Love Charms

by Multiple

  The only solace to his brand of moralizing was that he didn’t bite her. Yet by the Devil that made him, and by the God his mother had worshipped … he wanted to.

  He inched his mouth away from her neck, throwing his thoughts into the feeling of her lush body beneath his hands, the lesser of two evils. He shouldn’t, yet he was a selfish beast. Lechery taunted him to sample that it might appease the greater threat of taking her blood. Yet no amount of internal combat seemed able to stop his touch.

  Beth’s lips moved against his throat, warm and soft. So innocent. The excitement of a woman untouched by any man filled him. He leaned back slightly, dropping his head and the pleasure of her mouth was against his lips. She gasped into his kiss as he wound thick damp strands of her hair around his fingers.

  Beth knew the difference between wanting Trinity’s blood and wanting him … the moment he kissed her. All rational thought left. She moaned sounds of needy pleasure, pressing against him as though she could become part of him. He took control of her mouth, repeatedly molding her lips beneath his. Her hand gripped his hair as her other hand curled into the cloth of his jacket. It was the most pleasurable thing she’d ever felt and her body swayed into his body and against his hand stroking her back and squeezing her bottom. Her mind whirled with pleasure as little moans panted from her throat.

  His tongue pressed between her lips and entered her mouth. She felt the pointy tip of his fangs grazing her lips; they weren’t long and intimidating as she’d seen them before, but retracted.

  “Beth,” Trinity inhaled, lifting his lips from Beth’s sweet mouth.

  She moaned at the lost kiss, undulating her curves into his body, and Trinity saw the dazed lust in her luminous eyes. This was what a woman befogged by his lust looked like and he wondered if she’d finally succumbed to his unnatural allure. It was nearly enough to halt his ill-cautioned lust. He despised the puppet-like quality of women transfixed by his arousal.

  Nearly … but then, there was the feel of her full figure beneath his hands. Large breasts with big nipples, tightening to his fondling fingertips as he wished the nightgown were torn away. Beth’s eyes closed and her lips panted as he taught her new extremes of pleasure.

  His life was always black fighting white. The darkness had to see her as the ultimate temptation and the light would not allow him to take her virginity or her blood. His fangs made quick work slicing the ties holding the thin cloth across her breasts as her back arched over his supporting arm. He was beyond wondering if she were mesmerized or not.

  “Trinity … Trinity. I-I … “she moaned, and he tugged the cloth away from her breasts, freeing them.

  “Maiden,” he growled, gazing at the pale white globes. “Heaven and hell.”

  Beth whimpered, lifting her hands to her breasts trying to cover them from his lecherous gaze. He pulled her hair arching her further as he lowered his head to kiss her timidness away. His mouth was demanding this time, until he felt her soften and yield beneath him with a moan that called to him. His hand covered her hand over her breast making them both knead the plump mound.

  Beth mewled into Trinity’s mouth over hers. She wanted. Her body twisted, twisted again with something making her own hand squeeze and release her breasts and her hips began rolling to the throbs building between her thighs. That feeling blossomed into fitful excitement as the warmth of Trinity’s hand cupped the mound between her legs and his tongue suckled her tongue deeply into his mouth.

  She should be completely scandalized, but it felt so exquisite she couldn’t let it stop. Trinity was hers. Then, the feelings overwhelmed her coherency and she flowed with them into mindless need.

  Trinity stroked Beth’s inner thigh, pushing her gown upward to bare her hips. He could feel her blood, hot and pure, throbbing through her body, then, pooling in her loins. His fingers slid over the warm, damp lips of her sex and he growled into her mouth. She squealed in fear or passion, thrashing her body as though she would take it away from him.

  He lifted his lips from hers, hissing the words, “It’s too late for that.”

  “Trinity,” she panted, with her generous breasts jiggling as her fingers snatched at his wrist between her legs.

  ““You will give me this,” he insisted, as he rubbed his finger along her slit, to center on the spot that made her quiver.

