Scarlet Heat

by Evangeline Anderson

  I was so hard for her—aching for her touch—but I knew I couldn’t rush her. I tried to ignore the brand at my back burning me, tried to ignore the beast inside me growling that I needed to claim her, to make her mine completely. This moment was for Taylor, this was my chance to show her she could be intimate with me and not fear the consequences. I held myself perfectly still, hardly daring to breathe.

  When my cock came fully into view, she stopped a moment and stared, a look of nervous anxiety coming over her face.

  “Taylor?” I murmured as she looked at me. “You okay, baby?”

  She nodded and blushed. “I’ve seen it before, but not in, uh, detail. You’re so, um… you’re really big.”

  “But always gentle,” I promised her. “If it bothers you, though—” I started to pull my pants back up but she stopped me, one small hand on my arm.

  “No, let me…just let me get used to it. Like I said, it’s been a long time since I wanted to touch a guy this way.”

  “It’s okay,” I said, trying to keep the growl out of my voice. “Take your time, baby.”

  “Thank you, Victor.” She gave me a small, grateful smile. Then, slowly, tentatively, she laid one hand on my cock and curled her slender fingers around my shaft.

  I hissed through my teeth as a bolt of pleasure ran through me and an answering bold of burning pain shot through my brand. God, I shouldn’t be doing this—it was dangerous. Too fucking dangerous. But I couldn’t bear to ask her to stop.

  “Does it hurt?” she whispered, stroking me gently, up and down. God, her little hand felt good. It was so soft and smooth and cool against my heated flesh. But I needed more from her.

  “Doesn’t hurt exactly—it aches some from being so hard,” I admitted in a low voice. “You can touch me a little harder than that, baby. Go ahead.”

  Her fingers curled tighter around my shaft and she began a slow up and down slide I thought would drive me insane.

  “Is this all right?” she murmured as she pumped me slowly. “Does it feel good, Victor? Am I doing it right?”

  “God, baby, you’re doing it so damn right,” I swore hoarsely. “Just please, don’t stop.”

  “I won’t.” She got a pleased expression on her face, a look that was half desire and half satisfaction. “This is good,” she murmured, pumping me harder. “I like it.”

  “You…you like being in charge?” I panted, grinning at her. She had me well in hand now, pumping with a strong, steady rhythm from the root of my cock all the way up to the tip, which was wet with pre-cum, and sliding back down again.

  “I do.” She smiled at me shyly. “I like being in control. Not feeling trapped or cornered. Not feeling held down.”

  “I’d never do that to you,” I swore softly. “Never hurt you, baby. Oh, God…” I gasped. I wanted to make it last, to feel her soft little hand on me forever, but I could feel myself getting ready to come. The pressure was gathering hot and heavy in my balls, threatening to explode at any minute.

  “All right?” she asked anxiously.

  “Good, I’m just…I’m not going to last long. Not while you’re touching me like that.” I tried to keep my hips from moving in time to her strokes and failed. It felt too good and I’d been on edge for too long. I needed to come.

  “Are you going to…?” She looked at me meaningfully.

  “Yeah.” I nodded. “So if you don’t want me to finish, you’d better stop now.”

  “Of course, I want you to finish,” she murmured. “I…I like the idea of making you finish to be honest.”

  “You like that, huh?” I laughed hoarsely. “Okay then, baby—come on—make me come.”

  “All right.” She pumped me harder and faster, her soft little hand flying over my aching shaft. There was a look of concentration on her face, her lush bottom lip caught between her little white teeth, and her full breasts swayed to the motion of her strokes.

  At that moment, a red haze came over my vision and the beast inside me roared, demanding that I finish not in her hand, but in her pussy. I wanted desperately to flip her over and shove my cock into her sweet, wet cunt. To flood her channel with my seed and mark her as mine forever. Below the beast’s demands, I could hear my wolf whining uneasily. When the curse was closing in, it was the beast who held sway. Its savage dominance frightened the wolf.

  I fought the beast’s desires grimly. Not going to hurt her, I swore to myself. Not going to do anything to scare her or take more than she’s ready to give.

