On the Trail of Darkness

by Ann Jacobs

  “I’m quite alive, I promise. Vampires don’t have to breathe the way mortals do, although we can if we remind ourselves consciously to take in and expel air.”

  “But your heart doesn’t beat.”

  “Yes, it does, but it does so quietly. Trust that I am healed but for this small scar.” Moving gracefully, Claude stretched out at her side and stroked her as he leaned closer, his head above hers. His deep green eyes and impossibly long black lashes drew her in, compelling her to follow his gentle lead. His lips, surprisingly rosy against his pale skin, tempted her to raise her head, invite his kiss.

  Marisa felt as though this was a long-awaited lover when he drew her closer, enclosed her in a strong but tender embrace.

  Would her lover’s kiss—no, not her lover’s but her john’s, she reminded herself as reality intruded with the intensity of a chilly wind on a warm Miami day—make her skin tingle, her belly do flip-flops? When she looked into his eyes she saw no menace, only passion, a heat that contrasted with the cool, smooth texture of pale skin stretched over rippling muscles.

  His kiss, tentative at first, became a claiming of her lips, her mouth, a tangling of tongues in a mating dance that felt right—more right than she had experienced in the few encounters with mortal men outside the Strip. When he broke the contact and moved his face to the sensitive hollow of her throat, part of her wanted to pull away, but she felt compelled to follow his lead.

  “I will not harm you, ma belle chérie.” As if he felt her momentary hesitation, he pulled away and tilted her chin up, compelling her to look in his eyes as he began a slow, seductive exploration of her body with his hands, his touch at once reassuring and arousing.

  He touched her as though he knew exactly what to do to arouse a woman. When he caressed her, she nearly forgot this was business, a trade of her body for his money.

  I will forget. Take the pleasure this man—this vampire—offers, think only of tonight, banish the problems tomorrow will bring.

  “Open to me.” The deep sound of his quietly uttered command surrounded her, heated her skin. Wanting him more than she feared losing herself, she spread her legs, giving him silent approval to touch and taste her.

  But he didn’t. He made no move to cover her but touched her only with exploring fingertips. He lulled away her misgivings, aroused her so much she almost forgot she was a prostitute to this man—this gorgeous vampire. That she’d sold her body to him just as she’d handed over her soul to the devil. Her inner muscles clenched and her honey began to flow.

  She took his hand, drew it between her legs. “Do you like that I grow wet for you?”

  “I like it a lot. I like you a lot.” When he found her clit and began to circle it with his finger, her flesh hardened. Her body was responding eagerly to his skilled touch. She sensed he was looking up at her and met his glittering gaze.

  “You don’t do this often, do you?” he asked.

  “No.” Madre de Dios. Imaginary vampires she’d heard about had psychic powers, but . . . could real ones hear mortals’ silent thoughts? Dios, how she wanted her vampire to know she wanted him to take her—with or without the money he’d agreed to pay her. The warm dampness of his mouth contrasted with the coolness of his hands when he shifted and drew that hardened nub between his teeth.

  “Señor, I want . . .” Her mouth watered to taste the hard, sculpted length of him, to run her tongue over his satin-smooth flesh.

  “I want you to call me Claude.”

  “Claude.” She liked the unusual name, liked everything about him.

  “Is this what you want?” He turned, his movement graceful as he straddled her face. His thighs framed her cheeks when he leaned over her sex, the warmth of his breath on her slick folds filling her with anticipation. “Touch me, Marisa. Torture me as I intend to torture you.”

  He was big, rigid, as pale and hard as marble. Cool to her touch. Yet when she wrapped her fingers around him, he pulsed with life, and his testicles tightened further at her touch. His flesh warmed as though absorbing her own heat. “I like it that you have no hair down here.” She ran her tongue along the vein that pulsed along the underside of his shaft. He tasted good. Clean. He throbbed and twitched when she took him between her lips and licked away a drop of lubrication from the tip. Her nipples tightened when he spread her outer lips and inserted first one then two long fingers inside her. She took him deeper, swallowed.

