The Vampyre Legal Chronicles - Daniel: Book: 3 (7 page)

What on earth, Gia wondered, was she
supposed to say to that?

His gaze seemed too hot, so potent, as it rippled along her
skin.

Gia’s nerve ends screamed with an arousal that made her feel
dizzy.

Dazed, she couldn’t help but simply stare at him.

Professionally she knew him as a diabolically, determined
lawyer, a determination which made him virtually unstoppable in a court of law.

What was it about him that drew her in at the same time as
her instincts were screaming for her to run, and run fast?

It was something much more than a scorchingly hot, sexy
male.

Those eyes now slid from her to settle on the bedside table,
which held her purse and the money she’d earned at the Sly Fox club.

Then those eyes returned to hers and this time they were
cool.

His hand reached out, lifted the cash, then those blue eyes
met hers and went wide with the silent question.
Where the hell did you get
this?

The voice in her head told her to tell him it was none of
his frigging business what she did with her time.

He didn't own her.

Gia tried to out-stare him, which was probably
the
most idiotic thing she’d ever done in her life.

Those blue eyes burned into hers and she couldn’t look away,
partly because she was terrified and partly because she was overwhelmed.

His face appeared too dark, too dangerous now.

"Why are you sleeping in my apartment?" he
demanded in a voice that was too soft.

It cost her, but Gia managed to keep her tone cool and calm.

"I find myself temporarily homeless."

One dark eyebrow lifted in a way that made sweat trickle
down her spine.

Those eyes narrowed into blue slits.

"Do you now? So you thought to make yourself at home in
mine?"

"You weren’t using it." And as soon as the words
were spoken, she regretted them. It was as if another woman had taken control
of her mouth.

Now he smiled.

A smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Ooooh, Mrs.
Del Russo, was that a smart comeback? From you?"

Now her eyes slid over his incredible body, inhaled the
scent of Daniel and the ache deep in her belly simply melted like butter over
hot toast.

Her nipples seemed to have a mind of their own.

Gia had never considered herself to be a particularly sexual
person.

Certainly Liam had found her
‘An unresponsive bitch’
in bed. And since her husband had been so much more experienced than her, she’d
naturally believed him. But now, the way her breasts were reacting, swelling,
under Daniel’s hot gaze and the way her nipples were bullet hard, she was
beginning to wonder if she was losing her tiny mind.

"Your late husband was an idiot," said Daniel
without looking at her. Instead, he casually counted out the notes.

She desperately tried to come up with a plausible reason why
she had so much cash.

Gia opened her mouth to speak, but his gaze flew to hers and
the hot flash of warning in his eyes made her stop and think again.

"Do not even
think
about lying to me,
darling."

Darling?

He'd called her
darling
as if he actually meant it.

Then she realized that by referencing her thoughts of her
late and not lamented husband, plus her thought of coming up with an excuse, Daniel
did indeed appear to have the ability to read her mind. Something like fear hit
her too hard because she knew the possibility was utterly ridiculous. However,
logic didn't stop her throat going bone dry.

Still holding the cash, Daniel moved off the bed and made
himself comfortable on a couch. He stretched out long legs as he took a sip of
cognac, all the while those vivid blue eyes never left her face.

"Before you speak, let’s look at the evidence, shall
we? It appears you’ve been moonlighting. Correct? A nod of the head will
do." This was the lawyer speaking and Gia knew what Daniel was like in
this mood.

A hard rock of anxiety settled in her belly. Moonlighting
was strictly forbidden if you worked for Gillespie, Pattullo and Hindmarch.

She nodded.

"And by the dress you were wearing last night and the
amount of cash I’m holding in my hand I assume you’ve sold yourself in some
way. Correct?"

Her brow creased as the tip of her tongue ran from one
corner of her top lip to the other.

Then a sound had her eyes jerk to his in alarm.

Did he just
growl
at her?

Now that voice went very low, "And you’ve been sleeping
in my apartment? For how long?"

A trickle of perspiration wormed down her spine.

"Five days," her voice was no more than a whisper.