  My hands curled into the blue bedspread on either side of me and I closed my eyes, closing out the scarlet heat that wanted to envelope me. I concentrated on fighting the curse, ignoring the burning of the brand. If I could just get through this, if I could just come before the beast inside me burst free…

  “Victor,” I heard her whisper in my ear. “Come for me. I want you to come, now.”

  Her soft sweet voice saying those hot words, her scent in my nose, her hand on my cock, finally, mercifully pushed me over the edge. With a low growl, I arched my back, thrusting fully into her fist and came, spurts of hot cum jetting from the tip of my cock and wetting my belly.

  At last the fire in my back went out—but not entirely. It was more like someone had doused the flames but left the coals, burning and banked for the next time.

  There can’t be a next time, I told myself as I collapsed, panting and spent on the bed. I can’t let this happen again. It’s too damn dangerous. I almost took her. Almost hurt her…

  And then Taylor was curling up against me, laying her head on my shoulder and sighing contentedly.

  “Was it good? Did I do it right?” she asked, stroking my chest.

  “God, baby, it was better than good,” I assured her hoarsely. “It was…a-fucking-mazing. I don’t remember the last time I came that hard.”

  She made a happy little noise of contentment at the back of my throat and I reminded myself that she had no idea of the danger she’d been in. God, I was a shit, risking her this way. If the curse had consumed me, if the beast had come out…

  I won’t think about it now, I told myself, taking a deep breath as my body finally relaxed. But I won’t let it happen again either.

  I can’t.

  Chapter Eighteen—Taylor

  We got cleaned up soon after that and went to bed together, even though it was still just the middle of the night. As a vampire, I knew I should want to be up until just about the crack of dawn and not wake until sunset the next day. But somehow, since I’d been with Victor, my body clock seemed to be resetting itself. I woke up earlier and earlier in the day and got sleepy sooner at night. It was almost as though I was slowly reverting to a daytime schedule—which made no sense for a vampire but then again, neither did going into heat.

  Nothing makes sense anymore, I thought drowsily as I put my head on Victor’s chest. Nothing makes sense but it’s wonderful. So wonderful.

  It was the first time I had slept with him in human form and I loved how safe I felt in his arms. The hard planes of his chest made a perfect pillow and his deep, even breathing relaxed me. Best of all, I found he kept me just as warm as a man as he did in his wolf form. Perfect.

  I usually sleep too deeply to dream, but this time my sleeping mind made an exception…

  I am with Victor, the two of us holding hands and laughing and somehow I know it is in the future—whether years or weeks, I can’t say. We are walking along the beach at noon—the sun hot and bright overhead, the sunshine warming my skin as it hasn’t in many long years. I look up at it, squinting the way you do on a bright day, but I am not afraid. The sun is no longer my enemy but a warm, benevolent friend.

  Victor says something I can’t hear. I looked over and asked him to repeat it.

  “I said, I think she’s hungry…”

  “Who?” I ask but then I look down and realize I am pushing a baby stroller. Victor is already kneeling on the sandy beach, cooing to whoever is inside the stroller.

  “Daddy’s litt
le princess is hungry?” he says, picking up a baby who looks to be about one and a half years old. He brings her to me and I look at her in wonder.

  She has Victor’s big chocolate brown eyes and my dark brown hair. Her little face is heart shaped and delicate with a button nose and a sweetly pursed candy pink mouth—perfect in every way.

  “She’s beautiful,” I whisper, in awe of the precious little girl.

  “Just like her mom,” Victor says proudly. He holds her out to me and she puts up chubby little arms, eager for me to take her.

  “Momma!” she says when I hold her. She nuzzles close and presses her chubby little cheek to mine. “Momma…love you.”

  “Oh, sweetie,” I whisper, holding her tight. “I love you too. Momma loves her little girl so much.”

  Victor puts his arms around both of us.

  “And I love you both. My two sweet girls,” he rumbles and I feel loved and protected and perfect in every way.

