When Wicked Craves (20 page)

With five gentle tugs, she loosened the fingers of the glove that sheathed her right hand, then followed the same procedure for the left. She toed off her shoes, then bent down to slip off her socks. Slowly, she eased her feet down onto the thick pile carpet, then squeezed the fibers with her toes. She never went without shoes and thick socks—bare feet were just too dangerous—and now the sensation of carpet against her toes was so luxurious she thought she might have to strip off her clothes and lie naked on the floor, the carpet tickling every inch of her.

No.

The clothes were staying on. And for one very particular reason—she wanted Nicholas to be the one who took them off.

And damn if she didn’t want that right now.

With single-minded purpose, she left the bedroom, crossing the large condo to where Nicholas sat in the living room, still on the couch, his eyes still closed. At some point he’d gotten up, though, and moved about, because
the soiled jacket was nowhere to be seen. He wore no shirt, but he’d wrapped thick gauze over the wound, his pale skin actually seeming dark against the pure white of the bandage.

His eyes were closed. She couldn’t tell if he slept. Frankly, she didn’t care. Her body was humming now. Her skin sensitive even to the brush of air. She was ready—so ready—and waiting was not an option.

She paused in front of him, wondering if he would open his eyes, but he made no move. She stepped closer, then eased one knee up on the couch beside him.

Still nothing.

Slowly, she grabbed the back of the couch, then swung her leg over and lowered herself until she was sitting astride him, her sex nestled up against his. And that, of course, was how she knew that he was not asleep. She felt his cock harden under the pressure of her weight, and she heard her own soft moan in response to his desire.

“It is a brave woman who sneaks up on a sleeping vampire.” His eyes were still closed, but his mouth curved into a smile.

“Not sneaking,” she said. “Seducing.”

“Is that so?” He looked at her, his eyes dark with desire. His gaze took her in all over, then ended on her face, a question mark reflected in his picture-perfect brow. “The sun has been down for minutes now, and yet you haven’t touched me, not flesh upon flesh. Are you afraid the curse still lingers?”

“Maybe a little.” There was always a hesitancy during a blue moon. Every time one had come around she’d
been terrified to hold Kiril’s hand, afraid of losing the one person in all the world who truly belonged with her.

“I won’t change,” he said. “For tonight, the curse has lifted. You feel it, don’t you? Pounding through your blood. In your breasts. Between your legs?” As if to make the point, he slid his hand between their joined bodies, cupping her sex through the tight denim.

“The blood,” she said. “You can feel me.”

The hand squeezed slightly, and she moaned with rising pleasure. “I can feel you,” he confirmed.

“Please,” she whispered.

“Please, what?”

“Touch me.”

“Soon,” he said. “There’s power in anticipation.”

She wasn’t sure if she should laugh or smack him. “I’ve been anticipating this my entire life.”

“Then you know how sweet it is. I’ve been thinking about your taste all day. Let me taste you, Petra.”

“Yes,” she whispered, as he lowered his lips to her neck.

She flinched as his fangs punctured her skin, then melted into his embrace as his mouth closed over her flesh and he sucked, drawing the essence of her life into him. She was floating—giving—her body raw with need and desperate for a touch even more intimate than this.

He drank deep, more and more, until reason began to leave her. Until life, too, started to ebb away. She was floating. Gliding. And it felt glorious to be so close to being free—to no longer be trapped in a body that could only harm.

Except tonight there would be no harm. If her life
didn’t slip away, this could be a night of touches and sweet caresses.

“Nicholas …” Her voice was soft and weak, barely audible even to her own ears.

He pulled her closer, and she gasped with the pleasure of it, the pure, dangerous, erotic pleasure of being taken to the brink.

“Nicholas.” Too much
, she thought.
Too much.
But the words couldn’t come. She couldn’t form them. Couldn’t force them out past weakened lips.

She could only languish in his arms until suddenly—finally—he thrust her away, pushing her off him as he laid her back on the couch. “Petra, Petra, by the gods, Petra, I’m sorry.”