"Care to tell me why?" But then with a careless
flick of his hand he waved away the question as his eyes took a leisurely
stroll over her body. "What does it matter."

He knocked back his drink, rose to his feet and moved
towards her.

Before she could even take a breath, her chin was taken in a
rough grip as he tilted her face up to his.

"I hope to fuck you’ve had enough common sense to use
protection, have you?"

Her breathless sob had him narrow those vivid blue eyes
fractionally and she knew he was going to kiss her.

Torn between terror and a brutal arousal, her pulse
fluttered wildly in her neck.

Daniel’s gaze appeared riveted to the spot before he groaned
deep in his throat and his mouth plundered, ravished hers.

Shock had her go utterly still as a strong arm pulled her
into his rock hard chest.

His fingers threaded through her hair gripping it too tight.

Now his heavy body pushed her back to the mattress.

Through his jeans she felt his thick and heavy shaft press
into the soft skin of her belly firing molten heat between her legs. She
shuddered in his arms and found her own slide up his back and over wide strong
shoulders. Muscles of steel tensed under smooth skin as her fingertips pressed
into his flesh.

Nothing could have prepared her for this.

She’d been kissed by Liam but she’d never been kissed,
tasted, so thoroughly like this by a man as if he was starving for her.

His tongue explored the soft wet heat of her mouth.

A whimper escaped from her throat.

This was nothing like last night.

This was a different man.

How often had she secretly wondered what Daniel Gillespie
tasted like?

Well, now she knew.

Large hands slid down her back to grip her bare bottom as he
pulled her closer.

His hips swivelled and his erection pressed harder into her
belly.

But this was nothing like her dreams where he’d taken her
gently and slowly and with care.

His hands moved between them to unzip, strip off his jeans.

Her mind went blank.

All she felt was sensation, desperate feelings of lust, of desire,
of a desperate need, as his mouth ravaged hers.

He took without pity and she gave everything he demanded of
her.

And more.

Her breath came in sharp little pants as her breasts
strained against his hard chest.

Arousal was a hot and slick yearning between her legs.

Daniel moved back to kneel between her thighs.

Gia’s eyes widened as his huge thick shaft pulsed.

Good God
, he was hung like a horse.

Her late husband used to boast about the size of his penis,
but like everything else that came out of his mouth, Liam had lived in his own
version of reality.

But when Daniel took his shaft in his strong fist and
stroked, once, twice, three times, Gia’s throat went tight.

This was going to hurt and her arousal dried up so fast she
brought her knees up and pressed her thighs tightly together.

Her eyes flew to Daniel’s and the brutal lust she saw there
made her bite down hard on her bottom lip.

"Don't you dare think of that bastard when I take you,
Gia. Don’t you look at me like that either. You want me and I want you. God
knows I’ve waited long enough to have you."

The Scottish burr was stronger now in that deep voice.

Her mind whirled.

She couldn't get her head around the amazing things he was
saying to her.

What did he mean he’d waited long enough to have her?

Nothing, none of it, made any sense.

He’d never once, not once, given her an inkling he was remotely
attracted to her.

Okay, he'd recently been staring at her pretty intensely.

How could she have guessed it was because he was attracted
to her?

"Look," she said, desperation making her voice
high. "You’ve got the wrong idea. I didn’t earn the money by having
sex."

Jet brows rose, but he didn’t stop that long slow stroke of
his heavy shaft.

"We’ll talk terms later, darling. My need for you hurts."

She shook her head.

"I don’t want to do this, Daniel."

Those eyes went dark now as his nostrils flared and she recognized
that look since she’d seen it often enough in the office, when he was
displeased.

"Little liar. And you're not in any position to play me,
Gia. Your nipples are bullet hard and you're wet. I can smell your need of me.
Open your legs."

The command in his voice had her shake her head and roll off
the bed.

After everything that had been happening to her over the
last two years, she needed Daniel Gillespie behaving like a caveman like she
needed a hole in the head.

How could she have thought having an affair with this man
was a good idea?

Yes, Daniel was a beautiful, aroused male but she simply couldn’t
cope with him making commanding physical and emotional demands of her like this.