  Claude let out a groan. “Don’t stop now.” He blew on her wet core, the playful act contrasting with the tightness of his muscles, the guttural tone of his voice. “Vampires don’t have hair except what’s on our heads. I like it that you’re smooth too.”

  “Mmmm. You taste good.” Marisa licked along the vein that ran the length of his swollen sex, then sucked the tip into her mouth.

  “So do you. You know, when I first saw you dancing, I hoped you’d wrap those full red lips around my cock and suck me the way you’re doing now. When I watched you dance and imagined you taking me in your mouth, I got so hard I hurt. The reality is so much better.” His pelvis jerked, forcing her to take him deeper. “Don’t stop,” he begged, his tone desperate. “Take it all.”

  She wanted to. Dios. She had to tilt her head back to take the length of him down her throat. With one hand she cupped his scrotum, caressed him with her fingertips as she sucked and swallowed. With the other she stroked around his anus in a circular motion, pressing a finger against his anal sphincter until it gave way and let her in.

  Claude’s groan when she caressed him there came out sounding like something between a purr and a roar. So, it was true. Marisa hadn’t believed it when the girls at work had talked about how many straight men enjoyed anal play. Encouraged, she began to move her finger in and out, imitating the rhythm of sex—until he reached down and stilled her hand.

  “Where did you learn to do that? No, don’t answer.” The possessiveness in his tone made her tremble. It hurt when she reminded herself it meant nothing, that she was only hearing what she wanted to hear, acting out the wishes in her head.

  He fucked her with his fingers and tongued her clit. His hard-ridged belly brushed against her breasts, abraded them until the nipples grew taut and tingled. The unfamiliar coolness of his satiny skin did nothing to alleviate the heat coursing through her veins.

  Hot. She felt so hot. Heavy. She couldn’t have moved even if the patron himself had been stalking her. Not now. Every nerve in her body tingled at Claude’s touch. Every swipe of his velvety tongue on her swollen flesh, each stroke of his fingers in her core, her ass, turned her blood to liquid fire. Madre de Dios, the sensations took her breath away, left her teetering on the edge of ecstasy. Her climax began as just a twinge, growing in intensity, bursting into a thousand nipping fingers of flame that spread through her body and left her weak. She sucked in his fingers, contracted around them, wanting more. Wanting him.

  He swelled more against her throat. She sucked harder. His testicles tightened in their sac. When he flooded her mouth with his essence, she swallowed.

  I want to take him into my body, consume him. Want to give my vampire lover all he’s given me and more. I want to give myself to him. All of me.

  It was crazy, as though Claude had placed a spell on her, as if by some act of magic he’d invaded her heart as well as her body. Marisa clutched his hips, held his still-pulsating penis between her lips. She couldn’t bear the thought of letting him go. Claude d’Argent was not a night’s fuck for money, but a master of her senses—and her emotions.

  Chapter Four

  Claude lay back, spent, his head resting on Marisa’s shoulder. Her throat lay mere inches away, the large vein there pulsating with life, tempting him. If he turned his head a little, he could sink his fangs into her flesh. Change her. If he did, whatever mortal problems plagued her would be over.

  But he could not. Dared not. He remembered the story of how his cousin Stefan had tried to turn his lover, failing and destroying her instead. Stefan hadn’t been al
l that much older than Claude was now. That thought made him clamp his mouth shut, banish that dangerous temptation. He didn’t want to follow Stefan’s footsteps and exist alone in one of the d’Argent bastions of antiquity, never daring to look again for a soul mate.

  Idiot. She’s not your lover, she’s the woman you hired to fuck you for the night.

  Claude moved back, took a good look at the woman who was affecting him much more strongly than she should. She’d given him the best sex experience of his life.

  He didn’t want to believe he was no more than a job for her. That she’d traded her body for money. I don’t believe it. No courtesan ever made me feel this way before.

  Get real, Claude. She’s a stripper. She sells sex for a living. A twinge of self-disgust took the edge off his satisfaction, but only for a moment.

