by Michele Hauf
When she was not thinking about Rhys Hawkes.
He and Constantine were brothers. And why such a secret?
She should have asked him last night but she’d been too startled by the information. And he had seemed reluctant to speak of it.
Obviously, the brothers were not on good terms. Constantine’s voice had dripped with vitriol when talking with him. Things he’d said, alluding to Rhys being animal, Viviane could not figure.
There was something different about the man she wished to take as a lover. And Viviane was now determined to get to the bottom of it.
Portia toyed with the tiny centers of the roses, hummingbird skulls set with diamonds in the eye sockets. “Where are you off to this evening? The Salon Noir isn’t for a few more nights.”
Yes, what would be her excuse? For she knew exactly where she intended to go this evening, only she felt she could not come right out and say “to see Rhys Hawkes.”
Viviane held the rose piece aside her head while Portia pinned it in place. “For a jaunt in the Tuileries.”
“Uh-huh.” No belief in that tone.
Her maid flitted around in front of her, her pink-and-brown-striped skirts swishing Viviane’s damask sleeve. “You look spectacular. If I were a man I should desire you. Want me to describe your appearance as if I were a magical mirror?”
“I trust your assessment of spectacular. No, no more powder.”
“As you wish. You certainly do not require cosmetics on your beautiful skin, but I worry mortals will wonder why your natural skin is so pale.”
“Let them wonder.”
Immortality had proven sweet. She would never age. Her skin would remain soft, pale and unblemished. Her body was not too thin, nor was it too plump. She prided herself on her high breasts and narrow waist. And her small feet fit Blanche’s shoes perfectly.
“Oops!” Portia snatched for the ribbon she’d knocked off the vanity, but missed it.
Viviane clasped the talon Constantine had given her. “Wolves.” She sneered. “Filthy animals. One less werewolf in this world won’t bother me at all.”
“You wish me to tie the ribbon around your neck?”
The ivory talon felt cool and heavy on her palm. Gauche. “No, leave me.”
Left alone in the quiet boudoir, Viviane stroked a finger across her lips. How she craved contact with another body.
What would Constantine think if he learned his brother was engaged in a liaison with her?
THE WOLF DODGED A RIGHT FIST and spat out a boisterous chuckle. He spun around, bending his knee for the kick, but Rhys blocked the high-soaring foot with his elbow. Orlando wobbled off-balance. He jogged around to realign with Rhys in the fisticuffs match they engaged in out in the tiny courtyard behind William’s home.
Rhys flipped back his wet hair and bounced on his bare feet, defying Orlando to again approach.
“You are too strong,” Orlando declared, huffing, yet smiling. “You’ve the strength of a wolf, and the cunning of a longtooth.”
“You are the only man brave enough to use that slur against me,” Rhys said. “Or do I mean foolish?”
Rhys offered a hand and helped the boy to stand. “The match is over.”
“But I’ve not yet won.” A bruise spotted the boy’s right lower ribs. It would heal within the day.
“We’ll pick up where we left off after you’ve run down the street to procure our meal,” Rhys offered. “I’m a bit peckish myself after the run out to the country earlier.”
“No clues, eh?”
“Nothing. Though, I could scent the wolf.” And should he reveal that scent was so familiar inside the house? Orlando had called William a friend. No sense in speaking his suspicion until he’d solid proof. “There’s coin in my purse I left near the bookshelf.”
The boy nodded eagerly, grabbed his shirt from the ground, and disappeared inside the house. He shouted he would return with spoils for the victor.
Rhys bent forward, stretching his arms out behind his back.
William’s scent had been all over the crime scene. Where could he be hiding? Had he left the country? Rhys hoped for that and then he did not. Justice must be served. And if William was in such a state to have murdered innocents then he may do it again.
Rhys strode inside, kicking the door shut with a heel, and grabbed his shirt from a hook on the wall, but didn’t put it on. He wiped the sweat from his face and abdomen.
