“That’s all right,” Candy jumped in quickly when she read the sudden anxiety in Rica’s eyes. It was clear that the shy Rica didn’t want her friends along playing chaperone any more than Marcus did. “We’ll be fine. We don’t have as far to go as she does.”
“And she has a longer walk home from the subway station. We’re just around the corner from ours.”
Simone eyed the two women critically a moment. Both were more than a little tipsy, Marcus having plied them with expensive champagne all evening. Elise even wobbled a little as she stood up.
When Marcus saw that he immediately frowned and reached out for the drunken woman to steady her.
“Now come on. I insist. I can’t let you go out into the cold night alone and drunk,” he said sharply.
“I’m not drunk…much,” Elise slurred with a giggle. “But we’ll all go together if you like. We’re closest so you can drop us off first.”
“Excellent,” Marcus said.
Getting to the car and bundling into it was only a small ordeal…but eventually they were all crammed into the SUV. Marcus was quite the gentleman, she noted. Anyone else might have focused solely on their target and simply disregarded the needs of her friends. This was true of both human and vampire males.
However, if Marcus wanted to cultivate a long-term relationship with this young lady, he would have to have great care of her feelings. He couldn’t do anything to lead her on into a romantic relationship and he couldn’t do anything that might hurt their budding friendship. True, it was obvious that Rica was already a bit smitten, but she had no doubt that Marcus could, and would, manage her completely. Unlike some vampires, she knew that Marcus was a purist. He would not want anything more then what was needed, nothing romantic, nothing physical other than the natural sexuality that came with a feed.
Once they had dropped off the other two women at their doorsteps, which left Rica alone in the car with Simone and Marcus. They drove her to her doorstep and Marcus quickly got out and helped her from the car. The young woman hadn’t had a single drop to drink, so she was not as unsteady as her friends. Still, she tripped over her own feet a little as he helped her to her door.
Simone watched from the car as Marcus disappeared inside with Rica. She didn’t need to attend what was no doubt happening next. She could easily imagine him coaxing his way inside of her door, shutting them away from prying eyes. Then he would ensnare his prey with hypno, making her pliant and willing. She could imagine him cupping her head as he tilted it forward, baring the back of her neck. Then came the lush first moment when teeth pierced flesh and he connected with the nexus of energy in her body where the top of her spine met the base of her neck.
Then he would drink. He would take in her energy with gluttonous speed at first, then would slow and measure himself with the rest. He would take just enough, not too much, and then would disengage before it went too far. Then he would leave the girl with instructions, just as Simone had done with Cyril, and would send her off to bed never to remember this part of the evening as anything other than a cordial goodbye.
Almost as if she had timed it perfectly, he emerged from the front door of the townhouse and trotted down the steps. He was now reeking with energy, she could see it on him. He was literally glowing with it and she felt the natural attraction that came when two recently sated vampires came close to one another. It wasn't so much a sexual feeling as it was a kinship. But as he got into the driver’s seat, she found that attraction to be more sensual than feeding off of Cyril had been. She envied Rica. She would have felt Marcus at his most vulnerable, and she would have borne the full brunt of Marcus’s sexuality. She wanted to know what that felt like. She craved knowing what that felt like.
Instead, she sat quietly on her side of the car, looking out at the passing streetlights. She was afraid if she looked at Marcus she would give in to the urge she had to touch him. They drove in silence to vampire central and she didn’t make a sound until they were alighting from the car in the parking lot. She noticed that he was parked far from the elevator.
“Tomorrow I’ll have them assign you a closer space,” she said.
“I don’t mind walking. It’s just remembering where I parked that’s the issue. I am over a hundred years old,” he quipped.
She laughed as they stepped into the elevator. She stepped to the back of it, leaning against the rear and gripping at the rail that ran around the inside of the elevator. She felt she had to do something with her hands or she risked reaching out and touching him, sharing in the eddies of energy wafting off of him. Her nipples tightened in her bra at the very thought of it. She imagined him doing the same…touching her in return. His hands were large, his fingers long and graceful. She could practically feel them on her breasts and hips and thighs.
But it wouldn’t be a good idea. In fact, it was a very bad idea. It was imperative they keep distance between them…no matter how much she craved otherwise.
Marcus rode the elevator all the way to her floor, even though she was safe in vampire central with its keycard coded entries and elevators and its live security forces and cameras. When the elevator reached the penthouse floor, he walked her all the way to her door.
“Well…I guess this is good night,” he said as she slipped her keycard into the lock.
“Won’t you come in for a little while?” she asked. “Danton and I usually sit up talking as we come down a little from the high of the feed.”
“You must be down already after so many hours at that club,” he pointed out.
“But you’re not. You’re fresh off the hunt.”
He hesitated and she could see him debating the merits of coming in versus the merits of going home.
“I don’t think so,” he said softly, reaching out to brush a stray tendril of her hair that had escaped her braid and now lay against her cheek. She felt the graze of his fingertips and it was like lightning charging through her system. “I think we both know it wouldn’t be a very good idea.”
