SeduceMe

Seduce Me

Calista Fox

Book 3 in the Body Scenes
series.

Drake is the mysterious, sexy
British owner of the exclusive Manhattan nightclub and naughty art gallery,
Body Scenes. He’s also a vampire. One who has a mad crush on—or rather, a
burning need for—a human. Shana, the object of his blazing desire, is a sultry,
curvaceous woman who oozes animal magnetism, though she doesn’t know it.

For Shana, who spent her youth
feeling inferior to the petite and dainty women she toured with when headlining
an international orchestra, body image issues are the order of the day. Every
day. But then she meets the wildly charismatic and devilishly handsome Drake,
along with his desirable assistant, Jane, and finds herself the star of a
highly erotic three-way.

But can she overcome her
insecurities and accept that Drake’s lust for her is of the eternal variety?
And can a vampire
really
have a happily-ever-after ending with a human?

Chapter One

“Your mad crush accepted the invitation to tonight’s viewing
at the club.” Jane Van Kamp’s thick British accent held a hint of teasing.

“My ‘mad crush’?” Drake Halston muttered, his eyebrow
shooting up. “Didn’t realize I had one.” He was English as well, but his
intonation was much more subtle because he’d been in the States longer than
Jane. By nearly two centuries, to be exact.

“Please,” his assistant scoffed good-naturedly as she left
her desk, positioned against the far wall of his enormous office. “I know it
typically takes more than a mental fantasy to make you hard, but the mere
thought of Shana White does the trick every time. She sends your cock and your
barely beating heart into a complete tizzy. In the decades I’ve known you, I’ve
never seen you so hot for, or infatuated with, any other woman.”

Feigning disinterest at the mention of the woman who was
supposed to be the object of his
secret
desire—a vampire lusting after a
human was an obvious recipe for disaster, after all—he continued his work at
his own desk. Though he added, “I’m always hot for you, Jane.”

She laughed softly. “Stop flirting with me, I’m still on the
clock.” She picked up the iPad sitting on an end table next to the tufted,
pewter-colored sectional. The device controlled the video surveillance
equipment throughout Drake’s club, Body Scenes. She played with the settings as
she said, “Besides, what goes on behind closed doors between the two of us
isn’t rose-petals-on-the-bed, candlelight-and-music, core-shaking lovemaking.
It’s just sex, so you don’t have to seduce me with flattery or feel guilty that
another woman rocks your world.”

He frowned at her flippancy. Shelving the part about feeling
guilty—because there was validity to that observation, since he genuinely
adored Jane and didn’t want to hurt her feelings now that she knew about
Shana—he said, “I’ve never seduced you. I’ve always waited for you to come to
me.”

“Yes. And neither one of us has any delusions about what our
sexual relationship is all about—scratching an itch. That’s all. Your
attraction to Shana, however…” She wagged a brow at him. “
That
would be
rose-petals-on-the-bed, candlelight-and-music, core-shaking lovemaking. If you
ever got around to speaking to her, that is.”

He groaned. Of course he’d never spoken with her. That’d be
the equivalent of throwing all the volatile ingredients for said disastrous
vampire-human recipe into a bowl and whipping up a soufflé of trouble.

It was difficult enough for him to keep from repeatedly
playing her recorded performances with an international orchestra or
downloading her photo from the Internet and using it as a screen saver. He
didn’t need to add any fuel to the already blazing fire that was his desire for
Shana White.

“I know you think it’s best to admire her from afar,” Jane
continued. “But you’re just torturing yourself. And, quite frankly, it’s rather
painful to watch.”

Quite frankly, it was rather painful to
experience
.
He’d been right earlier. He didn’t have a mad crush on the woman. He had a
maddening one.

And it didn’t help matters that he had no outlet for his
sexual frustration. Jane hadn’t approached him for after-hours activities in
months. In fact, the last time they’d been together was days before he’d come
across Shana’s press picture and been instantly ensnared.

Well, bloody hell
.

His jaw clenched as his gaze dropped to the computer screen.
His guilt mounted. So Jane had known all this time. Damn it. He didn’t want her
to feel as though he’d found someone else. In the grand scheme of things, he
hadn’t. Shana was strictly a private yearning. A never-to-be-realized fantasy.
An unrequited desire he hoped would eventually fade.

Though he had to admit, he’d never been so enthralled
before, as Jane had accurately surmised. It was a bit unnerving.

