by Sharon Page
He kissed her lips, then bent and kissed her nipples. He worked so diligently from right nipple to left that she giggled and moaned helplessly. The deep suction of his mouth sent shockingly wonderful pleasure through her. As if by magic, he drew her nipples to the tallest, thickest, most sensitive points they had ever been. She curved like a bow, lifting to him, pressing against their bound hands and wrists. “Oh, please . . . more,” she gasped.
His tongue traced lazy circles around her right nipple, then flicked over the sensitive tip. “Oooh,” she moaned. She watched as his tongue plied her nipple in various ways, leaving it tingling and blushing. Then he turned his attention to the left. Each suckle gave a soft, urgent tug in her belly. A tug of delight and need.
He nuzzled and licked her nipples as she tried to lift toward him, tried to take him deeper inside. But he kept teasing her, not letting her have more than the tip of his thick shaft. Yet just his sucking alone was amazing. The tugs deepened. They pulsed. They became stronger, harder, and a powerful tension wound up within her. She was reaching the brink of release.
“Yes,” she cried. She wanted him to know how good it was. So he wouldn’t stop. He thrust deep into her, and just that one slick glide in her sensitive, throbbing, tingling quim made her burst. Stars exploded in flares of white fire. She had to shut her eyes. She bounced madly beneath him. Pleasure washed over her, danced with her, surrounded and filled her. Until she could no longer moan. Until all she could do was sob in delight.
She floated in the aftermath, falling back to the bed like a feather wafting down to a field. Dante gave a gruff laugh, one filled with pride. She giggled in return.
“We’re not done yet, Mia,” he murmured. “We can still have much fun.” As he withdrew, she saw why. She had exploded in a climax, but he was still stiff, aroused, and ready for more. Her juices had left his cock shiny and wet. With a slice of his fangs, he broke the bonds at their wrists, then released their ankles.
More. Yes, she wanted more. This was their private world, warmed by a cheery, crackling fire. Their private, wonderful place where they could indulge every desire, explore every sin.
Even though she was no longer tied to him, she twined her body around his, her arms tight around his broad back. He chuckled low in his throat and caught hold of her hands. Goodness, he moved swiftly. He twined another rope around her wrists and tied her to one of the bedposts.
“Not all that original, love, but fun all the same.”
He lowered between her spread legs. A subtle twitch of his hips and his cock surged in again. He drove into her, then withdrew and shifted, so his lovely, long erection slipped between the cheeks of her bottom. He stroked in and out in the valley between her plump cheeks, then slid back inside her wet, eager cunny. Over and over, he teased her this way, making her moan and squeal.
He caught hold of her right leg and turned her so her legs fell open like scissors. He pounded deeply, so deeply she could only whimper. She could only lie on the bed, since her hands were bound, and take every delicious thrust. He pounded into her and she moaned, urging him on. She was on the brink of something amazing. Beyond any pleasure . . . beyond speaking or gasping . . . all she could do was float with him as his hips lifted her, as he claimed her.
Then a scream of delight exploded into the room. Many wild, untamed screams. Her screams. And Dante’s soft laughter—somehow over her frantic cries, she heard the low, sensual sound. He was chuckling at her as she went mad with pleasure.
“Come too,” she whispered.
“No, love, I want to last—”
“No, please. Join me.”
As if those words held their own secret power, she felt him tense above her. He let out a roar like a panther, drove deep, and his hips bucked wildly. “God, yes,” he growled.
Dante floated. He was undead, and he would never know a real heaven, but lying on a soft bed after such a powerful orgasm felt close. He rolled over to cradle Mia, but she wasn’t there. Bewildered, he sat up. She had scuttled away from him, and she was sitting up, too, her arms wrapped around her knees.
She stared into the shadows, her lips wobbling, her eyes empty and hurt. Then she looked up at him, and her anguish almost ripped his heart from his chest.
“Why do you need this so badly?” she whispered. “Why do you want to coax out my love? Why is it so important to you to think I’m happy?”
He bowed his head.
