A Darker Crimson

by Carolyn Jewel

  With clinical detachment, she knew what was happening to her: razor-sharp teeth were puncturing the epidermis, through the subcutaneous layer, sliding into the carotid artery, the downward force of his canines, and the upward pressure of his lower teeth, her blood was flowing into his mouth. The sting faded because the mental connection between a feeding vampire and his victim released endorphins. She felt…needed. Wanted. Beloved.

  He withdrew, and she didn’t have the strength to do anything but cling to him, to let her head loll against the arm bracing her shoulders. His cheek wasn’t completely healed, but the gash was closed, almost gone. “That couldn’t have been enough, Korzha,” she said.

  “Tiberiu,” he said in his old-world accent. “Or Tiber, whichever you prefer.”

  “This was not enough to heal you. Not enough.”

  “I’ve had my fill for the moment.”

  “You have to be well. To get Holly, you have to be well.”

  “I will be soon. Trust me.” He held her easily and walked to the bench where her clothes lay. With a sweep of his hand he cleared it, scattering her clothes. He sat with her straddling him. The punctures in his upper arm were little more than fading bumps. He held her gaze and touched her between her legs. “Now, Claudia? Will you let me love you now?”

  “Yes,” she said, but to her ears, her voice sounded thick. He wasn’t circumcised. The head of his cock emerged from its fold of skin. She hadn’t ever seen an uncircumcised penis before. He was large and hard, and she felt as if her belly were hollow.

  His hands traveled up and down her spine, then around her rib cage to her breasts. He stroked her. “You’re lovelier than I remember. But this time, this time I’ll do it right. I’ll spoil you for all other men. You’ll never want anyone but me. No lover will touch you but me.”

  She felt the sizzle of his fingers straight to her toes. He leaned forward and kissed her nipple. The inside of his mouth was cooler than she expected, but then her only experience was with men. And a demon. Every now and then, she felt his mind reaching out: a reflex, she thought. He’d long ago touched her mind with his, and she’d feel a pulse of his mental energy in time with hers. But then he’d withdraw, like he hadn’t meant to, was trying not to, as though he couldn’t help himself. He transferred his mouth to her other breast. Feasting, she thought. She knew men liked bodies like hers. She couldn’t help the size of her chest in proportion to everything else, a shape directly inherited from her mother. They had the same figure. She waited for the next pulse of his mind in hers, the reflexive twitch of withdrawal, and when it happened, she whispered, “No, don’t.”

  His eyes flew open, his mind still connected with her. “Whatever you want,” he murmured. And he stayed. Seemingly pleased. Soon he was touching her mind, soothing, caressing. Sharing his arousal with her. Claudia reached between them and stroked a fingertip along his sex. She felt him surge into her hand, and in her head emotion surged, too. A rush of sensation.

  Beautiful. Exquisite. Claudia. Yes. Touch me like that.

  “Do you want me inside you here, too?”

  “Yes.” Her head swam. It was like being high, without the narco. Electric. “Yes, I do.”

  From beneath lowered lashes, she watched his face, still pale, but now touched with color, as he brought her over to straddle him. He was healthier, and beautiful to look at. She lifted a hand and touched the place where he’d been injured. His cheek was whole and his gauntness was filling out. He slid his cock into her. He did it slow. She arched back because he continued to stretch her, fill her, and she wasn’t used to that. There hadn’t been all that many men for her. Hardly any. And she hadn’t ever been with someone constructed quite on his scale or with his patience. She didn’t expect, either, to feel so enthralled with the sensation of him easing into her, of her enfolding him. She caught the tail-edge of his sensation, of having his forward and inward motion draw down his foreskin and expose the head of his cock to the pressure of her heat and dampness. To him, she was sizzling hot.

  He leaned against the wall and put his hands around her waist. “Vampires,” he said with a wicked, soft smile. “Are bigger, better, faster, and we can do it longer.”

  Her entire body shivered with approaching climax. He was in her head still. Not yet, he said. Not yet. Beneath his arousal, she felt his hunger, his near overwhelming desire to plunge his teeth into her and take until he was full and warm and drunk on her. He raged with lust for the tang of her blood. She was crazy to trust him, but she did anyway.

