He smiled and her heart missed a beat. “Because I wanted you. Simple as that. You’re beautiful.”
Those words warmed her but couldn’t fully chase away the chill gradually stealing into her soul. She smiled and took his hand, and led him from the shower.
“Why did you want to do this with me?” he said and she looked over her shoulder at him, and then raked her gaze over his gorgeous body. Did he really need to ask?
She smiled properly.
“Because I wanted to get into your pants.”
He grinned and gave her a look that said he had known her reason all along.
She tossed a towel at him and dried herself off. When she was done and he had finished too, she took hold of his hand again, her nerves returning. This was probably going to be one step too far but she was chilly from the shower and sharing body heat sounded like a really great idea to her.
She led Payne to the bed and drew the dark covers back. Payne smacked her backside and she gasped.
“I get the right side.”
She frowned at him. He was calling a side of the bed? Someone had certainly made himself comfortable in her home. She realised that the right side of the bed meant he would have to walk around it. She could go along with that.
He set off and Elissa stood there, barely resisting her need to sigh as she watched his cute behind as he walked. The man did have the body of a god. A sex god. Purr.
He hopped onto the bed, reached over and grabbed her arm, pulling her down onto it with him. He threw the covers over them both and kissed her breathless.
“You think this will work?” he said and lay back, dragging her with him.
Elissa settled into his side, her head on his chest and his right arm around her. She hooked her right leg over both of his and placed her hand on his chest. His heart was thumping. She smiled. She had enjoyed that kiss too. It had felt different to the passionate ones they had shared in the heat of the moment.
“We’ll find out soon enough.” She closed her eyes and listened to his steady heart. Strong. Powerful. Just like the rest of him.
That kiss had felt too good.
Elissa focused on Payne. Being held like this by him felt too good too.
She wasn’t sure what she was going to do now.
This had started out as a game, a way of satisfying her curiosity about him, but she could see now that she was attracted to him, and that was a dangerous thing.
She’d had her one night with him.
Her head said to explain to him about Luca in the morning and let him go alone to retrieve the boy and the ring from Arnaud.
Her heart said to go with him and relish every second that she had with him, no matter how dangerous it was to allow herself to fall for him.
Elissa looked up at him, watching him sleeping, his face soft and relaxed. Beautiful.
She was already in too deep to walk away.
She wanted to be with Payne.
Even if it meant dancing with danger.
Even if it meant risking ruin and death.
CHAPTER 9
Payne woke alone with the fall of darkness, deeply sated and a little sore. He stretched out beneath the blue satin sheets and settled his hands behind his head, unable to remember the last time he had woken feeling so relaxed or the last time he had slept through the day like the dead. Normally he woke several times in the daylight hours. He hadn’t stirred once while Elissa had been tucked against his side, warming him with her soft body, her palm resting on the centre of his chest and her breath skating over his skin. He had fallen asleep to the sound of her steady heartbeat, counting each one, thinking about everything they had done and the things he had confessed. What did she think of him now?
There had been sympathy in her silvery eyes, and she had held him so close to her, tighter than anyone had held him in his long weary life. The feel of her arms around him, and the warm emotions flowing through her, had stripped away his strength and left him shaking right down to his bones. He had wanted to stay there with her in that shower, resting on her shoulder, letting her compassion wash over him and carry away the pain. He had wanted to forget it all in her arms, hoping to find a way to reinvent himself as something better, something she would look at with affection rather than pity.
The sound of a page flipping came from the other room. Elissa. Leafing through her books. When had she risen?
Had she kissed him while he slept before leaving him alone?
He shook his head at that question. Dangerous thoughts. She had gotten under his skin too quickly and he knew better than to believe there was a happy ending in the cards for them.
Look how well it had turned out the last time he had thought he had found his true mate.
Payne sighed and shook those dark thoughts away as well as the lighter thoughts of Elissa that were just as deadly and just as likely to cause him pain, focusing on his inner incubus instead. He couldn’t remember ever wanting to feel it, not like this. He had never intentionally called it to the fore for no reason other than to feel it within him.
Part of him.
