told Nadia that it had been really bad at the institute, but she'd been having problems with sleep since spring break.
"So, it's June, but you've been having problems since…April?"
Jenny nodded. "It's getting worse. A lot worse. I mean, I was just tired before, but now I'm waking up and I'm not in my bed. Also I've got rashes or bruises and other marks and I don't know how to account for them." Often she woke with a stiff neck, aching back, sore hips or all three.
Nadia raised her eyebrows. Jenny skipped over some of the other soreness she occasionally felt. Mostly, she confessed, she worried about the abrupt shift in demeanor that her colleagues had shown after a few weeks at the institute. They were all in the same dorm, and she wondered if they were…noticing things.
"What do you mean?" Nadia asked.
"I don't know. Maybe if I'm sleepwalking they see me? Maybe they're just weird." Jenny was reluctant to go on, but Nadia pressed her.
They were supposed to be writing a group paper, and at the start Jenny had been rather intimidated. Two senior professors bullied the rest of them—but that was par for the course. In return for lending their illustrious names to the paper, the senior professors made everyone else do most of the work, while they went off to play golf. They were not the problem.
"It's the five other men who make me profoundly uncomfortable," Jenny confessed.
In the beginning they were dismissive of all her suggestions. They also made it clear that due to her lack of seniority, her name was going last and she was going to do all the number crunching.
"Basic academic pecking order stuff, whatever."
Nadia made sympathetic noises.
"That was until two weeks ago. But since then…"
"What happened since then?" Nadia asked.
Suddenly the econ guys all seemed interested in her in a whole new way.
"It's like they're being nice, but it's too nice. It's creepy. A few of them have started touching me."
"Touching you!"
"Nothing too gross—it's like little pats on the arm. Or even grabbing me around the waist to hug me." Jenny wanted to crawl out of her skin simply describing it to Nadia.
"They sound fond of you, friendly," Nadia said. Jenny shook her head. She couldn't express that it wasn't what they did, it was the way they did it… their eyes cold, lips smirking.
"And I'm so tired all the time," Jenny added. "I'm at the end of my rope Nadia. I told them I used to sleepwalk and asked if they ever noticed me wandering around at night. This one guy gave me the strangest look. Then they all started laughing but wouldn't tell me why."
"That," Nadia said, wrinkling her nose, "sounds obnoxious. You think you're sleepwalking and they're all laughing behind your back or something?"
"Yes." Jenny remembered how furious she was when she tried to ask Bonifellow straight out if they were laughing at her for some reason.
What do you mean, Jenny? Why would we do that Jenny? Even the way they said her name seemed overly significant and full of secret meaning.
"Well, I could put you in the lab overnight and we could see," Nadia said, taking the last bite of her sandwich and wiping her hands. "How old are you?"
"Twenty-seven."
Nadia nodded, dimpling. "You've got such a baby face, I wouldn't be too surprised by the guys treating you like a student. You said you have a history of sleepwalking?"
"Yeah. Could that be why I feel so tired?" Jenny explained that on her return from Thailand she'd started feeling exhausted every day and had gone to the doctor—who hadn't found anything.
"Hmph." Nadia was looking more like a scientist by the second, Jenny thought, her dimples and smiles replaced by a look of no-nonsense clinical analysis.
"Wouldn't want to say until I saw your stats. But these colleagues are causing you a lot of stress."
"Yes."
"Well, stress can disturb your sleep."
"I guess." Jenny said, rolling her cherry tomatoes around with her fork. "It's just…"
Jenny wasn't going to share the dreams she was having. Erotically-charged dreams of a certain biologist stretched out on a narrow twin bed, gripping his magnificent member in his hand. No shame on his face, just a low lidded stare of promise.
A tap on the shoulder interrupted her thought. The ringleader of their economics group, Bonifellow, stood before them. He had the dark good looks of Italian heritage meeting Eastern Indian, with a generous splash of super-geek. Jenny saw Nadia was suddenly sitting up a little straighter and crossing her legs.
She wanted to tell Nadia he was an arrogant dipstick. He always wore wrinkled white dress shirts and a loosened tie. The heavy smell of Drakkar Noir cologne announced his presence about a minute or two before he arrived.
"I
ntroduce me to your friend," he said.
"Bonifellow," she said, stabbing her cherry tomato with her fork, not looking up, "this is Nadia."
She saw from beneath her lashes the smirking leer he gave to Nadia, as if he was God's gift. His hand on the back of her chair moved to walk his fingers up her back. Jenny sat up suddenly, her back arching, and the desire to stab him viciously with her fork almost overcame her.
"Bring her to our table next time, Jenny."
He smiled and, tipping a mocking salute, he moved on.
"He's cute," Nadia said. Jenny sat in shock at her sudden feelings of snarling impotence.
"I can't stand him," Jenny spat. "That way he smirked at you." She gave an involuntary shiver again.
"It's called flirting," Nadia said. "Maybe you're being a little paranoid, yes? Myself, I'm still looking for likely prospects this summer. What about you? How's your love life?"
"I don't know," Jenny said, bending low over the table, playing with her food. The lunchroom was emptying out. She hung her head even lower over her salad, looking off under her bangs towards the biology table. Don't do it. But she did. Turner and some guy with glasses and a round tender baby face were leaning forward in heavy conversation. Even so, Turner looked over and stared. It was not a friendly stare. You didn't stare intensely like that at friends. It was clearly an I want to fuck you stare—one she had no idea how to communicate with. She looked away, craning her neck in the other direction.
"So tell me more about that econ guy." Nadia said. "Single?"
"He's an asshat, Nadia."
"Or he's interested in you. Clearly you're a hot prospect."
Jenny shook her head. "Ugh."
"Come on," Nadia cajoled. "You're tall, skinny, blonde, and, well…" Nadia waved a hand, as if to indicate that they weren’t in the same league.
That morning Jenny had emerged from the dorm room in white cigarette jeans and a cute little teaching blouse. While she was crossing the lounge someone gave a highly inappropriate wolf whistle. She looked down the hall. The guys were all there—she couldn't spot who had whistled, but they were all staring at her.