He felt a bead of sweat trickle down his back. Living for the moment was a reckless attitude for one whose survival depended on discretion, and Lucius knew it. However, there was nothing he could do about his present condition but hope the beast could be held in check, if not tamed.
The girl made small talk in the car, and he answered in the same way he danced, on automatic. After all, the questions had all been asked before.
"How long have you been dancing?"
"Have you taken lessons?"
"Do you give private lessons?"
"Are you as good in bed as you are on the dance floor?"
And on and on. Normally the small talk wasn't a chore, just part of the game. He loved women, and he wanted them to love him. But tonight the inane babble grated on his diminishing patience. The blonde's redeeming quality was that she was as eager for him as he was for her. She parked the car behind her house and was on him before they reached the back door, one hand grabbing a fistful of hair to pull his head down for a kiss, the other on his zipper.
A cold drizzle peppered his face, but the chill of the night air, by contrast, made the blonde's warm skin sizzle. Still, he had no intention of taking his pleasure on a back stoop in the rain.
"Your key,” he ordered between wet kisses, but her busy hands seemed little inclined to let go of his cock. For a moment he relented, for her skilled fingers were like flames on his cold flesh, heating and exciting him to a painful hardness. She both stroked the length of his cock and ringed it with her fingers, as if she were measuring him up for size. The “mmm” that vibrated in her kiss seemed to indicate her pleasure at his bulk, but after a moment he dug in her coat pocket for her keys. He managed to turn the proper one in the lock, butted the door open, and they fell through the doorway as one.
A table lamp was already on, but he didn't need the light to see that she didn't look as pretty now as she had in the club. Her eye makeup ran down her face like black tears, and her skin shone like wet putty. It didn't matter. Her face wasn't what interested him. He disentangled himself from her long enough to allow her to shed her coat and make a move toward the bedroom. She complied with enthusiasm. In less than a minute her high heels, nylons, and mini skirt—their mission accomplished—littered the hallway between the living room and bedroom. The blonde next stripped off her low-necked sweater and push-up bra with moves nearly as practiced as his own, but nobody matched his skill in shedding clothes. He was naked before she got her panties off, and he was so hard and heavy it was as though all the blood in his body was in his cock.
She stopped short of stripping off her panties, catching her reflection in the bedroom mirror. She groaned and swore, presumably at her tangled wet hair and streaked face. He stared at her image in the mirror, but not at her face, which looked horrid indeed. He stared at her wondrous breasts.
He groaned and swore. She had the most prominent nipples he'd ever seen. They were no tiny buds, but little pillars half an inch long. Fang candy. Saliva ran in his mouth at the thought, and the beast could wait no longer. He grabbed her from behind, his hands on either side of her waist. She tried to turn around to face him.
"No!” He yanked her panties down, and when she kicked them away, he bent her forward. She fell to the side, losing her balance. Too much alcohol. He caught and righted her, more than strong enough to hold her in position.
"What do you want?” he growled.
"Your cock ‘side me. Now!"
Slurred or not, the answer was always the same, but it was what the beast wanted to hear. All the beast wanted to hear. He brought his cock to the juncture of her thighs and rubbed its head back and forth the length of her slit. She was soft and buttered-up, and each stroke of his flesh along her furrow released more juice. He needed no more of an invitation. With one hand holding each round hip, he kneed her legs farther apart and drove into her. She grunted, not as wet as he'd thought, but it didn't matter. He rammed into her again and again until she was wet enough to take in all of him. Her muscles contracted around him like a fist, and the pressure only drove him to pump harder. Her cries intensified, but the strength that powered her voice deserted her legs, leaving him holding dead weight.
He backpedaled to the edge of the bed and sat down, pulling her with him. With one hand covering her wet mound and the other her left breast, he straightened her so that she sat on his lap, still facing away from him. She arched her back and made unintelligible sounds, and he rocked inside her. Her right breast bounced up and down with their rhythm while the breast he held molded itself to his palm with every thrust.
