Forever Vampire (6 page)

“G
ET ME OFF HERE
!”

“Now, now.” Vail's teasing grin appeared above Lyric's face. He must have been sitting right beside the bed the whole time. He stroked her cheek. “We've fun stuff to do before I release you. I'm going to make you sing the name of your fence.”

Letting out a frustrated growl, Lyric blurted, “Never happen.”

“We'll see.”

He produced a knife from inside one of his boots and flicked out the blade. Like that was supposed to scare her? Pressing the tip to the neckline of her dress, he performed a deft move that opened the jersey to reveal her breasts.

“Pretty. And no lacy things to hide them. Bet you like to have them licked, eh?”

“If you touch me…”

“What? You'll succumb to my command? You'll cream in the pretty little panties I know you're not wearing? How easily do you come, Lyric? Just a few licks?”

The arrogance of him!

He leaned down and lashed his tongue across one of her nipples. Despite her anger, Lyric gasped. His slick, wet tongue sent shivers through her breasts and arms. Mercy, that felt good.

She twisted her head away from his keen observation of her every flinch. “Don't do this.”

“You want me to stop?” Blue eyes sought hers, his mouth but a breath from her wet nipple. “Tell me your fence's name.”

“Never.”

His tongue lashed slowly about her nipple, taking exquisite time in circling it, and then he sucked it in.

Lyric squeezed her eyelids shut and held back another breathy gasp. Nothing felt better than this. If this was his method of torture, she could get behind it one hundred percent. But the only talking she'd be doing was a bold cry when she came.

His teeth grazed her other nipple. Her chest hummed and the tingle of want shot down to her belly and lower. She tugged against the restraints. This was not fair!

A languorous suckle drew up a moan to her tongue. She arched her back to receive further torture, but when she didn't feel the next lash of heat, she opened her eyes to find him waiting for her.

“You want it?” he teased.

“Hell, no.” She sank into the bed. Two could play this game. But the air cooling her wet nipples only worked to tighten them more and increase her desire. “Thought you didn't like vampires?”

“I don't drink their blood. But I can appreciate a gorgeous woman, vampire or not. And your breasts are—stone me, they are perfection. I guess that makes me a breast man, eh?”

Hallelujah!
Oh, Lyric, don't succumb
.

The next lash devastated her stalwart resistance and Lyric lifted her chest to accept his exquisite punishment. Her fingers curled about the leather strap binding her hands, but being bound no longer frightened her—it turned her on.

His tongue was hot and masterful, and he made it soft and then firm to draw it expertly across her flesh. So close to some kind of giddy release, she pressed her legs together but couldn't quite achieve the squeeze that would make her come.

“Not a tough torturer, if you ask me,” she said on short breaths.

“Torturers, by nature, get off on their jobs. I'm no different. This is really getting you off, isn't it?”

“Bloody Mary,” she swore.

“Uh-uh. One shouldn't invoke the name of the dark prince's girlfriend unless they wish Himself to pay a visit.”

“I'd prefer him over you right now.”

“Oh, I doubt it.”

True. Himself was
the
devil. No vampire ever invoked his name three times unless they wanted to deal with Hell.

Vail sat back and hooked a finger at the vee in her dress where the cut ended just above her belly
button. With a tug, the jersey parted down to the hem. “Doesn't take much to get you wet, eh?”

Lyric struggled against the belt. She was strong, but so was leather.

She held her thighs tightly together as his fingers trailed the crease formed between each leg and her mons. The soft tickle of his fingers felt—damn, it felt great. And the skim of his cold metal rings stirred her flesh to goose bumps.

Her hard, ruched nipples pleaded for more attention, and he noticed. Vail flicked his thumb over one of them. Much to her horror, Lyric gasped. She couldn't stop from showing her arousal. Damn her. And damn him.

“I like the taste of your skin,” he said, and lowered his mouth to her breast again.

He suckled her as if he was enjoying a dessert, rolling her nipple between his lips and tonguing it rapidly, then more slowly, then tending her entire breast. He kissed every curve of each of her breasts until she wondered if a woman could come simply from breast stimulation alone. It was beginning to feel possible.