  The waves shush along the beach, the sand is rough and warm under my feet, my little girl is safe in my arms and my husband loves me—loves both of us completely. The sun beams down on us like a golden blessing and I feel a joy like I have never known, a joy I never expected to feel after Celeste…after she…she…

  The sound of shouting voices and slamming doors woke me. I sat up in bed, rubbing my eyes sleepily. The clock on the night table said eleven thirty. I stared at it in sleepy incomprehension.

  Eleven thirty? Why didn’t Victor wake me? Did he feed the baby? She’s hungry—I know she’s hungry…

  I stumbled out of bed feeling groggy and disoriented. The dream was still lodged in my head. I could almost feel the warm sand under my feet and hear the soothing shush-shush of the waves breaking on the beach. My arms felt empty, though. Where was my baby?

  There were loud angry voices coming from somewhere outside. Was something wrong? Was she out there?

  I hurried toward the sound, the voices growing louder in my ears. One of them was Victor’s and the rest were unfamiliar. She’s out there—I know it! She’s in trouble.

  I hit the kitchen door running and burst out into the sunlight. Half a dozen men were standing on the front lawn arguing with Victor. He was shirtless and still dressed in the black sleep pants he’d had on the night before. The bite marks from where he’d fed me at the club were very prominent on the side of his bare throat. He sounded angry but I couldn’t understand what he was saying. I wanted to go to him, to ask where our daughter was. But the sun overhead was too bright—it dazzled my eyes and felt too warm on my skin.

  “There she is! That’s her,” one of the men shouted. He had a black tribal tattoo on one side of his face and one of his arms was in a sling.

  One of the other men frowned. “Thought you said she was a vampire?”

  Vampire. I’m a vampire… The dream began to clear from my brain. There was no baby, no beach, no sand. There was just Victor standing there looking angry and the sun blazing down on me. I looked down at my arm, expecting to see my skin erupting in ugly red blisters as it had every other time I had been touched by sunlight.

  It wasn’t blistered but it did look different. It was no longer translucently pale. It looked…tan. As though I’d been lying out all summer (because screw skin cancer) to get that healthy bronze glow.

  “She ain’t no vampire,” one of the other men said. “She’ can’t be. Ain’t no vamp I ever met could be out in the full light of day without burning straight to ash.”

  His words seemed to alarm Victor. He turned to me and his eyes widened in alarm.

  “God, Taylor!” He rushed toward me, grabbed me up in his arms as though I weighed no more than a child, and ran with me into the house.

  “What the hell?” he demanded as he set me down and looked me over carefully, searching for damage. “What are you thinking, baby—coming out in the sun like that?”

  “I don’t know—I-I didn’t mean to,” I stuttered. “I had a dream about you and me and the beach and a…a…” But I couldn’t say the word “baby.” It hurt too much to realize that part was just a dream—a dream that could never come true.

  “You’re a new vamp.” Victor was still examining me. “And it’s almost noon—the sun should have ashed you. Do you honestly feel okay?” He looked at me anxiously, as though he expected me to blow away in a puff of ash and smoke at any time.

  “I…I think so.” I put a hand to my head. “I’m a little dizzy, but other than that…”

  “You need to drink.” He lifted his wrist to his mouth and bit down hard, severing the tender blue bracelet of veins with one bite. “Here…” He held his bleeding wrist to my lips. “Drink.”

  He didn’t have to tell me twice. Now that I was in out of the sun and thinking more clearly, I really did feel ill. Kind of woozy and slightly sick to my stomach—the same kind of feeling you get when you have heat stroke. But I had only been out in the sunlight for less than a minute. Still, even that short amount of time should have killed me. How had I survived? I didn’t know, but I did know that his delicious blood made me feel instantly better.

  “See, I told you she’s a fucking fanger,” a voice from the doorway said. “He’s even feeding her again.”

  “Fucking disgusting,” muttered another voice.

  I glanced up, my mouth still clamped to Victor’s wrist and stared at the half dozen angry faces crowding in at the kitchen door, which Victor had neglected to shut in his hurry. The smell of wet dog assaulted my nose and I almost gagged on the blood I was drinking.

  “You’re not welcome here. This isn’t pack property and you’re on my land. Get off,” Victor snarled at them.

  I pulled my mouth from Victor’s wrist, licking it quickly to seal and heal the wound.