But the rocking soon had him wanting for more, and he flipped her over onto the bed, face down. He pulled her up by her hips to a kneeling position and reentered her, and her verbal slush of moans, groans and entreaties grew louder still. She came quickly, her spurt of liquid engulfing him and running down her thighs. He accelerated to his climax, and with a final hard thrust and grunt loosed his own juice to merge with hers.
She fell flat on the bed, but he wasn't finished. His hunger still flared—hot, red, and painful. He rolled her over and took one long nipple into his mouth. He tugged on it with his teeth, then suckled her, but only for a moment before he drove an eyetooth through the tender flesh. The girl gave a weak mewl, but the sound was drowned out by the keen of the rising gusts of wind outside her window.
He retracted his fang, but he had no patience to let the blood well. Instead, he drew on her to speed the flow. The alcohol in her blood was nasty, but he didn't care. She was hot and rich and otherwise unspoiled, and he reveled in the current of life that flowed from her body to his.
The sound of crackling thunder filled his ears, and the girl twitched beneath him. The disruption cooled his brain enough for him to realize he'd kill her if he didn't stop. More thunder shook the house, and he laughed. Strength of will had been found this night in the distraction of a thunderstorm.
He lightly slapped her face until her eyes opened. “Listen to me, and listen well.” He reached deep into her mind with his and made his words commands she couldn't refuse. “After I'm gone, you'll have no memory of leaving the club with me and no memory of anything that's happened between us. You'll get up, have something to eat, and when you sleep, you'll dream sweet dreams. Tomorrow you'll wake refreshed and know only that you had a good time tonight, nothing more. Understand?"
"Mmm,” she purred.
She would live, but any promise of the joy he'd felt earlier tonight had vanished. His hunger was satisfied, but not his desire.
He leaned forward, kissed her on the forehead, and was gone.
* * * *
Lucius called a cab to take him back to his car, and an hour later he was home. Home. The word mocked him. He slammed the front door, and the mansion scorned him in return, the spacious rooms seeming more vacant than ever. He wandered from room to room, but none of them gave him comfort. Finally, he dropped into the leather armchair in his study and stared at the pattern of the rain against the window.
Never had the bitter irony of his existence made him feel more isolated than now. He loved women, and they loved him. He knew they loved his exotic name, his lean body, and the way he moved across the stage. None of them had ever truly known him, save but one, and he doubted that any of the giggling, flirting females in the clubs ever would know him. But at least he'd always had the legacy of his kind—the ability to balance lust with cunning and control. He'd always been able to satisfy his carnal hunger at will, without detection or censure.
Until tonight.
Tonight not only had the sex been rushed, but he'd almost killed. He'd acted with no thought to safety, discretion, or tomorrow, and had cared for nothing but the satisfaction of the moment. And living mindlessly for the moment was no way to survive eternity. He'd always been alone, fettered by the night, but now, for the first time, his mortality faced him. In the converging streams of water against the glass, he saw his double life headed toward a crossroads. And in that juncture, he saw only
death.
For his name wasn't Lucius Santangelo, he wasn't Italian, and he was certainly no young man.
Chapter Three
The ride home seemed never-ending to Cate. She was tired, and her eyes still burned from the cigarette smoke that had clouded the Pony Express. But she couldn't get the vision of the spirit out of her mind. She normally had to travel to the spirit world to see the souls of the dead. That a spirit had sought her out in the real world had happened before, but rarely. When it had happened, it had always been a soul in distress.
She didn't advertise herself as a psychic, and she never had. People didn't come to her to help them find missing children, and the spirits of the dead didn't usually come to her for help. Even when they did, she had no police connections. Yet the spirit of the black-haired woman had clearly been asking for her help, and it had appeared in conjunction with the Italian Stallion. Was the spirit indeed a murder victim? Was she the victim of an unsolved case? Cate wondered how the dancer was involved. Was he the murderer, or was he somehow the key to solving the case?