And she didn't notice she'd relaxed her legs until she felt the soft trace of Vail's finger mount the apex of her thighs. Testing, teasing, taunting her with his presence, the promise of something more.

She moved her legs together, but a slap of his palm to her thigh stopped her.

“Keep them open,” he said around her nipple. “You want this, Lyric.”

She shook her head.
Oh, yes, you do
.

A lift of his eyebrow provided the sexiest expression she had ever seen on a man. And the curl at the right side of his mouth was this bad boy's signature move. Devastating. “Then stop me,” he said.

Stopping him meant giving him the information he wanted. Not as easy as he imagined it could be. Especially if no name existed. But she wasn't about to reveal that little white one.

Because that would make him stop.

Letting out a moan, Lyric didn't care if the ice princess mutinied. Desire undermined her resolve and weakened her concern for secrecy. Besides, without a secret name to reveal, she needn't worry about shouting it out at the brink of climax.

And, oh…there. She sucked in her lower lip as Vail's finger slowly entered her wet depths, and then moved back out to slick across her clitoris. Softly exploring. A rub back and forth, and a slow but firm slide in the other direction. All sensation hummed at her core, bringing her closer…

He needed to press deeper, to focus on her ultrasensitive apex, yet he merely teased. Around in circles, and along her folds, and returning to her swollen clit to demonstrate what she could have if only…

If only.

“You like this, Lyric?”

“Yes,” she gasped, then closed her eyes and shook her head. She didn't want to talk. Satisfaction. That's what she needed. Why wouldn't he give it to her? “You do, too, Vail.”

“Of course I do. Your body is amazing, your breasts
so full.” He kissed each one, following with a lick. “Your nipples are so hard I could suck them for hours, devour them like the cherries of which you smell.”

Please do, she thought. Don't ever stop. She was still so hungry, having forgone the mortal's blood. Climax would be a fine replacement for what she craved.

“And you're so wet. You like it when I put my finger inside you?”

She nodded, breaths coming as rapid whimpers.

“Right here,” he whispered, his lips against her neck now, right over the vein. Still his finger merely circled the spot she wanted him to master. “A little harder?”

“Please,” she chirped.

“Pretty please?”

“Mmm,” she managed. “Vail, please.”

And then his finger was gone. The tingle at her nipple ceased. The heat of his mouth left her skin.

Lyric breathed, waiting. Her body hummed, wanting, desiring, needing.

“Name,” he said sternly.

Fuck. No. She couldn't. She didn't have—

She wanted. She needed to get off. Squirming on the bed, she couldn't manage to bring her hips up to meet his hovering hand. The bastard wouldn't bring her to the brink like this and then walk away, would he?

So the torturer did know his craft.

If her hands were free, she'd finish herself off and not be the least ashamed. Pressing her thighs together,
she mined the sweet hum of orgasm. It remained elusive, demanding Vail's direct and firm touch.

“Uh-uh.” He nudged her thighs apart. “Not that way, sweetie. You want to come? Name.”

“Vincent Lambert,” she blurted out. Hell, she'd seen the last name on a movie poster recently, and the first name was common enough.

The mattress jiggled as Vail stood and strode to the counter. Grabbing the cell phone, he punched in some numbers.

Lyric crashed, heaving and gasping as if tears would spill free. The high of arousal withered away and her flesh prickled again, not from desire, but from the lack of touch, of expected satisfaction. Her wet nipples cooled and the aching loss of heat softened them. She pressed her legs together.

No
. Not worth it now without him directing the fireworks. And she wouldn't let him witness her weakness. God, how had she managed to get herself into a situation like this? So vulnerable!

She twisted her wrists within the leather strap, to no avail.

Vail asked the operator to give him the address of Vincent Lambert.

Good luck with that.

“Thanks,” he said, and hung up. “You're in luck. There's a Vincent Lambert in the fourteenth quarter. Got the address.” Seriously? Whew.

Vail walked to the bed and loomed over her, hands propped at his hips. “Now, what to do with you?”