A daily exercise session appeased his dark side by flexing his muscles and pushing his abilities. Punching the door with a bare fist, Rhys retracted with a wince.
Think of other things. Things that will make you happy.
“LaMourette,” he murmured.
Lovely, contrary Viviane. The vampiress with a fierce heart and a desperation that would push her to bold action. He’d succumbed to her allure. Falling to his knees like a besotted, lovesick fop. Even going so far as to offer her his blood.
It would do him no harm. Only the vampiress’s bite would enrage his werewolf.
When he was not remembering their intimate embrace on the threshold of her home, Rhys was kicking himself for not keeping her in hand last night so he could explain. But what to explain? So he and Constantine were brothers. Nothing earth-shattering about that. Save the reason why.
“I can’t tell her,” he muttered, feeling his half-breed blood so painfully. “I must tell her if I wish to win her trust.”
On his way to change, a knock on the front door veered him from the bedchamber. He opened the door to pale twilight dazzling off the building windows opposite William’s home. Standing amidst that dazzle, Viviane LaMourette.
She gasped at sight of him, and pressed the delicate curves of her black lace fan to rose-red lips. As if she had not expected him to answer? Kohl-lined eyes took him in from head to bare chest.
Rhys offered her a charming smirk and pressed a hand high on the door frame, which tightened his abdomen and flexed his chest muscles.
She turned toward the street, giving him her back. Hair teased into a confection revealed the bare column of her neck. Rhys curled his fingers into his palm to stop from touching her there.
“Perhaps I should return when you are attired more appropriately, Monsieur Hawkes.”
“Ah?” He leaned over her shoulder, there, where wine spiced her skin and hair, and took pleasure in pronouncing slowly and deeply, “And here I had thought you were one of those inappropriate sorts.”
Lifting her chin, she turned to face him. Twilight played with her azure eyes, dancing devious hell-forged sprites about the iris.
“Won’t you invite me in?” she prompted in tones equally as defiant and teasing as his had been.
Perhaps she was not so upset after learning about him and his brother.
“The pleasure is all mine.” Rhys stepped back. “Please do enter, mademoiselle.”
Her satin skirts swept his legs. Lace at her elbow brushed his bare abdomen. Closing his eyes, he sucked in a breath, savoring the tease of it as if it had been her fingertips.
The vampiress strolled the foyer and into the main room cluttered with furniture, scattered blankets, pillows and books. She eyed a painting on the wall, which featured a pack of eight gray wolves hunting a snowy landscape.
“You are without your maid?” he asked.
She turned and granted him a deviously winning smile. “Apparently I am one of those inappropriate sorts.”
Her eyes skated from his face, his neck and over his chest and abdomen. A gentleman would have put on the shirt he yet held. Rhys leaned against the wall, shirt hand propped on his hip. “Do you see something you favor, LaMourette?”
She approached with a hip-shifting glide he wanted to contain between his palms while they tangled together in bed. “Perhaps I do.”
Boldly, without apology, she traced a forefinger down his chest. Rhys tossed back his head and tightened his jaw to keep from gasping with pleasure. The connection was dangerous. His mind, all wolf now, craved to
uch, yet his body, vampire, resisted.
“I have thought about you all day,” she offered.
Rhys straightened. “Really?”
“And Constantine.”
“Ah.”
“I had thought to conclude why it should be such a secret you two are brothers. There must be a vicious hatred between the two of you that you choose not to claim the other as family.”
“You figured that one.”
“What did you do to him?”
“Me? To him?” Rhys’s jaw dropped. He slapped his chest. “You think I…?”
She shrugged, pacing before him in a sashay that belied any anger she may feel. “Did he do something to you?”
“We are brothers because we claim the same mother,” he said. “But not the same father. I was born a decade after Constantine. We’ve never been close.” Which was putting it very lightly.
Considering his explanation, her eyes traveled the floor along the wall, and back to the painting. She fixed on the pack of wolves.
Now or never, Rhys. You’ve the opportunity to tell her all. To put your dark secret out there for her to know, and pray she accepts you.