She let her eyes flutter open as his hands stroked her flesh, her body weak, but her mind spinning, overflowing with raw pleasure.

He knelt beside her, the paleness of his skin replaced with the glow of life. “I’m sorry. I should have stopped. I drank too much.”

She silenced him with a finger to his lips, a first for her, and one that made her smile, the effort of using those muscles almost exhausting her.
“You’re healed?”

“Because of you.” He began to lift his wrist toward his mouth. “You must drink.”

“Not yet.” She closed her fingers over his wrist. “Show me.” Her fingers fumbled for the bandage. He reached up, helped her to remove it. The skin beneath the bandage had knitted back together, healthy and strong, with not even the slightest of imperfections. With awe, she traced her fingertip over his chest.
“I did this?”

“You did.”

“I saved you,” she said, then stretched lazily, feeling a power within her despite the weakness.

His grin was intoxicating. “So you did.”

She propped herself up on her elbows. “It was only fair, you know. You’ve saved me countless times.”

“Actually only three. So far.”

“So far,” she agreed, then matched his grin.

His fingers stroked her hair, then brushed her cheek. “You’re weak, Petra. Will you drink from me? Just like before. Not enough to change you. Only enough to make you strong. Tonight, I would have you strong.”

She met his eyes, saw the tenderness there, along with a desire so sharp she feared it would cut her to ribbons. “Yes,” she said, the word little more than a breath. “I’ll drink.”

Tariq stood outside Lucius Dragos’s Beverly Hills mansion, feeling smug. For the first time, he had Luke’s balls in a vise, and he intended to milk this particular situation for all it was worth.

He’d been allowed entrance through the security gate, and now he waited impatiently on the front porch. He rang the bell again, then gave the door a slap with the heel of his hand for good measure. Half a second later, the door swung open, and he found himself staring up at Lucius Dragos’s massive form. “We need to talk.”

For a moment, Luke simply stood in the doorway, as if taking Tariq’s measure. Then Tariq saw the vampire smile, thin and dangerous and dripping with malice. “You imprisoned my wife.”

Tariq lifted his chin, forced himself to be calm. “With cause.”

“Of course. With cause. Much like the cause I now have to rip your fucking head off.”

“Do not threaten me,” Tariq said, anger mixing with enough fear to give a hard edge to his voice. “She helped a prisoner escape, and now she’s paying the price.”

For a long moment, Luke only looked at him, hate hard in those amber eyes. Then, finally, he spoke. “Why are you here?”

“I told you. We need to talk.”

“I’m listening.”

Tariq hesitated. He might have a firm grip on Luke’s balls, but that didn’t mean it would be wise to squeeze.

Then again, how often did someone get and keep the upper hand with Lucius Dragos? Not damn often, and Tariq wasn’t one to ignore possibilities. “I’ve been thinking about the situation. Petra Lang’s escape. The fact that Montegue helped her—no, don’t bother denying it,” he added, though Luke had made no move to speak. “And, of course, your mate’s involvement.”

“That’s a lot to be thinking about. I hope you didn’t hurt your head.”

“Mock me all you want, Dragos, but my eyes are wide open, and what I’m seeing is pretty damn interesting.”

“Is that so? What exactly are you seeing?”

“Montegue getting himself in some serious shit, for one thing. And the only reason I can think that Nicholas would go to so much trouble—the only reason I can see that he’d actually drag Sara into his mess—is if he had something huge to gain.”

“Indeed?”

“Serge is alive, Luke,” he said, looking hard at Luke’s face. For any reaction, no matter how small. “Don’t even try to tell me otherwise.”

“It’s an intriguing theory,” Luke said, his voice calm, his expression never wavering. “Hard to prove.”

“Or maybe not,” Tariq said. “I’ve got Constantine, and we’ll get Montegue and the girl soon enough.”

