Must Love Vampires (10 page)

“What are you doing?” she asked breathlessly, feeling the heat of his body radiating toward hers, and the laser-sharp intensity of his gaze tracking her like prey.

“Getting ready to seduce you . . . and make some of those fantasies come true.”

She opened her mouth to protest—mostly because she thought she should, not because she didn’t want the seduction or any hot and sweaty fantasies he felt compelled to fulfill. But before she could get a word—or even a squeak—out, Sebastian covered her mouth with his own.

The minute their lips touched, she was a goner. He felt like warm velvet, and tasted of thick blackberry wine and dark, secretive vampire.

Not that she had a clue what vampires tasted like, other than the one she was slurping at right now. She would have thought he’d taste like blood—that was what they thrived on, right? So she’d expected a metallic, coppery flavor.

Instead, she got warm and spicy and just . . . male.

Her fingers kneaded his shoulders, and she pushed up, wanting to get closer, wanting more. A low mewling filled the air, and it took her a moment to realize the sound was coming from her.

She never mewled. Or moaned or groaned or panted or begged. At least she hadn’t in a very long time.

But he had her doing just that. She was making noises in the back of her throat—desperate, sexual noises. And in her head, she was doing even more. Panting, begging, all of the above.

His hands found the hem of his own oversize undershirt and delved beneath, stroking the smooth skin of her waist. They were so big and warm, even against her rapidly rising temperature.

When they found her breasts, she gasped, letting her head fall back and struggling for breath while his thumbs ruthlessly teased her stiffening nipples. She let the sensations wash over her, long-denied feelings of lust and longing coming alive and battling like a couple of prizefighters to get out.

“Wait,” she gasped when she could finally catch her breath. And it took a couple of tries, as well as a lot of licking of her dry, parched lips.

His hands continued to squeeze and torture, his mouth joining the fray to suckle a line up the length of her throat.

“Wait,” she said again, using her hands at his shoulders to push him back just a smidge.

He made an unhappy sound deep in his throat, but finally lifted his head and met her eyes. His glittered, dark and dangerous, and behind his slightly parted lips, she was sure she saw the glint of long, sharp canines. Longer and sharper than normal. Longer and sharper than they had been even earlier.

“You’re not going to bite me, are you? Suck me dry?” she asked.

“Oh, I’m going to suck you. And probably bite a little, too.”

His erotic threat made her stomach clench. Along with muscles that fell much lower and wanted nothing more than to wrap around him and squeeze.

“You know what I mean. Real biting, the kind that breaks the skin and makes you anemic. You’re a vampire and I’m a human, and that’s what vampires do to humans. Right?”

“Not necessarily. Unless we’re feeding. Otherwise, it’s . . . optional.”

Tipping her head, she pondered that for a minute. All kinds of images spilled through her mind. Sexy ones, scary ones, ones that fell somewhere in between. But of course, she had no way of knowing how accurate they were.

“Is it good?” she asked with only a slight hitch to her voice.

“Very.”

For him, sure. It was probably right up there with achieving an actual orgasm. But since he was the only one with fangs, she suspected he was biased.

“For both parties, though, not just the . . . heavy biter.”

“I can make it that way, definitely.”

“How?” she wanted to know, eyes narrowing with curiosity . . . and no small amount of self-preservation.

“I’ll show you,” he said, grabbing her up again and kissing her until she forgot all about being bitten, or losing too much blood, or even her own name. His fangs scraped against her lips, but she didn’t care. If anything, knowing they were there, how dangerous they had the potential to be, turned her on even more.

Holding her around the waist, he got to his feet, lifting her as though she weighed no more than one of his empty bottles of wine. Turning, he stalked across the living room without bumping into a single piece of furniture. His lips never left hers, his tongue never stopped delving inside her mouth as he carried her down the hall.

And she was no wilting lily in this ballgame. Her arms and legs were wrapped around him like a squid’s, and she was kissing him back. Trying to suck out his molars, to be honest—if he had any molars to suck out. She also couldn’t seem to resist running her tongue back and forth over those pointed incisors. Testing, exploring, imagining what they could and would do to her before the night was over.