It was the first inkling she had been given that the attraction she felt was mutual. Her breath caught and she met his stunning green eyes. The pull toward him she felt in that moment was so powerful she couldn’t seem to restart her breathing. She wasn't used to this. She wasn't used to denying herself the pleasures life had to offer. Otherwise, what made life worth living? However, they were building a working relationship together. She was trying to fit him into the role Danton was leaving vacant. She was trying to get him to become Danton, and she had never been attracted to Danton. They had functioned smoothly, she believed, because of that.
Almost completely against her own will, she stepped toward him, leaning her body flush along the length of his. She reached out and did the same thing her had done to her, smoothed back a lock of his hair. Their breath mingled as she came close to closing the distance between their mouths. Pure sensuality oozed through her as her attraction to him and the vibrancy of the fresh energy inside of him slid through her body.
“I’m chock full of ideas,” she breathed, “and none of them is bad.”
That wasn't true. Giving in to the attraction had ‘bad idea’ written all over it, but the attraction she felt was a thousand times more powerful than her common sense in that moment.
Marcus swore softly a moment before closing the short distance between their mouths. He swooped against her, his mouth catching hers hungrily, his arms wrapping around her willing body tightly so his hands could grip her flesh. One hand settled on her upper back and one settled on her hip, both drawing her as tightly as possible to his burning hot body. They connected mouth-to-mouth, chest-to-chest and hip-to-hip. His mouth worked hungrily against her and she was just as eager, just as skilled. After all, they both had been sexually active for over a hundred years each…two hundred plus in her case. Possibly more. She couldn’t remember…couldn’t think clearly. She was swimming in a miasma of pleasure and energy. Of course, the only way they could truly share energy was if they fed off of on
e another, and that was the apex of sexual relations between vampires, but that was something a lot more complex than just a kiss. A very passionate series of kisses. Kisses that made hunger grow and satiation feel all that much farther away.
She slipped her hand into his hair, holding him to her, her other hand sliding along his ribs and under his arm in order to do the same. There was hunger in her grip and in her kiss, just as there was in his. Each radiated vital heat and energy into the other. His tongue dove past her lips and they dueled and tangled and fed from each other as much as they could without actually feeding from each other.
He abruptly pushed her backward, the door, which still had its keycard in its lock, was solid behind her until he reran the card and the door gave way. But for that instant she was pressed between his hard body and the unyielding door and she thrilled in the sensation. He never once disconnected from her mouth as he pushed the door open and backed her into her foyer. He kept walking her backward until she hit another closed door, the one leading into her living area. This time she was the one fumbling for the knob of the door.
She found it and it gave way with a turn. She stumbled back, but his sure hands kept her upright and tight against his voracious mouth. The next thing she knew his hands had worked their way beneath her sweater, his finger scraping up the bare skin of her back. She dropped her arms from around him in order to shrug out of her coat. He did not do the same so she was forced to search for the feel of him beneath his. She clung desperately to his back as he continued to move her into the living area. Her legs finally contacted something and she realized he had backed her up against a couch. He grabbed her by her thighs and pulled her feet off the floor and she eagerly wrapped her legs around his hips as he knelt down onto the cushioned seat so she was seated on his thighs her back against the back cushion of the couch.
Now that they were settled and in one place, she urged him to take off his coat, tugging and pulling at it. He eventually let go of her long enough to let her strip it from his back. But the moment it was off he returned his hands to her body. His kisses eased, slowed, and became less desperate and more methodical. He tasted of her, savored her. All the while his hands on her skin burned and stimulated her.
Eventually he pulled back, gave them a moment to catch their breath…a moment to look into each other’s eyes. They both knew that to break off from the desperation of the moment risked letting sanity come in. It risked them coming to their senses and realizing this wasn't such a great idea.
“We shouldn’t do this,” she whispered.
“No. We shouldn’t. And I’m not known for letting myself get caught up in the moment. However…” He reached up and stroked a finger along the line of her jaw, his eyes searching her entire face. “There’s something about you. I’ve been fighting it all night. Like swimming upstream. It’s wearing me out. Wearing me down. So now it’s given way to this…this moment. What the hell is it about you that makes me want to throw my entire personal code to the four winds and simply lose myself in you? My head tells me ‘Don’t screw around with the boss.’ But I can’t hear it. It’s muffled and distant compared to this wild attraction I’m feeling. Do you have any idea what it was like watching you feed tonight? Watching a human put his hands on your body? I can only describe it as a combination of arousal and intense jealousy. Then watching you blossom and heat up with fresh energy, it was maddeningly stimulating on so many levels.”
“I felt the same just imagining what you were doing with that girl. I…I wanted it to be me. I wanted to be the one giving you the sustenance you need, to feel your teeth in my flesh, your hands on my body.”
He groaned and fell on her mouth in a fresh series of blistering kisses. They lasted only a minute before he pulled back again and looked into her eyes.
“We can’t undo this if we give in to our lust tonight. I have a job to do. Are we certain I can do it if I get this close to you?”
“I expect you to get close to me, to become my friend, to invest your feelings in my well being,” she said. “This would simply raise up the intensity of those feelings.”