Cate let out a long breath. The questions were all academic. Even if she wanted to pursue the mystery, she had no one in law enforcement to help her. Most cops put little credence in the abilities of psychics, and even if she could locate a cop with an open mind, she had no credentials. Sure, she had a doctorate, but she was a shamanic practitioner, not a psychic. She was afraid the mystery would have to remain a mystery.
Besides, Merri's chatter allowed her little time on the long drive for pondering such weighty matters. Merri wanted her opinion on every single dancer. Cate would have much preferred to just rest her eyeballs and nod off, but Merri allowed her no such respite, so Cate found herself answering with a generic “he was good” or “he had a nice body” just to get Merri to move on. Merri quickly wised up to her ploy, though, and started demanding more details.
"Okay, Cate, so he had a nice body. But what part did you like best?"
Cate suspected that Merri felt guilty about dragging her to the club. Cate was on the verge of reassuring her friend that she'd had a good time when Merri asked her about the Italian Stallion.
Cate lowered her brows in the darkness of the car's interior. Mr. Stallion had been the one dancer to truly pique her interest. In more ways than one. She could still see his dark eyes staring at her so intensely it was as if his mind were trying to breach hers. And she could still feel her vaginal muscles clenching and unclenching like a fist, aching to have something hard to hold on to. The heat she felt rushed to her cheeks, and she silently thanked the darkness for hiding her blush. “Oh, he was nice, too."
"Nice? Come on. He was DDFMG."
She had no idea what Merri meant. “DDFMG?"
"Sure, you know, drop-dead-fuck-me-gorgeous."
"Merri!"
"Don't give me that tone. I saw how you were looking at him. Mr. Italian Stallion was hung like a horse, wasn't he?"
"If you say so, Merri.” She hated to admit she'd been staring at that particular part of his anatomy.
"So what did you like best about him?"
That was a hard question. What part hadn't she liked? “Oh, I don't know. The whole package."
"What? You liked his package? So, you admit it!"
She smiled. “I said the whole package. All of him."
Merri shook her head. “Oh, no. You're not going to dance around this one. Specifics, Cate. Narrow it down."
She didn't have to think hard. “His eyes, then."
"His eyes?” Merri drew out the words like a teacher disappointed in her student.
"Any guy can work out and get a great body. But piercing eyes like that ... you have to be born with those."
"Mmm. Okay. I'll give you the eyes. He was eye-fucking the crowd the whole time he was on stage. So what else did you like?"
Cate shook her head at Merri's words. Eye-fucking. It was a colorful term, but not the way she'd describe the dancer's eyes. When he was staring right at her, she hadn't felt he was simply undressing her with his eyes. It went deeper than that. There'd been an undeniable connection. It hadn't been a physical connection, much as Cate would have liked, but a brief touching of minds. Spiritual unions were as real to Cate as physical ones, but she couldn't explain that to Merri. Or what it was she had felt. Death.
"Just that he was different, Merri.” She stared out the side window and tried to forget that the man with the killer body was just that. “I think it was the way he danced. Like being a dancer wasn't just something he did, but something he was."
Merri laughed. “Okay, if you're going to get all spiritual, I'll shut up. But you did have a good time, didn't you?"
Cate thought about those forceful eyes, staring right at her. Correction—staring right into her. A good time? Yes and no. But Merri wouldn't understand her suspicions. “Yes, Merri, I had a good time."
* * * *
She was alone in the dark, unsure of her whereabouts. A spotlight suddenly illuminated a man a few yards away. It was him, more magnificent than before. He wore black trousers, but was naked from the waist up, and his hair was loose, falling over one eye like a curtain. He swiveled his hips, and his abs rippled with the movement. He held out one arm to her, and suddenly a spotlight shone on her, too. She blinked her eyes against the blinding light, then saw him, and his eyes and fingers both beckoned her. She ran to him. Before she took three steps, he caught her in his embrace and whirled her around and around. She couldn't see her feet, but she knew she was dancing, for though she'd never been able to dance before, she floated over the stage as if she'd been doing it for years.