 

S
HE'D GIVEN HIM
what he'd requested. He should head out for the fourteenth and nab the gown from the fence. Return the damned thing to Hawkes, hand over the girl to Mommy, and then he could finally get the information he wanted from his uncle. One problem.

The naked woman lying on the bed before him writhed and gasped with the need to get off. And he wanted to help her with that. Because those soft, round breasts surely required more licking. And her molten hot body demanded he fill her with the hard-on he'd suffered for the past twenty minutes.

What had become of his hatred for vampires?

You don't have to bite her
.

And there was nothing wrong with a vampire in general, just their nasty blood. Right? He'd never slept with a vampire. Had avoided them since arriving in the mortal realm.

But he didn't have to bite when he had sex. It was a great accompaniment to the whole shebang, but unnecessary. And besides, who would know if he screwed a vampire this one time?

Vail unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it aside.

She squirmed and tugged against the leather belt strapping her to the headboard. “Too late, you junkie asshole. I don't need it anymore.”

“Yeah?” He flicked open the button on his pants and tugged down the fly. His heavy erection sprang out. Her eyes widened—and not in anger. “We'll see about that.”

Retrieving the knife from his back pocket, he sat
on the edge of the bed. Knife in his fist, he skimmed his knuckles over her taut stomach, toying with her fear and desire at the same time. He let the hard ivory handle of the knife rub her nipple as he moved higher.

She reacted with vicious struggles. He'd lost her when making the phone call—a necessary delay from the torture—but he could get her back.

“Settle, Lyric, you don't want me to cut you.”

“You wouldn't,” she retorted. “Wouldn't want to get any of my nasty blood on you.”

She was smart. But he could be smarter.

He pressed his other hand over her mons, fingertips lightly brushing the soft wet folds she kept shaved bare, and her body reacted by arching her back. Much as she thought she didn't want this, her body did. She straddled a tightrope, and one wrong step would send her reeling into the stratosphere or crashing to earth.

He preferred the reel, because that would make it good for him, too.

He slid the blade under the leather belt securing her wrists. This particular blade had been forged in Faery and was sharper than any mortal metal could be honed. Her wrists, unbound, fell to the bed and she grasped for one to ease her fingers about it.

“Sorry, if you lost the feeling in them,” he muttered.

Vail dropped the knife on the floor and placed his fingers between her thighs. He pushed them deep into her while, with his thumb, he found the soft swollen
heat he knew controlled her entire body. It was command central, so to speak, and he knew how to operate the controls.

Before she could struggle away, he flicked out a finger and rubbed it over her slick clitoris, sweeping the sensitive bud until he heard a gasp, followed quickly by a surrendering sigh. Her fingers clutched at the tattered old mattress. Her legs opened wider.

“Good girl. Now let me taste how sweet you are.”

Ignoring the aching pulse in his erection, he told himself patience would win him the reward as he slid down to kiss her cherry jasmine skin.

The first lick started a shudder in her thighs. He dipped his tongue around her clitoris and played with the hard bud of it, making his tongue pointed to trace it firmly.

It was the right move because her fingers released hold on the mattress and clutched at air. She moaned, “Yes,” and her fingers found his hair and gripped hanks of it tightly. “Right there.”

Steadily, he played her, stroking and dashing his tongue against softness, then hard, to follow with a firm lick. She smelled like a jasmine garden here, and he was reminded of the faery ritual before the bride walked down the aisle. The bride-to-be would spend the day being pampered and perfumed, at one point squatting over an incense burner to infuse all parts of her skin with heady scent.

Don't think about that stolen moment. Concentrate. Or you'll begin to regret
.

Kicking the door shut on memory, Vail soared back
to the present and into his captive's lushness. Lyric's scent dizzied him. It was almost better than a dust high.

The vampiress cried out boldly. Her hips bucked and the fingers in his hair tugged painfully before releasing him.

He had pleased her. The hot spill of her over his fingers thrilled him. He sucked each digit clean, but was jumbled upon the mattress as she sat and reached for him.