  So she was fucking him for money. So what? Claude hadn’t come so long, so easily in all his seventy-five years on earth. At this moment it didn’t matter that he was the baby of the d’Argent vampires, much too young to think of settling down with just one woman.

  I want to turn her, keep her for all eternity.

  You don’t even know for certain how to turn a mortal. And you barely know Marisa. What gives you reason to believe she’d want to become your dhampir lover? Disgusted at the direction his thoughts were taking, Claude stroked her silky back, cupped her firm buttocks and drew her closer. Protected her from himself, his own impulsive desire.

  His sex twitched. She shifted, let him in between her firm, silky thighs. Her honey wet his flesh, its heat and dampness showing him the way to her deliciously tight sex. “Do you want to fuck me now?”

  Right now he wanted to talk, needed to find out for certain if she was the woman he’d seen those thugs threatening in the alley outside the club. “Later. If what I read in your mind is right, you’re afraid of something . . . someone.”

  “It’s not important.” When she tightened her firm thigh muscles, her flesh caressed his, and his cock grew instantly hard. “I promised you all night. Now all I want is to feel you inside me.” She cupped his cheek with one soft hand as she looked into his eyes. “Not because you’re paying me, but because you’ve made me hot and wet . . . for you.”

  Claude couldn’t resist her pleas, not when his usually quiet heartbeat was accelerating, when blood was pounding through his veins, settling between his legs and making his head feel light. “All right. But we will talk later.”

  “Yes. We’ll talk later, but take me now. Please.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Wasting no time, he rolled Marisa onto her back, positioned himself and mounted her. “Do you want me inside you?”

  It shocked him when she shoved him back, hard, gripping his shoulders. He saw what looked like panic in her eyes. “What’s wrong? Did you decide we need to talk after all?” One thing he’d learned during his relatively short lifetime was that females could be mercurial.

  “Oh, no. It would please me very much for you to fuck me. But you need to use a condom. Please. If you don’t mind.” She reached on the floor and fumbled in her bag, finally finding one and handing it to him while mumbling apologies.

  He was in no mood at the moment to explain that vampires didn’t get or carry STDs and rarely impregnated their partners, not with her steaming flesh caressing the swollen tip of his cock. He’d wear the condom because it obviously would put her at ease. “Put it on me.”

  “Yes.” Her fingers trembling against his hard-on, she hurried to sheathe him. “Whatever you wish.”

  He’d never felt so hot, never wanted a woman so much. “Take me in your hand. Rub me against your slick, wet heat.”

  She shifted, drew him to her, circled the tip of his penis around her rear entrance. “Do you want to fuck me here?”

  “Later. Do you mind?”

  “It will be my pleasure, however you wish.”

  She sounded like the fantasy women who’d fueled his daydreams for longer than he could remember. Claude grew harder and hotter, impossibly aroused by the possibilities. Possibilities he had to explore.

  Deliberately he made his voice deeper, more authoritative. “I want you on your hands and knees now. I want to hear these bells ringing while we make love.” Slowly, though without hesitation, he slid his hands up to cup her full breasts, jiggling them and making the bells that hung from her nipple rings jingle in the silence of the night.

  “Like this?” She rolled over instantly and knelt, head down, her sex exposed, her buttocks in the air as though inviting his attention.

  “Yes. Exactly like this.” He slapped her ass cheek smartly, watched with satisfaction as it turned pink and her inner lips glistened with a new burst of lubrication. He caught it on his finger and used it to lubricate the hard little bud of her clit. “You like it when I spank you. I can tell. I want to hear this bell ringing too.” He tweaked the one dangling from her clit, enjoyed the high-pitched sound of the tiny clapper as it resounded against the gold bell.

  Yes, she liked it. That was obvious from the heat and wetness of her swollen flesh, the rough cadence of her breathing. Knowing she wanted him to claim her had him so hot he thought his cock would burst.

  He bit back a groan when he got a whiff of her heady musk. He couldn’t wait, had to bury himself inside her and feel her heat. “I’m going to fuck you now. Will you like that?” he asked as he went on his knees between her widespread legs and rubbed his sheathed cock along her hot, damp flesh.