“In truth, wouldn’t it be better if we dislike each other?” she asked. “If we were to bicker and fight all the time? Wouldn’t that make it far easier for you to leave? Winning my love may ease your conscience now, but how much pain will it cause us both months from now, when you decide it’s time to go?”
“I don’t want months of hatred between us.” He knew it wasn’t much of an answer, but it was the truth. As for her other questions . . . he couldn’t contemplate how he would feel when he left. Angry. Bitter. Dejected, furious, wounded, and pained beyond belief. To become a vampire, he had gone to the brink of death. He suspected that would be like attending a picnic compared to the agony of leaving Mia.
“It’s more than just my conscience,” he said. “You deserve to know how much I love you. You might hate me for leaving, but you’ll know, at least, how much pain I will be in.”
“There are more than just your feelings involved in this.” She got off the bed and walked, naked, to the window. Mia possessed a perfect hourglass shape, lovely shoulders, a neat waist, and a generous flare of hips.
She pulled open the drapes. Moonlight fell upon the white snow. Dante felt the instinctive hunger only a vampire would at the sight of a dark night and a plump moon. He wanted to shift shape into bat form and fly. He wanted to hunt and feed. To deny it was physical agony that surged through his veins. He had to grit his teeth to keep from howling. But he welcomed the pain at this moment.
Mia turned to him, her hair a rippling wave of gold, her eyes flashing with pain. “It’s hopeless! Even though I know you are going to leave me, all I want to do is get back into bed with you and beg you for more. If you make me yearn for you like this, how will I bear it when you’ve gone?”
5
On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me . . . Two turtledove feathers to tickle every inch of my naked skin.
Amelia reread the note left on the pillow beside her while she’d slept. Two long white feathers had lain beside it. She quivered as though Dante were already tickling her. Of course he had not answered her question last night. How will I bear it when you’ve gone?
It had been an idiotic thing to ask. She knew exactly what she would feel when he left her, this time for good. She would hurt. She would yearn. She would cry and mourn all over again. Last night, she’d learned nothing would change his resolve. Not anger. Not hurt. Not pretending they could somehow make a marriage work. He had told her he would marry her, but he would not stay. It was as simple as that.
Amelia picked up one feather and drew it across her cheek. She shut her eyes, imagining running the firm tip along Dante’s naked back, tracing the remarkable planes of his muscles, then swooping down his spine and stroking the firm curves of his naked arse. She could caress his erect cock. She would like to tease every inch of him, too.
It was daylight—far later in the morning than she had been allowed to awaken when she was a downstairs maid. Dante would be sleeping now. He had told her he would leave the house for the day and return at dusk, since he slept during the day and could not be exposed to daylight.
Amelia got out of bed and dressed. She didn’t relish facing the earl and countess again today. Thank heaven for Christmas guests. Lady Matlock was too refined to make scenes in front of friends and relatives. Since nighttime seemed an eternity away, Amelia donned a cloak and went to the kitchen. She took a piece of cheese and a hunk of fresh bread for her breakfast and ate it as she went outside and walked away from the house.
She was in the woods, dusting the crumbs from her gloves, when she hear
d a strange sound. A pained grunting. Her heart was a roar in her ears as she crept forward. It could be a trapped animal, and it would be foolhardy to approach. But if it was a creature in pain, she could alert the steward. What terrified her more was the fear it was Dante.
It was a gray-haired man, on his hands and knees in the snow. The trail behind him revealed he had crawled this way for yards, and the smooth white drifts were speckled with blood drops. She gasped as he weakly looked up at her, pale as a ghost, his body shaking. It was the head groom, Thompson. A strapping man of fifty who was normally as strong as an ox.
She hurried to the poor man and crouched by him. “What happened? Were you attacked by an animal? Where are you hurt?”
“Miss Watson . . . help me,” he croaked. His lips were purplish blue, his skin as pale as parchment.
She offered her arm to help him stand. He leaned heavily on her and quivered like a leaf in a storm. “Thank ye . . . I were attacked . . . but it were . . . no animal.”
