Delilah Devlin - My Immortal Knight 03 (10 page)

“And cut short the investigation? I did promise to
answer your questions.”

She scowled at him above her glasses. “Shouldn’t you
be asleep?”

“Shouldn’t you be up and about?”

“I-I will be. I have plenty to keep me busy today—notes
to take,
measurements
to document.”

Joe’s eyes narrowed. “You aren’t really thinking of
measuring more vampires’ cocks, are you?”

“A single measurement does not a finding make,” she
said with a haughty tilt of her chin.

“You know the only way you’ll get more statistics will
be by bringing them here, to your bedroom. Would you really take that kind of
risk?”

“I did with you.”

Joe shook his head, fighting fatigue. They needed to
get a few points straight. Lily was heading down a road for disaster. “What if
they want to take more than a bite from you? What if they kill you?”

She shrugged. “Then I’d be resurrected as a vampire
and continue my research.”

“You don’t really want that, Lily. Besides, your vamp
may not be interested in turning you. He could just leave you looking like
hamburger.”

Lily grimaced, but her chin tilted higher. “Shouldn’t
you be sleeping?”

“You woke me up—how do you expect me to go back to
sleep with this hard-on?”

Lily licked her lips. “Since I’m responsible, I should
take care of it.” Her nonchalant tone didn’t fool him for a minute. A vein at
the base of her throat pulsed. “What would you like?” she asked as casually as
she might ask him how he liked his steak.

Every red corpuscle roared toward his cock. He lifted
his hand toward her, palm up. “Climb aboard.”

A shiver shook her breasts and her face tightened.
Lily laid her hand inside his and crawled over his hips, her slick cleft
leaving a trail of moisture along his rigid shaft.

“Are you sore?”

She blushed a fiery red. “I wish you’d quit asking me
that.”

He ignored her embarrassment and reached down to slip
a finger inside her, noting the heat of her swollen lips and inner tissues—and
the liquid that drenched her channel. Lily had worked herself into a state of
high arousal as she’d conducted her “investigation”.

He swirled his finger around, watching her face for
signs of pain, but Lily closed her eyes and sighed. Her areolas dimpled. Her
nipples constricted and elongated. Joe’s mouth watered. “I think you can take
me,” he whispered.

“Damn right.” She rose on her knees and grasped his
cock in her fist.

With his thumbs pressing her lips apart, Joe did his
part to ensure her comfort, reducing the friction between his cock and her
plump labia.

Lily centered her entrance over his fleshy head. Then
she sank, taking him inches inside her. Her indrawn breath expanded her chest
and his gaze zeroed in on her luscious, pouting nipples. She rose and sank
deeper.

Her breath quickened and Lily leaned forward to brace
her hands against his chest. With a determined cant of her chin, she lowered
herself, taking nearly half his length inside.

His jaw hard as granite, he bit out, “Faster.” He
released the folds of her cunt and glided his hands up to her breasts,
squeezing them in his palms. “Faster, baby.”

Lily’s face was mottled red, her lips trembling—inches
from her orgasm. She snuggled her knees closer to his hips and bounced
tentatively on his cock, a moan breaking from throat.

The lenses of her glasses misted over and he pulled
them from her nose, setting them on the nightstand. He leaned up to kiss her
shoulder, and her back arched, bringing her breast to his lips. He latched onto
one tight nipple and sucked hard.

She cried out, gliding her hot cunt all the way down
his cock. Joe’s head nearly exploded. His hands circled her back and reached
for her buttocks, gripping her hard, shoving her hips down, then sliding them
forward and back to grind his short hairs against her clit.

“Joe! I can’t move. Can’t—” Her voice broke on a
groan.

He bit her nipple gently, sucking the tender tip
between his teeth then swirling his rough tongue to increase the pleasure.

Lily’s hips jerked and her thighs shuddered over his
hips. He could sense her orgasm building sweet tension in her body. With his
hands gripping her round bottom he raised her, then slammed her down as he
thrust his hips upward, stabbing deep into her core.

She screamed. Her fingernails dug crescents into his
shoulders. Her eyes closed and a wash of fiery color spread over her breasts
and cheeks.

Joe felt his own climax rising from his thighs,
slamming though his balls and dick to shoot a geyser of cum inside her body.

He held her hips flush to his for several long
moments, circling her body on his cock, prolonging her orgasm until the
convulsions milking his sex grew fainter. Finally, Lily collapsed over his
chest, nuzzling her face into the corner of his shoulder.

Joe caressed her back, soothing her while her jagged
breaths grew even and her racing heart calmed. Finally, his own heart slowed
and he receded below the layers of his dreams. This time he watched through
misted glass as a girl with whiskey-colored hair pleasured herself.

Lily sang while she showered, confident the vamp
wouldn’t wake again to hear her off-key warbling. Her fingers itched to start
putting some of what she’d learned into her computer, but first things first.

She had to make an appointment with Madame Leveque and
shop for a dinner suitable for a vampire. He’d asked her not to go out alone,
but it was still daylight. Weren’t werewolves nocturnal creatures as well?

As she stood before her mirror, she suffered long
moments of indecision. Hair, up or down? Makeup, her usual careless swipe of
pale pink lipstick or a full face?

She wrinkled her nose at her reflection and decided
not to take special pains with her appearance. Who was she kidding? Femme
fatale, she wasn’t. She quickly wound her hair into a knot and secured it with
pins, but she glazed her lips with a deep rose.

Hurrying to the kitchen counter, she found her planner
and flipped to the address section. She punched the numbers into her cordless
handset and tucked it between her shoulder and ear while she gathered her
planner and keys and dropped them in her purse. She was quickly running out of
daylight.

“Madame Leveque’s.”

“Cissy? This is Lily Carlson.”