When they reached his bedroom, he tipped her backwards so that she hit his giant, feather-soft mattress with a bounce. Her breath whooshed out and he pulled away from her.

She nearly whimpered, wanting him back. Wanting her arms and legs still banded around him, his mouth still ravishing hers.

It amazed her that she was here with him at all when she’d gone so very long without male attention. And to think that he was a vampire. An honest-to-Transylvania vampire. She’d hoped, imagined, dreamed . . . but in the back of her head, she hadn’t really believed it was possible.

The idea was both exhilarating and frightening at the same time, but the part that made her most anxious wasn’t that Sebastian was immortal, or had come back from the dead, or needed to consume the blood of other humans to survive. It was that she was about to sleep with him.

She’d been celibate for nearly a decade, and she decided to break her dry spell
now
?
With a vampire
, of all things? (Things? People? Species? She wasn’t even sure what the proper term would be.)

No way was she changing her mind now, though. Falling into bed with a near-stranger was unusual for her. She’d never done it before in her life. Had never even
considered
it or thought she would be the type.

But surprise, surprise. Turned out she was the type. Her sister would be so proud that she was shaking off her mourning for Matthew, her self-imposed celibacy. Of course, Chloe might not be quite as thrilled to discover that the guy Chuck chose to help rid her of her second virginity bit people for his survival.

But she
wanted
this.

Really,
really
wanted it, she thought again as Sebastian began systematically stripping her of the clothes she didn’t remember putting on in the first place. Without permission or warning, he yanked the undershirt up her torso and flipped it off over her head. Her arms flopped back to the mattress and her hair flew in every direction as he tossed the bit of white cotton aside.

Then his hands moved to the elastic waistband of the plaid flannel pajama bottoms. They came off with one long sweep down her legs to fall to the floor, leaving her completely naked, bare to his hot, direct gaze.

A flicker of uncertainly swept through her, making her want to do the coy pinup girl thing and cover herself with one arm across her breasts and a hand over her hoo-ha. Never mind that she’d decided just a bit ago that she had nothing to be ashamed of, figure-wise. Knowing she looked okay didn’t mean that butterflies didn’t start flapping away in her belly when she was lying naked in front of a very attractive, fully dressed, dark and dangerous man.

But Sebastian didn’t leave her feeling shy for long. Still devouring her with his eyes, he dug an index finger into the knot of his tie and slipped it loose. He shrugged out of his expensive suit jacket, then opened his collar and the front of his inky blue dress shirt.

Next he unbuckled his belt, the sound of metal clicking and leather sliding against fabric causing goose bumps to break out over her flesh. He unbuttoned his trousers and unzipped the fly, and this time, she shivered.

God, was there anything sexier than watching a man undress? The rasp of clothing. The sight of bulging muscles and bronzed skin becoming visible inch by delicious inch.

It surprised her, actually, how tan Sebastian was. Weren’t vampires supposed to be pale from lack of sunlight?

But then, maybe he wasn’t tan-tan. Maybe that had been the natural tint of his skin when he became immortal. Or maybe—despite wide-spread beliefs to the contrary—he was able to use a tanning bed to maintain a nice, human fleshshade. She should have looked for one of
those
in the penthouse while she was snooping around. Because she doubted he went down on a regular basis to use the ones in the casino’s on-site spa.

While her mind was wandering, his hands continued to work. His pants fell to the floor in a rustle of sound, and he kicked off his shoes at the same time he rolled his shoulders to dislodge his shirt. That left him in only a pair of black silk boxers with a noticeable tenting at the front.

Chuck licked her lips, imagining the exact length and width and breadth of the cause of that tenting. But she didn’t have long to wonder at the details of his masculinity before he shed the boxers as well, showing her the full, burgeoning reality.

She didn’t know how much time passed, but she must have been staring for the span of at least several seconds, because he suddenly stepped forward, and his low voice broke the tense silence of the room.

“Like what you see?” he asked.

