by Michele Hauf
"Prudence is occupied," he reassured. "And I'm not much for tea. So…did you have something you wanted to tell me?"
He didn't wait for her to speak, finding he was lured higher by the warm, quivering softness of her thighs. He pushed her other leg aside, opening her to him. That she was a woman who did not wear underdrawers pleased him immensely. He buried his nose in her fragrant pussy.
"Oh, dear. You said you wanted to talk," she managed on a shaky breath.
"You talk. I'll tend my desires. Fair enough?"
"I don’t think I can… Oh, right there. Oh, yes, your tongue… It's so…exacting."
He smiled against her soft nether curls and then blew a hot breath over her folds. She quivered, her thighs hugging his face. Dashing his tongue down the seam of her folds, he opened her and drank in her delicious heat. The woman moaned deeply and slumped down a bit on the chair, which gave him perfect access.
He slid a thumb over her moist clit, and that set her hips to a wanting thrust. Her shoe heel dug in at his shoulder, but he enjoyed the teasing pain.
"I was going to tell you— Oh, mercy…"
"Yes?" He slid two fingers inside her and gently curled them forward where he felt a ridged patch on her inner wall. Hmm… He stroked it curiously.
"Marcello!"
Her entire body shook. She was already so close to release. And he suspected it was because of the intriguing area he had just discovered inside her. Nice. He played over it curiously. Her shoe heel dug in deeper at his shoulder, and a bend of her leg pulled him forward. So he kissed her quim, drowning himself in her sighs. With one exacting stroke, her body released, and she shouted in joy. Warmth spilled over his fingers, and her insides pulsed tightly about them. She'd come by his hand alone.
He kissed her again. "Sweet Jane."
Gasping and gripping the chair arms, she thrust her head back. Her breasts heaved, her thighs still shook, and she managed to say, "I have a confession."
"That I've neatly coaxed out of you."
"Indeed. Oh! Mercy! I must say it now, or I will never forgive myself. Marcello, I've been trying to seduce you so you'll become my patron. Oh, my. I didn't mean to blurt it out." She giggled, and her hips bucked again. "You worked that right out of me."
"Jane." Marcello sat back on his knees and pulled down her skirt as he set her foot on the floor. "I know."
She blew a curl from her lashes and looked at him. "You knew? That I was…?"
"Of course. You're not as clever as you like to think. By the way, I believe it was me who did the seducing."
"Yes, I…" She gasped a few elated breaths. "I can agree with that. Maybe." She made eye contact, and a flutter of her lashes reminded him that indeed she might have exercised some control over him, initially. The cheeky Englishwoman. "I'm so sorry. Now it's out there. That you know…"
"Jane, you needn't use seduction to get your way with me. Although, I can't argue with the results. You can stay as long as you like. You are always welcome here."
She beamed.
He raised a cautioning finger. "But know I'll probably want to fuck you daily. Twice if possible."
"I can agree to that. Oh, but Prudence."
"I think Prudence is being taken care of nicely by Adamo."
"Indeed. I don't think the woman has been happier. Would you like to listen to me practice now?"
"I…" Marcello cast a glance over his shoulder at the innocent instrument that could be coaxed into devilish chorus. "I think I want you to practice on me, actually." He stood and offered her his hand. "Come. Let's go up to my bedchambers. The day is early, and it's much too sunny out for a creature such as me."
* * *
Jane curled up beside Marcello on the big bed beneath the damask tester. The curtains were drawn, and dozens of candles were lit, but she suspected it was merely mid-afternoon.
She spread her fingers across her lover's bare abdomen, over the many ridges of marble-like muscle, and laid her head on his shoulder. "Were you serious about me staying here as long as I wish?"
"Of course. Jane, you are a welcome light to my darkness."
"It is quite dark here. All the time. How have you had relationships over your long lifetime when I assume the women are human and need to eat real food and enjoy the sunshine?"
He shrugged. "I make it work."
"Have you had many lovers over the centuries?"