As if he owned her.

As if he controlled her.

Hadn't she been down this road before?

Had she learned nothing?

Weak tears stung the back of her eyes and she found herself
blurting out nothing but the simple truth,

"Please, Daniel. You’re too big for me. Too much for
me."

His blue eyes went wide and he nodded.

"Do you honestly think I would just take you without
making sure you were more than ready for me, darling? Don’t you remember last
night?"

She did remember last night.

How would she ever forget it?

But she needed to explain herself to him.

Neither of them moved while their eyes battled for endless
moments.

"Please, I don’t want to do this with you."

Even as she spoke the words she knew they were a barefaced
lie.

If he so much as touched her she’d go up in flames and by
the look in his eyes Daniel knew it, too.

He smiled.

This time the smile instantly transformed
him from scary into a man with a dazzling quality of potent male charisma.

He rolled to lie on his side on the bed, all the while still
pleasuring himself, lazily stroking his shaft.

Her cheeks burned.

Had the man no shame?

"Come here,
luaidh
."

His accent, the way he spoke the words, so softly, so
gently, broke something deep within her.

"I didn’t do anything to be ashamed of, Daniel. I'm
telling the truth. I didn’t have sex," she whispered.

Those eyes went soft and so blue her breath caught in her
throat.

"I know."

Gia frowned even as she stood naked in front of him,
trembling, fighting the need to dive onto the bed, onto him.

"I earned it by working hard."

She seriously wished he'd cover himself.

Now he groaned as he rolled onto his back and she got an eyeful
of a majestically aroused male.

The blanket he pulled over his body tented over his erection
making him wince as he sat up against the pillows and folded his strong arms.
Her gaze couldn't help but take a long leisurely stroll over those wide
shoulders and muscled pecs.

He looked magnificent.

His black hair was still tousled from her fingers, his
strong jaw unshaven and his wide mouth almost pouted as he stared at her. But
it was the dark look of utter male frustration that made her mouth twitch, made
her bite down hard on her bottom lip.

"Okay," said Daniel. "Confess all. What did
you do? But I’m telling you now, Gia, you’d better not have been stripping or
pole-dancing."

Annoyance with him, with her nakedness, had her reach out to
grab a pillow to hug.

Pride made her voice sharp.

 "Is that all you consider I’m good for?
Stripping?"

His dark brow rose.

"That’s a lot of money for one night’s work."

Her chin lifted and the move made his eyes cool.

"I’ve been making that and more every night for
weeks," she informed him.

"Have you now? I’m all ears. So what is it you do so
amazingly well that would make a person pay you this amount of money?"

She took a shaky breath and her eyes held his.

"I’m a singer."

Those blue eyes went wide with what she realized was a
patent disbelief.

Silence.

"Must be some voice," he muttered. "Okay.
Sing."

Now that she’d been put on the spot, a horrible mix of the
jitters and nausea roiled in her gut. Why did stage-fright happen to her every
single time she was about to perform? But she would not permit fear to win.

Daniel leaned forward to study her closely.

And again his eyes narrowed but this time she recognized alarm
and was that guilt?

"You’ve gone terribly white. Are you sure you're
feeling well?"

She shook her head.

"No. I’ve suffered from stage-fright my whole life.
I’ll be okay once I start."

He sat back, all relaxed sexy male and gave her an impertinent
grin of disbelief that had temper battling through the tight nerves in her gut.

Cheeky bastard.

Without giving him a warning, or herself time to prepare,
she took a breath and her voice punched through worry to nail Bob Dylan’s song
about feeling his love.

When she finished she rolled right into Christina Aguilera’s
rock song about a fighter for love. The words for some reason seemed to resonate
deep inside her in a way that had her strutting her stuff, tossing the pillow
at him.

He caught it in one hand and hugged it close as his jaw went
slack.

His reaction only spurred Gia on as elation rose through her
blood along with the strange feeling of power she'd felt before swept through
her. She had no idea Daniel's vampyre ears where ringing or that the windows
were gently vibrating with the strength and perfect pitch of her voice.

As the final note died, she realized her own ears were
ringing and her heart was racing so fast in her chest she could hardly breathe.

