by Lani Aames
Feeling mildly let down, she followed him to the top floor. There he showed her to a corner bedroom with a door opening onto a balcony. The other outside wall held a window with a double bed under it. Claude strode over to the door and opened it to let in the salt-flavored breeze and the sound of the waves. "It should be safe enough to leave this open, if you like."
"Why shouldn't it be? Do you think your former friend, or whatever he is, would fly in the window like a bat?" She walked over to the balcony to look out. Aside from a streak of moonlight on the water, she couldn't see anything. "No street lights, no neon signs, just the night. It's beautiful—but strange. To me, anyway."
He placed his hand in the middle of her back, then skimmed down to her waistline. "I'm delighted to have a chance to share it with you." He reached under the hem of her shirt to stroke the bare skin at the small of her back.
Stifling a gasp at the coolness of his touch, she turned toward him. His other hand reached up to smooth her hair, lingering at her temple where the pulse throbbed. His fingers, almost chill in contrast to her own flushed face, felt refreshing. So how could that coolness ignite such a fire at her core?
He leaned toward her, nuzzled her hair, kissed her forehead. And stopped. Instead of tracing a path to her parted lips, he straightened up. No longer touching, he stepped away from her. "You must be exhausted, after being kidnapped." An ironic smile punctuated the sentence. "Sleep as long as you want." He retreated so fast she could almost imagine being near her made him nervous.
Which made no sense, considering his behavior on their first meeting. Unless the excitement vibrating through her body was contagious.
Nevertheless, by the time she finished taking a hot shower in the bathroom next door, her tension drained into utter weariness. She fell asleep minutes after crawling into bed.
* * * * *
Claude lurked in the hall outside Eloise's room, listening to her breathing slow to the rhythm of sleep. The last thing he should do was invade her dreams with his hunger. He'd brought her here partly for protection and partly for work on the script, not to serve as his live-in buffet. Yet her avid response was so hard to resist. Not only did her body open lavishly to his touch, so did her mind. He recalled how freely she had poured out her problems in their conversation. The down payment she fretted about would, he knew, amount to pocket change for him. Anyone who survived for centuries could accumulate a comfortable fortune, as long as he didn't make himself a target by flaunting it. Claude knew there was no use offering money to Eloise, though. She wouldn't accept a gift or even a loan.
All the more reason to focus on the movie project, to give him a legitimate pretext for handing her the solution to her financial woes. Besides, repeatedly feeding on her could expose her to greater danger from Philip. Claude's mark on her aura would make it plain that she meant more to him than a casual donor. If Philip wanted revenge for the loss he'd suffered so many decades before, he would leap at the chance to prey on Claude's pet.
Not that he planned to make a pet of Eloise. Yet the drumbeat of her heart, audible through the closed door, drew him like a moth to flame. Except that his appetite was the flame that might consume her. Even while he rehashed the arguments against tasting her again, he opened the door, slipped inside, and glided to the bed.
Well, I never claimed to have a conscience. He sat on the edge of the mattress, spreading a net of hypnotic influence to keep her from waking at the disturbance. With a sigh, she turned in her sleep. The sheet slid an inch to reveal the curve of a breast. She wore a low-cut, satin nightgown. When Claude traced a line from the hollow of her throat to the V between her breasts, her pulse accelerated. He felt the blood rushing through her heart under his open hand. The tiny hairs in his palm bristled with eagerness to stroke every inch of her smooth, warm flesh.
With his other hand, he turned down the covers. The nightgown was tangled around her hips. He skimmed up one exposed thigh and down the inside of the other. Her lips parted to emit a soft moan.
He kissed her forehead, jaw line, throat, the pulse fluttering against his lips like that moth he'd visualized, now trapped in a spider's web. "This is a dream, ma belle," he whispered. "Only a dream. Embrace me."
Her arms twined around his neck. Licking and nibbling her throat and the curve of her breast, teasing both her and himself without piercing the skin, he ran his hands over her body, barely touching, stirring the hues of her aura into whirlpools of rose and crimson. Her nipples and mount of Venus, engorged with blood, glowed like clusters of painless sunlight.
