Under His Claw (3 page)

Conrad, the tiger, supported her by the elbow. “Are you all right?”

She blinked and smiled weakly. “Yes, thank you.”

There was a disturbance in the entryway, and Zora looked to the king. He lifted his hand and the tawny-headed contingent strode in and came over to greet him.

It seemed a fairly even meeting, but the two males were sizing each other up. They spoke softly and Olvadi nodded in her direction. When the other man turned to look, she looked at Conrad and smiled brightly. “So, did you come here strictly to meet me? I am flattered.”

Conrad was handsome, dark haired and he had the loveliest blue eyes she could have ever imagined. Her body warmed at the thought of him on her and inside her. For one night, he would be more than enough.

She opened her mouth to ask him to come with her when a hand tapped her on the shoulder. She was whirled around and a mouth closed on hers. Heat bloomed the moment she tasted him. Her heart pounded and she felt herself being bent backward.

The smell of warm male swirled around her and she held onto his arms for balance as her senses were spinning for purchase.

When he held her upright and released her, he was grinning and his heart was pounding. “Pardon my tardiness. I am Regick, invited shifter.”

Octavia was in the background making a negative motion.

Zora turned to Conrad, but he was gone, as were the other offered suitors. She frowned at Regick, “What did you do to the others?”

He smiled, “Nothing, nor did they want me to. I have heard you are in the market for a companion for the evening.”

She blinked and looked around again with an air of desperation. Olvadi caught her gaze, and he nodded his head toward Regick.

Softly she whispered, “I suppose I am.”

“Would you care to go for a walk in the lower gallery? The portraits there are stunning.”

She looked around again. “I was supposed to—”

“In good time. We have all night and Olvadi isn’t getting any older. He will wait until he rises tomorrow before you will be put to the question.”

Zora was still wrapped in his arms, and she had no choice when he began walking through the crowd, and it parted for them. Whatever he was, even the vamps moved around him.

He led her down the grand staircase and into the gallery. While she hesitated, he had no such restraint. He simply kept his arm behind her and walked with her to the gallery, two vampires trailing behind them.

“You seem to have landed in a peculiar position, miss.”

Regick chuckled and paused in front of an image of Olvadi destroying a village in his younger days as a crusader.

“Zora. Call me Zora.”

“Zora, then. You haven’t been here long.”

She shook her head. “Less than a week.”

“Why is Olvadi taking care of you by finding you a companion?”

She blushed. “Why don’t you ask him?”

“Oddly enough, he can be very stubborn for a creature who has passed ten centuries. He is taking excessive care with you, though. It is interesting.”

She shrugged. “I am useful, I suppose. I was sold to him for the life of one of my ancestors.”

Regick winced. “Ouch. A blood feud that goes back that far?”

“No. My great-great-grandfather was a dick. He kidnapped me and exchanged me for his freedom. Blood for blood.”

The vampire nearest her cleared his throat.

She sighed. “And that is the end of conversation about me. You were invited here?”

“A favor in exchange for a favor. It was more of a command performance.”

She cocked her head. “You don’t seem the type to give in to commands easily.”

He chuckled. “You know me well already?”

“No, but there is something about the way you clear the space around you which tells me you are used to doing what you like. I had a teacher like you once. He wasn’t cruel, but he did lay things out in a no-nonsense way.”

Regick chuckled. “I have never been compared with a teacher before. I don’t know whether to be flattered or check my wardrobe.”

She glanced at the pristine shirt and immaculate slacks he was wearing. “Well, if upstairs is any standard of measure, you are overdressed for an orgy.”

He chuckled. “I do not participate in the vampire festivities. I find the touch of the cool flesh disturbing.”

She swallowed and he caught on.

“So that is it. You can’t stand their touch.”

She shivered and stepped back, crossing her arms and rubbing her biceps to shake off the shiver. “I can’t imagine it intimately, if it makes sense.”

