Shadows on the Soul

by Jenna Black

  “Maybe you aren’t looking hard enough,” she suggested. “I’m going to imagine doing something wicked to you. See if you can guess what.”

  Jezebel closed her eyes, her cheeks flushed rosy with desire, her smile positively lascivious. He clenched his fists, stifling the urge to cross the distance between them and touch her anywhere, everywhere. His cock throbbed in time to his pulse, but he forced himself to concentrate on the connection. He closed his eyes, narrowing his concentration further, straining his metaphysical eyes.

  And then, he saw it. A vision as clear as if it were really happening. Jezebel on her knees in front of him, taking every inch of his cock between those sweet, sensuous lips of hers. A groan escaped him, and he wasn’t sure if it was real or imagined.

  It was like watching in a mirror, but even more real. Jez’s head bobbed as she mimicked a thrusting motion. He reached across the distance between them, his mind affecting her fantasy Gabriel. His hands stilled the movement of her head. Her eyes widened, and he sensed her surprise to find herself no longer completely in control.

  He smiled down at her, flashing fangs. Then, holding her head still to receive him, he began to thrust. She surrendered to him, letting him ram his cock all the way in. Perhaps she was too inexperienced to know she couldn’t take that much. Or perhaps she knew, but in her fantasy it didn’t matter.

  His arousal reached painful proportions as he watched himself fucking her mouth, but as clear as the vision seemed, there was no physical sensation to go with it. He knew if he didn’t touch her soon, he was going to go mad with desire.

  Gabriel pried his eyes open, reluctant to let go of the fantasy despite the urgency of his need.

  Jez’s eyes were darkened coins as she regarded him, her scent spiced with arousal. Then a furrow appeared between her brows and she cocked her head to one side.

  “I’m not sure how I’d manage that trick with these things in my mouth,” she said, indicating her fangs.

  He grinned at her, moving closer and cupping his hands around her flushed cheeks. “I’d be willing to take that risk.”

  Her laugh was as warm and soft as velvet. “Yeah, I’ll bet.” She turned her head, her lips seeking the palm of his hand and brushing a soft kiss across it. Then she looked up at him, and there was the devil in her eyes. “But I don’t get to indulge my fantasy unless you get to indulge yours.”

  Infuriating woman! His hands dropped away from her face, and he shook his head. How she’d managed to claim giving him a blow job as her fantasy, he wasn’t sure. “Forget it,” he growled.

  She put her hands on her hips and looked as exasperated as he felt. “For God’s sake, Gabriel! How can you be five hundred years old and be such a prude?”

  He took a step back from her, affronted. But it was hard to stay indignant when her skirt was still raised up high enough to display those incredibly sexy panties.

  “I am not a prude!” He’d never met anyone, male or female, who could unbalance him as easily as Jez could. Her expression of polite skepticism tweaked his male ego. He crossed his arms over his chest, knowing he looked defensive, but unable to resist.

  “I’m not!” he repeated. Not the most convincing of arguments, but he honestly didn’t know what to say to her.

  “Then why are you freaking out so much over this? You’ve said you’re a sadist, and I’m offering you the chance to indulge your fantasies.”

  “I don’t want to hurt you!” he said stubbornly. And that was the truth. Thinking about causing her pain was making his erection go down in a hurry. He wanted to make her scream, all right—but he wanted it to be pure pleasure.

  One corner of her mouth tipped up. “Then I guess you’re not really a sadist, are you?”

  The words struck him like a slap in the face.

  Could it be that his assumption of his depravity had been faulty, or at least exaggerated, for all these years? But no, that couldn’t be. He remembered what it had felt like to take his mother’s fledglings to bed, remembered how he’d reveled in their fear, in their pain. He closed his eyes to try to block the images out. He didn’t want to remember, didn’t want to think about it, not when Jez might be able to see through their psychic link.

  His eyes popped open when Jez took both his hands. He hadn’t sensed her closing the distance between them.