Daniel’s wide smile of utter astonishment and delight made
her eyes sting.

She was trembling so hard, she gripped her hands together.

"For Christ’s sake, Gia. Why the hell are you working
for me? You’re bloody fantastic."

He held out his hand and she found herself kneeling on the
bed to place her hand in his.

The way he pulled her close, the way his strong hands cupped
her face to stare deep into her eyes made her frantic heart go even faster.

He was smiling.

He was looking at her as if she was the most wonderful woman
in the world.

As if he was
proud
of her.

The sensation was such a new one, that she couldn't help but
smile back.

His mouth whispered a kiss over her cheek, her forehead, her
eyelids, the tip of her nose before resting gently on her lips. Then he began
to do it all again as his hands slid over her shoulders, down her arms to hold
her hands in his.

A huge wave of arousal rose and lifted Gia up to slide her
into a sea of utter pleasure. She heard a low moan sound in her throat as a
hunger, a desperate need for more swept over her. She turned her mouth towards
his, but he simply fluttered his lips across her other cheek, across her
forehead, feathering over her eyelids again until they trembled closed.

As if held under a spell, she permitted his lips to range
over her face, leaving her mouth greedy and unsatisfied.

She could taste his breath on her lips and she wanted more
but his mouth went lower to nuzzle her neck.

Closing her eyes, she surrendered to the inevitable.

Her hands went limp in his and she didn’t even notice, but
Daniel did.

His shaft, hard as steel, was aching, throbbing, starving to
feel the hot, soft wetness of his woman.

Against his cheek, her silky hair was aromatic. And it took
everything he had not to plunder her soft mouth that waited, naked, for his.
His tongue traced the back of her ear and he felt her convulsive shudder of delight.
Taking great care he skimmed kisses over her temple, over one brow then the
other on a journey to the other side. He nibbled gently on the lobe, letting
his tongue slide over her flesh until she shuddered again.

Now he pressed his mouth to that hectic pulse in her throat
and fought the need to feed, to take, to taste the delicious and heady cocktail
of her blood.

Her pulse was rabbiting, in perfect time to the sound of her
breathing.

An excitement raced through him, made him almost dizzy with
desire. Dimly, a little voice told him to think about what he was doing. To
think of the consequences of an action that once done could never be undone.
But his vampyre was straining hard at the leash, too far gone to listen. He
wanted his mate and he wanted her
now
. He wanted to pump his heavy shaft
between the silken heat of those endless legs. He wanted to ride her until she
screamed his name.

But then Gia spoke, and it was too late to anything except
follow his nature, his instinct.

"Please. Stop teasing me, Daniel." His name was a
throaty moan that fired his shaft. "Kiss me."

He pressed his mouth to her clavicle, ran his incisors
gently, gently, over her smooth, silky flesh making her shiver in response.

"What do you call this?"

"Kiss me properly."

He drew back to look at her.

Eyes closed, her full lips were open, pouting, a picture of
pure female temptation, her breath trembling through them.

He moved into her, kept his mouth a whisper from hers.

"In a minute," he said softly but he laid her very
gently on her back. His big body pressing hers into the mattress as his mouth
met hers.

Her whimper sent him over the edge so fast his head spun and
his vampyre rose too fast and took control of the kiss. This time he plundered,
his tongue thrusting into her mouth and her throaty moans drove him out of his
mind.

He shoved her arms above her head, took her wrists in one
hand and held them firm.

The way his hips thrust spearing his shaft into her had her
scream into his mouth as her breath gasped with a pleasure pain that matched
his own.

And he couldn’t be sorry for it.

The weight of his heavy body pinned her to the bed, holding
her still as he gripped her jaw and turned her head to the side to expose her
vulnerable throat.

His vampyre growled before sinking incisors into her carotid
artery to feast.

The way she went stiff in his arms told him of her utter
shock but then her body clenched down too hard on his as her core muscles
flexed and relaxed, flexed and relaxed.

Dear Christ
, he couldn't believe the way she was
milking him. His whole body began to shudder as he bit his wrist, pressed it to
her mouth.