  “Oh! Oh!” she yelped with her eyes widening as her fingers dug into his wrist.

  He would be the first to give her sexual pleasure. He would be the first. He circled the spot as his mouth lowered to the jut of her hard nipple. Devil have him, he wanted to bite it. Penetrate the fat breast and suck hard. Then her legs fell open, distracting his damned weaknesses, turning his hunger toward carnal desire and he took her tit into his mouth to suckle.

  His fingers played relentlessly deep in her wetting slit, until her inner thighs jerked with spasms and her moans came high and uncontrolled. He dared a touch, for a memory, to last him an unnatural lifetime. His finger slipped inside.

  “Oh! T-Trinity!”

  She climaxed, clenching his finger inside her heat with her head fallen back as the tremors licked her body.

  He found his mouth opened with his fangs bared to her arched throat. One taste. The thought of one taste, taunted him. But then, a sob ripped through his internal strife, filling his head with the sound. “Beth,” he said her name hoarsely, pulling away from her throat.

  “Beast!” she sobbed suddenly. The word struck his body like a blow, tensing every limb. “What is happening to me? What have you done?”

  Beth rolled away from the wicked Lord Trinity. He didn’t stop her as she settled upright, leaning on the side of her hip in the grass. Horrified and embarrassed sobs trembled from her lips, and she tried with jerky motions to pull down her nightgown to cover herself. She was afraid, terrified by what she felt. She didn’t understand what had happened to her. All she knew for certain was her desire for Trinity had grown even larger, until it cracked.

  “I will take you to your room.”

  “No!” she cried, swiping at his hands that tried to catch her. “Leave me be! Go as you said you would.”

  Without words, he ignored her, lifting her struggling body up into his arms. His strength was beyond her ability to fight and she sank against him with her tears dampening the cloth at his shoulder.

  She realized, nearly too late, where he was taking her. “No, go to my rooms upstairs. Not back there,” she cried clutching him as she tried to stop crying. Fanton. It came back to her as though Satan had touched her with his deadly fingers. How could she return to the mansion? But she had nowhere else to go.

  “Put me down you … beast. Put me down now!” She became so incensed she scratched Trinity’s cheek with her fingernail.

  “Maiden,” he growled.

  “I am no longer a maiden!” she cried. “Do not call me that.”

  She’d finally provoked him enough that he halted before the stone patio at the back of the mansion. He was leaving her. She couldn’t tell him about Fanton. “You play cruelly with me,” she accused with hot tears streaking her cheeks.

  “Innocent, you wear your virginity and naiveté like a shield,” he informed her caustically.

  She gasped, pushing on his shoulders. “Put me down. I would enter my home on my own.” She added a threat, the truth, but threat nonetheless. “You fell close to completely ruining me should anyone see us.”

  She felt desolate when she won, yet she didn’t know him and the things she did know about him frightened her. Then his strength was setting her bare feet on the stone patio.

  “But I’ve felt the heat of you.” He finished his statement before her interrupted words and his voice was a low, scintillating rasp.

  The meaning shocked her and passions she never knew she had lifted her hand to slap his cheek. The sound was sharp and it barely moved him. “How dare you,” she hissed. “Men have been forced to marry for much less,” she finished as she glared up at him. Surprisingly unafraid at t
he fangs he displayed.

  She turned and ran to the south side of the mansion, away from the room where Fanton had attacked her. She was terrified she’d find Fanton as she crept through the kitchen, then up the back stairway. It seemed to take an eternity, yet she found the door to her rooms and opened it quickly. The squeaking of the door nearly made her scream as she fearfully glanced around. She hurried inside her rooms, shutting the door only to fall back upon it with gasping breaths. The closed door felt as if it was a barrier against evil, but she realized it was a flimsy curtain against Fanton’s strength.

  Fanton was a vampire.

  Beth’s gaze darted over the dark room as her heartbeat fluttered. “And he’s had my blood,” she whispered. What she thought she knew of fanciful horror stories about vampires was that they killed people and drank their blood. Yet it was all she knew, and it was wrong.