He stopped and gathered her closer still, rocking his hips against her. His erection was hard, pushing against her lower belly, and when he next spun her, she dipped her head back, extended her arms, and arched her back. The centrifugal force made her feel weightless, anchored to nothing but the dancer's hips. He slowed the spin, and as she straightened, she saw his face. His skin was pale, made more so by black brows, and his full lips were parted, though he seemed not to breathe at all. But it was his midnight blue eyes that held her now, and she tried to pierce his mind and witness again the vision she'd seen at the club. This time, though, his mind was like a closed door, locked and sealed.
She looked down at herself, as if she was outside her own body, and saw she was naked now, as was he. He was inside her, pumping with long, smooth strokes, and she watched in fascination as his cock alternately appeared and disappeared. Thick, hard, and wet with her juice, it drove into her over and over.
Time slowed to a stop with him buried deep inside her, and still she felt weightless, connected only to him. A moment later, time and gravity normalized, and she was on her back on the floor of the stage. The dancer was heavy on top of her, and she was inside her own body once more, feeling all of him—his hands, his lips, and the head of his penis touching her in places she'd never been touched. She tried to hold back, but the speed of his thrusts increased, and she let go.
Cate woke, her heart pounding. Her hand was between her legs, and though she couldn't feel her blanket over her, sweat pasted her nightshirt to her skin like a clammy hand. Her yoni throbbed, and she slipped her hand inside her panties and between her folds. She stroked herself, trying to recreate the way she'd felt in the dream, but the dream was over, and she was alone.
She turned to look at the clock on her nightstand. Three-thirty in the morning. She shivered and fished for her blanket in the dark, finding it in a knot at the base of her bed. She pulled it up high and rolled over, hoping that if she fell asleep again quickly enough the dream with the dancer would return.
When Cate's eyes next flickered open, the dream was still vivid in her mind's eye, and she wondered if it was her new “big dream.” Her mother and grandmother had taught her that the big dream was a message from her guardian spirit, and that it was more than hope—it was a vision of an upcoming event.
In the past she'd dreamed of walking hand in hand with a man along the sho
re of the lake. Sunlight had glittered off the crests of the waves, and the man had smiled at her with equal radiance. Beside them a little girl had jumped and spun in a child's dance of joy and light and promise.
But it had never happened. There'd been no man in her life and no daughter, no fourth-generation girl-child to follow in the footsteps of Cate's mother and grandmother, Rosa. Rosa had been a full-blooded Lakota Sioux and a shaman. Though Cate was only one-quarter Sioux, she had the gift of spiritual healing and guidance, and she wanted nothing more than to pass her gifts someday to a daughter of her own.
Cate had never ignored the message of the big dream. She'd never had any dancing talent, but she'd danced anyway in celebration and affirmation of the dream, a series of steps taught to her by her grandmother, long ago. The vision of the dream had always faded, though, and with each failure of the revelation to come true, Cate had become more and more discouraged. There'd been few men, and none that had returned after a date or two. She knew she was pretty enough, but she had no way with men and no notion of how to turn on her sexuality. She'd always felt inhibited and clumsy around the opposite sex, and when they'd found out that she was more comfortable with spirits than the living, they shied away.
Discouraged, that is, until today. She had a new big dream.
She tested her limbs, stretching like a cat beneath the weight of her blanket, and watched ribbons of pale morning light decorate her bedroom wall. The morning sunlight brightened, dancing along the edges of the window shade.
I've got to dance, too. She threw off the covers and bounded out of bed. The vision would be realized this time. Cate just knew it. It was an improbable dream, true. That a man as sexy as the dancer would want a woman like her was unlikely, but she couldn't question the vision. Rosa had taught that faith was needed, else the vision would fail to come to pass.
Dance with Me, My Lovely Page 2