Ravenous from the aroma of the sweet nectar between her legs and her excitement sparking like miniature stars everywhere he caressed her, he chased that excitement to its source and tickled the taut nubbin of flesh that begged for his attention. Her hips undulated while she clung to him and moaned her pleasure, although her conscious mind still slept.
"Open to me," he murmured. Not a moth, he thought, but a bee ready to drink her honey. He would never let his sting cause her pain, though.
Her thighs parted. He dipped a finger in her dewy center and stroked her throbbing bud. Throwing her head back on the pillow, she arched her spine and keened in ecstasy. Her heart hammered in time with the pulsation of her climax.
At the instant that her release would imbue her blood with the sweetest flavor, he nipped the swell of her breast. With the trickle of blood, her passion fountained forth, as intoxicating as strong mead.
His teeth-roots ached too badly for gentle licking to satisfy him. He fastened onto her breast and sucked hard. Her elixir flooded his parched throat and suffused every cell of his body. When he strummed her most sensitive spot again, her second climax shot through him like a bolt of lightning.
If only he could keep her forever, not as a pet, but as something more. How would it feel if she opened her eyes and her mind, recognized his true nature, and still welcomed him into her embrace? He yearned to warm himself at the flame of her innermost core. Realizing the folly of that wish, he longed to spend the rest of this night, at least, sipping her sweet nectar. But he forced himself to listen to the voice of moderation.
After the long night's drive and the self-indulgent way he'd behaved at the convention only a couple of nights earlier, he knew she needed rest. He reluctantly forced himself to remove his mouth from the incision and calm her with languid petting, rather than goading her to fresh excitement.
"Remember, my dear," he said as he straightened her nightgown and covered her with the sheet, "this was only a dream."
Life would be simpler if he could delude himself into believing the same thing.
* * * * *
A cool wind swept in through the open balcony door. Thunder cleaved the night. In a flash of lightning, Eloise saw a tall man in a black cape silhouetted in the portal. At the neck of his ruffled, white shirt, he wore a ruby pin like a globule of fresh blood.
When he strode toward her bed, she recognized Claude.
At that point she realized she was dreaming. She decided that was all right. In a dream she could indulge any craving without fear of consequences. She opened her arms, and Claude swooped down upon her.
His hot mouth feasted on her lips, her neck, her breasts. Somehow their clothes dissolved. His hands roamed over her bare skin. She felt his tongue bathing both nipples, then flickering down her abdomen to her mound, where he probed inside the nest of hair for the sheltered nub of flesh. His tongue tip found the flashpoint of her need, quicker than she could have herself. She screamed aloud when the convulsion ripped through her.
Then he licked his way up to her neck and lay on top of her to press his leg between hers, in the place that still burned and tingled. Her tight nipples strained against his naked chest. She felt a sting at her throat, followed by a thread of hot liquid and the lapping of his tongue. He groaned with pleasure, and her voice joined his. She wrapped her legs around his thigh and squeezed. Delicious melting sensations flowed from her throat through her quivering nerves to that hot cent
er. She shuddered in release until exhaustion overcame her.
When Claude sat up, another flash of lightning showed dark stains around his mouth. Licking his lips clean, he pulled up the covers over her. "Sleep, my dear, and remember this was only a dream."
"Yes, I know," she murmured as he faded into mist. Only in a dream could she imagine Claude to be a real vampire instead of an actor who sometimes played one.
Chapter Seven
Birds chirping outside the window woke her. With her eyes still shut, Eloise listened to the other noise in the background, waves on a beach. A cool breeze drifted across her face, carrying the aroma of salt water. What was she doing beside the ocean?
She opened her eyes. Sunlight streamed in through a door that opened onto a balcony. Oh, right, Claude's Big Sur waterfront house. He'd kidnapped her. Well, as kidnappers' lairs went, she could enjoy this one. Especially if the sea air always inspired dreams like the one she'd had the night before. Feeling warmth flood her whole body, she hurried to the bathroom next door for a cool shower. If she expected to make a movie deal with Claude, she had to get a grip and act like a professional writer, not a swooning fan with a mad crush.
