Blood Wicked (6 page)

But he climbed into her bed, on the side opposite her, as
though they were an old married country couple and he expected to come to bed for sleep and warmth, not sex.

Nerves shot off inside Vivienne like a barrage of cannons. She had learned to take care of herself with any man, but with the attacker she’d encountered in the lane tonight, she had proved she wasn’t as invincible as she’d tried to become.

She rolled over toward Heath. She was so tired, but she reached out to his naked body. Why now, after years of being with men, should she feel awkward?

She was bedding a stranger. One with a title, but a stranger nonetheless. She always took care to know as much as she could about her lovers before she even allowed them to grace her bedroom. In the stews, she had seen what a man could do. Even gentlemen. The ones who smiled, who dressed well, and called a woman “love,” just before they would hit her in the face.

There was danger in this. Real danger. A woman could end up dead like this—and she was supposed to protect Sarah. And she’d grown up watching her mother having to have fleeting moments of sex with strange men for a few coins, to keep a roof over their heads.

Now she was doing it. Because she had to. To keep her own daughter safe.

She touched his waist, marveled at the solid feel of his muscles behind his soft skin for one breathless second; then he caught her wrist. He moved her hand back, where she wasn’t touching him.

“Tonight, love, you should sleep,” he insisted. “We touch when we’re ready.”

Ready? For what? She was quaking inside. Hot, bubbling, confused, yearning. And afraid. “Can you really cure my daughter?”

“I don’t know, and it’s too close to dawn. Let the medicine work tonight, and tomorrow night I will try.”

Tomorrow night. To pay her price she must seduce him night after night. But she’d never encountered an unwilling man before. He pillowed his arm beneath his head and smiled at her. And apparently intended not to lay a hand on her. But he made her feel anticipation and need, things she hadn’t felt for years and years.

Without even touching her, somehow, he was seducing her.

Vivienne expected to lie awake all night. Instead she must have gone to sleep the moment her head landed on the pillow for she found herself in Hyde Park on a sunny spring afternoon, in the hour before the ton went there. When courtesans came to flirt with gentlemen who would later be seen in the park with their wives.

She couldn’t be there in reality, so she knew, as dreamers did, that none of this was real. Arousal wound up in her, tighter and tighter, like silk stretched to a point where one more tug would snap it.

Even in her dream, she knew she had come here to seduce the Earl of Blackmoor. Something whispered that in her mind. And warned she would have to be scandalously daring to do it….

Dawn dragged him down into sleep. Heath had drawn the drapes in Miss Dare’s room to protect his skin from the sun. Then he had realized what she would do first thing in the morning: fling them open. So he’d left her bed and found a dark corner of the attic in which to give in to the day sleep.

One moment he had been staring into the dark, seeing every detail of the roof timbers, every flicker of dust in the air. Then he had been staring at the ripple of green leaves as sunlight dappled them.

He heard the clop of hooves, the nickering of horses, the shouts of gentlemen, and the tinkling laughter of young ladies.

He looked around in disbelief.

Hyde Park.

How in blazes had he got here?

He hadn’t. He had to be dreaming.

It wasn’t the fashionable hour. The pretty women were courtesans. The gentlemen were here to peruse the lovelies and select new lovers. He wasn’t riding. He was walking, bathed in sunlight, swinging his walking stick, aware of the swell of so many tempting breasts spilling over tight, low-cut bodices.

But the one thing that really aroused him? The feel of the sunlight on his skin, the way it made sweat trickle down his collar. The way it tempted him to strip naked and have his way with a bountiful woman on the soft grass.

A hand stroked down his back from behind, and as the hand slid down, his cock stood up. He turned, smelling a bouquet of sin: jasmine, roses, something sultry and exotic, and the rich, luscious smell of a woman’s arousal.

Miss Dare stood there.

He inclined his head. “Ah, you’re supposed to seduce me. Well, then, shall we find somewhere private?” In a dream, he couldn’t turn into a demon. Anyway, he couldn’t turn into one on the very first time….

“Why waste precious time hiding behind a tree,” she countered, saucy, sweet, tempting as the promise of eternal life when a man was dying in the dirt.