“Interesting,” Luke said, and now those eyes did change, narrowing as he peered at Tariq. He reached up
and rubbed his chin, giving the impression of a man deep in thought. “Yes. Very interesting.”

He didn’t want to ask, yet he couldn’t forestall his own words. “What? My theory?”

Luke laughed. “No, your theory is shit. But you’ve given me an idea. For that, old friend, I thank you.” He stepped back, and without another word, shut the door in Tariq’s face.

The jinn stood there, wondering how the hell this encounter could have gone so wrong. He’d come to put the fear of God—or at least the Alliance—into Dragos. But Dragos wasn’t scared, not at all.

Instead, he was scheming.

And that, Tariq knew, was never a good thing.

“Drink,” Nicholas said, pulling her gently back onto his lap. “Drink deep.” He took his fingernail and thrust it into his chest. A drop of blood rose, thick and crimson, and as she clung to him, frozen with both desire and fear, he cupped the back of her head and urged her lips to his skin.

She remembered nothing about the blood she’d taken from him on the plane, the blood that had saved her life. Now it wasn’t her life she was concerned about, but the depth of her desire. As soon as she touched him, as soon as her lips brushed his skin and her tongue caught the tang of blood, she was certain that she would be lost.

“Petra …” His voice was raw, as if waiting for her touch was torture.

It was.

Unable to stand it any longer, she grazed the tip of her tongue upon the wound, then felt her body quiver with the first hint of blood upon her taste buds.

Nicholas moaned, his head falling back even as his arms pulled her closer, and she needed no more encouragement. She closed her mouth fully over the wound and drew in the sweet taste of him, his vampiric blood buzzing through her, bringing her senses to life and setting her already vulnerable body to tingling.

His hands slid under her T-shirt, his fingers caressing bare flesh that no one had ever touched before. She tensed, wanting it, and yet at the same time afraid of the depth of her need. She felt as if she could consume him—hell, she
was
consuming him—and while part of her never wanted this to end, the other part was overwhelmed by the wildness that his blood, that his touch, shot through her.

“No,” he whispered. “Don’t fear me. Don’t fear this.”

“I’m not afraid,” she said. On the contrary, her body was on fire, aroused, and she drank and drank, taking in his blood, his essence. This was Nicholas, and dear God, how she wanted him.

“Slow,” he said. “You’ve had enough.”

She murmured a soft protest, unable to find it in herself to form words.

Gently, he nudged her lips from his skin, then tilted her head up. He wasted no time with soft kisses, but took her mouth violently in his, his fangs grazing over her lip, until the taste of their blood mingled, and she thought she would die right then from the intensity of it all.

When she finally leaned back to catch her breath, she reached out to stroke his chest, and found that the wound was completely healed. “You made me strong again,” he said, then forestalled her answer with a kiss.

She’d been curled in his lap all the while, but now he moved her, laying her on the couch and sitting beside her, his fingers trailed over the material of the shirt she wore. “Don’t,” she whispered.

“Don’t?” His voice reflected his surprise.

“Don’t touch me through cloth.”

He slipped his hands down in answer, palms flat against the shirt, until he reached the hem. Then his fingers crept under, finding the strip of skin above the waist of her jeans. She gasped, reflexively sucking her stomach in, as he traced gently above the denim path. Her breath came in shallow gasps, and though she wanted to beg him for more than a mere fingertip against her skin, she was afraid to speak. Afraid that if a fingertip could do this to her, then what could the press of his entire hand, his body, his lips do? She might combust beneath his touch, and while at the moment she could think of no better place to die than in his arms, she wanted this feeling to go on and on and on.

Slowly, he pressed his hands flat against her skin. Slowly, he slid them up, until the tips of his fingers brushed the curves of her breasts. She gasped, her body arching up as if it was determined to draw every ounce of pleasure from the moment. Her nipples hardened, and as she squirmed, they brushed against the cotton of her T-shirt, the sensation so intoxicating it sent shivers of pleasure through her.