“I know better than to get involved with a human,” he said.

“But you’re falling for one anyway.”

“I haven’t even met her, Jane. I don’t know anything about
her.”

“You’ve been scouring the Internet until the wee hours of
the morning, learning everything you possibly can about her.”

And finding it wasn’t nearly enough to sate his curiosity or
his desire for her. Letting out a long-suffering sigh, he said, “Let’s leave my
infatuation out of this, shall we?”

“Impossible. She’s downstairs.”

His gaze snapped to the sixty-four-inch flat panel mounted
on the wall above the black marble-trimmed fireplace. The footage currently
displayed was from a security camera positioned at the entrance of his
exclusive Manhattan nightclub and naughty art gallery.

Sure enough, the raven-haired beauty who’d taken up
permanent residency in his mind was here in the flesh. She passed through the
first red-velvet-roped entrance and approached the podium, where she handed
over the invitation to the club he’d personally mailed to her last week.

Jane must have been tracking the comings and goings
downstairs on her own computer, knowing Drake would want to be alerted the
moment Shana arrived.

He had several minutes to watch her, as the line for
admittance into the hedonistic hotspot was a long one and the process for
allowing the guests inside was slow, due to the verification procedures the
doormen were required to follow. Entry into Body Scenes was granted only when
the invitation in hand was confirmed to be an original and the person who
possessed it was indeed the individual specifically issued the coveted summons.

All of New York society was in hot pursuit of an invitation
to the club, which featured extravagant murals painted on naked flesh, the
erotic joining of body parts completing the sinful scenes. The popularity of
the club wasn’t strictly regional, though. Drake received dozens of requests
every week from international A-listers—celebrities, dignitaries, rock stars,
politicians,
Forbes
’ millionaires and billionaires… Everyone who was
anyone wanted a peek inside Body Scenes.

The club was only open one weekend a month and there were a
number of regulars for whom he ensured access. For the most part, he was
adamant about not allowing reporters or photographers in, though he’d made an
exception when he’d issued standing admittance to trendy blogger and freelance
writer Yvette Samson. She was avant-garde and a celebrity in her own right,
after all.

Tonight he was bending his rule once more for Yvette’s
colleague, Shana. The former musician turned journalist had become a web
sensation over the years. She’d reportedly turned down a host spot on The View
as well as an offer for her own prime-time talk show on HBO. She’d made a point
of staying true to her online audience and Drake found her integrity as appealing
as her curvaceous body.

She stood at the entrance to the club with Yvette, both
women dressed to the nines, but in contradictory styles. Cutting-edge Yvette
wore a strapless mini-dress in red, complementing her blonde hair and slim
figure. Sophisticated Shana looked drop-dead gorgeous in a silver satin
one-shoulder gown that featured a slit all the way up her shapely right leg. A
visual that made Drake’s cock even stiffer than before, when he’d merely been
ruminating over the prospect of Shana accepting his invitation to the club.

“Well,” Jane said as her gaze slid from the large screen to
Drake, where he still sat at his desk. “You certainly know how to pick them.
She’s sensational. Even more dynamic than I’d originally thought.” She uttered
this last statement with awe in her voice. She reached for the back of a chair
positioned in front of the tall hearth as though to steady herself.

“My reaction to Shana as well,” he said, not at all
surprised by how caught off guard Jane was by Shana’s sultry appearance. Photos
didn’t do the woman justice, he decided. And he was convinced a TV monitor
couldn’t fully capture the vibrancy she naturally exuded. Actually, it was more
than that. “She radiates a raw sensuality that’s nearly impossible to ignore.
Even in photographs.”

Drake knew from personal experience through all that
research he’d done. And he’d invested an exorbitant amount of energy and effort
into keeping his distance from her these past several months. It was
exhausting, but he was cognizant of the boundaries he needed to maintain.
Inviting her to the club was the closest he’d ever get to her. He’d stay in his
office tonight, as he always did, though this particular evening it’d be hell
to hide up here when she was down there.

Jane gripped the chair a little tighter. “Pure animal
magnetism,” she said in a low, throaty voice. So unlike her normal, cultured
tone. “This woman has it in spades. She puts Sofia Vergara to shame.” Her chest
rose and fell a bit faster, drawing Drake’s attention to her small, firm breasts.
A perfect handful, he knew.

