Serafina and the Virtual Man (Book 2 of the Serafina's Series)

by Marie Treanor

  He drew back at last, but only far enough to stare into her eyes, his own hot now and strangely, excitingly clouded. “I want you,” he whispered. “I want you very much.” And then his mouth was back on hers in another long, devastating kiss, and his hand slid down her nape, her shoulder to her naked arm, then inward to her waist and upward. When his palm closed over her breast, a low, pleased moan escaped her lips, and his kiss hardened.

  She liked that too, tangling her fingers in the hair at his nape, trying to press him even closer as he bent her back with the force of his kiss.

  “Why do I still need to breathe?” he wondered unsteadily against her lips. “I’m a dead man in a computer program.”

  “You don’t feel dead,” she whispered. “You feel so alive, so— Oh God.” She reattached her mouth to his, and he didn’t seem to mind. His hand on her breast moved, caressing the aching peak of her nipple. She stroked down his back, over the ridges of his spine and ribs, loving the hard muscle she found on her way to his hips.

  He groaned into her mouth and lifted his head. His breathing was ragged, his voice unsteady. “Would you allow a dead man to make love to you?”

  Jilly, who’d had such difficulty encountering a live one she could even tolerate, just said, “Please, please…” in a mindless sort of way she suspected she’d despise in the morning. Right now, it didn’t matter, since she was pulling him with her toward the large, ornate bed.

  He muttered something beneath his breath, and suddenly he lifted her off her feet and strode across the room with her. Now here was the Rhett Butler that Dave Jenner had so signally failed to emulate the other night—masterful, urgent, strong. And yet he laid her on the bed with gentleness and straightened to drop the braces from his shoulders and tear off his tie and shirt.

  She reached for him, and he came into her arms as if it was the most natural place in the world to be. He lay over her, his body deliciously heavy on her hips, her pubic bone. His still-covered erection pushed between her parted thighs. His skin felt warm and smooth under her hands as she ran them over his shoulders and arms and back. He was beautiful, she realised; a naked man could be astoundingly beautiful, and suddenly she wanted to see all of him.

  She wriggled under him, which had the additional advantage of pleasing her body, so avid now for new and greater thrills, pushing at him until his face changed and he yanked himself off her as if afraid he’d been hurting her. Suddenly terrified he’d go too far away, she seized his naked shoulder, pushing him onto his back on the pillows so she could stroke his lean, broad chest.

  Breathing deeply, he let her, watching with obvious pleasure. She smiled and kissed his chest just above the nipple, then the nipple itself, letting her lips linger there to enjoy the novel sensation.

  Muttering something that was at least half groan, he reached up to the unseen fastenings of her dress and tugged once. It slipped down her shoulders to her elbows, revealing some weird corsetry that he began to unfasten at her back, hook by hook. His gaze never left hers, and suddenly it was unspeakably exciting to feel his fingers working at her back, knowing that any moment, she’d be naked. Greatly daring, she traced one finger down the central line of his chest to the waistband of his trousers. She unfastened the buttons there and kept going, revealing the fine line of hair that ran from his belly button into his shorts.

  She paused. The full length of his erection lay thick and hard over his flat stomach. She laid her hand over it, and he exhaled as if he’d been holding his breath for ages. She liked the feel of it, hot, ridged, enticing; she yearned to see it.

  But she hesitated, suddenly unsure. A thread of panic brushed through her, threatening her with memory. But he seemed to read her mind and obligingly shoved his trousers and underwear down over his hips.

  Her breath caught. He took her hand, and, under her widening eyes, he kissed her fingers and palm and then placed them over his naked cock. She swallowed. The skin felt so soft over all that steely hardness, so amazingly hot under her hand. She closed her fingers around the shaft, and he smiled at her.

  “Oh yes,” he approved softly, and then, swiftly, he sat up and rolled her under him, and there was no dress, no corset between them. A quick scuffle of his feet, and the last of his own troublesome clothes vanished too. His hand closed over one breast, softly, tenderly caressing. Slowly, oh so arousingly, he lowered his gaze from her eyes to her uncovered breast.