After dressing in jeans and a lightweight, tunic-style blouse and tying back her hair in a ponytail, she thought to check her watch. She'd slept until almost two in the afternoon. Her stomach reminded her that she'd also slept through breakfast and lunch. Still, curiosity demanded a quick tour of the house. The top floor, besides her bedroom and the bath, contained two other bedrooms, open and untenanted, and a closed door at the opposite end of the hall from her room. The absence of any sounds of life suggested Claude was asleep behind that door.
Stairs led to the main floor where they'd entered the previous night. Jokes aside, the place didn't look like a haunted castle. The foyer opened into a sunken living room with wall-to-wall carpet, a fireplace, and an elaborate stereo system. Across the hall was an office. Despite her hunger, she couldn't resist pausing to examine the vintage movie posters and old photographs on the wall behind the desk, obviously part of Claude's family history.
One black-and-white poster advertised a film adaptation of The Sorrows of Satan, from a lurid early twentieth-century novel. The star bore a striking resemblance to Claude, allowing for the devilish eyebrows and other exaggerations of the illustrator's style. His grandfather, or would it have to be great-grandfather? She'd never heard of the movie; it must be one of many silent films that hadn't survived. Photos from the 1940s era showed group poses that featured a man with a widow's-peak haircut and a pencil-thin mustache, doubtless Claude's father or uncle. She made a mental note to ask him, but now she had to scrounge some food before she keeled over from starvation.
Toward the back of the house she found the dining room and kitchen, which looked as clean as a model home in a very expensive housing development. The kitchen struck her as oddly empty, with nothing on the spacious counters except a blender and microwave, and nothing on the walls, not even a rack of carving knives. The cooking island in the middle of the room displayed food, at least. A box of granola and a bowl of apples didn't inspire gourmet fantasies, but her stomach decided they were better than nothing.
The refrigerator held milk, orange juice, and nothing else. Rather than snooping in the freezer, she settled in the breakfast nook to gobble her cereal, apple, and glass of juice. When she rinsed her dishes, she couldn't resist a peek in the cabinets. Other than the one where she had found the bowls and glasses, most of the cupboards were bare. Did Claude always live like Mother Hubbard? Or maybe he just didn't spend a lot of time in this house.
On the lowest level, she found a half-bath, a small sitting room with a wide-screen TV, and a den with bookshelves lining all the walls except one, which featured sliding glass doors that opened onto a patio. She stepped outside, drawing a deep breath of the salty air. The house perched on the edge of a cliff above the shore. Wooden steps led from the patio down to the rock-strewn beach. The stony bluffs, too steep for walking or even comfortable climbing, formed a semicircle that completely enclosed what appeared to be Claude's private beachfront property. An effective way to ensure privacy, she mused.
Back inside, she still didn't hear any sign of life. She wandered into the TV room, where she discovered a bookcase full of videotapes. Finding a Vincent Price collection on one shelf, she grabbed The Fall of the House of Usher and snuggled into an enormous armchair to watch the movie. Nothing was missing but the popcorn.
* * * * *
Just as the House of Usher started to topple into the lake, a touch on her shoulder jerked her out of the world on the screen. She turned with a gasp. "Good grief, Claude, warn me before you sneak up on me." She switched off the VCR.
"I am told I have a quiet footstep," he intoned in a Bela Lugosi accent.
"Too bad I don't have a mirror handy to test you with." Her pulse still raced from that momentary touch. She scanned his tall, greyhound-lean form, ravishing even in casual slacks and an open-necked polo shirt.
"Good, those secrets you asked about are still safe," he said. "I hope you found everything you needed. I apologize for the minimal breakfast selection, but I don't keep this place well stocked."
"That's okay." Following him up to the main floor, she said, "I love your house, and you have an incredible view from the patio."
"Wait until you see it at night. By the way, you didn't go outside, did you?" he asked as they entered the kitchen.