The vampiress twisted abruptly. Curiosity twinkled in her eyes. “You know Constantine wishes to patron me.”
“I do.”
“Would he be quite angered should I consider a liaison with his brother?”
“You would…” She was stealing the very words from his brain and twisting his tongue tonight. “You are interested in—in me?”
The vixen smirked and fluttered her lashes. “I cannot say I’ve seen a man in such fine form before.”
That bolstered his forgotten vanity.
Her attention strayed downward as her finger glided over his ridged abdomen, marking each rise of muscle. “Aristocrats and men of letters do not put themselves in situations that require strenuous exercise. And while vampires are virile and quite well fashioned, they do not often have so much muscle. Why are you like this?”
He inhaled as her finger trailed along the waist of his breeches, tickling over the dark hair tufting above the brown chamois.
“I am not a man to languish in excess. I find taxing my muscles daily keeps me strong.” And his werewolf demanded the vampire maintain his shape. “Viviane, your touch…”
“My touch?” Soft, teasing wonder. A tilt of her head dared him to trace his fingers along her dark lashes. He would not, for he preferred it be his lips when first he touched those dark frills. “Does it disturb you?” Her skirts hugged his legs and the sensual aroma of her skin permeated his senses, dizzying him, loosening his well-reined discretion. And making him forget…what was it? “Do you want me to stop?”
Letting the shirt fall, he pressed his hands flat to the wall behind him. “Touch all you like. You are a woman who is not pleased until she has satisfied her curiosity. Be it blood, or—”
“Flesh. Your body is so hard,” she purred, eyes beaming at him. Red lips parted, inviting so many fantasies. “Is it hard all over?”
A flick of her fingers released one of four buttons dotting the left side of his breeches. Would she?
The urge to shove his fingers through her silken hair and pull her in for a hard and brutal kiss flexed Rhys’s fingers—yet he did not move. Allowing her the control proved more titillating. Those damned lips; they were the same color as the roses tucked in her hair, but promised less macabre pleasure than did the skulls.
Or would she be so deadly as the skulls nestled within the petals?
Please, kill me sweetly with your mouth.
Viviane cooed, licking her lips. Her eyes dared him to grant her this wicked exploration. It was a dare he silently accepted.
The second button popped free, followed by the third.
She would!
His cock, heavy and hard, landed in her palm with a slap of flesh to flesh.
Exhaling tightly, Rhys’s entire musculature tensed. “Hard enough for you?” he managed to ask.
“It is exquisite,” she whispered against his mouth. “So…thick. You say I can learn a man by tasting his blood? I disagree. A woman can learn a man by more intimate means.”
So much spoken with a flutter of lash. And then… A kiss.
Soft and lush, she claimed his mouth. She tasted sweet, decadent. Forbidden. Apparently she was not at all worried should Constantine learn about them.
Rhys slipped his fingers into the soft hair at the back of her head as she began to trail kisses down his neck and to the center of his chest. He could feel each finger about his staff, tightening, and then, sliding up and down as if taking his measure.
Each kiss tightened yet another muscle he wasn’t aware he had, and increased his anticipation tenfold. No rousing sparring session could excite him so thoroughly.
“Bloody deuce,” he said on an exhale. “You’ve quite the grip, LaMourette.”
“Mmm…” She pressed a kiss to his neck where his vein pulsed madly. Yet her hand worked its own wicked sorcery, now softly tracing the head of him. “I like to be in control.”
“It is something I guessed about you the first night we…ahhh…met.”
The ease of her fingers over his thickened head, tugging and squeezing… Hot breath dusted his nipple. Lips drawn over her teeth, she nipped his sensitive flesh.
“Viviane…”
“Come for me.” Her eyes held his, their faces a breath apart. “Give me what I want.”
A twist of her wrist tugged the sensitive skin of his testicles, which now hugged his body tightly. Rhys could not control the wicked climax that shuddered his bones and weakened his muscles. Head pressed to the wall, he moaned. Madness that he was so close to releasing.
