by Mary Hughes
I ran.
Straight into one of the long coats. “Where do you think you’re going, blood bitch?” Long fingers tightened cruelly around my upper arms, pricked into my skin. I glanced down in panic. They were—real claws.
Chapter Nine
“Let me go!” I shrieked, struggling like a maniac.
It was like I did nothing. The guy’s strength was immense.
Until square, competent fingers wrapped around the claws. Square, bronzed fingers which pulled the claws away with startling ease.
The gang guy’s strength was immense, but Julian Emerson was stronger by far.
I expected one of those blasé comments of his. About this being particularly ill-considered, or believing the fellow was out of line.
Instead, Julian growled. “Let the fuck go of her.”
With a grimace of pain, the coat taunted, “Why? She your chew toy, Emerson? Oh, that’s right. You and your kind call them donors.”
Time out here. I did note all the blood references. But in my defense, I thought it was only a gang thing. A code for how dangerous they were, like tattoos or signs.
Of course, that didn’t explain how I missed the other glaring inconsistencies, like what a big Chicago gang really wanted with tiny Meiers Corners (our two-hundred-fifty-dollars-per-year drug money? The joy of knocking over our one-man convenience store?). Maybe I just didn’t want to notice.
I preferred to think I was distracted by Julian Emerson’s rampant masculinity.
Speaking of which…at the gang guy’s taunt, Julian’s eyes turned hard as rubies. Through tightly closed lips he said, “You are an unprincipled savage.” Then he seized the gang guy and tossed him twenty yards like a pitcher nailing home plate.
My jaw dropped. Julian had flung a two-hundred-pound man like a baseball. And a man who had come back from the dead had honest-to-gosh, real-live mastiff-sized fangs. Glinting in the moonlight, not plastic, not imaginary. Not anything but scary.
Obviously we had left the Topeka airport, Toto, and were circling over Sunnydale.
Cutter sprang forward. He bared fangs at Julian and hissed. Not a human hiss, but the low, deadly warning of a beast. The hairs raised on the back of my neck.
Cutter’s face was completely unmarked, which unnerved me even more. I had raked keys over that face. I had seen blood dripping from between his fingers. Yet now he could be a Coverboy makeup model.
I was unnerved, but Julian wasn’t even fazed. He stalked toward Cutter, so big and menacing that I shivered. “You and your gang will get one thing straight, Cutter. If even a single child or female complains of so much as a pinprick, I am coming after you. And I will shred you. I will feed you strip by strip into the furnace of the sun.”
It sounded gruesome. And strangely, I didn’t get the feeling Julian thought he was exaggerating.
“But if you or any of your gang even touch Nixie”—and here Julian emitted a growl that sounded like it came from a twelve-foot tiger—“I will personally disembowel each and every one of you and toss your guts to the crows while you watch. And that’s just to start.”
In response, Cutter and his hench mutant squeaked. Backing away, they faded silently into the night.
Well. Apparently civilized suit Julian Emerson had a savage side. It made me…hot.
Until he turned his fierce expression on me. “What the hell were you doing? Didn’t I tell you not to go out alone at night?”
Relief evaporated. I drew myself up to my full height and glared back. “What was I supposed to do?” I returned, fists hitting hips. “Call on you, O Great Protector? Oh, wait, I can’t. You never gave me your phone number.”
“I’m staying at Strongwell’s. You know that number, yes?”
Okay, that explained why he’d been working out half-naked there. In my own defense, I’d been a little distracted by pumped pecs and sleek bronzed skin and…yeah.
“But to remove even that excuse—here.” Julian whipped out a card, so fast that if it had been a knife it would have sliced the night in two. “My cell phone. Next time, call.”
“Gee, thanks, SuperLegal.” I stuck the card in my jeans pocket without a glance. “Don’t you have more important things to do, Emerson? Like drawing up torts or researching precedent or something? The things we’re paying your five-fucking-C fee for?”
His fingers went around my upper arms. His eyes flared almost red in the streetlight. He looked like he wanted to shake me. “Stopping the courts is worthless if I can’t stop the gang.”
Well, that was just laughable, so I laughed. “You? You personally are going to stop a gang? How? By throwing your law books at them? By talking them to death?”