She rested her hand on his chest. And this time her body moved down first, while her hand slowly followed. It took him a minute to fully comprehend. She was sliding down his body, just as in the pool’s reflection. And all the men around him watched in astonishment.

“I want you. And I intend to claim you, my lord. Very publicly.” On her knees before him, she watched him. Her eyes widened, blue as sapphires, as the skies above Heaven, and she licked her lips. “I was warned you would be hard to seduce. So
I had to think: how was I to tempt you into madness, when I was certain you’ve done
everything
?”

This was madness. This couldn’t be real. But she was gazing hungrily at his rigid cock.

“So I had to think very, very hard, my lord.”

He was very, very hard. Hard enough to be as thick as two short planks. He should have stopped her. The entire crowd had stopped—talking, walking, breathing—and watched. Watched her undo his trousers and pull them down, and bare his backside to the cream of good society. And he didn’t care. Didn’t care that his tensed buttocks were on display to all and sundry. He couldn’t because her fingers stroked his ballocks until he had to let his head fall back and growl to the heavens.

Then her mouth moved in for the proverbial kill.

Her wicked little tongue just rested against the crown of his cock. The barest bit of sensation, and it drove him mad.

“Now to pleasure you everywhere, my jaded lord,” she whispered.

He forgot to breathe as those lush lips parted and she took him in. His cock plunged into heavenly, unbelievable heat.

Then she sucked him. Sucked him hard enough to drag his brains out through his cock. He had to bow his head in submission, for her tongue was heaven and hell all wrapped up into one blissful package.

He could be the most controlled man when it came to sex.

Not now.

First he panted. Then he groaned. And as she took him to the hilt and licked and suckled him, he howled, like a wolf confronted with a big, blood-red harvest moon.

He heard the fast breathing of every man around him. He felt their envy like blades pricking his skin. He reveled in it. And she looked up at him, brimming with innocence. Hell, she was smiling around his rock-hard, swollen shaft, smiling knowingly.

He was her slave.

At this moment, if she’d asked for the moon, he would have started to build an impossible iron bridge.

God. Then he was on the brink. Knew he couldn’t hold back. Hastily, he took her hand and stopped her pleasuring him. He cupped her cheek and eased her back.

Her smile fell. “But you didn’t—”

“Not yet, Flower. I think you should be the one to come first.” He pulled her to her feet and dropped to his knees before her. His turn to supplicate before his goddess. He shoved up her skirts and two quivering cream-white thighs confronted him. Along with gold nether curls, already damp with her arousal.

He grasped her bottom and jerked her abruptly to him, burying his mouth in those springy curls, burying his face in her sweet-scented, eager little quim.

She tasted so very, very good.

He gave her one lick with his tongue before her hands gripped his head and she pushed his mouth hard against her. She screamed in ecstasy, jerked and jolted helplessly, and ground her juicy quim into his face.

His orgasm took him at the same instant. Took him and made him shout, jerk, and howl as his heart and soul seemed to burst, as his cock most definitely exploded, and the climax whipped him thoroughly and left him collapsed and gasping on—

The floor.

Vivienne cried out. She jerked up in her bed, covers tumbling away. She was dizzy with pleasure, her heart racing, her lungs fit to burst.

The dream had been so very real she could taste Heath’s earthy flavor on her lips. And she had truly climaxed.

Then she knew, even before she looked. The bed was empty beside her. He had gone.

“Well, Flower, I definitely was correct about you. You are no ordinary courtesan. No wonder every peer in London was mad to have you.”

The voice came from her doorway. He stood there completely naked, leaning on her doorframe. Arm propped, ankles crossed.

She stared at him. “What are you talking about?” His face was flushed and he was breathing hard.

“You, my dear, are a succubus. And if you will excuse me, I have to return to my sleep. Which you woke me from, Miss Dare, with your luscious dream. You are not to go anywhere, love, until I’m awake and can join you again.”

S
uccubus.

He had not told her what he meant by it, what the word even meant. No, brimming with arrogance, Lord Blackmoor had turned on his heel and vanished after tossing that word into her bedroom like a flaming cannonball.

