Into the Spotlight (12 page)

“Lord Markham.” The nurse’s stricken gaze dragged his attention. “His majesty was not offended by the request, and he would gladly accept the burden for you.”

“No.” Malcolm shook his head. “Please extend my deepest gratitude to his majesty, but Frederick is my family and this is my responsibility.” Too many things in his world he couldn’t control. Floods. Earthquakes. Disaster. Frederick. It was more important to remember the things he could control. Forgiveness. Second chances. Fresh starts.

If Frederick survived this, then he would have the opportunity for all of those things. Pressing a hand to Frederick’s face, Malcolm leaned in close and whispered, “You will survive. You will wake. You will be able to think. You will grow up. You will be a man.”

Straightening, he caught the nurse’s carefully averted gaze providing him with a modicum of privacy.

“Call me if anything changes.”

“Yes, sir.”

Emotions firmly under control, he left the room and allowed security to escort him back to the exit onto the lobby’s main concourse. The sun would set within the next three hours. He could do little for Frederick, but he could still help Jeannie.

“You don’t have to.” Jeannie sat on the table in front of him, feet propped on the arm of his chair. The evening began as every evening did with the cold awareness flooding over her, the gray of the world blurring away to sharp clarity. But the true color didn’t return until she sensed him in the audience, the way his gaze adored her. When she sang, she sang to him and when she danced, she thought of being in his arms.

When the show ended, she pushed through the other dancers to strip off her stage makeup and change. Malcolm stood right outside the stage exit when she returned.

“I do. I want to. Did you not just enjoy the meal? I chose from several dishes. The chef trained at the Cordon Bleu in Paris.”

She wouldn’t even try to pronounce the names of the food, but everything tasted divine. She’d danced around the table, sampling each flavor until Malcolm tucked her onto his lap to feed her by hand. But he ate very little and when she thought herself so full she’d burst, she’d pushed the plates back to climb onto the table.

“I’m serious, Mal.” She softened his name to one syllable again. His gaze flared each time she did, and her stomach turned somersaults at his expression.

“As am I. Now, would you like more wine?” He dismissed her concerns. His hand glided against her thigh, nudging the dress up so his warm palm could stroke the skin.

“You’re not going to distract me with sex.” The quiver in the words betrayed her denial.

“I was not thinking of sex… Well, I was.” He grinned. “But I was also thinking I want to know you. I want you to tell me all about your family. Your life before here. Your grandmother.”

Not even thoughts of her family could quiet the shivers of awareness gliding over her skin. “Why?”

“As I said, I want to know you.”

“My mother worked in a factory. She got her first job there during the war. I used to visit her every day after school and share my leftovers from lunch. My grandmother cleaned houses. She picked me up from the factory and we would have dinner. Then my mother would come home and we’d sit outside and look at the stars and plan a dream for every star we could see in the sky.”

“You like stars?”

Jeannie nodded slowly, a wave of longing sweeping through her. Her smile faded. “My mother used to say that when stars fell, it was because someone gave up on their dream. Hope, faith and love keep the stars in the sky, and when you abandon that, they dim, flicker and finally fall.”

“Your stars will not fall.” He sounded so sure, so confident.

“You can’t know that. I’ve been here a very long time. Most of my dreams have already died.” She didn’t mean to sound forlorn, but the emotion escaped.

He laid both hands on her thighs now and tugged her forward until she straddled his lap. His lips mere millimeters from hers, he whispered, “I will have to believe enough for both of us then.”

The kiss stole her breath and she wrapped her arms around him. Holding him. Touching him.

Everything seemed possible.

“And no sex?” Roseâtre leaned a hip against Jeannie’s table. The long lock of silver fell freely while the rest of her black hair was pulled up in a knot strung with diamonds at the back of her head.

“No.” She didn’t quite throw the powder brush back onto the table. Tonight’s show featured a series of torch songs, the dancers taking turns titillating the crowd with almost sexual poses as Jeannie sang. Roseâtre’s not-there nude spandex molded to every curve, highlighting the shimmering stripes of glitter dripping down her sides.

“He’s going to make me insane. We have dinner. We talk for hours. He read to me last night. He has the most amazing voice, it turns my insides to liquid, but he won’t do more than kiss me.”

“But he can, right?” Roseâtre’s brows drew together in a frown. “I mean he did a couple of nights ago.”

“For hours.” She sighed, molten heat moistening her sex. “I’ve never felt the way I did in his arms, but since he found out…” her voice dropped and she glanced around, but the noise level of the other dancers and their giggles covered her words, “…not since he found out about my situation.”

“I think it’s honorable.” Roseâtre rubbed her shoulder comfortingly.

“How is it honorable?” She looked up and met the other dancer’s gaze in the mirror.

“You are not free to choose. Not really. So he doesn’t want you to do it because you feel obligated to him.”

Jeannie spun around. “But I’m not.”

Roseâtre held up a hand when Jeannie’s voice spiked and jerked her head warningly at the other dancers. Kneeling, she made a show of adjusting the straps on the back of her dress. “You know you’re not. I believe you’re not, but we’re used to this existence. He could have run, after seeing the change, he didn’t. Remember that.”

“Ladies! One minute. Move!” Heidi clapped her hands from the top of the stairs and the chatter broke like a rain-swollen river smashing against a dam.

“Just remember it,” Roseâtre repeated and blew her a kiss as she hurried off with the others to be in position when Jeannie strolled out on the stage.

Glancing back at the mirror, Jeannie stroked the two puncture marks at the base of her throat. He wouldn’t take her to bed, but he had taken her blood. The pleasure of his mouth pulling from her only increased her desire, until she slid her fingers down to stroke her clit beneath her panties. His eyes darkened and the more he took, the harder she stroked herself until she came with force.