  “I know Fanton is a vampire because Trinity is one.” She grabbed herself about her waist, rocking slowly trying not to break down and cry anymore. She’d always believed her stepbrother was touched by evil, even capable of physical harm in deviant ways. “How could I not know that he’d b-been …” Beth’s whispered voice cracked. “He’d been sucking my blood.”

  She shuddered, resisting the urge to look over every inch of her body for evidence, and then she gasped, running into her bedchamber as though she could escape the feelings. The tiniest beginnings of dawn were showing behind her frilly bedchamber curtains as she scrambled into bed and she dug under the covers.

  She knew she couldn’t spend another night in her step uncle’s mansion, even if it meant living on the streets. She had to be gone in the light of morning, and perhaps the one savior she might have had, Lord Trinity Montrose, only wanted her to be his whore to fondle.

  “I’m doomed,” she whispered.

  ***

  Trinity forced himself not to follow Beth with an effort that tensed his strength into abnormal stillness. Not a breath or blinking of an eyelid would be shown for many moments as he inwardly struggled with the beast that demanded he capture Beth as his private possession.

  As determent, he reminded himself that she despised him. “And she’s right,” he uttered through barely-clenched teeth.

  It was as though he’d lost all his sense and willpower, which he prided himself on. Willpower for what? He’d not bitten her even as much as the pure blood flowing through her veins tempted him to. For him, her perfect humanity helped to hold him back. Could he deny the temptations of one pure woman knowing he existed? The truth of that twisted inside him more than the temptation of her loins.

  He needed a woman beneath him. “Now,” he growled, turning to stalk back across the meadow to his horse.

  He would find a whore and befuddle her with liquor until his beast could release itself between her thighs. Whores were aplenty. Perhaps he would take one of Cull’s and plum her for information as well. There wasn’t a woman alive that could resist his allure.

  He swore crassly, grasping the saddle of his stallion to throw himself on top, as his thoughts cackled at him with venom.

  Except one woman.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Adam woke twisted in the bed sheets of Beth’s downstairs convalescent bed. His thoughts were lethargic and cloying. Where was he? Where was Beth? He fought with his hand, trying to free it from the tangle of the bed sheets, then it wormed free as his blinking eyes tried to focus … On the ceiling?

  He patted his head a few times groaning, then lowered his hand to scratch his bare chest. Jesus, had he gotten drunk last night? Even though he was looking at the ceiling, his lower body was twisted with his naked ass angling upward. Naked? The sound he made was a denying growl as he tried to move his lower body and right his position, but his pants were caught about his shins. He still had his half boots on.

  “What the hell,” he muttered, putting more effort into sitting upright. An uncomfortable feeling settled over him, making him feel nauseated. He hung his head in his hands.

  “What happened?” he rasped. His voice felt raw. No, it felt sore and his hand lowered to massage his throat. It was sore to the touch. He would believe that he’d gotten drunk and stumbled into the wrong room while trying unsuccessfully to remove his clothes. He was a horrid drunk. That’s why he rarely drank more than one glass. Years it had been, even with his university comrades cajoling him to join their drunken revelry.

  Fanton.

  Adam nearly vomited. He grabbed his throat and his head at the same moment as a picture of Fanton’s twisted features stabbed into his thoughts. The last thing he remembered was the red slashes in Fanton’s eyes, just as Fanton roughly grabbed his neck. Adam dropped his hands into fists atop the bed. He’d not gotten drunk. He was certain of it. Fanton had done something to him and he was terrified to find out what. He felt horrible shame crawl over him as he stood and reached down to pull up his trousers. There were not many reasons he would awake half-naked, and his skin crept with thoughts of Fanton touching him sexually.

  “Jesus,” he cursed softly with tears burning his eyes as he fought them down, while tugging his shirt to tie it closed. If he didn’t feel bad enough, he belatedly remembered Beth. Why wasn’t she in this room? Thank god she wasn’t. But why? That hastened him into action, yet when he reached for the door lever, he slowed. “When I find her, I can’t tell her about this.”