Vivienne jumped out of her bed and snatched up a robe. She dragged it onto her naked body as she charged out into the empty hallway. The door to the servants’ stairs stood open. She raced up the back stairs in the pitch black. She missed steps, bumped her shins, and arrived at the top. She searched the attic rooms for him, finding one locked.

Damn
. She’d run after him, but he had gotten here so far ahead of her, he’d had time to lock the door.

He was sleeping in a dark, ignored part of the attic. Faint snores came from the servants’ bedrooms that filled the rest of the space. She tried again to turn the knob. It didn’t budge. She rattled it. She didn’t dare pound on the door or shout; she’d wake everyone else.

This stranger had barred her own door to her.

She braced a foot on it and pulled. But it stayed shut. This was
her
door; why should it obey his blasted command? She had to admit defeat and trudge downstairs. Rage made her eyes burn, and sheer stubbornness held the tears back.

But, in the morning, when she tried to leave her own house, a rough-looking, thick-necked brute stopped her.

She stood on the threshold of her doorway, unable to take another step without walking into a wall of a man. She was afraid, but she tried to drown that with rage. “Who in blazes are you? And what do you mean, I am not to leave the house?”

He touched his cap. Never had she seen such enormous hands. “Orders from his lordship, ma’am,” he said. “I work for him. And his lordship insists you stay in the house until nightfall.”

Fury crackled. “This is
my
house.
I
am the voice of command here.”

The enormous man shook his head. “His lordship insisted this is for your safety, ma’am.”

She threatened the man with everything she could think of, from her pistol to a dozen years in New South Wales after he was transported, but he merely turned his enormous back on her and crossed his arms.

“I will have you bodily removed,” she roared at his back. People passed by on the sidewalk below, umbrellas over their heads to shield them from rain, all oblivious to the insanity of her situation.

“That would be a hard thing to do, ma’am. Lord Blackmoor hired me from my previous position as doorman in a gaming hell. I’m used to having to stand me ground.”

Wonderful. There was no point sending any of her servants out to deal with him. He was obviously accustomed to cracking heads.

Fuming, she stalked to the back of the house. Another enormous man stood there, smoking a cheroot. Within minutes, she
learned “his lordship” had positioned men all around her house.

She stomped up the stairs, but quieted her footsteps as she retreated to Sarah’s room. Warm spring sunlight spilled in and a soft breeze batted lacy curtains. Her daughter was still sleeping. Vivienne settled onto the chair she kept always at the bedside.

How had this happened? A dozen years of pain and submission and saving and enduring, and she was back in a man’s power
again
.

At dusk, rain, soot, and fog all conspired to turn the East End sky black as coal, making it safe for a vampire to emerge. Especially one in a heavy, hooded cloak. Heath stopped in front of the apothecary and held up his hand as Julian, also cloaked, headed for the door. “Wait,” he warned.

He wanted to take a few moments and take in all the details of this place he’d ignored before.

Yesterday, his attention had all been on Vivienne. He had observed the apothecary only in his peripheral vision. Now, through the window, he saw dust, grime, and a jumble of ancient bottles.

He stepped back from the sidewalk. Fog billowed down the lane; the cobbles were slick and shining from the mist. Clopping hooves echoed from another street. The store was a narrow one, squashed between an empty building and a cobbler’s shop.

Julian rattled the door. “Locked again.”

“You expected otherwise?”

“It was open last night, when we came with the courtesan.”

“Miss Dare,” Heath corrected. “She’s no longer a courtesan.” He drew out a slim lockpick and had the lock sprung in a second.

“I did it faster.”

“And clumsier. You left scratches on the plate. Scratches
which may or may not have been noticed. We have to be careful about this, Julian. And quiet.”

“Why? If there are demons here, they don’t need sound to know they’re being invaded.”

“True. But the place smells empty.”

“I can’t smell anything but the stink of chamber pots and rot. Same as yesterday.”

“That’s how I know there’s no one—mortal or not—inside.” The door gave a soft groan. Heath moved through the dark to the counter. Behind it Mrs. Holt had dispensed Vivienne’s needed drug. On the wooden shelves, bottles were crammed in.