  “We’re not going anywhere until you acknowledge the will of the pack master and agree to appear at the council at Skull Rock tonight,” Tribal Tattoo, who seemed to be the leader of the gang, snapped.

  “I’m not coming to your fucking council. For the last time, I don’t want anything to do with your pack!” Victor sounded thoroughly exasperated.

  “It’s not you that has to come,” one of the other weres said. “It’s her.” He pointed right at me.

  “Me?” I pointed at myself uncertainly. “I’m a vampire—why would I want to go to a council of werewolves?”

  “Because you offered mortal insult to the Alpha Bitch of our pack,” he snarled. “You have to answer for that, fanger. Answer or die.”

  “Mortal insult?” Victor demanded. “What the hell are you talking about? LeeAnn came here and trespassed on my land and threatened my wife. Taylor didn’t do anything to her.”

  “She laid hands on her, didn’t she?” a new voice asked. “Excuse me, boys. Coming through.”

  A tall handsome man with a neatly clipped mustache pushed his way past the other weres and into Victor’s kitchen. He had iron gray hair and looked to be around his mid-fifties but he was still quite fit and muscular.

  “Victor,” he said, nodding.

  Victor nodded stiffly back. “Pack Master Wainright,” he said, his voice a low growl. “What do you want?”

  “I want to address the wrong that was done to my daughter,” the older were said. “As I said before, your, ah, wife laid hands on LeeAnn. You and I both know that’s a mortal offense.”

  “No, she didn’t,” Victor protested, looking at me. “Did you, baby?”

  “I put my hand on the back of her neck and, uh, pushed her out the door,” I admitted, feeling sick. “But only because she was being extremely rude and wouldn’t leave any other way. I didn’t really hurt her though.”

  “That is completely irrelevant,” the pack master said blandly. “The fact that you touched her at all is enough for her to take offense. And I’m afraid she has. My LeeAnn has quite a little temper on her.” He shook his head and chuckled, as though it was an amusing quirk. Oh that, LeeAnn—girls will be girls. Ha-ha. Very funy.

  “Well, I didn’t know anything abo
ut giving offense,” I protested, crossing my arms over my chest. It occurred to me, rather belatedly, that I was still just wearing the thin white t-shirt and nothing else and I felt suddenly vulnerable and exposed. “The only were I know is Victor—I don’t know anything about your laws and customs.”

  “Unfortunately ignorance of the law is not excuse for breaking it,” the pack master said sternly. “I’m afraid you’ll have to answer for your crimes at our council tonight or…”

  “Or what?” Victor growled.

  “Or we can make things very, very hard on you.” The older were cocked an eyebrow at him. “I know you have a construction company, Victor. How would it be if you suddenly couldn’t find anyone to work for you? Or worse yet, what if someone sabotaged every job you did. What kind of a reputation do you think you’d get around the Tampa Bay Area? Not a very good one, I’m afraid.”

  “You wouldn’t dare.” Victor’s eyes blazed.

  “Oh, I’m afraid I would. And don’t bother taking it to a higher council. Not a were in the world would side with you—a lone wolf, an interloper refusing to acknowledge the local pack master… bonding himself to a vampire… letting her run roughshod over the Alpha Bitch without even offering so much as an apology…you’d be completely blackballed, my boy. You wouldn’t be able to settle within five hundred miles of any pack anywhere in the world.”

  “Why, you—” Victor started.

  “I’ll go,” I said quickly, cutting him off. “I’ll apologize, okay?”

  “Taylor, no—you can’t,” Victor exclaimed.

  “Yes, I can.” I lifted my chin. “Look, Sir,” I said, addressing Pack Master Wainright. “I know your people and mine don’t get along but I didn’t mean to offend your daughter. If an apology is what it takes to make you leave Victor alone, I’m not too proud say I’m sorry.”

  He eyed me coolly. “So you’re prepared to make reparations toward LeeAnn?”

  That didn’t sound too good. I frowned and shifted from foot to foot.

  “I’ll apologize,” I repeated. “But only if you swear this will be the end of it and you’ll leave Victor alone.”