  “Let me in, Gabriel,” she said. “Let me share whatever it is you’re thinking that’s got you looking so miserable. Maybe I’ll be able to understand it better than you.”

  He recoiled, slamming closed his mental doors and reinforcing them as strongly as he could. There was no way in hell he wanted Jezebel seeing the things he’d done! She had some naive idea in her mind that he wasn’t as bad as he claimed. If she saw him for what he really was, she’d never let him touch her again.

  And, he realized suddenly, that was what he had to do. Hadn’t he been telling himself all along that she was better off without having any inappropriate romantic attachments? What better way to set her straight than to let her see the beast that resided within him.

  He set his jaw and stared into her eyes. “All right, Jezebel. I’ll let you in. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  She nodded solemnly. “I won’t. Now, come sit down.”

  Still holding his hands, she pulled him toward the couch. He noticed with a hint of chagrin that she’d untucked her skirt, but he supposed they’d gone past the point of seduction. He doubted he’d be seeing those sexy red panties again. He tried not to let the thought depress him.

  Laying his head against the back of the couch, he closed his eyes and let out a deep breath.

  At first, he was so reluctant to let Jez see inside him that his shields remained resolutely up despite his effort to drop them. It wasn’t like this was something he’d done before, wasn’t like he’d even known it was possible before a few days ago. He wasn’t even sure he knew how to do it.

  “Relax,” Jezebel said in his ear. “Don’t think about letting me in. Just let your mind go.”

  Skeptical, he nonetheless tried to do as she suggested.

  She didn’t think he was a sadist? Well, he’d show her! And he wasn’t as benevolent as those people with “alternative lifestyles” she’d encountered in her rebel years. Those people had enjoyed it only with others who shared their tastes, who were consensual partners. Not at all like his own exploits.

  He focused his mind on one of the most reprehensible of his reluctant playmates—Ian Squires.

  Gabriel had despised Squires from the moment he’d first met him. He’d felt the same way about all of his mother’s fledglings, but Squires had been the worst. His stink offended Gabriel’s nostrils every time they were in the same room together.

  Squires joined his mother’s entourage as a mortal, patiently waiting for the gift of her bite. And when she finally granted it to him, he ran away, delusions of grandeur making him imagine himself a master vampire with a harem of groveling fledglings.

  He’d run to Philadelphia, where he’d paid a visit to his old friend, Jules Gerard. The slimy bastard had used his glamour to make the rigidly straight Jules think he was succumbing to a seduction when Ian raped him. He then transformed Jules as his first fledgling.

  Luckily for Jules, the Guardians had caught wind of Ian, and he was forced to flee Philadelphia for his life. He’d come crawling back to Camille, who allowed Gabriel to punish him for running away.

  Gabriel had forced Ian to share every intimate detail of his time in Philadelphia, where he’d indulged a taste for cruelty that he’d barely kept under the surface as a mortal. Once he became vampire, he shrugged off all the constraints of humanity and reveled in his power.

  Ian had been a sadist in the most unimaginably ugly sense of the word, preying upon the weak and the innocent. He fed when he wasn’t hungry, just for the sheer euphoria of the kill. And even a forceful taste of his own medicine hadn’t tempered his cruelty, for the Killer was incapable of even the most basic empathy.

  Ga
briel had used his glamour to force Ian to beg for every blow that fell upon him, and to thank him afterward. And his glamour had dragged sounds of feigned pleasure from Ian’s throat with every indignity Gabriel had forced on him.

  The feel of Ian’s soul cringing in horror had made lust surge through Gabriel’s veins, had made—

  “That’s not lust,” Jez said, interrupting his forced march down memory lane.

  Gabriel shook his head to clear it. His brain felt all cobwebby. He’d almost forgotten Jez was here. And that she was marching down that memory lane with him.

  He shut down the mental gates, cutting off contact so abruptly it made his head hurt. How could he have let her see that? She was the one person in the world who didn’t think he was a monster, and he was destroying everything there was between them.

  “Did you hear me?” she asked. She didn’t sound as disgusted as she should have.