"Drink!" his vampyre commanded in a throaty growl.

Her eyes were still tightly closed as she drank deep.

Then those eyes flew open and Daniel's own heart thundered
as he saw the transformation from human to vampyre begin. Fast.

Maybe too fast?

Her skin went too pale, almost pearlescent.

Those fabulous eyes went the color of the darkest claret as
they gleamed into his with a flash of something that looked like pure
unadulterated
glee
.

Now his own heart beat too fast with alarm because he wasn't
sure that how she looked, how she was behaving was...
normal
, for a
newborn vampyre.

Her tiny fangs were so white they made him blink.

With care she released his wrist and her tongue swept over
his wound sealing it carefully, like a pro, as if she'd been doing this all her
life.

Then her tongue licked all around her lips to taste every
single drop of him.

Those claret eyes went wild and wicked and wanton.

She took a deep inhale and exhale all the while those
fabulous newborn eyes never left his.

The smile she gave him was naughty and shockingly sinful.

And she did something that reminded him he was still deep
inside her.

Her core muscles gripped him so tight he winced and gasped
as she repeated the process.

All the while those strange eyes pinned his.

He cried out.

Christ
, she had him by the dick and he couldn't escape
even if he wanted to.

The first true inkling that all was not well tickled his
instincts.

Instincts that had served him well for over two hundred
years.

"
What
have you done to me?" Her voice was
smoky and filled with pure sex, so unlike her own, and a feeling of dismay
flared in his gut.

Actually, that was a very good question.

What the hell had he done to her?

From what he'd heard from his brothers, any minute now he
could expect her to start vomiting clots of blood. She should start convulsing
as her body heated, burning the sweat of her humanity from her pores.

But Daniel was finding it too hard to think logically as she
continued to squeeze and release his aching shaft until the orgasm stinging the
base of his spine shot into his balls making them too tight too fast.

His animalistic howl of release could have cracked glass.

The way her body sucked the seed from his was so amazing it
fucking terrified him.

He’d heard of women leading a man by the balls, but never
expected to have it happen to him.

Alarm now morphed into something like terror.

A terror that deeply offended his beast.

"Release me," his vampyre hissed in warning.

Those claret colored eyes glittered playfully into his as
the muscles of her core set him free.

He slid out of her and the way his heart heaved a big sigh
of relief shamed him, man and beast.

While he caught his breath there was nothing but silence in
the room.

"What
are
you?" The way her voice went all
husky and smoky made Daniel’s throat go bone dry.

Dear God, she sounded nothing like the Gia he knew.

The Gia he loved.

"Vampyre," his vampyre snarled before he could
speak.

Cue a very stunned silence.

Her claret eyes went wide.

What happened next, Daniel knew he'd never, ever, forget for
as long as he lived.

She threw her head back and roared with a laughter that
sounded joyful.

His vampyre couldn't help but grin at the woman - no she
wasn't a woman, she wasn't human - lying on her back in his bed laughing her
head off.

While Daniel himself simply could not believe his eyes.

What the hell was the matter with him?

What the hell was the matter with her?

Why wasn’t she screaming in terror?

Why wasn't she writhing in agony?

He rolled away from her, off the bed, and hauled on his
jeans, protecting his still, unbelievably, hard flesh as he jerked up the zip.

Christ, his legs were like fucking jelly.

Why was his heart pounding?

Why were his palms sweaty?

He turned to her.

She lay back on his bed like a satisfied kitten that had
lapped the whole bowl of cream as she stretched luxuriously enjoying her
nakedness, arching her back.

Her tight little breasts jiggled and unbelievably his groin
fired again.

Those strange eyes, newborn vampyre eyes, held his and she
looked happy, relaxed.

Too happy?

Too relaxed?

Daniel's brow creased.

On the one hand, he was incredibly relieved that she wasn't
hurting, of course he was.

But on the other hand, there was something very, very wrong
with the picture she presented.

According to his brothers, when their wives’ vampyre emerged
they'd became so violently ill with raging fevers, with stomach cramps and
vomiting blood that they'd almost died.