  She’d adjusted to him, to his size, and she rocked her hips. His eyes widened, glittering. Such pale skin, but faintly pink. Up until now, she’d been afraid she didn’t really like sex or maybe even only kind of liked men. She was wrong. So wrong. Until now, sex often felt good, but she’d never been completely absorbed by her partners. They’d always been more eager than she to reach the conclusion, and she’d ended up feeling there must be something wrong with her.

  Not this time.

  Across his side, over his kidney, he had a jagged, irregular white scar. And another across his shoulder. He stood up, holding her, still inside her, and walked, glided or whatever it was vamps did, to the bed of pillows and laid her down. She watched him lazily, dreamily, appreciatively, and with a sense of detachment, as if she weren’t Claudia Donovan anymore but another woman, a more exciting, desirable woman. The kind of woman who made love with a gorgeous vampire and had no worries. When he was beside her again, one leg over hers, she touched him, raised up to kiss his nipples, traced the ripple of his chest muscle. “You’re gorgeous, Korzha. What the hell were you when you got made?”

  “I was a soldier when I died.” His hands were on her hips, pulling her toward him, getting himself even tighter inside her, going deeper. “So, you see, I was already an experienced killer before I became what I am.”

  She touched the scar on his shoulder. “This isn’t a bullet wound.”

  “Hand-to-hand.”

  “No wonder you’re a—” She gasped. “—twisted son of a bitch.” She laughed with joy.

  His mouth twitched, and she saw the tip of one fang. Pleasure blossomed in him; she could feel it. “No more jokes. Time to concentrate on this, Officer.” He thrust into her, and really, she decided, she liked sex. Loved it. She loved sex with Korzha more than anything in the world.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Claudia lay in Tiber’s arms, still-wet hair and all, thinking about what she’d done and how she’d felt doing it. She’d made love to a vampire and it had been pretty damn good. For the first time since she’d known him well enough to know his usual physical state, his skin felt warm. And her body felt replete. Sated. She liked that Tiber kept his arms around her. It made her feel wanted, whether he meant to or not, like it wasn’t just sex for him. Probably, it was even if he’d handed her that “making love” line, but it didn’t feel like that right now, and she was more than content to leave things that way. Besides, she was too tired to move out of his embrace; and, besides again, his arms felt good. So good. She didn’t even have to worry about unprotected sex because she wasn’t going to live long enough to get pregnant. It didn’t matter that there wasn’t any drugstore for a supply of condoms or a morning-after-pill.

  Korzha stirred. His hair, which had dried untidily, brushed her shoulder. Claudia braced herself. He’d roll away now, get dressed, or maybe just turn his back to her and do whatever it was vamps did after sex. Only, he didn’t. His arm tightened around her waist, and he nipped her ear. He didn’t break the skin. “Well, Officer Donovan,” he murmured. It sounded nice, the way he said that. “Another fine mess you’ve gotten us into.”

  “F-you,” she whispered back. He couldn’t see her smile.

  “Again? Already?”

  “Nah,” she said, because she didn’t want him to think she wanted it if he didn’t, and everyone knew vamps weren’t shy about taking what they wanted. Particularly sex. Claudia rolled onto her back, taking a pillow with her and position
ing it over her bosom. She threw one arm over her eyes and prepared herself for the we-really-shouldn’t-have-done-that awkwardness. Oddly enough, she wasn’t sorry. Nervous and worried, but not sorry.

  To her surprise Korzha said in a low and honeyed voice, “Mm, no. Stay close.” He grabbed the pillow and hurled it against the wall, then curled his body around her. “Humans are so warm,” he said. “I adore how warm you are. It’s almost—almost—the best part of making love to one.”

  She turned her head and found her gaze locked with his. Again it was kind of a shock how green his eyes were. The tips of his thick lashes were slightly brown, his irises streaked with kelly green. The whites of his eyes were startlingly white and they turned the green deeper. Desire stirred even though she had no idea if he’d ever want her again. “What is the best part?”

  “Of you?”

  “Of sex with a human.”