  “Yes, please. Please take me. Fuck me hard.”

  “It will be my pleasure.” Oh, yeah. When he found her sheath and plunged inside, it felt so good he wanted to scream. “You’re so tight, so hot. So wet. Yes, squeeze me. You feel so damn good.”

  His balls lay against her clit, making the little bell ring over and over, sounding out every stroke. His cool flesh absorbed her heat, her honey, drove him crazy. He loved the way her inner muscles milked him, as though they wanted to take his essence and make it her own. Grasping her hips, he controlled the movement. She was a perfect fit for him, so tight and wet. Her hard breathing let him know she was on the edge, and he was ready to take her over.

  “Squeeze me. Harder. Oh, yeah, do it again.” Her grip on him felt like fingers of fire.

  “Dios mio, I’m coming!” Her words dissolved into whimpers of pleasure as her flesh began to convulse around his.

  Instinctively he bent over her, angling his head so his fangs aligned perfectly with his lover’s golden throat. He slammed into her again and again. Pressure built in his balls. He felt her passion in the clenching muscles that held him inside her, heard it in the little moans and breathy entreaties to fuck her harder, take everything she had to give. Her blood pounded through her veins as the smell of sex filled his nostrils. He had to come.

  But first he had to taste her. The temptation of her creamy flesh throbbing with life and passion beneath him was too much. He had to see her face, feel her tight nipples boring against his chest. “Turn over,” he rasped, withdrawing briefly as he issued the order, then joining their bodies again. She felt incredible, especially when she raked her nails across his back and inclined her head, as though to give him better access to the irresistibly throbbing vein beneath the satiny skin of her throat.

  Claude opened his mouth, aligned his fangs with her pulsating jugular vein. He’d take just a sip. No more. She clenched him harder with every thrust. He was about to come. Sensations rushed through his body, tightening his testicles and making him gasp for the breath of cool air his body didn’t really require.

  “God, yes,” she hissed, her buttocks tightening as she reared up against him as if to consume every inch of him.

  “Have to taste you. Oh, baby.” His spurting climax triggered by her own, he bit her, let himself savor the salty metallic taste of blood on his fangs for a mere second before moving away from temptation—away from the risk of taking enough to make her lose consciousness, and turning her. Or draining her blood completely and causing her to die, he thought, on
ce again reminded of Stefan’s life-altering mistake so long ago.

  • • •

  His love-bite still stung when Marisa came down off the incredible climax that had left her limp. After going to the bathroom, she lay on her side facing her vampire lover. Curious, she reached over and stroked Claude’s cheek, her gaze locked on his sensual mouth, his prominent fangs now hidden.

  “Did you turn me into a vampire too?” She didn’t feel any different, but once the thought came to her mind she began to think of vampire movies and the erotic vampire romances she and the other girls often talked about during breaks at the Strip.

  His gorgeous green eyes opened and he smiled, deliberately displaying his fangs. “No.”

  She didn’t know why that disappointed her, but it did. “But you bit me—”

  “I nipped you. You tasted so sweet it was hard for me to turn away, but I did. Do you trust me?”

  Marisa had to think. He was a stranger—a vampire yet—but she’d felt compelled to offer him her heart and soul. She had no reason to trust the man—vampire—she’d agreed to fuck the night away with for two thousand dollars. Creatures of his kind were said to destroy mortals in the most horrible of ways. That poor woman in Buenos Aires a few weeks ago . . . according to accounts on cable news, she’d been drained of every ounce of her blood by what the reporters hinted might have been a killer vampire. Marisa shuddered as she recalled reports of other such grisly murders of women in various spots around the world.

  But when she looked into Claude’s eyes she saw no evil, only goodness and concern. And desire, more intense than any she’d experienced before. Though she had every reason not to, she trusted Claude. Besides, according to the accounts she’d read, the killer vampire or vampires chose only blondes. If Claude had been the killer in the news, surely he’d have chosen Donna, her coworker who’d come on to him at the club. “I believe you wish me no harm, Claude, although I don’t understand why.”