“It makes sense.” He put his arm around her and they continued their slow walk down the gallery of vampires in historical moments. Crossing the ocean-wearing cloaks and huge-brimmed hats, stepping foot in North America for the first time. The initial treatise with the natives that set the vampire foothold in the new world. When the human colonists arrived, the nightsiders already had a strong presence, and they crafted the rules and regulations. Their society had evolved into predators and prey living side by side in the cities, and the towns surrounding them were usually one or the other.

The rest of the images were vampire kings and queens breaking ground at their palaces, portraits of courts and the memorable moments of modern day.

She was becoming used to the scent and feel of Regick, and Zora clued in that this walk was actually foreplay. His fingers cruised over her back and ribs so lightly she didn’t even notice she was leaning into his touch.

Zora laughed lightly, “You are very good.”

He grinned down at her and his amber eyes glowed in the dim light. His hard jaw and the sensual curve of his lips kept her attention as he lowered his head to hers. “Who told?”

She giggled, and he pressed his lips against hers, stroking her tongue with his. The rough texture and heady taste of him had her head spinning again.

He lifted his head and whispered against her lips. “I won’t hurt you, I will take care to ensure your pleasure and your safe word will halt all interactions between us.”

Zora closed her eyes and then opened them, meeting his gaze. “Carter is my safe word.”

He smiled and nodded. “An easy one not to mistake.”

“And easy to pronounce while distracted.”

“Well, then, as the rules have been spoken, shall we?”

Zora nodded nervously, her muscles tense and her mouth dry. “My rooms are up two levels and down the hall.”

“Then, we had better make our way.”

Again, he kept an arm around her and proceeded up the steps with her guards trailing after them. She was an asset and she needed to get used to being treated as such.

When she had directed him to her room, he eased her inside and then closed and threw the bolt on the door.

He shrugged. “It won’t actually hold them off but it will annoy them.”

Zora retreated to lean against her desk, and she held onto her chair with both hands behind her back. She licked her lips nervously.

Regick’s focus was on her mouth. He matter-of-factly removed his cufflinks and worked on his shirt until it hung open, exposing bare chest, which was crisscrossed with scars.

The body hair on his chest had her fingers curling more tightly around the chair back. Out of vanity, the vampires shaved completely from neck to toe. There was not a chest hair to be found in the king’s court.

Regick was a contrast to everything around him and Zora’s curiosity got the better of her. She released the desk and stepped toward him, flattening her hands on his chest and stroking the hair she found there.

His hands came around her shoulders and he stroked her back. The cool air of the zipper opening caused a flutter of arousal in her pussy. It was strange what she wanted. She used to want to be alone, but now with her body constantly surrounded, she wanted to be alone with one other person and here he was.

Regick eased her dress off her shoulders, and it caught on her hips. Her silken slip was all which separated her skin from his. He ran his fingers over her exposed back and the silk. “You are softer than the silk.”

“You don’t need to flatter me. I am a sure thing.”

He didn’t like it much. Her skirt hit the floor and he tossed her to the bed. “Well, since I don’t need to exude effort…”

She skidded along her sheets with her silk chemise easing the friction of her slide.

With short, angry movements, Regick removed his shirt, shoes, socks and trousers. He might be irritated, but his erection was long and hard, arching insistently upward. He grabbed her thighs and pulled her to the edge of the bed, forming claws and tearing her chemise from her. The small scrap of panties she wore was torn off with equal irritation.

Naked and staring up at an insistent male, she held her hand up and said, “No.”

“No, what? You said you were a sure thing. Obviously, you only want me to fuck you and leave.”

Tears began to flow. “No. It wasn’t what I meant. I don’t want this, but I don’t want pain or a joining without attachment. I am scared.”

He sighed and pulled her upright, sitting on her bed and pulling her across his lap. “Why are you scared?”

“I don’t do this a lot.”

He chuckled. “A woman’s body is a remarkable design, you were meant to take a lover.”

She wiped her tears and controlled her breathing. “Everything about this place scares me.”

It seemed that having a man in her room had been enough to break her hard won calm. She swallowed hard.

“Good, it is a frightening place. It shows you are sane.”