  He couldn’t stay in the mansion even one more night. Ever. That would leave Beth alone here. He leaned on the door lever, butting the top of his head against the wood as he crouched before it with worry, frustration, and fear. He rocked in his frustration, calling out, “God, what can I do? What can I do?” Buy a pistol was the first answer he thought of.

  “Adam?”

  The voice he cared for most sounded outside the room. It was Beth. Thank god. It sounded as if it came from the staircase and he schooled his features into calmness as he opened the door.

  “Beth,” he called. Where the small hallway broke into the foyer, he found Beth standing by the door with two traveling satchels at her feet. She wore a plum-tinted hat with a dark veil pulled over her face and a black cloak falling to her ankles. The intricately woven veil made it hard for him to judge her features.

  “Beth, what is this?” he asked, arriving before her. “It cannot be advisable for you to be out of bed,” he finished, wondering at the artifice he used so readily, when he was relieved to find her out of bed with the newest, looming dangers of Fanton.

  Beth waved a gloved hand. “I’m fine.” She didn’t look at him, but toward the door. “Quick healer,” she stated firmly. She seemed to take a deep breath and turned her veiled countenance toward him, while he wished for a veil of his own. He felt as if every sordid detail of the night must be written on his features.

  “Adam, are you all right?” Her voice rose as she obviously really looked at him for the first time since they arrived together.

  He clasped her gloved hands. “Of course,” he lied. “Sleepless is all,” he lied again. Then he knew something was amiss, as her travel attire suggested when she didn’t begin to fuss over him.

  “My fault, I’m certain. I do apologize,” Beth said. She pulled her hands free of his grasp as he tried to square his shoulders and appear less destitute. “But, Adam, the most extraordinary opportunity has come about for me.” Adam glanced at the traveling satchels. “I didn’t mention it to you until I was certain, but I’ve been accepted to teach at the ladies school in Hartcastle.”

  He was shocked. He’d not known Beth was thinking of such an action. Yet, he schooled his features to show approval, and if he looked too closely, he might think himself a cad. Beth was looking for a proper husband, not this.

  “I’m amazed,” he said, and he realized he sounded without conviction, so he strove to put more into his tone. “Simply amazed.” That was better, but he knew he had to add some surprise. “I had no idea.”

  However, he did have an idea. This would vacate Beth from Fanton’s malevolence, a
nd it would allow him to leave also. He’d not spend one more night under this roof. Gone were concerns over what they’d witnessed outside the ball. Gone was the need to speculate with Beth over what the Blacknalls were. Gone was any knowledge he had about a murdered woman in the woods.

  “Yes, I know,” Beth said, patting his arm. “I’ve just decided two seasons is enough to try to find a husband, and this is such a pleasing alternative.” Then she added, “For us all.”

  They both seemed to glance toward Fanton’s side of the mansion. For a moment, it made Adam wonder if they both had something in common.

  “And now, Adam, you can go straight back to the university.”

  Adam jerked his attention back to Beth. She sounded urgent. “Well, yes,” he started to say.

  “No, really,” she interrupted. “You must leave this morning. You must promise me!”

  “I, well … of course,” he said, feeling the need to appease her urgency.

  “It’s late in the day, but if you …”

  Adam felt another shock as he interrupted her. “It’s late?” he exclaimed.

  “Why yes,” she replied, reaching for his arm, which she pressed with reassurance. “Are you all right?”

  He managed to compose himself from the realization he’d slept or been unconscious the entire morning without realizing it. The thought jabbed him suddenly. How close to dusk was it? He glanced at the parlor and could see sunlight shining on the furnishings. The tension inside him lessened a little.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “Time just got away from me.” He added for a reprieve, “It’s been a few late nights.”

  Once again, he noticed Beth didn’t rise to the chance to coddle him. “It has,” she answered, sounding distracted. “But, if you pack now, we can share a carriage.”