  “Fuck,” he said huskily. “I knew you’d be beautiful all over. But your breast is like…” As if he ran out of words, he lowered his head and took her nipple reverently between his lips. The pleasure was exquisite, especially when his lips moved in the sweetest caress she’d ever imagined, gently rolling and tugging.

  She closed her eyes, never wanting it to stop. And it seemed he was in no hurry, for he kissed her nipple for a long, long time while his hand kneaded the other, doubling her pleasure. His leg, long and muscled, stretched over both of hers, and he moved it caressingly until he shifted position and lay instead between her thighs.

  She gasped, her eyes flying open, because although he’d lain there before, they’d both been dressed, and it was very different now. Warm, naked flesh lay against hers. His cock slid between her thighs, and she felt herself contract in need and longing. She was so wet down there, so anxious it almost frightened her. Almost. Always, it seemed, he kept her tension just on the right side of fear.

  He kissed her mouth, shifting again so that he no longer lay right over her. She gave a mewl of loss, which made him smile against her lips. Her hips arched upward, looking for comfort, and found his hand. That felt good too, as he held her, cupping her pussy.

  She kissed him back with all the passion and yearning she knew, and then his fingers began to move, working their way through her curls and folds to her clitoris. She moaned into his mouth, and he lifted his head just a little.

  “Oh, you want me,” he whispered, bathing his fingers in her wetness, spreading it all over her clitoris and slowly, gently caressing. “You want me too.”

  She nodded. She had no words for this. If he’d stopped for any reason, if anything or anyone had come between them, she’d have screamed.

  “I’ll make you happy,” he promised and returned to her mouth, slipping his tongue over her lips and inside to dance with hers. His fingers stroked her breast, pulling and flicking at her nipple while his other hand softly manipulated her clitoris. Her hips lifted off the bed without permission, circling, responding to the rhythm of his caresses, until he slid one finger inside her, and she cried out.

  “Shh-shh,” he whispered and stroked her clitoris some more. How could something be so soothing and so unbearably arousing at the same time? She’d bear any tension, any uncertainty, or even discomfort, just for this astounding, ever-growing pleasure suffusing her body. It surged and grew at her very core where one finger moved, stroking in and out of her, and others rubbed so deliciously. She writhed to meet him, biting his lips, bucking until he held her steady with one heavy thigh over hers, still stroking and rubbing and kissing until the rushing pleasure intensified to sharpness, slashing its way up and breaking like a torrent.

  Her mouth opened wide in a cry she couldn’t have kept in if she’d tried. Muttering, he hardened his kiss on her clinging lips as orgasm rocked her. His hand stilled, just holding her as she came and came.

  When her eyelids finally fluttered open, he released her mouth. He was smiling. “Wow,” he said and, without warning, slid his body between her legs and entered her.

  It was almost ridiculously easy because she was so wet and relaxed after her amazing climax. More than that, every sensitised nerve inside her thrilled and leapt as he pushed his way in. For a moment, he held still, gazing down at her face as if for signs of distress. The thread of fear and memory tightened again, threateningly.

  “Adam,” she said in panic. “Adam…”

  “Yes. Again, for me,” he whispered, kissing her, smiling and kissing her again. “You know you want to.”r />
  He stirred inside her, very slightly, and suddenly she did want to. She wanted to very badly. She wanted him to find his pleasure in her, to come inside her and bring her even an echo of that first astounding joy.

  She arched up into him, gasping at the feel of him inside her, so hard and long, filling her, stretching her. He began to move, very gently yet relentlessly, undulating, stroking, each time pulling back a little farther. It felt good, awesomely good, and so she moved with him, meeting his every thrust with one of her own. Feeling the pleasure as her muscles contracted involuntarily around him, she made them do it again and had her reward in his groan of pleasure.

  His arms, his whole body were trembling.

  “What is it?” she whispered. “What’s wrong?”