“No. I’ll speak the only language they understand. The language of tooth and claw.” He released me. Just before he turned away I caught the glint of two very sharp teeth.
“Yeah, yeah. I get the animal metaphor, Emerson. But it’s a metaphor. This gang is real. And dangerous.”
“So am I.”
“I’m sure you are, in a courtroom,” I cried, exasperated. “But not against these playas! They’re big, strong, and there are a whole big city of them! There’s one of you. They’ll completely pwn you, Emerson!”
The puzzled tilt to Julian’s head clued me that his slang dictionary still wasn’t online.
“Pwn you, Emerson!” Like yelling it would make him understand the crushing, devastating pwningness of it all. “And I’m worried—” I cut off, suddenly realizing what I’d almost blurted. I’m worried about you, Julian. Scared for you. I care about what happens to you. I care—about you.
He slewed me a look over his shoulder. Slowly, his lips curved. He knew. Even though I hadn’t said the words, he’d heard them loud and clear anyway.
“Shit, there’s such a thing as being too quick.” I jammed my hands in my pockets and turned red.
“Is there?” He came to me and gently pushed a strand of hair away from my eyes.
“What is it with you, anyway? Do you read minds, or are you just that smart?”
His thumb feathered over my cheek. “Mostly I read your face. Listen to your voice. But I can smell, too, you know. Smell when you’re afraid. Smell when you’re concerned. Smell when you’re aroused.” He almost purred the last.
I watched his eyes darken. “We’re outside, you know. In public.”
“Really?” He unbuttoned my jean jacket. Unzipped the Garfield hoodie underneath. “Does that bother you?”
I looked down. He’d exposed a strip of skin from my neck to my belly button. Including a quarter-moon of breast on each side. I hadn’t worn a bra tonight, thinking I was going to get laid. Maybe, I thought hopefully, I still was. “It doesn’t bother me.” My voice emerged thick and husky. “I thought it’d bother you.”
“Not in this lifetime.” He opened his hand and slid it onto my exposed skin. His square, competent hand slid up the swell of my breast. Under my hoodie.
Directly onto my nipple.
I arched into his hand, feeling his skin abrade my breast. My nipple filled and tightened, tingled and clamored for more.
“What is it about you, Nixie?” Julian’s voice was accompanied by a rhythmic rumble, like a cat opening its mouth on a purr. “Your smell, your taste, the feel of your skin…hell, everything about you arouses me.”
“Sorry.” I closed my eyes and leaned into him. Not sorry at all. “Don’t you have two hands, Emerson?”
“Yes.” He cupped both breasts and thumbed my nipples. Little shivery jags of lightning arced through me in response. “And,” he added hoarsely, “a tongue.”
“Oh, fuck,” I said as he bent from his great height and his mouth opened on mine. It was the last thing I said for quite a while.
As his lips played over my skin, his tongue touched here, there. The corners of my mouth. The tip of my earlobe. My throbbing pulse.
His fingers pinched my nipples, erotically beating out an S-O-S—or an O-M-G. One arm wrapped around my back, his hand splayi
ng under my jeans. I hadn’t worn a thong tonight, either. As his hand moved in and encountered only naked skin, he growled. He pulled my hips into his, hard. The rumbling purr grew so loud I could practically feel it thrumming against my chest. Against my belly. Against my pussy, pressed into his hard heat.
His hand found and cupped my butt. Slid down it, squeezing gently. One finger tickled the edge of my pubic hair.
I tried to tell him, yes, further, now! But all that emerged from my throat was a gut-deep moan.
I had forgotten this was Julian, the man who could read my desires in my scent. The finger pressed forward. Slid into thick moisture. Julian voiced a strangled groan, pushed his hips into me. His hard cock dug a hot hole in my belly. His breath was coming in short, sharp gasps. “You’re hotter than the sun, Nixie. So silky and wet for me. Open up, sweetheart. I’m going to make you come.”
And his finger stabbed home.
I shrieked. Yes, yes, yes! I screamed. Only it came out a muffled moan, because somehow I had latched onto his earlobe and was suckling.