  He smiled. “That’s easy. When you are a vampire, sex is…different. I feel things humans can’t. I adore orgasm with a heart pounding in my ears, the surrender of a warm, living body, a mind and a will of life pulsing beneath me.” He splayed his hand on her belly. After a bit, he added, “I was close to the edge with you. It’s a rush when it’s like that. Not always, but often. To be hungry, close to starving, and then to feed and have sex with a human. We are most alive when we’ve just fed, and to swing so hard, the connection is a thousand times more intense. Some vamps do it on purpose, go days between feeding just to walk that edge.”

  “What happens if you lose control?”

  “Usually the human dies.”

  “Has that ever happened?”

  “That…” His voice fell. “That is a rush, too.” He shifted his torso over hers and drew a hand from her knee to her thigh. “Best-looking cop on the force. How lucky for me that your precinct is so near. I always watched for you whenever someone questioned my innocence, in the wretched hope you might one day question me.”

  “Like you were ever innocent.” His mouth, she thought lazily, was drop-dead sexy. He had a well-defined mouth, with a full lower lip. And that gorgeous mouth had kissed her. “It’s a liability, you know. In my job, anyway,” she added after a moment.

  “What?”

  “Looking good to men.”

  “Really? I’d have thought just the opposite.”

  She hadn’t seen him enough with his hair down. He seemed much less civilized. The look suited him. “No. It seems like everyone wonders who’s banging me, or wondering if they can, or thinking I got promoted because I give the captain good head.”

  “Purely selfishly, do you give good head?”

  She made a feeble attempt at slapping him, but he ducked, and she didn’t bother pursuing the matter. “Most cops are decent, good people, but not all of them. Sometimes I get treated better because of how I look, and sometimes I get treated worse. It all depends on whether they think I’m a babe or a bitch.”

  “You’re a babe.” He tightened the circle of his arms around her. “But if you give me good head, I’ll promote you to whatever you want.”

  She snorted. Korzha trailed a hand over her stomach. Their intimacy felt a little uncomfortable now. She didn’t see how matters could have turned out any differently, but that didn’t make this a good thing. “I need to know something.”

  He hesitated. “Yes?”

  “Are you completely healed?”

  He laughed softly. “In time, dear-heart.”

  “Then you’re not. How much do you need to be at full strength?”

  “More than I’ve had so far.”

  She looked into his eyes and, quite unexpectedly, her stomach felt like she was standing on a cliff looking at the distant bottom. “You can have more. You have to.”

  “Oh, dear-heart,” he whispered. “You think you are so tough.”

  “I am tough, Korzha.

  His eyebrows lifted. “Not where it matters.”

  She suppressed a surge of bitterness. “Fang, you don’t know shit about being tough.”

  Korzha moved over her, propping himself up with his hands just over her shoulders. His eyes glittered. “And you don’t know the first thing about my life.”

  She pushed against his chest. “You’re a vamp.”

  “How observant of you.”

  “It’s not like you would have wanted me in L.A.” She made a face at him. “Well, okay. So we were thrown together and it happened. We did it. So what?”

  “It was good, wasn’t it?” He laughed. “Worth the wait?”

  “You can not out-tough me. I don’t give a rat’s ass who or what you are, Tiberiu Korzha.”

  “Which is?” He lowered his head. Oh, yeah, the post-coital glow was definitely gone.

  “A Korzha. You’re Upper through and through. Get off me.”

  They stared at each other.

  “No,” he said.

  “You don’t know shit,” she whispered. It wouldn’t work. Human and vamp? Never. “Now get off.”

  “Let’s do it.” He got a leg between hers. “Let’s fuck while you think you hate me.” His brilliant eyes did something fluttery to her stomach, and she could tell he knew it. His mouth curved into a smile. He shifted his body and pressed into her, hard and smooth. And because his body was cool compared to hers, she felt hot inside, surrounding him.

