Demon Moon (8 page)

Colin caught her. He hadn't been there a moment before; she was certain of it. She'd seen him at his table, where he'd spent the whole of the night. Watching her.

She hadn't known he could move so quickly.

His arm circled her waist, his chest hard and warm against hers. He didn't look at her, but over her head. His jaw clenched in a tight line.

Behind her, the vampire babbled incoherently.

“He didn't do anything,” Savi said quickly. This vampire didn't deserve to pay for her mistake, her stupidity, her drunkenness. But how to convince Colin?

She tried not to slur. “Your lips are beautiful.”

He flinched, and lowered his gaze. “You bloody foolish chit. You think to manipulate me?” he gritted, but his eyes softened as he searched her features, as he inhaled her breath. “Christ. You're completely foxed.”

“Deep in my cups,” she agreed, nodding.

He blinked. After a long moment, a smile teased the corners of his mouth. “Sweet Savitri, what have you been reading?”

She needed to stop looking at him; surely he was worse for her brain than alcohol. But the firm curves of his upper lip were extraordinary—the dip in the center looked as wide as her forefinger. She reached up to test it.

“I had a phase about five years ago. I read about lords and ladies. Waltzes. Did you waltz?” The faint stubble was rough against her fingertip; a perfect fit.

Colin gripped her wrist, pulled it away, and slid his hand down to clasp his palm against hers. “Yes.” His other hand settled over her hip. “Toss him out,” he said to someone behind her. “Clear them all out.”

And he swept her off her feet.

She didn't know how he did it; though past closing time, dancers still bumped and ground across the floor—yet he twirled her through them without touching a single person. She couldn't keep up or match his steps. He lowered his forearm to cradle her bottom, then he lifted her against him and glided.

“Oh my god.” Lights and colors whirled around her.

“Focus on my beautiful lips, Savitri, lest you become dizzy.”

“And cast up my accounts?”

“Yes,” he said, laughing; how could she
not
look at his mouth when he did that? At his elongated canines, the sharp white line of his teeth. But it was safer than looking at his eyes and risking seeing the wholehearted, almost boyish delight that had so captivated her in Caelum.

The sound of his amusement rumbled through her, combined with the heavy beat of the music. He wore cologne, a light masculine fragrance with notes of orange and papaya and sandalwood. She buried her face in his neck, wrapped her thighs around his lean hips.

Oh my god
. His cock was thick and hard beneath his trousers, nestled between her legs. Another perfect fit; she remembered all too well how perfect.

She could come just from this.

“It didn't work,” he said in Hindi. He sounded almost apologetic.

She was burning, burning. Just like Polidori's. “What didn't?”

“The woman from the stairwell. Acting the ass at the bar, that you would put distance between us. It seems I can protect you from everyone but myself.”

Her body went rigid; her eyes flew open.
I don't always have control
. He'd tried to regain it by feeding, but that had been hours ago. How thin was it now? Her heart pounded. “You were lying at the bar?”

“No. But a gentleman can tell the truth without being cruel, if he wishes it.” He slowed next to his table, and eased down onto the sofa without letting her go. Her knees sank into the cushions. His arm across her lower back trapped her hips against his. “Do not mistake me for a kind man, Savitri.”

She wouldn't. Not again.

“What are you going to do?” She pushed at his chest.

“Taste you.” He cupped her jaw. His thumb smoothed across her cheek. “Only your mouth, and only if you agree.”

Tension coiled through her stomach, arousal and fear. And heat. He was a fever inside her, a sickness. “What if I don't?”

“I'll carry you to my suite and do it there.” The apology dropped from his tone. “I don't intend to take your blood, Savi. I simply want—
need
—to taste you.” His chest rose and fell beneath her hand. “I think I will die if I do not.”

She wouldn't believe that; only poets and horny teenagers did. But her gaze dropped to his lips. “Just a kiss?”

“Yes.” With gentle pressure, he urged her nearer. “A sword lies behind the wall panel. The spring is two inches above the sofa, one foot in.”

Did he think she would need it? But if he lost that much control, she'd have no possibility of defense.

She'd had a better chance against the nosferatu.

Her palms slid over his shoulders, up to curve around the back of his neck. Her fingers buried in the hair at his nape. So thick and soft.

“This must be because I'm drunk,” she whispered as she lowered her mouth to his. “I know better.”

So did he.

Surely nothing good would come of this. He'd measured his desire against his sense for hours. In the end, he was simply too selfish a creature; no matter how heavy the consequences, his need outweighed them.

Her scent had tormented him. Distance hadn't helped. He'd watched her on the dance floor, as she sat at the bar and drank with an unquenchable thirst that seemed to equal his own, alternating between alcohol and water as if searching for anything to give her ease.

Her skin burned through the silk of her shirt; whatever she'd been searching for, she apparently hadn't found it.

Terrible and frightening had been the moment when he'd taken the woman he'd seen on the stairs, and realized his hunger had not abated—when he'd realized Savitri had caused it, and was likely the solution. But she was no different from any other woman: all without flavor but for their blood.

Her lips pressed tentatively against his, and his stomach hollowed in relief. He was hard, aching for her, but there was nothing magical in this. Just a kiss, something he'd experienced thousands of times with thousands of women.

Just her fragrance, tickling at a memory and creating an involuntary response. It must be.

Her mouth opened, and she swept her tongue between his lips.

And he
tasted
her. Sweet. Warm and mellow, and beneath it, a dark, rich essence.