He was in desperate need of easing the sexual tension
coursing through him and Jane’s response to Shana only exacerbated the problem.
He didn’t miss the way her nipples puckered behind the shimmery, lavender
camisole she’d paired with a snug, eggplant-colored skirt. His thumbs suddenly
itched to sweep over her hard peaks, pebbling them further and making her moan.

A hint of desire made her bright eyes sparkle and her glossy
lips parted slightly as her breathing grew more shallow than normal.

True, a vampire didn’t need excessive amounts of oxygen to
survive, but there were still vital functions necessary to sustain the undead,
despite what pop culture had to say about it. Even the slow beating of a heart
was crucial to maintaining a vampire’s existence. How else would the blood they
drank circulate through their systems and, in Drake’s case, give him the
erection he had now?

In addition to Shana eliciting a primal response from him,
he found Jane’s excitement erotically stirring. So much so, he gave up on his
work, stood and crossed to the fireplace.

For so long, it’d been fortuitous that he and Jane found
each other physically appealing. She was five-foot-three and deceptively
waifish, with straight, shoulder-length blonde hair. She had a tight body and
an even tighter pussy. One finger in her narrow cunt was enough to make her
come. His thick cock inside her made her scream in ecstasy. The memory of that
sound echoed in his head now, giving him some very lascivious thoughts as to
how this evening could play out, especially with Shana unwittingly serving as
an additional sexual stimulant—obviously an unexpected one for Jane.

Yet touching Jane now that he’d been outed didn’t sit right
with him. He’d be channeling his desire for Shana into his “arrangement” with
Jane. And though she professed to not mind there being no more between them
than hot sex, he wasn’t comfortable lusting after one woman and pleasuring
another. No matter how sensible and realistic Jane was about the situation.

He tried to rein in his tumultuous emotions, but Jane’s gaze
was riveted to the flat panel, causing him to say, “I didn’t know you were
attracted to women.”

Unfortunately for him, that sentiment made an image flash in
his mind of prim and proper Jane getting naked with sexy and sensational Shana.
His cock strained behind the zipper of his Armani suit pants. Definitely
not
a good thing.

This new fantasy was doubly forbidden…and so very dangerous.
For him to obsess over Shana was bad enough. It was twice as hazardous for Jane
to do it at the same time. The two of them being so intuitively bonded together
because of their decades of friendship made it more difficult to avoid the
landmine lying outside the safety zone that was his office. Temptation had never
been so great…or so potentially disastrous.

Jane told him, “I’m attracted to souls, not genders.”

“And you find hers appealing?”

“Very much so.”

Jane possessed a rare gift unlike any other vampire he knew.
She connected with souls, but only the truly pure ones. Likely the reason she
didn’t have much use for the visitors who crossed the threshold of Body Scenes.
Not that she considered those with uninhibited sexual tendencies tainted—she
had her own fetishes and was intrigued by human mating rituals. But most of the
club’s guests were shrewd in business and lax in scruples—the secret of their
overwhelming success. He knew this because he researched everyone he issued an
invitation to and had found a shocking number of them stored a heap of dirty
laundry in their closets. Not that he cared. Everyone had a cross to bear,
including him. He didn’t pass judgment.

For Jane, however, there had to be something inherently good
deep within someone—mortal or immortal—in order to catch her attention. A trait
Drake admired as much as he respected Shana’s integrity, but which also
provided him a small measure of comfort. Jane never would have given him the
time of day in a professional or a romantic capacity if there wasn’t something
buried within him that appealed to her.

Being a vampire wasn’t all rainbows and roses, that was for
damn sure. And Drake had committed his fair share of sins. Yet he still
believed in the greater good and humanity. A tricky conviction to maintain,
given the nature of the beast and the fact he’d lived this particular lifestyle
for two hundred and thirty-five years—a good deal longer than the twenty-eight
years he’d been human before being turned during the American Revolutionary War
in the late 1700s.

For Jane to latch onto whatever purity he possessed was a
huge relief to him, because it told him he’d retained an above-average level of
civility when he’d been changed, against his will, over two centuries ago.

Jane stepped around the chair she’d been using as support,
still staring up at the flat screen. She frowned as she wrung her hands.

“I sense lonesomeness within this woman,” she said of Shana.

Her green eyes drifted closed. Drake always found it
captivating when she mentally or metaphysically or just plain mysteriously
searched another’s soul. She didn’t always discover pleasant things, as was
clearly the case this time.