“A person did this to you?” she asked, horrified. “Was it someone known to you?”
“Stranger . . . miss . . . not human . . .”
Amelia stopped, aware of the creaking of ice-coated tree branches in the stillness, the loud drum of her heart. “What do you mean ‘not human’? What happened, Thompson? You must tell me everything.” His shaky hand went to his neck. There were two small bruises on his throat. No, the tiny dark marks were . . . punctures. Dear God.
She helped Thompson limp toward the house, but she had a horrible thought. Should she take him back? Would he reveal the truth about Dante? In that instant, she made a choice. She had to help this man, even if it meant the household discovered Dante was a vampire. She could not turn her back on someone who needed her help.
As they got closer to the house, Thompson gained more strength. “I were up before light, miss . . . grooming the horses. Heard a sound . . . in the woods. Had . . . to go . . . couldn’t stop. A man grabbed me. He . . . had a black cloak . . . hood pulled low. He was so strong . . . dragged me to the snow and sank his teeth into my neck . . . fangs like a wolf. He drank . . . my blood.”
“And you . . . you . . .” She stumbled over the question. Surely he would have said if he knew it was Dante. “Did you recognize him? Did you know him?”
“No . . . heard tales . . . from the village. There are demons . . . soulless monsters . . . in the woods. The undead. Vampires.”
“Thompson, that can’t be possible!” she said firmly, praying she sounded believable. But she felt sick with horror. Was it Dante? Had he attacked the groom?
“It wasn’t me, love. I promise you it wasn’t. But you were correct—it was a vampire.”
Dante was sprawled naked on the bed at the house known as the House of Pleasure. He held the feathers, waiting for her to join him. But Amelia couldn’t. She was too afraid. Afraid she would have to face the truth of what he was. Thompson had recovered, but she was frightened.
She crossed her arms over her naked bosom, pacing by the foot of the bed. “It was a vampire, but not you. Who, then? There are more vampires here? I—” I cannot believe it. I think you are lying. She couldn’t say the words, but they stabbed at her heart.
“I believe it was the vampire who made me five years ago. My sire. He buried me here a year ago. He fashioned a grave for me underground, using earth and the magic he possessed. He imprisoned me.” Dante held out his hand. Relief made her knees as wobbly as jelly. She went to him, kneeling on the soft mattress at his side.
“Lie down, Mia,” he murmured.
She did, but whispered, “Why did he come back?”
“I don’t know.” He got up on his knees, his face serious. Worried. He managed to smile, yet she could see he was still troubled. “It’s the truth, Mia. I didn’t hurt Thompson. Nor did I attack any of the young women in the village who have been reputedly fed upon by a vampire.”
The feather skimmed over her breasts, making her tremble. She had to close her eyes as he traced her breasts. She gasped as he used both feathers and flicked them back and forth over her nipples. While he did that, he lowered to his knees and mercilessly licked her clit. Her exploding climax made her scream. He lifted her, laughing, tossed the feathers aside, and carried her off the bed. He lowered them both to the Aubusson carpet. Weakly, she wrapped her arms and legs around him and came again and again as he thrust his cock inside her.
Finally, spent, exhausted, delirious with pleasure, she fell back on the rug. “But . . . but why did he put you in a prison? If he made you, why would he do such a thing to you?”
Dante’s eyes reflected the firelight at her, glowing like gold sovereigns. “Can’t you guess, love? He wanted a companion. A man to join him in his pursuit of erotic pleasure. Not only did he want us to share women together and go to orgies, he wanted us to be lovers.”
Her mouth dropped open in shock.
“Vampires, I discovered, make love freely with both genders. It doesn’t matter to them. They enjoy sex for its own sake.”
“Did you . . . have sex with him? With other men?”
He ducked his head, looking so vulnerable and wounded her heart lurched in sympathy.
“But I loved you, Mia. I craved you. That was what made my sire angry enough to lock me in a frozen, underground tomb. He hungered for me, but I wanted only you.”