  “Wrong?“ His breath caught on a tense, soundless laugh. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing is wrong.” He bowed his back to bend his head to her breast and suck on her nipple and thrust inside her, strong and hard.

  She cried out, more at the sudden, blazing pleasure than at the force of it, but he immediately gentled his action, and she suddenly understood the shaking. He was desperate to come; he needed to come and was holding off with considerable effort, just to extend her pleasure. The realization excited her beyond anything else.

  She pushed up onto him, hard. “Do it,” she whispered. “Adam, just do it.” She bucked under him again and again and realised she liked it at least as much as the achingly slow lovemaking.

  “Do what?” he panted, teasing, although his eyes gleamed and burned.

  Oh, but she could play this game, this new, amazing, fabulous game. “Fuck me,” she said clearly. “Fuck me hard like you want to, because I want it too.”

  He groaned. “Jesus, JK…” She squeezed and twisted on him, and he slammed into her, pulling back to repeat it in faster and faster rhythms that left her breathless and so quickly overwhelmed that she couldn’t follow him. It took only a wild, intense minute until she exploded helplessly around him. He panted, groaning, and yet she saw him smile just before she seized his mouth in hers. He rammed into her once more, and his groan became a shout of triumph that echoed around her own heart. Hot seed spilled inside her, completing her, and he collapsed on top of her in very obvious joy.

  She stroked his head, his shoulders as they came slowly, blissfully back to earth.

  “Did you program all that detail?” she asked in wonder.

  He grinned into her shoulder and lifted his head. “Some of it, with help from a couple of doctors.”

  “You are one dirty bastard,” she observed, and he threw back his head and laughed.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Did you get all that?” Sera asked Blair as they walked along the gallery from the testing lab to the stairs.

  “Well, no. I heard your thoughts but not the responses of the others. And although I could see you and Jilly walking around, I couldn’t see this Adam.”

  “Didn’t you even feel his presence?” Sera asked. “Like a spirit? Like a fellow dead person?”

  “No. If he’s really in that machine, it hides him pretty effectively. What did you think?”

  “That he’s bloody attractive for a computer program. Plus he knows things he shouldn’t, since they happened after his program was developed.”

  Blair scowled at her. He probably didn’t like the “attractive” comment, she thought smugly. It wouldn’t do him any harm to know she could still appreciate other men.

  “On the other hand, I couldn’t feel him,” Sera admitted. “Except physically. He was solid, all right, but that was my perception, not necessarily his form. I got no sense of his presence, his spirit. I suspect I’m just not psychic in his VR system.”

  “So what do you want to do?” Blair asked as they hurried down the stairs.

  “Get rid of the poltergeist. It’s what they paid me for, and it’s muddying the waters of everything else. It’s not as if we can learn anything from it.”

  “Okay, pick a spot, and I’ll clear off until it forms.”

  It was tempting to choose the spare bedroom, since it was clearly the poltergeist’s favourite place to trash. However, even with Blair there, it was just too damned dangerous with all those spiky bits of rubbish lying around. One flying shard of wood in the wrong place and both she and Blair could be history. So she led the way to the sitting room where Killearn had been murdered, apparently by Genesis Adam, and sat down on the sofa.

  Blair hesitated. “I’ll know when it forms,” he promised her.

  “I know you will.”

  “Use my energy if you need it. You can still do that.”

  “I know.” She just hadn’t had to, not since the pitched vampire battle in Holyrood Park when she’d absorbed and channelled all the supernatural energy she could find to defeat her own father and his bid to take over the world with banking vampires. It sounded laughably comic book now. At the time, it had been terrifying and almost hadn’t worked.

  Blair bent and kissed her mouth. “It’s a mean bastard,” he allowed. “But it’s stupid. And I’m meaner.”

  She touched his cheek. “No, you’re not.”

  “Bloody am,” he said without heat and strolled off, leaving her smiling. A good emotion with which to summon a poltergeist. So she did.