“But for how long? I have tonight with someone I can touch, who will touch me back with hands which are warm and skin that doesn’t feel like cold porcelain.”

She looked up at him and was sure she looked horrible. She knew her eyes were red and her skin was blotchy, but he stroked her cheek and tugged at the tendrils of hair on her neck. Zora felt the caress of claws on her neck and she swallowed nervously.

“Do you trust me?” He stroked his hand down her skin, the delicate scrape of his claws giving her flickers of pleasure through the threat of pain.

“I don’t know you.”

He smiled, and she could see deadly fangs growing in his jaws. He carefully enunciated, “Do you trust me?”

She looked into his amber eyes and nodded. “I think I…yes. As much as I trust anyone.”

“Then, allow me to show you what those cuffs are designed for.”

He rose to his feet with her in his arms and centered her on her bed. He used his clawed hands to grasp her wrists, and he pressed them up to the headboard.

Zora heard small clicks and she tugged at her wrists. The bands were locked inches above her head, holding her arms up and out of the way. “What?”

Regick looked down at her with a sharp smile. “Sex with a shifter is a dance of dominance and submission. You are not trained to hold me down, so I will ease my instincts by making you helpless.”

She twisted her wrists and the metal snapped tight, holding her fast.

He chuckled. “And now there will be no struggles.”

She sighed and swallowed. “I still want you.”

She saw his eyes flare from human to slit-pupil and back again. His teeth made the kiss awkward but no less arousing as her body was covered completely by his and he rubbed his skin across her in a full-body caress.

There was no going back.

Regick was careful with his claws, but they were a deadly reminder he wasn’t a normal human male. They folded back when he wasn’t using them and extended when he flexed his hand.

Zora was grateful that he didn’t tell her to relax. Either it would happen or it wouldn’t.

Locked in place, she was able to appreciate the width of his shoulders and the deliberate care he was taking with her. The light scratching was waking the surface of her skin, and she could feel herself getting wet as he stroked over spots on her skin that were exceptionally sensitive.

When he drew his fingers under her navel, she gasped and her muscles tightened. He continued his stroking and made it down to her thighs. Her inner thighs slid together, but he inserted a leg between them. She was open to him. He stared into her eyes while he drew his deadly fingers up. She shivered as his light stroke slowed as it closed in on her sex.

He stroked two fingers through the slick heat she was giving him, and she closed her eyes as he lifted his hand to his mouth, licking delicately.

The sound he made was a deep growl, and she felt him widening the splay of her thighs before his rough tongue was parting the lips of her sex and he was drinking directly from her.

Zora mewled as he lapped at her with his fangs pressing into her sensitive flesh. She opened her thighs as wide as she could, tilting her hips in invitation.

As he licked, she rocked her hips against his mouth, and she moaned as he moved faster, voraciously drinking her honey as her body surrendered to his mouth. He gripped her hips and held her as he worked at her with short snarls.

She sobbed and cried out as her channel tried to grip his invading tongue. Her body bucked in his hands as he continued to drink her in.

When she was slumped in his grasp, he moved up her body and settled the engorged head of his cock against her swollen opening. Zora felt a gush of moisture from her body to his, and he slid a few inches into her before pausing again.

Zora opened her eyes and stared up at Regick. Sweat gleamed on his face, shoulders and down his chest. She wanted to run her tongue along his neck, but she couldn’t move.

“What do you want, Zora?”

She was flustered. Sex usually didn’t involve a lot of requests and answers on her part.

“Um…”

“Just say it.”

She mumbled. “I want you close enough to taste you.”

He leaned toward her and gave her what she wanted, easing farther inside her as he moved.

She licked at the drops of sweat coating his neck; the taste of him sent her senses reeling. Her hips bucked, taking the column of his cock deep, and she licked him again, shivering as her nipples pebbled and her body shimmied again.

He shuddered as he slid into her, moving as far as he could.

Zora arched her breasts against him, rubbing across the hair on his chest. Everywhere she touched him, she tingled, until the riot in her senses drove her into a sensual whiteout where all she could do was feel.