He gazed at her beneath lowered lashes, with a shyness that filled her with love. How could she ever part from this man? Yet there was no point in speaking of that. “What was it like?” she whispered, so quietly she doubted he could hear. But he lifted his head, brows arched in surprise.
“What was what like, love?”
A blush flamed over Amelia’s skin. “Making love with other men.”
The blunt question stunned Dante. He’d thought she would be shocked, appalled, disgusted. Instead, she was scarlet, but obviously waiting, eyes wide, for his answer. Apparently the thought intrigued her—her nipples were two prominent points beneath the silk of her nightdress.
He rolled onto his side and propped his hand against head. He held the feathers, but she plucked one from his grasp. Shyly, she stroked it across his bare chest, drawing swirls around his erect nipples, just as he’d done to her. “Would you tell me?”
“It excites you. I can tell.” It was not just the sight of straining nipples or the sultry but uncertain gaze of her heavy-lidded eyes. He could smell the lush wetness of her quim. “Can you guess how men make love?”
Amelia shook her head.
“Men use their hands—jerking each other’s cocks vigorously. When men are lovers, they enjoy sucking and licking each other’s pricks. A man likes to suck hard on the taut head, drawing the shaft deeply down his throat. Men are competitive by nature. Two men having sex will turn it into a carnal battle, a challenge to see which will make the other come first.”
Her blush washed over her body. Her hand strayed down, stroking her clit between soft nether curls. His breath caught as he watched her instinctively arousing herself.
“Of course, the ultimate pleasure for male lovers is sodomy. To bury a cock in a man’s tight, hot arse. The grip is remarkably snug, since the muscles of a man’s buttocks are so strong.”
“And you . . . you did that?”
“When I first became a vampire, I was remarkably randy. I craved sex every moment while I was awake. And I thought you were lost to me forever.”
He told her everything, revealing all the things he thought he would never say, not to the woman he loved. “I don’t remember very much about the night I was transformed. I remember sweeping you into my arms and carrying you through the snow to the cottage. I will never forget making love to you beneath the fur throws. The sound of your soft breathing as you slept in my arms . . . that I could never forget. For the year I was imprisoned in the ground, I would dream I was back in the cottage with you, and you were sleeping beside me.”
He didn’t remember the moment of being bitten, and afterward he had lost co
nsciousness. Sometime later, he’d awoken, to find he was lying on a sumptuous bed, shackled hand and foot. He had been dressed, but he’d seen a difference in his skin—it was paler. His muscles had felt strange. He’d sensed a new strength to them, even though he could not use them and could not break free of his chains. Hunger had rushed through him. But it wasn’t the growling, gut-gnawing hunger for food. It was a craving that seemed to flow through his very arteries and veins. Suddenly he became aware of so much more beyond the bed and imprisonment. The room in which he was a captive was magnificent—silk hangings on the walls, along with enormous oil paintings done by Italian masters. Gilt and gold gleamed all around him. He could hear the creak of terrace doors, the lap of water against rock, the shouts of sailors in the distance, the cry of seabirds. The air smelled of salt water and greenery. He could smell exotic spices on the breeze and the tang of sex coming from somewhere else in the house. Everything was so intense.
He had shouted in fury, fighting his chains, and within moments a man with long black hair and the face of a fallen angel had entered, literally floating on air. At first, Dante had thought the man was telling him a pack of lies. How could he have been brought to an island in the Mediterranean without remembering a ship? Then his maker had cut his own wrist with his fangs, and at the scent of blood, Dante had almost gone mad with hunger and lust. Within two days, he had finally understood what he had become. It took months before Dante was willing to let go of grief and rage. Before he accepted he could never go home. After that, he had joined his sire in his eternal quest for carnal novelty. They had toured Europe together, and he had racked up hundreds of sexual conquests and experiences. During it all, his heart had remained broken, had ached for Amelia, had ached for love. Finally, he had understood that eternity was not worth living without true love. So he’d come home. “I expected to die,” he said softly. “I thought I would be caught and destroyed by villagers or by my sire. Or I would make the choice to destroy myself—”