Night Rhythm: Sirens book 3

by Charlenne Teglia

  She leaned into him as his mouth settled over hers, raising her hands to rest against his chest. Not to keep space between them, but to reach out to him. His hands gripped her waist in a firm hold that was also surprisingly gentle, while he kissed her without any of the usual awkwardness that came with a first kiss.

  It felt practiced, familiar. Their lips met and clung as if guided by the kind of intuition that comes with repetition. Lisa knew just which way to angle her head to invite a deeper kiss, how to turn into him as he drew her closer so that their bodies touched, then melded, in a movement almost like a dance she’d known once and forgotten.

  Heat flared and spread through her limbs while jolts of electric awareness sizzled along her nerve endings. The pressure of his thighs against hers, his hands on her waist, his mouth moving on hers felt so good, so right. Lisa gave a little hum of pleasure and curled her fingers into the soft black sweater he wore, as if inviting him to come closer.

  He answered the silent signal, guiding her by his hold on her waist and moving with her until her back met the wall, his body pressing hard into hers. She could feel his erection against her belly and the answering slickness between her thighs. Her sex clenched in anticipation. His tongue tangled with hers as she rocked her pelvis into his, wanting more.

  Valentine broke the kiss and lifted his head. Dazed, Lisa opened her eyes and stared into his. “Why did you stop?”

  “Because if we go much further, I might not be able to.” He flexed his hands on her waist but didn’t let go. “I want you, but I’m willing to wait longer for you if I have to.”

  “Longer than a few hours after you first met me?” Lisa tried to smile and found she couldn’t, because the thought of meeting him brought back the dream and the series of vivid images she’d flashed on, all Valentine at different times. Which was impossible. Wasn’t it? She was certain she’d never seen him before tonight. He wasn’t the sort of man she’d forget.

  “I’ve waited longer than that.” His eyes burned into hers. “Remember.” His voice was a command, not just a continuation of their conversation.

  Remember. The word reverberated in her mind, pushed into the farthest reaches of her memories and then further still. It unlocked something inside her and emotions rushed out. Happiness, so much of it, so bright. Desire, hot and urgent. Love that made her heart ache with its intensity. Contentment. Security. Peace that broke into pain. Fear. And then cold and dark and endless separation.

  Lisa collapsed into him and felt tears sliding down her cheeks.

  “Lisette.” Valentine lifted her into his arms, cradled her, carried her to the couch and sat with her. He brushed the tears from her cheek with one hand. “I never meant to make you cry.”

  “It doesn’t make sense.” She turned her face into his shoulder, burrowing into his strength, his warmth. “These feelings. These pictures in my head. I’d say it started when you gave me the necklace, but that isn’t true. It started when I saw you, the first time you spoke to me. What’s going on?”

  “Past-life regression.” Valentine hugged her closer.

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Is it?” He smoothed back her hair and murmured something in French. And without thinking, Lisa answered. The sound of her own voice shocked her. Those words coming from her mouth, in a language she didn’t know, were impossible.

  “I should have known it would be a shock to you. I’m sorry. I didn’t think.” He stroked her hair, her back, comforting her. “I thought you’d remember love, happiness, laughter. I didn’t stop to think you’d remember how it ended too.”

  Lisa pulled back from the storm of emotions she didn’t understand, especially that last devastating one, pushing it away. When she felt nothing but stillness and quiet, she asked, “How did it end?”

  “I lost you.” Valentine’s voice broke and took Lisa’s heart with it in a wrenching pain she didn’t anticipate. Then he drew a deep breath and went on steadily, “I lost you, but it didn’t end there. I waited until I found you again. And here we are.”

  As if that explained anything. “Where exactly is here?”

  “Right now? This couch.” Valentine shifted under her as if testing the cushions. “Comfortable, but I don’t think I’d want to sleep here.”

  “I did sleep here. Just now.” Lisa rubbed her cheek against his sweater. “I had a very interesting dream. Do you know anything about that?”