"I've lived for over five hundred years, Jane. Do you really want that answer?"
"I suppose not. I can't imagine living so long. It seems a wonder. But then, I also question if it could get tedious."
"That's a word for it. Only on rare days. I used to travel a lot. Taking night coaches and trains. The world is a marvel. I've only been in Venice for the past decade or so. I've always lived in the palazzo but never settled here for so long. I might like to travel again."
"I would love to see the world. I don't know that I will have that opportunity."
"Why not? I'll take you wherever you wish to go. Pick a country. We'll leave tonight."
"It's a lovely thought, but you forget, I am a married woman. And much as I have run away from my husband, I cannot ignore the fear that he will come looking for me."
"I will protect you from him."
"I don't want you to become involved in my messy marriage. I just want…"
"What do you want, Jane?"
"I want it ended. The marriage. But a divorce would be out of the question for him. And I'm not sure about an annulment, how that would work."
"Divorce would prove more of a humiliation to you than him."
"I would get over it. I've already endured the shame of ostracization from my family. I do not require the approval of others or even my family. But he…"
"He's beaten you, Jane. There are no excuses for such cruel treatment. He will suffer the consequences of his actions. He must."
She sighed and nodded against his chest. "But you must know something about him. The reason I find it so difficult to rend our ties. I am the youngest of five daughters. My elder sisters got the better matches. I have always been plain Jane."
"Plain? You are the least plain woman I know. Jane, you are beautiful. I can't understand why your family would make you believe such a thing."
"You are too kind, Marcello. But if you saw my sisters and their gemstone blue eyes and cornsilk hair… Well."
He kissed the crown of her head. "Your hair is fair as beams from the sky."
"Have you seen the dreary English sky? My hair is not nearly as shiny and dazzling as my sisters' hair. Anyway, two years ago, I accepted the best match my father could manage. His name is Thatcher Emery. And he's the parson in our little village of Charlestown."
"Your husband is a clergyman?"
She nodded and winced.
"That's madness."
"Yes, well, it is the reason divorce is out of the question. No parson would confess to such vile treatment of his wife and allow the marriage to be torn asunder."
He hugged her close and kissed the crown of her head. "Then you'll stay away from him forever. Here. With me. He can't hurt what isn't in his home. I will take care of you, Jane. I will never raise a hand to you. And I will keep your secret. Promise."
Tears spilled from her eyes onto Marcello's chest, but they were tears of happiness. Never had she felt so protected.
Chapter 11
After Jane had eaten the roast pheasant and honeyed carrots, she stood before the window in her bedchamber, looking out at the waning moon. It twinkled as if diamonds on the water in the canal below. She stroked the necklace she'd not removed since Marcello had asked her to wear it. Had she been born five hundred years earlier, might she have had hopes of becoming his princess?
But princesses did not marry parsons so that fantasy dissipated rather quickly.
Marcello had said he intended to go out tonight and would return in a few hours. She suspected he was going to find someone to bite. And this time, he did not require an audience.
Did he seek a victim? Or sustenance?
She supposed it could be either or both. Yet while she could only imagine a person could be a victim if they were forced or lured into doing something they did not wish to do, she could imagine Marcello would hold command over the one he choose to slake his needs with. And he might be quick with them, using force, shoving them against a wall and sinking in his fangs.
Or would he seduce with that deep, whiskeyed voice and an allure that only vampires could unleash on those lucky enough to be chosen by them?
Jane pressed a hand to her throat. She was thinking in terms of the bite being a welcome, sensual thing. Could she endure living as Marcello did? As a vampire? Hunting others for their blood in order to stay alive. Had she the backbone for such cruelty? Or rather, the cunning to let loose a certain seduction to get what the vampire craved?
She had seduced Marcello. In a way.
Very well, it truly had been he who had seduced her. And now, he'd invited her to stay indefinitely. She would do it. But would she always be looking over her shoulder, wondering if and when Thatcher might be gaining on her?