“Ride me,” he whispered. “Ride my finger.” He slid his other hand between us. Slid it down the front of my pants. Opened his palm, cupping my pussy. From behind, his finger continued to slide in and out.
My hips started moving, almost with a mind of their own. His finger was so hot it burned. If he’d made it any hotter, it would’ve been a candle. I rode that hot, hard finger, my breath rasping faster.
His cupping hand flexed. A second finger slid in from the front. Caught, I rocked between the two, the hand cupping my pussy and the one pressing against my butt. I gasped at the feel of two thick fingers thrusting. I wept at the scrape of teeth against my cheek, down my jaw.
All around us the night watched. This was not dark bedroom under-the-covers missionary position vaginal sex. This was hot, steamy, nasty fucking, and I loved it. My fingers tangled in Julian’s black hair and I pressed his mouth closer. Reveled in the feel of his hands thrusting hard into my pants. He may have been a stodgy old lawyer but he was a wonderfully dirty stodgy old lawyer.
And then his back hand moved and a wet, slippery finger slid into my ass. And I realized there was nothing stodgy about Julian’s sexuality at all.
Both fingers thrust into me and I screamed. Gasped as they slid out. Screamed as they banged home again. “Oh my…oh my…” I was going to come. Just on two of Julian Emerson’s fingers, I was going to come.
His mouth opened on my neck, forcing my head back. Teeth pressed into my pulse. Breath fanned hot on my skin. Fingers cocked back like pinball plungers. Purring rumbled in my ears, over my skin, all around me.
With a bone-shattering growl Julian Emerson drove into my body. His fingers thrust into me, his teeth pierced my throat. His tongue pressed into the gush of hot liquid pulsing from my neck. His fingers slid in and out in a frenzy.
I climaxed like a booster rocket. My orgasm hit me so hard my body folded in two. The rictus of pleasure slamming through me was so bright it was almost painful.
Through it all Julian lapped up blood and churned come.
I went over the edge into darkness.
I woke in my own bed feeling lightheaded and curiously at peace. A glance at my alarm showed it was almost nine in the morning. I had slept a solid twelve hours.
I never sleep that long. I sat up, immediately swaying. Woozy. Grabbing my head I held it until it stopped spinning. When I could see more clearly I noticed a glass and some cookies on my nightstand, within easy reach. Gingerly I lay back against my headboard and picked up the glass. I drank. It was some sort of juice, tangy and sweet. I drank it all.
It was only as I scarfed the fourth cookie that I thought to wonder how they’d gotten there. I don’t buy juice. And I can’t keep cookies in the house, not for more than an hour anyway.
Then I remembered Julian and the orgasm from beyond the galactic rim, and wondered how I’d gotten here.
Surely desk-jockey Emerson hadn’t carried me all the way home to my townhouse.
Only I had to stop thinking of him as a mere desk jockey. His body, which I’d seen at Elena’s, was primo, lean and muscular. He’d fought big, tough gang guys. He moved like a hunter. He made love like a porn star.
He bit like a v…
Oh, no. So not going there. I liked horror stories as much as the next guy. But weird, wacko explanations were Bruno’s department, not mine.
Still, if the Lestat gang really was a bunch of v-v-v…well, it only made sense to counter them with another v-v-v…
No, no, no. This was ridiculous. Julian Emerson was an attorney. A bloodsucker, to be sure. But not literally. He didn’t have any of the other qualifications, like wearing a silk-lined black cape, or speaking with a Transylvanian accent, or sleeping in a buried coffin during the day—
Of course! I could prove Julian wasn’t a…wasn’t a… I could prove it. He was staying with Bo and Elena. All I had to do was call them. Ask for Julian. If he came to the phone, I knew he wasn’t sleeping in a…yeah.
I sat up, felt something dig in my jeans pocket. Julian’s card. Extracting it, I realized I could call him direct on his cell phone. If he answered, it would prove he wasn’t sleeping in a…no, actually it wouldn’t. It would prove he wasn’t sleeping. It wouldn’t prove he wasn’t in a buried cof…yeesh. This was getting complicated.
So I reached over for the phone, dialed Elena’s before I could think myself into a black hole. She answered on the tenth ring, just as I was about to hang up. “Strongwells,” her voice came sleepily.