  “You did invite me into your dreams.”

  “That’s not exactly an answer.”

  “Yes.” Valentine turned and stretched his legs out on the couch, putting his back to the arm, reclining them both with her resting on top of him. “I know what you dreamed after I told you to sleep. I gave you both the sleep and the dream.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  “Maybe not humanly possible,” he agreed.

  Lisa considered the implications of that statement. Then she placed them against a few other bits and pieces and the puzzle took on a shape that made a sort of lunatic sense.

  Past-life regression could happen under hypnosis. A hypnotic command could cause a subject to fall asleep, and maybe somebody with other advanced mental abilities could even manipulate a dream. Say somebody who had been waiting around since this past life happened, still alive because that somebody wasn’t human but something else. Something with a much longer life span, that couldn’t enter a house without an invitation.

  “Possible for a vampire,” she suggested.

  “You always were quick.” Valentine wound his fingers through her hair, toying with the strands. “It didn’t take you long at all to figure that out.”

  “I think I’ve just gotten used to dealing with impossible things.” Lisa closed her eyes and let herself enjoy being held, the softness of cashmere pillowing her cheek, Valentine cupping the back of her head in a gesture that was possessive, protective and comforting all in one. “I heard the rumors about the Sirens and their psychic leader before I ever joined the band. When you live day in and day out with somebody who sees a bigger version of reality backed up by the fact that she always turns out to be right, you eventually just accept that there’s more to life than what you see.” She left unsaid, And then there’s the Viking.

  “Psychic? No wonder you and Meghan both accepted the idea that vampires exist so readily.”

  “So Romney’s one too,” Lisa stated. “I wasn’t sure.” It didn’t surprise her, though. It wouldn’t be like Meghan to settle down with anybody normal.

  “In light of all these impossible things you believe, memories of a past life can’t seem all that out of the question to you, can they?”

  Lisa traced her hand over his chest, feeling the soft wool sweater overlying the hard planes of his muscles. “No, I guess having memories of living in a French castle sometime in the past doesn’t seem too hard to believe. Just tell me you weren’t a count, because that would be too absurd.”

  Valentine laughed. “I won’t tell you, then.”

  Lisa groaned. “It’s like a bad joke.” It lightened the moment, though, and helped put the more uncomfortable feelings into perspective. “Valentine.”

  “Yes?”

  “How do you know I’m the one you want?”

  “Besides the fact that I remember it literally as if it was yesterday?” He shifted her to the side a little and tucked her closer against him. Their legs tangled together in a comfortable sprawl. “There’s a theory that souls are whole sometime before birth, and then they get split in half. The two halves are born and go looking for each other. When they find each other again, they fit together in a way nothing else can. They become whole again.” His lips touched the hair at the top of her head. “You’re my other half. When I found you, I knew.”

  “That’s a lovely thought. But even if I accept that all this is true, that was another lifetime. I was a different woman.”

  “Not so different.” His body rocked into hers with sensual intent. “You’re still my other half. I recog
nize it even if you don’t.”

  She did, though. She’d recognized him from the beginning, on some level. Starting with the odd mood and her uncharacteristic interest in the hairbrush that had distracted her from practicing when nothing ever distracted her. And then there was her reaction to the pearls. She’d loved him in a past life. It was a wild explanation, but one that fit the facts.

  Would it feel the same, here and now, to love him again? Had she ever really stopped? Or had she just forgotten on the surface while underneath her subconscious self remembered, the way her hands remembered what staccato was and what to do with a snare and a high-hat without her brain having to consciously direct them?

  “Tell me something about who you are now.” Valentine’s voice rumbled deep in his chest, under her cheek. “Tell me how you became a rock star.”

  That was safer ground than thinking about fate and love and whether she could trust either one. Lisa felt herself relax a little more as she latched on to the change in subject with relief.