Was her husband even looking for her?
Her family was disappointed and had surely marked her off as lost and forgotten. Perhaps they, along with Thatcher, would concoct a story to hide their annoyance and shame at her disappearance. Instead, telling people she'd gone missing, and was very possibly dead. That was well and fine by her. Truly.
She touched a glint in the window glass where a bubble caught the moonlight as if a star. "I want the bite. I want to feel him inside me." In more ways than she had already.
She wanted to belong to Marcello Sebastiani.
* * *
Marcello tracked the lone woman who was heading home from a soiree. She was not a noblewoman or even an elite. Those types would never walk the dark streets of Venice alone. She was probably a laundress or a maid judging by the soapy smell that wafted in her wake. She wore a brown cloak over what he guessed was a simple shift. A black scarf covered her head, save for a long, thick strand of blonde hair that spilled down her arm.
She wasn't aware that he followed her. No one ever was. He was stealthy and had been doing this for centuries. Yet just when he judged the moment to send out a mental message to tell her to turn and welcome a stranger into her arms, he held back.
Worry furrowed his brow. Why was he stopping? He needed blood tonight. Most every night. A familiar ache in his gut demanded he feed his hunger. Was it because she was alone? But she wasn't frightened. Fear would have heightened the experience for him. A little struggle. Knowing that he had worked for his meal.
No, it was something else. That blonde hair. Jane had told him her sisters had gorgeous hair and eyes. That they were all so lovely. And that she was plain. Why did she believe that? What cruelties had she endured to have grown up believing such nonsense? She was a beautiful woman who did not deserve to be looked down upon or physically harmed.
Her husband was a parson? Insane. But with hope, the man would not venture beyond his parish in search of his wayward wife. Marcello would be very happy to keep Jane safe and under his protection for as long as it was required.
Was he… Was he falling in love with the woman? Because never before had he felt so protective and yet so utterly under a woman's spell. He would even endure her catastrophic mechanics before the pianoforte to have her in his bed every night. Sighing against his skin. Kissing him. Taking him into her body and coming hard beneath him.
And then he knew why he would not pursue the laundress this evening. Because he didn't want Jane to be jealous, and he felt as if he would be cuckolding her if he held another woman in his arms tonight.
"Wonders never cease," he muttered and turned to head back to the palazzo.
* * *
Her lover lured her out of her bedchamber with a whisper. Leaving Prudence behind in a peaceful slumber, Jane almost yelped when Marcello whisked her from her feet and into his arms to carry her up to the fourth floor.
"You must stay in my bedchambers from now on," he said as they entered the candlelit room and he set her on the bed. "I shouldn't have to retrieve my lover. You should already be at my side."
"I can't find an argument for that." She knelt on the bed and helped him tug his shirt over his head and then unbuttoned his trousers so he could kick them away and stand naked before her. Jane tapped her lower lip. "Take it in your hand," she said. "I want to watch you pleasure yourself."
"Is that so? You surprise me with your boldness."
Jane lifted her chin confidently. "I am an adventuress."
"That you are." He gripped his cock and squeezed it while she glided her palms over his abdomen, unable to not touch those hard ridges of heat.
As he stroked himself, she felt the muscles flex under her fingers and fancied she could compose a tune with his hisses of restrained desire and her increased breaths. "Did you go out and find a victim?"
"I…did not. I had intended to."
"Why didn't you? How often must you take blood?"
He put a hand up on the canopy frame overhead and leaned forward, stroking himself more swiftly now. "Every day, if possible. But I can go for days if needs must. I don't take much. Would never harm the person beyond the bite. And that always heals."
"Can you make it so they don't remember your bite?" She slipped one hand down to cup his tightened testicles.
"Oh, Jane! Yes, always. It would not be wise to let them remember a vampire had bitten them, would it?"
"I suppose not, for your safety. Faster," she commanded of him. "And harder."
Marcello obliged her, and she bowed to lick the mighty head of his weapon while he rigorously pumped himself to a shudder.