When she dragged her gaze—reluctantly, oh, so reluctantly—up to his face, she found one black brow arched upward in amusement.

Licking lips gone bone dry, she gave a wobbly nod. “It’s been a while, but I don’t remember them being quite so . . .”

“Large?” he supplied with typical male arrogance. Meeting his gaze head-on, she dug deep for a modicum of arrogance of her own. “Mouthwatering.”

Full House

Sebastian’s penis jumped at her stark admission. A second ago, his chest had been rising and falling with his even breathing. He didn’t need to breathe, of course, but old habits died hard, and maintaining human attributes helped with the façade.

But now his chest was stone still, only his throbbing erection beating in time with the pounding of his heart. He was picturing her on her knees, her mouth—wet, hot, watering—on his cock.

What was it about this woman that turned him inside out? He wasn’t exactly a green, unschooled youth. Far the hell from it.

He’d stopped counting birthdays long ago. Though if he were forced to do the math, his age would fall somewhere around the four-hundred mark. That was a lot of years to live. A lot of women he’d bedded.

A few he’d spent a good amount of time with. Decades with wild and wicked female vamps that had gone by in the blink of an eye. A few others—demure human females—he was sure he’d fancied himself temporarily in love, or at least in lust, with.

But they all paled in comparison to this statuesque tabloid reporter who’d discovered his secret and then been courageous and determined enough to go undercover as a showgirl at his very own club to prove it.

He couldn’t explain it. He was rarely at a loss for feminine company these days, even if most of the women who spent the night with him—willingly, of course—rarely remembered the details by morning. But he couldn’t recall the last time he’d been this hard, this eager, from nothing more than a little heavy petting and intense visual stimulation.

She was sprawled naked in the center of his bed, like a sacrificial offering. He wanted to stand there forever, just looking at her. Devouring her with his eyes.

He wanted to stroke her from head to toe. Let his fingers do the walking as he memorized the feel of her skin, every dip and curve of her beautiful body.

He wanted to crawl on top of her, kiss her from temple to toes. Kiss her, lick her, taste every inch of her, and then go back to the beginning and start all over again.

Stalking to the bed, he put one knee to the mattress and his hands to Chuck’s waist, lifting her with no effort whatsoever to move her back a few more inches. She gave a small gasp of surprise, but otherwise didn’t protest. Maybe because she knew that whatever he did with her, she would undoubtedly enjoy it. That was something even he’d be willing to bet the house on.

Wrapping his fingers around her narrow ankles, he spread her legs and pushed her knees toward her chest. She watched him carefully, uncertainty whispering across her violet eyes.

Mouth curving in a reassuring smile, he leaned up to kiss her hard and fast. “Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you. I’m not that kind of vampire.”

That brought a smile to her face, as well as a short, breathless laugh from her generously proportioned chest. “I’m not afraid of you, it’s just that . . . It’s been a while since I’ve been this naked in front of anyone. Since a man has touched me. Or looked at me that way. Or—”

“Ah, so you’re more nervous about having sex again than about being at the mercy of an unholy fiend of the night.”

She raised a brow at his corny turn of phrase. “Why don’t we just say I’m slightly anxious about being in bed with a vampire, and leave it at that?”

He grinned. When was the last time he’d grinned during foreplay? He’d venture to say not in this century.

But Chuck Lamoreaux—what kind of name was that, anyway? —amused the hell out of him. Her boldness. Her tenacity. Her self-deprecating sense of humor.

“You’ve got nothing to be nervous about. I’ll be gentle and make sure you enjoy it, I promise.”

Her hair brushed against the satin duvet as she cocked her head. “I’m not worried about the last, but . . .”

“What?”

“What if I don’t want you to be gentle?”

A fist of lust twisted inside Sebastian’s gut so tight he almost doubled over. Christ, what she did to him.

Her words, an odd mix of coyness and bravery, made part of him want to be extra gentle with her . . . and part of him want to flip her over onto her stomach, raise her hips, and drive into her hard and fast from behind.

There was nothing gentle about that, or about the way he
would
take her once he got inside of her. But they weren’t there just yet.