  “I started off the usual way. I got a drum set as a teenager, and the sticks in my hands felt right. I loved it. I learned, I practiced, I played. After high school I went to Musicians Institute, PIT. Thought about being a studio musician and did a little of that work, but I really wanted to perform live. I wanted to be in a band. So, I kept playing, kept doing gigs, kept working. And then one day I got my lucky break. The Sirens audition. I was ready for it. I wanted it so much I could taste it. And the rest is history.”

  “It suits you. I didn’t expect it, but it’s perfect for you.” Valentine’s voice was warm, full of pride. The tone as well as the words told her he approved of her choices and understood the effort it had taken to pursue a dream.

  Until he said it, Lisa hadn’t even known she wanted his approval. The warm glow inside told her she did, that it meant something to her to know he was proud of what she’d made out of herself in this life. “Thank you.”

  “I’m perfect for you too.” His voice was full of teasing and seductive male confidence.

  She couldn’t stop herself from smiling in response. “Are you? Maybe you should show me.”

  Chapter Six

  “I’d be happy to,” Valentine said. “But not on this couch. However comfortable it may be, it’s no substitute for a bed.”

  “Very true,” Lisa agreed. Her memories of the past might be hazy and incomplete but she was pretty sure the couch would never accommodate the kind of activity Valentine preferred. And the floor didn’t really appeal as an alternative.

  He sat up, then stood with her cradled against his chest as if it didn’t require any more effort for him to hold a grown woman than it took for her to hold a cat. He was stronger than human, Lisa realized. The differences in him weren’t limited to hypnosis and mind tricks. “That’s kind of a turn-on,” she informed him. “The big, strong vampire carrying me off to have his inhuman way with me.”

  “I think you’ll like my way.”

  She thought so too. The heat and awareness that flared from every point of contact with his body told her that the physical chemistry between them was off the scale. He’d seduced her with a kiss. With a look. He’d given her an erotic dream as foreplay, and it had been highly effective. Undead nookie obviously held some interesting possibilities if he could do things like that.

  “That dream, that really was a memory of us back then, wasn’t it?” Lisa asked as he followed her hand pointing the way.

  “Yes. The first time I gave you the necklace.” Valentine made his way to her bed and lowered her onto it. “One of my favorite memories.” He followed her down to lay on top of her, pinning her beneath him.

  “I can see why.” Her mouth was going dry and her body was turning liquid as she lay under him. He felt so warm, so good. His legs nudged hers apart and she shifted until his hips were cradled by her pelvis and her open thighs. The weight of him was both a tease and a promise as he rested there. “You’re wearing too many clothes.”

  “I can change that.” Valentine nipped at her lower lip, then stood and stripped to the waist.

  Lisa watched him through half-lidded eyes, enjoying the play of indirect light from the hallway over his body. His muscles were well-defined from his broad shoulders to his sculpted abs. Her gaze dropped to his hands on the zipper of his jeans. Her breath caught as she waited for him to lower it and show her the rest.

  He drew the zipper down, worked the jeans over his hips, kicked away his shoes and stood naked in front of her. “Better?”

  Oh, yeah. Valentine was obviously ready for action, his fully engorged cock jutting towards her. She licked her lips and had a sudden urge to lick him like a lollipop. “Better,” she agreed. The word came out low and husky.

  “Now you’re wearing too many clothes.”

  He was right about that. She was too hot and her clothes were too tight, too constraining. She ripped her shirt off, then her pants, fought free of her bra and panties with impatient hands and flung them away. Lisa hesitated, then took the necklace off too. She leaned over to lay the pearl strand on her bedside table where it probably wouldn’t get knocked off.

  The mattress dipped as Valentine joined her on it a bare second before his hands closed over her waist and pulled her back against him. His chest made a support for her to lean against as they knelt together on the bed, his hands moving from her waist, up her ribcage to cup her breasts. They felt swollen, aching for his touch, her nipples forming two hard buds. Lisa let out a groan as he squeezed and kneaded her soft flesh. Her head fell back against his shoulder and he nuzzled her neck as he tugged on her nipples, the joint stimulation making her sex clench.