  It formed a little more slowly than before, possibly wary of Blair’s echo. She could sense it building in the air, surrounding her with hate and fury and malice. It came to her that this was why it was so strong. Killearn must have been made up largely of qualities like those, with very few saving graces—perhaps none.

  It rippled under the rug, corrugating it as it rushed at her, trying to blow over the sofa she sat on. Give it time, she thought ruefully.

  Or not. “Blair,” she called telepathically. “It’s here.”

  His acknowledgment brushed against her mind, just as the poltergeist rushed at her again, stronger, hurling the sofa backward across the room on its castors.

  “Bored, James?” she asked it. “No one to kill in this form? How frustrating for you. But I really can’t see why you’re so pissed off. You go around murdering people, you really have to just take your dumps. Look on that as justice.”

  She judged it was all there now, drawn by dislike of the thoughts she was projecting. Good. Blair’s shadow filled the doorway just as the poltergeist took its next rush at her. But she was ready and halted it in its tracks with her own calm energy.

  Confusion, or at least more confusion than before, radiated from it. She was aware of Blair strolling into the room, felt the poltergeist’s surge of fear and revulsion as it registered his presence. Not only that, something like envy was in the mix, perhaps because Blair was dead and yet still moved around as if he were alive. Was that the source of spirits’ fear and dislike of vampires? Or was it just as she’d originally imagined when she first met Blair, that vampires simply weren’t natural?

  Whatever, she couldn’t think of that now. She had to concentrate, not just on slowing the poltergeist down but forcing it to disperse, and that needed all her focus, all her energy. As soon as she began, it seemed to know, to feel what she was doing. It huffed at her in defiance, then rushed toward the far wall which was, of course, no barrier to it. It didn’t need doors.

  But Blair was at least as aware of it as she was. And he was faster. The air in the room seemed to whirl like a small tornado as the poltergeist pulled itself up short to avoid the sudden, solid object of Blair.

  Blair’s method of dispersal was different from hers. He just told it telepathically to fuck off, and the thing actually seemed to cringe. Certainly it blasted back toward her as she continued to force its particles apart. She’d never encountered a paranormal being that so repelled her, and it was all she could do to hold her ground and concentrate. She stood in its way, and every time it tried to escape, Blair was there before it. It even tried to de-form, to vanish into the atmosphere where it normally lurked in the hours of daylight, but Sera wouldn’t let it. She needed it to sta
y put to blast it into hell or whatever afterlife was prepared to accommodate it.

  But its fury increased with its panic, and it fought her all the way, refusing to give up. Which was no doubt why Adam had had to kill Killearn in the first place. The arsehole just didn’t know when he was beaten.

  And he was. She could feel it now. It backed much more slowly toward Blair, a rippling of malevolent air. Sera gathered her strength for the final attack. And a shadow moved beside Blair.

  Barely seen, barely even there for the tiniest instant, its presence chilled her far more than the poltergeist’s. Because it stood behind Blair, and for that tiny instant, her terror for him overcame everything else. Blair’s chill of awareness made it all worse. She gasped, trying to reground herself, and the poltergeist, soaking up her fear like some gleeful sponge, whooshed past her ear and vanished.

  Sera stumbled toward Blair. “You saw…?”

  “I saw,” he said grimly.

  “What does he want? Is he protecting the poltergeist?”

  “Of course not. Come on, let’s find it.”

  Sera grabbed his arm. “If that’s the Founder, if he’s a vampire, how can he disappear like that? Is it magic?”

  “Maybe. Some of it. But basically, he’s just moving faster than you can see. Like I do, only more so.”

  Then it surely had to be the Founder himself and no watching servant as Blair had originally implied. Or hoped.

  “Is he interfering, Blair? Because it’ll take everything I have to blast this thing.”

  Blair was moving out of the sitting room, his eyes darting. “He’s just watching you in action. Your strength will have surprised him.”

  “Shite. Is that bad?”

  “I don’t know,” Blair said honestly. “Our best bet is to ignore him unless he chooses to introduce himself. Which I don’t think he will. But look on the bright side, if he is still here, he’ll totally freak the poltergeist.”