Bite The Hand That Bleeds: A Mission Series Prequel

by Megan Erickson

  “Bye, my not-fragile Roxy.”

  I laughed, and he dropped his hand. In seconds he was out the door, and he shut it behind him with a soft click.

  He hadn’t looked back.

  * * *

  There was nothing to do. I had my phone, and because there was no Wi-Fi, I played some crappy game apps that my brother had told me to download. I tested my ankle and although it was a bit swollen, the pain wasn’t as bad. I couldn’t put my heels back on, but I could put enough weight on it to walk with only a slight limp.

  Also I was a little scared. Would I want to fuck a vampire once they fed from me? The thought of taking my pants off for anyone right now was not an arousing thought. Except if it was Dru.

  No, stop it. I wouldn’t see him again. So I waited in that room for what felt like hours, hoping that Cassie was all right, that Dru had forgotten about me, and that I wasn’t paired up with some lame-ass vampire.

  I wandered around the room. It was basically like a hotel. There was a small bathroom with a shower and a single bed. Just when I was contemplating taking a nap, there was a knock at the door. I froze. “Uh, come in.”

  The door opened, and I breathed out a sigh of relief when the woman from the front desk smiled politely at me. She wore her hair in tight bun, and her dress shirt stretched across her ample chest. She was doing just fine in her sky-high heels. I’d abandoned mine in the corner.

  “Are you ready to head to the Feeding Room, Roxy? Dru asked me to escort you.”

  Oh, escort. Fancy. Except I stood there in my bare feet. My makeup was not looking so fresh anymore, and my finger-combed hair was still full of knots. I was…not my best. I cleared my throat. “Yeah, I’m ready.”

  She smiled at me again, and then gestured for me to follow her.

  We walked down the hallway, out into the lobby, then through a doorway framed in red. This hall wasn’t lined with doors. There was just one at the end, and that, I suspected, was the Feeding Room. She pointed to it. “You’ll walk right through there, and toward the back, you’ll see a seating area for the humans. You’ll be chosen from there.”

  Chosen. She made it sound kinda nice, but at this point, I just wanted to give up my blood so I could get the money and run. I nodded at her, and walked through the doorway.

  I’d already passed through orgy central back in the club, but nothing prepared me for this. Sex acts, sex acts everywhere. Threesomes, foursomes. Limbs and blood and orgasms. For a moment I stood frozen at the front of the large room as I watched a woman getting the ride of her life while straddling a vampire.

  Blood dripped from two small holes in her neck, slipping down between her breasts, where the vampire was smearing it on her nipples and sucking it off.

  Hot damn.

  The woman looked over at me, and smiled.

  Okay, that was my cue to get to my area. I padded barefoot to the human seating, glancing around for Cassie, who I spotted in the corner pressed up against a wall with a vampire between her legs. Her eyes were closed, mouth open, and she looked blissed out. At least one of us was happy.

  In the human seating, a female vampire who seemed to be the “human corraller” told me to sit anywhere. I took a chair near the front. As much as I wanted to hide, I needed to get picked. A line of vampires stood behind a rope, and I watched as one came to the front and scanned all of us. He chose a male human toward the back. The human walked away with the vampire, then the next blood-sucker in line stepped up. It went that way for a while, and I was picking at the chipped polish on my nails when I heard a deep voice say, “Her.”

  I glanced up. A male vampire stood at the front, and his gaze was on me. I looked behind me, wondering if he meant someone else. I pointed to myself and mouthed the word, “Me?”

  He looked confused, and said something to the corraller. She looked at me with an exasperated expression. “You! Let’s go.”

  Oh shit, okay. This was it. My time to shine. “Do your thing, blood,” I muttered to myself. “Taste great. Don’t make me horny.”

  The male vampire looked young, younger than Dru, but I didn’t know much about how vampires aged, so he could have been four hundred years old for all I knew.

  “I’m Tack,” he said. “Your name?”

  “Roxy.” I felt so stupid, walking beside him in my bare feet. He was wearing a T-shirt and jeans, but he looked like a million bucks with his hair nicely styled. He smelled good too.

  I still didn’t want to fuck him.