Impossible.

Colin held himself still, disbelieving. Pleasure spilled through him, thick and heated. Not the same as bloodlust, but as powerful.

She drew his lower lip between her teeth. He wanted to beg her to return to a deeper kiss, but didn't trust himself to speak, to move.

Don't frighten her. Don't let her stop
.

He released her, dug his hands into the sofa cushions.

Her tongue sought his, stroking. A moan rose in his throat. Her slight weight was a delicious pressure against his rigid shaft, and she moved in time with her kiss.

How? Why? Chocolate, fries, apples and cinnamon, lime and salt—he could not taste them, nothing but that incredible sweet flavor, the heat of her mouth.

With each rock of her hips the ache of his cock became more exquisite, more unbearable. She suckled softly on his tongue.
Yes, Savi—don't stop. Don't
—

Bloody hell, he was going to spend. Right here, with this slip of a girl atop him. Astounded, Colin opened his eyes, met her velvet brown gaze.

She'd been watching him, gauging his response. Surprise and knowledge filled her psychic scent before she lowered her lids and began devouring his mouth, tasting and licking.

His heart raced. Her fingers tugged on his hair, and she sank deeper, deeper. She worked him over as easily as he had Fia, or any of the other women he'd fed from that evening…or in the past two centuries. He couldn't stop her—didn't
want
to stop her, but she couldn't do this to him, couldn't, not without—

She bit his tongue; blood flowed into his mouth. His own, but it mixed with her flavor and flashed through him, a bolt of lightning arcing along his veins. He stiffened, panted into her lips.

She raised her head, her gaze narrowed on his face, triumph and pleasure chasing across her expression. Incredulous, he couldn't muster the slightest embarrassment, though it was impossible for her not to realize what was happening. Her sex pressed against him. She couldn't mistake the ecstasy that shook him. He could feel the heat of her, but the wet was his own.

Good God
. She'd made him come in his pants.

And she'd done it with a single kiss.

His chest heaved, and he stared at her lips. Moist and swollen. He could smell her arousal beneath that ever-present peach scent; she'd be moist and swollen everywhere.

If someone didn't come and save her in the next few moments, she would be in his suite and in his bed. He'd taste every inch, just to see if it was only her mouth, or all of her.

He was going to eat her up.

“It must be the hellhound venom,” she said, and sighed. The soft curves of her breasts pressed against the silk blouse, her nipples outlined by crimson.

And he wouldn't let her go. Not again. Vows and sisters and friends be damned.

“Or the nosferatu blood,” she added, her voice thoughtful. She no longer slurred her words; had she sobered so quickly? She touched his lower lip.

Scarlet dotted her fingertip: his blood. Dread slipped through him; he caught her hand and frowned up at her.

“Did you swallow any?”

Another scent intruded on his senses; not physical, but psychic. Sickly sweet and rotting. Familiar. He shook it away. Impossible that it was here—it was only a memory, a hallucination brought on by his fear that she might have ingested his tainted blood.

“I think so,” she said quietly. “It must be why I'm burning. Why I have been for hours.”

Hours? Unease settled in his stomach. He slid his hand around her hip, under her shirt, and felt the skin on her back.

Hot. He'd expected that, from the exertion of dancing and the arousal between them. But there was no perspiration, none of the cooling slick sweat that should have accompanied it.

Dry. Feverish.

Her strange statement from a moment before struck him now, made him tense. “You swallowed venom?”

“I had to get it into his blood. I spit it.” She blinked slowly. Her eyes were bright, glassy. “It doesn't harm humans or halflings.”

“If they're
bitten
,” he said through clenched teeth. Why hadn't Castleford told her of the dangers possible, that there was still so much unknown? “God knows what it does if you drink it. And the nosferatu blood? Did you ingest that, too?”

“It was spraying everywhere—in my mouth. Someone grabbed me when I was running, and I swallowed. It must have mixed with the venom a little. Not very much.”

Beneath her fragrance, the psychic stink of rot grew stronger. He fought to control it; he'd been months without the flashbacks striking with such intensity. Why now? Could he not have one memory of her left untainted by Chaos?

“Why didn't you tell me before? How long have you been like this?”

“The car.” She took rapid, shallow breaths. “The venom tasted like a peach, but I rinsed out my mouth on the plane.”

He reached into his pocket for his phone. “You're supposed to be smart, Savitri.”

“You fuck with my brain, vampire. And every time I've been with you I've been enthralled or drunk, so I can't think.”

Her body swayed before she jerked herself upright again.

“Christ.” He pulled her tight against his chest and pushed the auto-dial for Lilith's cell.
Bloody fantastic job protecting her
. How could he not have noticed the fever? He'd only thought of his cock and his fangs and her mouth.

She'd twisted him up; he'd been out of his mind. That scent…from a fucking
dog
.

“You smell so good,” she said against his neck, and her tongue swiped over his skin. He closed his throat against his groan of pleasure. She was delirious; even he wouldn't take advantage of her now.

A violent commotion came from the entrance of the club. Only a few vampires lingered inside, slowly gathering their things. Colin looked up as they stopped and turned toward the sound.

A sharp, male shriek of pain followed a deep shout of warning. Varney.

Colin opened his senses, searching for the source of the threat, and the putrid stink swept into his mind. He forced himself not to gag. Not to scream.

“Colin? Colin!”

Lilith's voice in his ear pulled him back from the edge. What the—