  Gabriel buried his head in his hands, unable to look at her. He’d never felt ashamed of what he’d done before. Now, the weight of guilt crushed him down into the couch. He was as disgusting, as tainted, as Ian himself! All these years, he’d told himself it was all right to indulge himself with his less-than-innocent victims. Now, he wondered how he could possibly have deluded himself that much.

  Jez put a hand on his shoulder and gave him a small shake. “Snap out of it, already.”

  He raised his head and forced himself to meet her eyes, trying to damp down his feelings, trying to make sure they didn’t bleed over into her. There was no reason she should share this swamp of remorse he was wading through.

  He lifted one corner of his lip in one of his trademark sneers. “Now what do you think of me, my sweet?” he asked in a vicious undertone. “Do you still think I’m not a sadist? Do you still think I’m not a monster?”

  He expected her to flinch away from him, but she didn’t. “I think,” she said carefully, “that you’re a very, very angry man. I think that no matter what you say, you blame yourself for the circumstances of your birth, not Eli. And I think you punish yourself for it by trying to make yourself into the monster you think you are.

  “But if you were a monster, it wouldn’t be just creeps like Ian you’d be picking on.”

  Gabriel snorted. “Tell yourself that, if it makes you feel better.”

  “I recognized Ian in your vision, you know,” she said.

  He blinked at her, not quite getting it.

  “He was the guy who picked me up when I was hitchhiking. The one who raped me, then watched while his fledglings took turns doing the same during their feeding frenzy. You’ve cut off my emotions about that, but not the memory itself. I know from first-hand experience just how evil he was. Let me just say that as bad as what you did to him was, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.”

  That, he couldn’t argue. “That’s not the point, Jez. The point is, I enjoyed what I did to him.”

  She frowned at him, her pretty face all squinched up with thought. “I don’t know that ‘enjoyed’ is the right term. It felt like justice to you.” She reached for his hand, fingers urging his fist to unclench. “It had nothing to do with sex or pleasure.”

  His jaw dropped, and he looked at her in disbelief. “Did you feel anything of what I felt?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then how can you say that?”

  She gave him a look of undisguised challenge. “Did you enjoy making love to me last night?”

  The change of subject practically made him dizzy. “What?”

  Her lips twitched in a hint of a smile, quickly suppressed. “I think the question is self-explanatory. So, did you enjoy it?”

  He watched her face, feeling something very much like suspicion. “Yes, of course I did,” he said slowly.

  “And did anything you felt last night bear any resemblance to what you felt with Ian?”

  “That’s not the same thing!”

  “My point exactly.”

  He opened his mouth to argue with her, but apparently she’d had enough of arguing. Before a word escaped him, she’d climbed onto his lap, wrapped her arms around his neck, and planted a breath-stealing kiss on his lips. He couldn’t help surrendering to that kiss, couldn’t stop his arms from wrapping around her and holding her close. Languorous warmth spread out from his center, and his hands moved restlessly along her back, finding their way under her top until he touched her soft, smooth skin.

  “This is sex,” she murmured against his lips. “This is desire.” She drew the tip of her tongue over his lower lip. “That was something else entirely.”

  Her kiss traveled from his lips to the edge of his jaw. His eyes closed, heavy with pleasure, each brush of her mouth triggering aftershocks that he felt all through his body.

  “Is this how it felt when you were with Ian?” she whispered hotly as she traced the line of his jaw upward.

  A soft groan escaped him as he shoved the memory of Ian out of his mind. He didn’t want to think about that, didn’t want that taint to color this moment.

  “Shut up, Jezebel,” he murmured, then turned his head into her kiss, his mouth seeking out her lips once more.

  She melted into him, her tongue tangling with his, her hands kneading his shoulders like little kitten paws. Holding her securely in place, he turned them, then laid her back on the couch, her head comfortably nestled against the armrest. With a gentle nudge of his knee, he parted her legs and settled himself between them.