"Only for a second. What about it?"
"Please don't." He caught her arm and frowned. "Not without me."
His fingers felt like a brand on her skin. "Why on earth not? Come on, kidnapping is one thing, but I don't know if I can stand for house arrest."
"Confound it, I'm trying to protect you! Can't you take my word that I know what I'm talking about?"
She pulled away from him. "I would if you'd explain yourself." When he continued to glower at her, she said, "Oh, all right, I won't roam around outside by myself."
He visibly relaxed. "That's better. Now, you must be hungry. Again, I'm afraid my supplies are limited." He opened the freezer. "Would you prefer chicken, beef, or fish?"
"Uh, chicken, I guess."
He confirmed her impression of him as a stereotypical bachelor non-cook by taking out a frozen fried chicken dinner and popping it in the microwave. While Eloise sat at the polished redwood table in the breakfast nook, Claude got a can of beef broth from one of the almost-empty cabinets and started it simmering on the stove. He then opened a bottle of cabernet and poured her a glass. "Here, have a drink. Have several."
"That's all you're eating?"
"I'm not hungry—now. Anyway, I suffer from a mind-boggling array of food allergies," he said, sitting opposite her with his own wineglass. "I survive mostly on a liquid protein diet."
"So you just keep the bare minimum of food around for visitors." That explained why the kitchen looked as if a famine had struck central California.
"Of which I don't have many here, as I said." He gazed at her over the rim of his glass. "I'm delighted to make you an exception."
Blushing under his intense scrutiny, she lowered her eyes to the table, glad the microwave interrupted the moment with a beep.
After he'd served her microwaved dinner and his mug of broth, he turned the conversation to the Varney plotline. "Now, about the opening scene. I leap out Flora's window, and her father and brother charge in pursuit, and one of them shoots me, yes?"
"Right."
"Jolly good. In the book, the rays of the moon bring our Byronic bloodsucker back to life. Shall we use that?"
"Why not? It'll give the movie a fresh slant compared to all the other vampire films. In fact, I was thinking we should deliberately make it old-fashioned, just on the edge of camp but not quite."
"I like the way your mind works." He raised his glass to her. "So our baffled heroes search hither and yon, without finding a trace of the midnight intruder."
She smiled at the melodram
atic flourish he gave to the words. "The next day, Varney shows up, the elegant gentleman who has just moved into town, offering to buy the mansion. So far, we're sticking to the plot of the book."
"Which we have to deviate from eventually, on account of those inconvenient 800 pages. Have you considered doing anything with the sexton who unearths the truth about Varney and blackmails him?" Claude delivered the "unearth" pun with a completely straight face.
"If we keep it simple. What if Varney spends the first night in his family crypt, and the sexton catches him rising from the grave at sunset the next day?"
"Why doesn't Varney just kill the blighter?"
"Good question." Eloise stirred gravy around in her mashed potatoes. "The sexton fends him off with a cross, maybe? After all, they're in a churchyard."
With a thoughtful frown, Claude took a long drink from his mug of broth. "I suppose we're stuck with the bit about waving crosses in the vampire's face. Audiences expect it, and it's a convenient icon to brand him as a cursed creature of the night and all that." He emptied the cup and licked his lips.
Suppressing a shiver, she forced her eyes away from his mouth. "Okay, he retires to his tomb, wakes up at sunset and gets into a confrontation with the sexton, then visits the Bannerworths and tries to charm them into selling the house. Oh, and somewhere along the way he has to move into rented quarters."
"Indeed." Claude refilled both of their wineglasses. "I always wonder about those vampires who live in mausoleums and still manage to have elegant wardrobes and perfect grooming." While pouring her wine, he leaned over her a few seconds longer than necessary. She felt his eyes linger on her long after he returned to his seat.
"That's as far as I've planned in any detail, except for the ending, anyway." She picked at her fried chicken, trying to suppress her awareness of Claude's intense gaze. He acts like my eating is the most fascinating spectacle he's seen all week.