  “Look,” I said. “Do we have to, uh…” I made a face, hoping he got my drift and that I wouldn’t have to say the words.

  He just stared at me.

  “Do we have to…” I made a thrusting motion with my hips.

  Now he looked slightly alarmed. “I’m sorry, what are you trying to ask?”

  I was an idiot. “Do we have to fuck?” I blurted out. “This is my first time, and I kinda just wanted to give up the blood rather than the pussy. Like, one thing at a time, know what I mean? Baby steps.”

  By now we were in the corner of the room, an empty couch near us that I couldn’t stop staring at. Was that where I’d be sitting when he bit me?

  “I…can’t lie and say that I don’t want to fuck you,” he said. Were all vampires honest? I liked this. “But we can’t—and I won’t—pressure you into doing anything you don’t want to do. Maybe we should start with the feeding, and see how you feel?”

  Right, he was banking on that damn aphrodisiac. Fuck, I missed Dru. I felt safe with him, and while Tack seemed perfectly nice, I didn’t want him. Not like I wanted Dru.

  Why was I doing this? Why was I making a big deal about my first time? I wasn’t a virgin—sex-wise. I needed to shut off my brain and get on with it. You can’t always get what you want, Roxy.

  I smiled at him. “Sure, uh, that sounds great.”

  He smiled back, his grin all teeth and fangs. They looked sharp. Well of course they did, they had to slice flesh. No one wanted dull fangs, right? This was good. I sank down onto the couch and he plastered himself next to me. He passed his wrist in front of my face, and I inhaled something sweet. The somnus. My head fuzzed a bit, not too much. Not enough to calm my nerves, that was for sure.

  He placed his hand on my throat, and his thumb caressed the vein on the side of my neck. “You have beautiful skin.” His breath warmed the side of my face, and I closed my eyes, pretending I was somewhere else as his nose nudged my earlobe. “I saw you sitting in there and I knew I had to have you. Blood virgin, right?”

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  He moaned and pressed closer. His hand tightened, and I felt the scrape of a fang on my skin. This felt wrong, so wrong. Stop thinking. Stop thinking. Just let it happen. What’s a little blood exchange between a human and vampire?

  “You’ll see,” he said, his voice rough with arousal. “One bite and you’ll be begging for it, and I’ll make you feel so good, you’ll want to come back again, and again.”

  I was going to throw up. I placed a hand over my mouth, because I was worried I’d spew bile.

  “You’ll love it, Roxy, just you wait.”

  He pulled away, and I waited for the slice of the fangs, for the suction of his mouth as he drank my blood, but with a jolt, the heat of his body left my side.

  Someone yelled, and it sounded like Tack. I popped my eyes open only to see Dru growling a few words at Tack before turning to me with fire in his eyes.

  The dark hue of his irises was swirling with red, mixing together like flames in the night. “What—” I began as he scooped me into his arms and strode across the room. I buried my head in his chest, not sure why he was here, and barely even caring about the money anymore. He’d come back, and I was in his arms, and for now that was good enough.

  We traveled quickly, quicker than a human could travel and within seconds we were back in my room where my heels still rested in the corner. He sat me down on the bed and then kneeled on the floor between my legs. He circled his arms around me
and buried his face against my stomach.

  He didn’t speak, and neither did I. Out there, I’d been trembling and sick to my stomach. In here, safe with Dru, my blood settled, my nerves smoothed over.

  I ran my fingers through Dru’s hair, and scraped my nails over his shoulders. His hard muscles shifted beneath my palms, but still he didn’t speak, didn’t give me an explanation as to why he’d taken me from the Feeding Room.

  This massive vampire was on his knees at my feet. His arms were wrapped around my hips, and I’d never felt so safe and protected.

  Okay, and turned on. Like a lot turned on.

  I shifted my weight as the heat in my belly dropped lower. “Dru,” I said softly. “Why?”

  His shoulders heaved with a sigh, but he didn’t talk. Instead I felt his lips move against my skin between the bottom of my corset and the top of my jeans. Oh shit, and it wasn’t just his lips, it was his tongue too, dipping in my bellybutton and teasing at the edge of my waistband.