What really turned her inside out was when he took her fingers and licked them clean—she almost came again. Inhaling sharply, she closed her eyes.

Tonight she would return the favor.

Malcolm poured another glass of the red and swirled it before testing the bouquet. Perfect. Jeannie excused herself to use the facilities, and he’d taken the time to set the cheese and fruit platters up, mingling smoky cheese with sharper fruits. The lady complained she’d eaten too much meat the night before, so he thought simpler fare with a selection of wines from both Napa Valley in California and the Bordeaux and Alsace regions of France.

A sound behind him turned him around and his whole body went hard. Jeannie stood, gloriously naked, her delicious skin gleaming in the candlelight. Her long, blonde hair fell in ripples to tease him with brief glimpses of her nipples.

“Is it too warm in here?” The question’s stupidity echoed in his ears, but his only defense lay in the fact that his entire blood supply went south.

“Not yet.” She walked across the room, her legs gliding together in a whisper of friction that set his nerves on fire. Plucking the wine from his hands, she leaned close, not quite touching him, yet every inch of his body seemed to turn into the heat skating over him. “Tonight, I want to hear about you and your family.”

His cock gave a jerk, the last thing he wanted to discuss was the Reynolds family, his empire or the issues currently plaguing them. Not when the Overseers seemed to be ignoring his second petition. He’d spent most of his day waiting for a summons that never came.

Wine glass in hand, Jeannie turned to walk toward the pair of chairs angled toward the fire. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth and thought died as she strolled away. Her ass was the perfect combination of tone and silk. He knew it was soft to the touch, but the muscle rippling along her back and down her buttocks to her thighs pulled his balls tight against his body.

“Coming?” She turned her head to look at him, her green eyes beckoning, and he closed the distance, forgetting the food and the wine as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her body back against his. He stroked his hands across her belly, one climbing to caress a breast, the nipple puckering at the first brush of his fingers and the other dipping down to her sex, one finger sliding between the moist lips to tease her clit.

She went stiff, arching with a silent plea. He kissed her shoulder, nosing through the sweet scent of her hair until he found skin. Pulling the nipple taut, he plunged one finger inside of her and she bucked against him.

The art of giving her pleasure restored some of the thought to his mind, and he bit down gently when she bucked her hips to his hand, riding his finger. The low moan when his finger retreated sharpened to another gasp as he drummed the swollen nub, teasing it.

“You want to know me,” he teased gently. “Or pleasure?”

“Malcolm.” His name exhaled on her breath, and he felt the tension coiling in her, the rise of it as she tried to grind against his hand, but he held steady.

“I will give you pleasure, my naughty little nymph.”

Her body bucked against him, her tight ass rubbing the length of his cock through the pants. He wouldn’t take her. Not until he secured her freedom. He ignored his own groan as his body objected to the demands of honor.

Picking her up, he moved her to the chair and it took every measure of control to set her down. One hand flat against her belly, he kept her in place as he nudged her thighs apart and knelt between them. Stealing a glance upwards, he smiled. She bit her lip and gazed at him with hope-drenched passion in her eyes.

“No touching. Or I’ll stop.” He warned, pleased at the flare in her gaze and the sharp gasp of her breath. Her pulse thundered in his ears and the scent of her arousal tickled his nostrils. He wouldn’t take her, but he would give her all the pleasure she could desire. His attention drifted to her breasts, nipples peaked and eagerly straining toward him. He laid a kiss to one, nibbling and suckling until she squirmed against the chair.

He licked his way between her breasts, blazing a path to lave attention to the other nipple. It swelled between his lips, the blood rushing to it and engorging it. His fangs threatened to descend as the intoxicating spice of her filled his lungs, seeped into his pores and pounded against his brain.

He continued down, layering kisses to every inch of her skin until he reached the nest of golden hair cloaking her sex. He nuzzled his nose through it, drinking in the rich flavors as his body screamed in protest, but this wasn’t about his needs. He nibbled down to the dew-kissed lips and slid his tongue along the seam where they kissed.

Drunk on the sweet tang of her cream, he lapped at it like a kitten, teasing the lips apart until his tongue stabbed once into her glistening entrance. Her thighs went rigid around him and he heard more than saw the tension shooting through her like a bullet.

Every nerve in his body was aware of her as he teased up along her sex to close his lips on the clit. Tugging the hard nub between his lips, he thrummed it lightly with his tongue, vibrating her until her fists pounded against the chair arms, and only then did he let his mouth drift down to her thigh, his fingers replacing his lips.

His fangs descended and he found the sweet pulse of her blood humming beneath the skin. He drove two fingers inside of her, thumb massaging her clit as his fangs sank in and the rich explosion of sensation assaulted him.

The taste of her orgasm flooded his mouth as he drank in the rich spice of her blood. He controlled the strokes of his hand, driving her past the orgasm and into the second. The pressure of her pussy walls closed on his hand, sucking his fingers deeper, and he pushed her harder until her cries of pleasure played sweet music to his ears.

When the quakes rocking her body quieted, he gently licked closed the bite and looked up at her. The image of her sprawled boneless above him made his heart ache for some reason. Her eyes were closed, sweat gleaned against her brow and her pink tongue peeked out from between her lips.

Her heart raced beneath her breasts as they rose and fell in the trembling aftermath. He slid his fingers free, pressing a kiss to the moist sex, savoring her spice and teasing his own control. He glanced at her belly, the rippling muscles that clenched with each swift draw of her breath.

So effortlessly she’d slipped into his heart. It wasn’t just the sex or the wild heat of her blood racing through him. She’d slipped under his skin, made a place for herself and nestled close to his heart. How the hell would he make it until the Overseers granted him another audience?