Reminding me not only toothy monsters-that-didn’t-exist slept during the day. “Sorry to wake you, Elena. But, um…can I speak with Emerson, please?”
“Julian?” Her tone was definitely more awake. “Why Julian?”
“I just wanted to, um, ask him something. I saw him last night but forgot to…um.”
“Nixie—you sound kind of strange. You’re not thinking anything…weird, are you?”
“Weird? No way. I’m not thinking weird in the least.” I gave a hearty laugh to prove it. “Certainly not about Julian Emerson, Mr. Boris Normalsky.”
“Oh, good,” she said, but her tone was doubting. “Because—well, you know I’d never let anything happen to you, right?”
“Right,” I said, wondering where that came from.
“Nothing—weird, I mean.”
“Sure,” I said. “But can I talk to Emerson…?” And of course, that was the question. Could I talk to Julian? Or was he somewhere he couldn’t talk? And I didn’t mean the potty.
“You’ll have to wait while I get him. Unless you want me to have him call you back?” I don’t think I imagined the hopeful note to her voice.
“I’ll wait,” I said as cheerfully as possible. I even started humming the “Beer Barrel Polka” to show how unconcerned I was.
“Okay. I’m going to get Julian now.”
As I said, I get a lot of info listening. I heard a door open. That was Elena leaving her and Bo’s bedroom. Then silence, but that was consistent with padding barefoot down a hallway. No creak, so I know she didn’t go up or down stairs. And then a knock. “Julian?” Elena said. “Nixie’s on the phone for you. Sorry to wake you up, but can you come talk to her?”
And then to my great relief, I heard the click of a door opening and the sound of the phone changing hands. When the deep, elegant tones came, I’d never been so happy to hear them.
“Nixie. What the hell are you doing, calling so early?”
Deep, elegant—and grouchy, I amended. But I was still happy to hear him. “I just wanted to, um, thank you for the juice. And cookies. That was you, right?”
“Yes,” he said, his tone a little less surly. The sound of the door closing came and he added, “I thought you could use a little refreshment when you woke. You were sleeping pretty hard.”
Hard. I’d come pretty hard.
Leaving him, I realized for the first time, with a pretty big hard-on. Which could account for the grouchine
ss. “Um, yeah. Sorry about dipping on you like that. Before you, um, you know.”
“That’s all right. I enjoyed watching you.”
I’m not shy about sex. But thinking about Julian watching me while I shuddered and spasmed and folded in two…my face heated. “Uh, yeah. Hey, why don’t I return the favor? In fact—why don’t I come over right now!”
Julian only chuckled. “I don’t think you’d like the accommodations here. My room is in the basement. No windows.”
I sucked in a breath, earlier fears rising. Coffins.
As if he heard my thoughts, Julian said, “Don’t get me wrong. It’s quite spacious. But it’s a bachelor’s pad. A little dark.”
I let out the breath. “That’s okay. What I have in mind involves Braille.”
“Nixie,” he said, his voice all tight and growly. I decided I really liked Julian Emerson’s voice that way. “I’d love for you to…”
My phone beeped. I lost the rest of Julian’s words. “What? What did you say?”
“I said I’d love…”
My phone beeped again. “Oh, hell. Someone’s calling. Julian…uh, can you hold?”
“I don’t know.” His tone was pure seduction. “Can you?”
Oh, double-hell. “Uh, yeah. Just a minute.” I clicked over. “Hello?”
“Nixie? It’s Mom. Can you come to supper Friday?”
This was beyond what a woman should have to take. “Mother, I already told you—”
“It’ll be early. Five, five thirty. You’ll have plenty of time to get to your…music.”
Of course my mother couldn’t call it a job. “Mom. If you’re having company”—euphemism for “forced date”—“I’d need to stay.”
“No company,” she said quickly. “Just family. Your father and I hardly ever see you anymore.”
“You just saw me last night!”
“That doesn’t count. You were with that Braun boy. And besides, you spent half the time in the kitchen.”
Because of her. But…“All right, Mom. I’ll try to make it.”
“Good. See you at five thirty. And Saturday brunch at two o’clock.” She hung up.