  “I’ve been hard since I saw you.” His deep voice rumbled against my skin. “Thought I could send you off, let you collect your money and get out of here but knowing you were there, that someone else was going to—” His words cut off on a moan and he leaned back a bit to grip my waist. His thumbs dipped beneath my jeans and pressed closed to where I ached for him. He licked his lips and tortured eyes met mine. “Fuck, I can smell you, Roxy. I can smell how much you want it. Is this for me?”

  He could smell my arousal. Why was that hot? I dug my nails into his shoulder and pressed into his hands. “Yes. It’s for you.” Except, I didn’t understand what was going on. “But you said… you said you wouldn’t feed from me. Or touch me.”

  “I know what I said.” His voice was a growl. “But I couldn’t let another vampire bite you. I walked in there and saw how scared you were. I had to protect you, even if I’m fucking terrified you’re not safe with me either.”

  I touched his brow, his sharp cheekbones, admiring the perfect cut of his face. Was there a better face ever made? Probably not. “I think I’m safe with you.”

  He swallowed. “Roxy…”

  “Do you want my blood? My body?”

  A shudder ran through his body. “More than I’ve ever wanted anything in my whole life.”

  I wanted him too. “And you’re worried because of what happened last time?”

  He nodded.

  “I’m not her. If you weren’t a vampire, I’d want you all the same. Please trust me.” My body responded to his hands and his voice. What would it be like to kiss him and feel his skin against mine? I had to know. Fuck all the reasons I came down here in the first place. All that mattered was here and now, this moment in time in this room with Dru. “Then take it. My blood and my body. I want you to.”

  His nostrils flared as his breath came faster. His hands gripped me tighter as his control seemed held by a thin thread.

  “Please, Dru.”

  His hands left me, and I nearly wept. This was it. He was going to walk out on me again. Goddamnit, why did I have to find the one vampire with a conscious?

  Except he stayed on his knees, and his hands rested on his thighs. And when he spoke, he was all authority and command. “Take off your pants for me. I want to see you.”

  I shivered as his words danced through my blood. I stood up on my bare feet and slid my pants down my legs slowly. I kicked my jeans off to the side, and since I hadn’t worn underwear, I stood in front of him wearing only my corset.

  He sucked in a breath as he stared between my legs. His lips were parted, and his tongue poked out to catch on one of his fangs. “Your smell is…” He inhaled again, his eyes sliding closed briefly before popping back open. “Sit down.”

  I sat down, the bedding cool on my bare ass. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been this exposed in front of a man. Just… everything all out. In a lit room. With hungry eyes taking me in.

  He spread my legs and pressed a kiss on the inside of my left knee. As he drew closer, I braced myself with my arms behind me, still in awe of this massive vampire on his knees looking at my like I was the Hope diamond.

  He was in no hurry. His hand slid up my thigh and then his thumb was pressing against my wet flesh. “So soft and pink and so fucking wet, Roxy.” His thumb pressed harder, teasing my opening. “You always get this wet?”

  “Not usually.”

  He drew his thumb back and wiped it on my inner thigh, leaving my skin glistening. “I wanted to do this from the first moment I saw you,” he said, then lapped at my pussy with that long tongue. I nearly came off the bed. I cried out as his tongue worked miracles, swirling around my clit, dipping into my entrance, then lapping up all the wetness that he caused.

  He ate pussy like a starving man, humming to himself so the vibrations echoed throughout my body. Every once in a while I felt the prick of his fangs and it only sent my arousal higher. I gripped his hair and ground into his face, unable to control myself, and he must have loved it because he growled and went at me with his tongue harder.

  I couldn’t stop my hips from churning as my body sought the orgasm I wanted so badly. I was heaving, crying out, whimpering his name as I fell onto my back, no longer able to hold myself up.

  He lifted his head for a moment, his lips red and wet, eyes inhuman. “Come on my tongue, Roxy. Want to taste every bit of it.”

  “Oh fuck,” I breathed just as his tongue went back at my clit and he plunged two fingers inside of me.