  One hand moved down to cup her sex and Lisa arched into his hold in a silent plea for more. His palm pressed into her, but not enough to provide relief or put pressure where she wanted it. While he toyed with her nipples with one hand, he squeezed between her legs, then stroked one finger along the length of her slick nether lips before finding the swollen bud of her clitoris. He circled it, then flicked at it while he nipped along the curve of her neck in a series of teasing bites. His teeth grazed the sensitive flesh that lay exposed to him, making her shudder. His cock was hard and warm, pressing into the cleft of her ass. She felt so much, and not nearly enough.

  “Valentine,” she gasped out.

  “Hmmm?” He plunged a finger into her and Lisa groaned again. “Did you want something, my sweet?”

  She wanted something, all right. Her body was tight and ready and he was killing her by inches. Frustrated, she rocked into his hand, driving his finger deeper. He slid a second one in to join the first, then twisted them inside her, finding a hidden spot that made her gasp. “Valentine. Now.”

  He let out a low laugh as he played with her, sliding his fingers in and out in a lazy rhythm that was far too slow. When he withdrew them, she wanted to scream in protest. Before she could, he pushed her down onto her hands and knees. The head of his cock nudged against her sex. “Is this what you want?”

  “Yes.” She pushed her hips back as he thrust forward, piercing her, filling her, until he was all the way in and the head of his cock met her cervix. It felt almost unbearably good. She was so aroused that the pressure there, so deep inside her, made her vaginal muscles tremble in an involuntary tightening and she knew orgasm wasn’t far off. “Fuck me.”

  “My pleasure.” He held her hips in a firm grip and used the hold to brace her for his thrusts. He drove into her, hard, fast, deep. With each stroke the tremors continued, building until she teetered on the knife-edge of release. And then she went over the edge, taking him with her. The joint sensations of his cock throbbing and the hot, liquid jet of his orgasm as he came deep inside her pushed her farther, drawing out her pleasure. When they collapsed together on the bed, her sex was still quivering from the aftershocks.

  When he withdrew, Lisa made a low sound of protest. “I wasn’t finished with that.”

  “Good, because it’s not finished with you.” Valentine
rolled onto his back and pulled her into his arms. “I have a lot of lost time to make up for.”

  “Lost time, my ass.” She slid one leg over his and trailed a hand down his chest. “You’ve probably spent the last few centuries perfecting your technique.”

  “Are you offering your ass? How interesting.” He palmed one bare cheek and gave an experimental squeeze. “I wouldn’t say no.”

  Lisa thought of taking him that way and felt curiously interested. Then she thought of him taking her in the ass from behind while his fingers pleasured her in front and felt a lot more than curious. His fingertip stroked her anus and the surprisingly pleasurable sensation clinched it. “We are so doing that later.” Then she shook her head. “Did you sidetrack me on purpose?”

  “Yes.” His fingertip probed at delicate tissue. “Is it working?”

  “I’ll get back to you on that.” Lisa closed her eyes and wiggled to make herself more accessible as he did indecent things to her that made her body hum with delight. “It’s probably best if we don’t talk about it, anyway. I’m not sure I want to know how many women you’ve nailed over the years.”

  “None, since I met you.”

  That made her eyes open wide. “What? Why?”

  “You have to ask?” He pulled her up to lay on top of him, his arms hugging her close. “I wasn’t celibate before I met you. I know the difference between sex for the sake of sex, and sex that means more. Anything less would have been…less.”

  “God, that’s romantic.” And irresistible. She knew that whatever lay ahead, whatever challenges a relationship between vampire and human entailed, and whether she ever shared all the memories of the past that were so clear to him, loving him was ingrained in her. Whether it was muscle memory or heart memory, she knew him on some deep level.

  The future might hold uncertainty and complications, but right now, the night held them both. And when the night ended, would it all dissolve with the dawn, leaving her to wake alone? Lisa felt a cold rush of fear and clutched at him, needing reassurance that he was solid and real. “Valentine.”