"Your whole body tenses up just before you release," she commented. "Oh, Marcello, don't come yet. I want you inside me when you do."
"I thought you'd never ask. Lay back, lover."
She did, curling her fingers into the nightgown fabric and slowly inching it up. The look on Marcello's face made her beam. That was love. It had to be. Could it be? She dare not ask.
"Spread your legs," he said on a rough command. "Quickly. And pull the fabric away from your breasts. I want to see how tight your nipples are."
She pulled the ribbon tie and spread the fabric apart so her breasts were revealed. Her lover bowed over her, the heavy weight of his erection teasing at her thigh, and his hot breath curling above one nipple.
He almost kissed her. Jane arched her back, lifting her breasts, but she couldn't quite meet his mouth. "Please," she said on a moan. "Don't tease me!"
"That's exactly what I'm doing." The head of him nudged at her wetness, and Jane moaned again, long and wanting. Such a wicked smile he wielded. "You want this, Jane?"
"You know I do!"
"Perhaps not just yet." He knelt on the bed and straddled her, gliding his moistened cock along her belly and in between her breasts. There, he pressed her breasts together to capture his hard tool between them and continued his thrusting.
She clutched at his powerful buttocks, easing him forward and reveling in the flexing motion of his muscles there. He was so big and yet gentle when he needed to be, and not so gentle when she desired him not to be. Her fingernails dug into his flesh.
Marcello hissed through a tight jaw. "You are a wanton, Jane."
"You make me one," she said. "And I love it!"
With a chuckle, he slid down her stomach and kissed her breasts, suckling each nipple in turn. His hand still held his cock, which he patted at her swollen quim. The repeated tapping ignited the coil of impending orgasm in her, and she squirmed in hopes of capturing him within her.
And when his fingers parted her folds, he looked up to meet her gaze. They held one another with a look of silent desire as he slid into her. The man's moan echoed throughout her being. And in his eyes, she thought sure she saw a world that was new and now open to her. A new beginning.
"Come with me, Jane."
But of a sudden, she wanted so much more.
"Bite me, Marcello. Please." She grasped for his hair and pulled him down to her chest.
The man licked his way up her throat, while at her loins his cock pulsed and his hips still bucked.
"Quickly. Come inside me again. At my neck," she pleaded.
And he obeyed.
The surprising pain of his teeth penetrating her vein made her cry out, but just as quickly, the wave of orgasm that had almost dissipated renewed and swept her into its swirling frenzy. Groaning deeply, Jane released it all, gliding into the dark but tantalizing thrill of the bite. The sucking against her neck combined with the sure thrust of his cock within her dizzied her senses.
At that moment, the vampire's bite succeeded in stealing her heart.
Chapter 12
Carlo Bianchi noticed the gentleman who had walked through the front door of his newly purchased home. He was currently having a few repairs made, so he suspected the man standing in the doorway must be one of the work crew. But he wasn't dressed like he hauled around stones and a hammer.
Ah. As he neared the man, Carlo saw that he wore the collar of a priest or vicar, or whatever it was they were calling holy men these days.
"Good father," Carlo said and bowed to the man. He wasn't averse to the religious, but he would wisely never touch a holy object or person. Just on principle. "How can I help you?"
"I am not sure I have the correct place. I was looking for Signore Ricci?"
"Yes, this was once his home. Did you know him?"
"No, not personally."
"Then I can tell you without fear of upsetting you that the man passed away a few weeks ago. I am the new owner of this fine villa. I'm so sorry you were not able to speak with the man. Was it pressing?"
"No. Actually, it is of no import that the man has died. God grant his soul merciful peace. Who I'm really looking for is a woman who may have come to visit him. Jane—"
"Oh, yes, sweet Jane Emery. She's staying a few houses down. A pity she wasn't able to attain the musical instruction necessary. Her playing does try one's nerves. And I'm not even living in the same palazzo as she."