“Show me you are willing to succumb,” she cooed. “To allow me to learn you, body—” she lashed his eyelid with her tongue “—and soul.”
Her fingers moist with the seed that dribbled from him, slicked him swiftly, drawing him into her power, and claiming him.
He wanted to give her anything she asked. To surrender, to—hell, he couldn’t think of any other reason. His brain was fogging. His muscles grew tight. All sensation focused in his groin. He was going to…
Rhys cried out roughly. The force of his climax tightened his abdomen and thighs, and he clenched his fist and beat the wall behind him.
“The deuce, yes,” he growled. “Yes, yes and yes.”
Viviane purred and licked her fingers, glistening with his ejaculation. Her mouth was red, torrid from him. She smiled wickedly and tapped his hard abdomen beside the evidence of his surrender. “Inappropriate enough for you?”
Rhys cursed softly, yet the heady warmth of elation silenced further response.
She strolled into the foyer and opened the front door. “I had come to also talk about the murders. I feel you are more invested in finding the culprit than Constantine. When next we meet, we’ll talk, yes? Unless other things interrupt us.” The wicked temptress smiled, revealing the glinting tips of her fangs. “Good eve, Monsieur Hawkes.”
And like a ghostly figment the vampiress slipped into the night on a giggle and a sigh.
VIVIANE SWEPT THROUGH THE narrow streets toward home. She could not erase her smile. She’d intended to merely question Rhys about his brother and the investigation and then leave.
She’d never seen a man stand before her with such audacity, baring himself so proudly. She had indulged in sexual liaisons with the finest and most expert lovers. Rhys was shameless, and that had sparked the wanton within her.
Slipping around the stables and entering Henri’s home from the servant’s entrance, Viviane closed the door and leaned against it. She traced her lips with her fingers, still tasting him on her skin.
“Milady!”
Portia scrambled around the corner, grabbing the door frame to curb her trajectory.
“What is it?”
“Lord de Salignac.”
“He was here?”
“Is here.” She nodded over a shoulder. “I told
him you were out, but he insisted upon waiting.”
“Bother.” Viviane pressed a palm to her sudden rushing heart.
“He’s been here most of an hour. In the music room.”
Even more bother.
Viviane handed Portia her cape and strode toward the stairway. “Bring me wine,” she called back. “And tell him I must freshen up.”
Much as she had desired to lie down and dream of her antics with Rhys, she must now erase the taste of him if she was to face Constantine. Why did he insist on calling without prompt?
Portia scrambled about the vanity to place a touch of rouge to her cheeks while Viviane mulled over a glass of wine to settle her vacillating nerves before leaving her chamber to meet Constantine.
WHITE LACE SPILLING FROM HIS sleeves and at his neck, and jet hair curling at his shoulders, Constantine cut a romantic figure, Viviane thought as she approached him. A Romanesque face, square, strong, like a gladiator, and yet refined. He was everything Rhys was not.
We’ve different fathers.
How interesting. And yet, she wondered if she should bring up the subject now. Constantine was not aware she knew. She’d gotten the impression he was embarrassed by Rhys.
“Lord de Salignac.”
Constantine turned abruptly, a frown marring his handsome visage. “My bravo tells me he saw Hawkes leave your home the other night.”
So much for niceties.
“I did not allow him entrance.” Because they’d embraced upon the threshold. And so much more. Good thing he’d not had her followed just now.
“But he pursues you?”
“I…don’t believe so.”
She hated lying, but felt it was best in lieu of Constantine’s strange anger. He must suspect Rhys a rival for her patronage. Though Rhys had said he was not interested.
Time to steer this conversation on a new course. “Did you notice the hay strewn on the street on your way here?”
“Madame Roux has it laid down in the summer to muffle the noise of horse hooves. Viviane, I must tell you something.”
Oh? Well, if he would reveal Rhys as his brother, then she had not to worry about keeping the secret.