  My back bowed off the bed and like a bolt of lightning, I came. The thunder rolled through me, spreading to every limb and to the tips of my fingers as Dru didn’t let up.

  When I collapsed back on the bed, he still wasn’t done. His tongue was softer now, but he was eagerly lapping up everything my body had to offer.

  When he lifted his head, I knew this wasn’t even close to being over. He stood up slowly, towering over me. The veins in his neck protruded as he seemed to fight to keep himself in check. He fisted his shirt at his upper back and pulled it over his head, dropping it to the side before quickly shucking his pants.

  Fuck me. He was the most perfect specimen I’d ever seen. Massive shoulders, a huge chest that could probably bench-press five of me, and a tight stomach of rippling muscle. Between the boulders of his thighs was a long, thick dick that was pointing right at me. My pussy clenched.

  He pushed me up higher on the bed and with a quick flick of his wrist, rolled me over onto my stomach. He made short work of the laces on the back of my corset and then tugged me up onto my hands and knees. This was never a position I liked—it made me feel too vulnerable, but when his hands settled on my hips, and his thighs pressed against the backs of mine, I felt nothing but arousal.

  A hand wrapped around my throat and then he pulled me up, my back to his front. I moaned at the possessive way he gripped me. I’d just come, but I wanted him between my legs again, his mouth, his fingers, that thick cock. Goddamn anything, as long as it belonged to him.

  “Your pussy,” he said, as his other hand flicked my nipples, “melted on my tongue. Dripped for me and tasted just like honey.”

  I tried to talk, but the only thing I managed to say was his name on a whisper.

  “That’s it,” he said. “Say my name. Scream it, whisper it, shout it. I’ll hear it every possible way from your lips by the time this night is over.”

  His hand passed in front of my wrist, and that scent hit my nostrils again. “Gonna take that blood you offered, then I’m going to take your body again and again.”

  “Yes,” I managed to say. “Please. Just don’t stop touching me.”

  When his fangs entered my skin, I didn’t even feel the pain. He kept a firm grip on my throat as he drank from the side of my neck. With every drag, I felt an answering pulse inside, like he had a direct link to my clit. I reached down to feel myself, and my fingers came away slick. His fingers replaced mine, and he slipped three inside me, pumping them in time to his sucks.

  I wa
s on another plane of existence with the sensation of my blood being pulled through my veins and his fingers tapping at my g-spot. I came again, his name on my lips like a chant.

  When his fangs left my neck, he licked the wound. I glanced over my shoulder to catch a glimpse of him, his fangs and lips dripping with red blood—my blood. He let me drop back onto the bed, and I caught myself on my hands just as he gripped my hips and thrust into me.

  I screamed at the sensation of his cock stretching me. No one, nothing had ever felt like this—he filled me perfectly like he was made for me.

  He didn’t waste any time. His hips jerked as he slammed into me, and I was babbling his name in a hundred different ways. He wrapped his fist around my hair and tugged, the force sending my ass slamming back into him. Oh God, the sensation in my scalp rode a knife-edge of pleasure and pain that throbbed in my clit. Since when did hair pulling trigger an erogenous zone? I was out of my mind as he planted one fist into the bed, the other using my hair like an anchor to hold me right where he wanted me.

  I wanted to be there too.

  His teeth skirted the rim of my ear. “So tight for me, Roxy. Been waiting all your life for me, haven’t you?”

  Yes, no, probably. I couldn’t talk, not with my head forced back at this angle, and I didn’t want to. I was his to fuck, to use, to drink. My body would fuel him and also be the vessel for his release. And fuck, I wanted to be. I needed to be. I craved the way Dru fucked me like he owned me. Maybe he did, at least the part of me that wanted to be owned.

  His teeth sliced into vein below my ear and I cried out, the orgasm racing through me like a tsunami. I’d lost count of how many times I’d come, between Dru’s fingers, tongue, and cock.

  He drank from me greedily, the delicious drag flooding my senses. He fucked me through it, our bodies moving together, slick with sweat and blood. He hadn’t even come yet, and my thighs were soaked from my wetness. The obscene sounds of him sucking my neck and fucking into my wet pussy filled the room, the erotic echoes only making me hotter.