Wait. Was she actually trying to talk him into having sex with her? She didn’t need sex. She usually found it to be an encumbrance rather than a pleasure. But when she did find her senses engaged and aroused, she never denied herself as long as the relationship wasn't going to harm her existence.
Would evolving their relationship so quickly and so intensely be harmful to her in the long run? She found she couldn’t answer that question. She knew that if she had doubts, any doubts at all, she had to address them.
“I know it would. Do you share such an intense closeness with your current head authoritarian?” he asked.
She realized he was asking out of an intense feeling of jealousy combined with a desire to get to know her better. He was wondering if she was the type of woman to make a habit of such things…and if she were promiscuous. He wanted to know if she was dangling two lovers on her string of the potential many.
“No. We’re just very good friends. And I'm not the sort of vampire who jumps from one lover’s bed to another and then back again as easily as the mood takes me. I’ve tried that in a lifetime long ago…it didn’t suit me. I prefer to invest all of my attention into a single lover.” She cocked her head and studied his features. “What about you? Do you change lovers as often as you change your clothes?”
“Not at all…although I haven’t had a lover in quite some time. There never seems to be time for it.”
“I know the feeling.” She paused and stroked a hand over his left pectoral. Feeling it tighten and flex beneath her touch. ”This would most certainly be a very convenient arrangement.”
“I need a reason more than convenience,” he said with a frown. “Besides, it could equally become very inconvenient.”
“I didn’t mean it to sound like that,” she said. “And as for inconvenient, it would only become so if we can’t act like mature adults about it….and it has been quite some time since I acted immaturely on my emotions.”
He studied her face a long minute, tracing his fingers over the arch of her left brow. “I could easily get lost in you…and I don’t know how that will affect my job.”
“Then perhaps we shouldn’t—“
“”I don’t make a habit of not taking risks in my life. I don’t live a safe life. The idea of it makes me shudder. I am not reckless. I think carefully before doing something, but once I do something I do it with full commitment. I’m not interested in a one night stand,” he said, watching her expression very intently. If he was looking for discomfort, he wasn't going to find any. She wasn't the one night stand sort of woman either.
“I‘m not interested in that either. But…there are certain things…certain complications that come with being the lover of the queen.”
“Such as?”
“Intense scrutiny. By the committee amusingly enough. My right and left hand men will research you down to the color underwear you’re wearing.”
“Since I am your left hand man now, just think of how easy it is to come up with all of the information I need.”
“Be serious,” she said after they shared a chuckle. “After scrutiny comes judgment. My people are always quite verbal with their disapproval if I select someone unworthy of me.”
“Leo never had to suffer through this,” he said with a frown.
“Leo is a man. Unfortunately the generations following the founders picked up on the bad chauvinistic habits of humans.”
“Hmm,” as his only reply. He began tracing the side of her face, drifting downward to her chin and even further along the line of her throat. She lifted her chin, her eyes closing as he trailed his touch down to her collarbone. It felt so good, for such a minor touch. It reminded her of how powerful her attraction to him really was. She could imagine this light touch all over her body, intermixed with the stronger ones he’d already used.
“Is it worth it to you?” she asked. “All of the disco
mfort and scrutiny? Is it really worth it?”
“Oh yes,” he said softly, right before he swept her mouth up into a fierce kiss. When he finished he looked deeply into her eyes. “I can stand a little scrutiny if you can,” he said.
“I’m used to it by now. But at least it isn’t like it used to be. At least I have some privacy. A couple of hundred years ago a queen would never have had the luxury of doing anything alone.”
“Not even making love?” he asked as he traced along the edge of her sweater, the V-neck leading him provocatively down her breastbone and toward the top of her cleavage.
“Well perhaps then. But there would always be someone just outside in listening distance. That’s one reason why I’ve never sought to be queen before now. I couldn’t possibly stand the lack of total privacy. I’m afraid I’ve pushed it even further, having Darcy as my only aide. She lives with me, but she knows to make herself scarce at most times. I sit down with her for meals sometime, but usually we don’t see each other unless I call for her.”
“You mean I can’t expect her to come walking into the room at any moment.”
“If she should, she would take one look at the clutch we are in and turn around and walk away, leaving us in privacy.”
“Good,” he said softly, on a rush of breath. “Because I'm not entirely certain we’re going to make it all the way to the bedroom.”
Chapter Nine
With that he caught up her mouth in a passionate series of kisses, His hand slipped downward, turned, cupped her breast through her sweater. Stimulation zinged through her, helping her to lose herself in the sensations of the moment. She arched her back, her hands smoothing over his chest. There was a powerful play of muscle beneath the fabric and she knew he kept himself in peak physical condition. Vampires were naturally stronger than humans, but like humans they could be stronger still if they worked at it. Marcus had to be stronger than the average vampire. He had to excel at everything he did. It was the only way he could capture criminal vampires and make them face justice. Then he would sit on the committee and decide if that vampire deserved to face a tribunal. The tribunal, made up of the oldest of vampires, would hand down a sentence if one was deserved.
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