  “Get off. I do hate you.” There wasn’t any mistaking him for human right now. He was naked, and so was she, and he wasn’t warm. She just couldn’t fool herself that he was anything approaching normal. Trying to budge him was like trying to lift a boulder. It couldn’t be done. Terror flashed over her as the realization came home, a startle-response flood of adrenaline that sent her heart pounding against her ribs. And at that exact moment, he rocked himself forward and made a small sound in the back of his throat. She felt the pull of that clear down to her toes. She liked sex with him. She loved sex with him. How had she forgotten? She wrapped her arms around him, and then her legs. His hand slid to her backside, pulling her up while he kept his thrust deep.

  “Jesus, Donovan.” His hair fell over his shoulders, and that put his face in shadow and softened his high, pale cheeks. She threw back her head, straining toward him, trying to find a way to take more of him inside her. He pressed her pelvis against him and circled his hips over her. A mental pulse from him curled around her, inside her, intensifying everything, drawing her in. “Do you like that?” he asked. “Tough enough for you?”

  She came hard, harder than she’d ever come in her life. Korzha, the bastard, laughed. She heard him laugh while she threw out a hand, trying to find something to anchor her so she wouldn’t just fly apart, and couldn’t. He moved, pulling her with him, higher on a mound of the pillows so that she slid toward him. She couldn’t breathe for a moment because she hadn’t ever in her life had anyone do this to her. Mind and body at the same time, she wanted him both ways. The back of her hand hit the wall. She cried out at the sharp pain of her knuckles hitting the surface.

  Korzha’s head snapped up. But for the sound of her breathing, the room went eerily quiet. He reached for her hand. She’d broken the skin and blood trickled down her finger, filling the creases across her knuckle. A shiver rippled across him. Hunger, she thought. He was still hungry. His pupils dilated until only a narrow ring was left of the brilliant green irises.

  Her heart thundered in her chest, in her head, and she rushed toward some spectacular unknown. “Yes.”

  He reached for her hand and licked the blood from her knuckle. He wrapped her legs around his waist, then with the other hand he gripped the back of her head, twisting a little so that the side of her neck was exposed.

  He snarled once then bit her, harder than before. It hurt more, but the pain faded faster. The rush of his thoughts and emotions into her sent her whirling off the top of a cliff. She strained toward him, bending one knee so that the inside of her thigh pressed his hip. Her pulse echoed in her ears, rapid at first, then slower, then in time with his heart, then in time with t
he rhythmic sucking of his mouth. He was still inside her, still hard and pressing inward. After a while, he loosened his hold on her. His teeth disengaged, in itself a sensation that sent her spine arching in counteraction. But his mouth stayed pressed to her throat, still in rhythm; his tongue still lapped, and then his hips moved, a slow slide out, quick in, slowly out, quickly in. His impressions slid into her head, a jumble of feelings. Heat. The tang of blood, a thirst so vast he still wanted more. Soft skin against his, the scent of not-quite-roses, her scent. Warmth around his cock, the growing urgency. Bellies meeting. Wanting her. Beautiful.

  She held him when he came. Held him still when her breathing slowed. She took a deep breath and spoke quickly before she lost her head again and let Korzha start all over with her. “Promise me something?” she said.

  His eyebrows lifted. “We’ve only just made love for the second time. And you’ve just told me you hate me. It’s a little silly to be extracting promises from me, isn’t it?”

  “It’s about Lath.”

  “No promises,” he said. “Not yet. But,” he added, and she couldn’t tell if he was serious or not, “I am not inclined to share you. With anyone. For any time. Is that enough?”

  “That’s not what I meant.” As long as she didn’t move, she felt okay. If she did move, she saw speckles in front of her eyes. “If he finds me, and if it looks like I can’t get away or you can’t stop me from running to him…” She pushed at his shoulder. “This is important, Tiber.”

  He sat up, curling an arm around his upraised knee. His dark hair, such a rich brown, tumbled past his shoulders, not anywhere near as neat and tidy as usual. She liked the wildness much better and found it much more appealing than always the perfect Tiberiu Korzha of Crimson City.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  Her breath rattled on the way out. “Will you be Holly’s guardian?” She wiped her cheek, the tears were there. “Tiber, please. I’ve got money set aside. Not much, but enough for someone else to raise her. Plus, there’s insurance. Get her back to Crimson City, Tiber. You could be her guardian. You could. You wouldn’t have to see her, just take care of everything. I know you can.”