“Professor, you manage to slip past that weirdo last
night?” Cissy asked, wry humor in her tone.

Lily felt a blush rise all the way from her toes. “Not
exactly.”

“He give you any trouble?”

“Ah no.” She quickly steered the conversation back. “Look,
I’m calling because I need to see your grandmother tonight.”

“Oooh, I don’t know. Grandmere’s been here since early
this mornin’.. She may be too tired. Can you come this afternoon?”

“No. That wouldn’t be possible.” Lily hated imposing
on her friendship, but this might be her only shot at finding an answer to Joe’s
dilemma. “Would you ask her? It’s very important I see her tonight.”

“Sure.” Cissy’s voice reflected curiosity, but she
didn’t press for a reason. “I be right back.”

Lily didn’t have long to wait. “Professor, Grandmere
says she’s been expectin’ your call. Come after dark, she said.”

“Tell Madame, I’ll be bringing a friend.”

Relieved she’d accomplished one thing on her list, she
let herself out of her apartment. At the front steps she met Mimi Comeaux, the
superintendent’s wife. She wielded a deck brush, applying it vigorously to the
concrete steps—and she was humming, an unusual occurrence for the normally
pinch-faced woman.

“Good afternoon, Mimi,” Lily said as she passed her.

“Mornin’,” the woman trilled.

Lily gave her a second glance. “You seem chipper this
morning.”

The woman actually blushed. “It’s a pretty day.”

Lily eyed the overcast sky and raised an eyebrow. “Do
you mind my asking what you are doing?”

“Some poor dog left bloody paw prints all over the
front steps. I’m tryin’ to bleach them out.”

Lily looked at the smeared prints the woman hadn’t yet
reached with her brush. They were enormous. “You’re sure those belong to a dog?”

“Sure. A very big dog. He must have cut a foot.”

Lily remembered Joe’s account of the werewolf and
wondered if the woman was washing away paw prints from a primordial creature.
Despite the heat, she felt a shiver creep up her spine.
Joe would have my
ass if he found out I left the house.
But werewolves were said to be
nocturnal creatures, she repeated to herself. Lily shrugged, bid Madame Comeaux
adieu
, and headed for her car.

As she unlocked the door, she heard an engine fire and
glanced down the street. Nothing out the usual. She was just jumpy.
Nevertheless, she locked the doors as soon as she slipped inside.

The local grocer was only a block away. She parked
next to the door and quickly made her way inside the store. Heading straight
for the meat section, she wondered how she’d word her request. Bluntly: Do you
carry pig’s blood? What else could a vampire consume? All she knew was what she’d
gleaned from TV and movies—human blood and flesh as the main entrée, rats and
pig blood in a pinch.

The butcher smiled as she approached.

“How are you, professor? Would you like shrimp fresh
from the Gulf this morning?”

“Um, by chance do you carry pig’s blood? I’m thinking
of making…an old family recipe…for uh…gravy.”

The portly butcher eyed her quizzically. “I’m sorry.
If you would like to special order—”

Never comfortable telling a lie, Lily demurred. “No
that’s okay. Do you have something especially…juicy?” She knew her cheeks burned
a fiery red.

Both eyebrows rose, like black beetles perched on his
brow. “I have inch and half steaks—plenty fresh and dripping with blood, if
that’s what you really want.”

Why hadn’t she thought to go to another shop? He knew
her preference for white meats and seafood. Her sudden taste for blood-soaked
red meat had to be raising a question in his mind.

“Professor,” he grinned broadly. “Are you by chance
enceinte
?”

That was one plausible explanation she hadn’t
considered. Lily felt her already hot face burn. “The steaks will be fine. Two
of them please.”

“Two?” His beetle-eyebrows waggled. “I won’t be a
moment,” he said, and disappeared into a back room.

Lily took a deep breath and looked around, ticking off
the other items she would need when she noted a tall, broadly built man just
down the aisle from her. He was turned away, but she had the sneaking suspicion
he had been watching her. Somehow, he looked out of place standing in front of
a rack full of baby diapers.

Any other day and she would have given him a second
and third considering look. He was handsome—his features spare, harshly etched.
Manly. If Joe hadn’t already awakened her appreciation for dangerously sensual
men, she might have lingered to discover whether he really had been checking
her out.

Instead, a shiver of unease raised the hair on the
back of her neck. His build radiated power. His dark slacks molded thickly
muscled thighs. His loosely fitted cotton shirt didn’t disguise the sinew of
his back and shoulders. How easily he could overpower a woman if that were his
intent.

He reached for a package from the row of diapers and
she noted a white bandage wrapped around his palm. He looked over his shoulder
and his gaze met hers. The intensity in his light-colored eyes and the hard,
chiseled features caused her heart to trip. Some instinct she would have said
she didn’t possess told her that yes, he had been watching her.

“Professor, your steaks?”

Lily blinked and turned to the butcher, smiling her
thanks automatically. She was done shopping. She needed to get home quickly.

Lily paid for her package and walked swiftly to her
car.

“Miss! Your change!”

He’d followed her out of the store. She didn’t dare
pause to answer. She opened her door with the remote, tossed the package on the
passenger seat, and slid the key into the ignition with a shaking hand.

A shadow fell across her and she knew he stood outside
her door. She shifted into reverse and hit the gas. As she pulled away, she
finally looked at him. A feral smile stretched the man’s hard mouth.

Joe heard the scrape of a key turning in the lock,
then the clank of keys dropping to the tiled floor, followed by a mumbled oath.
He let go of the worry he’d experienced over the past hour when he’d risen
beyond his dreams to find Lily had gone.

Now anger swept through him, fast and blinding. He
opened the door ready to tear into Lily for her carelessness, but the look on
her face pulled him up short.

“Oh my God!” She launched herself into his arms.