  The contented, purring sounds she made as he kissed her electrified him. Primal instincts urged him to bury himself in her as fast as possible, claim her as his own, but he fought against them. Last night, his need had been too urgent to contain. The need was no less urgent tonight, but he felt more in control—more human, for lack of a better word.

  He pulled away from her, drawing a cry of protest. The protest died in her throat when his fingers found her breast and began circling softly. She bit her lip and stared up at him with lust-fogged eyes as her pulse jumped in her throat. He smiled as he watched the color that flushed her cheeks, as he saw her nipple tighten and bead beneath the fabric of her top. His fingers played all around it, circling close but never quite touching. She squirmed beneath him, the movement grinding his almost painful erection into the softness between her legs. They both drew in quick, sharp breaths.

  “Be still!” he said sharply, trying for an expression of stern command. Her impish grin told him he fell short of the mark, but she lay still anyway. For the time being. The corners of his mouth turned upward against his will. “Now, where was I?” he mused.

  “I think you were right about here,” Jez murmured, reaching up to cup her own breast, skating her fingers over the perky nipple.

  Gabriel grabbed her wrist with a feigned snarl. “None of that!” he said, pinning her wrist above her head. Her other hand was trapped between their bodies and the back of the couch. He settled his weight more comfortably above her, then resumed his sensual torture.

  He gave her nipple just the tiniest stroke with one finger, a touch that made her back arch and drew a moan from her throat. Then he shifted his weight so he could pull her blouse up and over her breasts, revealing a red satin bra that matched the panties. The satin barely covered her nipples, and he traced his fingers along the edge, loving the softness of her skin and its creamy color.

  She kept up her squirming, trying to move so that his fingers stroked where she wanted them. The feel of her moving under him made his cock throb, and he was afraid the stimulation would become too much and overpower his self-control. A touch of glamour stilled her struggles, and she gasped.

  He met her startled eyes. “If you don’t hold still, this will be over far too fast,” he said. He felt the shiver that rippled through her body, saw the hint of doubt in her eyes. He stroked her cheek with the back of his hand. “I’ll let go if this is frightening you.”

  She swallowed and licked her lips, then let out a shuddering breath. “I’m okay,” she said.

 
He brushed a kiss over her moistened lips, his tongue dipping in for the briefest taste. “If that changes, tell me.”

  She made a vague sound of agreement, and he returned his attention to her breasts, teasing along the edges of her bra with fingers and tongue. She couldn’t squirm anymore, but his glamour didn’t stop the sexy little moans and gasps that told him just how much she liked what he was doing. And just how much it frustrated her.

  When he judged she couldn’t stand the torture any longer, he popped the catch on her bra. Her perfect breasts spilled out, and he took a long moment just to admire them, smiling at Jez’s muffled oath.

  She forgot her complaints when he took one dusky peak into his mouth. Her taste shot an arrow of desire to his groin, and once again he fought for control. Much though he wanted the mind-blowing pleasure of release, the touching and the tasting, the sounds of pleasure he drew from Jez’s throat, were too delicious to come to an end so soon.

  He tasted first one breast, then the other, using lips and tongue and, very gently, teeth until the nipples were hard and sharp as pebbles. Then he raised his head to look at her flushed face, pondering how to torment her next.

  “Are you feeling this?” she asked breathlessly.

  He knew immediately what she meant. Even the idea of opening up the psychic link between them, of experiencing what she was feeling right this moment, took him perilously close to blastoff. He gritted his teeth and fought it off.

  “Some other time,” he said, his voice strangely strangled.

  Her little smirk told him she enjoyed that feeling of feminine power. He narrowed his eyes at her, once again envisioning taking her over his knee. The vision crystallized, the details clear. Her skirt flung up over her hips. Those insanely sexy red panties down around her ankles. Her bare, breathtaking ass just waiting for the slap of his hand.

  Her cheeks burned with color, and Gabriel laughed, having confirmed his suspicion that she had left the psychic connection wide open. He visualized putting up a wall around his mind, cutting the connection.

  Jezebel pouted. “Now why’d you do that?”