It was quick to come out of hiding, dominating his vampire nature and subduing it. His thoughts drifted to Elissa and the things they had done, and the things he wanted to do with her. He wanted to be in control this time. He wanted to finish inside her, claiming her body as his. He would make her scream his name as she climaxed and would feed on the intense pleasure that flowed through her in the wake of it.
It was too much.
His cock tented the blue material covering his body and he groaned.
Payne denied the urge to stroke himself and drew his hands out from behind his head. He raised his arms in front of him and stared at the fae markings. They swirled in shades of gold and blue. His incubus nature was in control now and he didn’t feel as he normally did when it happened. Rather than anger and disgust, he felt calm and still in command. The shifting colours mesmerised him and he lost himself in them, his vision blurring.
A weird sensation grew in the pit of his chest. A hot tingling that brought a strange notion with it.
It was as intangible as smoke but he felt it.
He knew where to go.
Payne teleported out of the bed and into the room with Elissa.
A woman passing by on the dimly lit street outside the window gasped. Payne cupped himself. She hurried away.
“Are you insane?” Elissa rose from the chair and hurried to the window. She tugged the dark curtains closed. Payne felt like mentioning she was the one who had opened the curtains even though he was sleeping nude in the next room.
He grabbed his underwear and slipped it on, quickly following it with his dark blue jeans. A flicker of disappointment lit Elissa’s eyes when he donned his dark grey shirt. Had she been expecting an encore? That had him stiff in his jeans. Later.
“It’s time to go.” He began buttoning his shirt and Elissa’s gaze dropped to his torso.
“It worked?” Her cheeks heated. Damn, he wanted her when she looked so innocent. It was hard to deny the urge to take her first and then head out, but he needed to do this before he lost his nerve.
He nodded.
Elissa packed some things into a black leather satchel, and then rushed past him into the bedroom. She shed her dark red robe, revealing lush bare curves. Payne couldn’t stop himself then.
He teleported right behind her and stepped into her. He swept his hands over her hips and drew her backside against his crotch. She stilled in his arms, her breathing rapid and heart racing. He lowered his head and pressed kisses along the subtle curve of her shoulder. Her breathing hitched when he gathered the waves of her chestnut hair and swept it over her other shoulder, away from her throat.
Payne licked her neck, his fangs lengthening.
He wanted to taste her.
She twisted in his arms, coming to face him. “What are you doing?”
Payne stared at her neck, unable to tear his gaze away from the smooth creamy column that
tempted him more than anything, more than her naked body wrapped around his again. “Tasting you.”
She shook her head and he frowned. “No tasting. No biting. We don’t have time for this.”
Her nerves flowed through him, carried by her scent and her touch, and sounding in the tremulous beat of her heart.
“It won’t hurt,” he whispered, his eyes glued to the flickering pulse on her throat. He would make sure it was pleasurable for her, and for him. He couldn’t remember the last time he had taken blood from someone he had been intimate with, but it had been a very long time ago, and he couldn’t deny his need to do this, to have her in all the ways imaginable, slaking the needs of both sides of him. He had assuaged his incubus desires. Now he had to tend to his vampire ones. “I’m hungry. You made me hungry.”
His gaze darted to hers. She looked torn between refusing and accepting. He could see the war happening behind her soulful silvery eyes. Part of her wanted this, hungered to know his bite as fiercely as he hungered to know her blood. He only had to work on that part of her, cranking it up until she couldn’t say no.
“If you bite me, it might look suspicious.” She sounded too breathless to believe that. It was a piss-poor excuse.
“Why?” He pulled her closer and her eyes widened, her pupils dilating. “They’ll know I’m part vampire the second I set foot in their den. You’re supposed to be my lover... a vampire’s lover would have bite marks.”
She fell silent, staring into his eyes, the black chasm of her pupils swallowing the colour in her irises and turning them dark with need.
The tiniest sideward shift of her chin was all the invite he needed.
Payne dropped his lips to her throat, feeling her pulse flickering wildly against them, and inhaled her sweet scent. Saliva pooled in his mouth and his fangs stretched long, hungry for a taste of her. He would have it.
He opened his mouth and eased his fangs into her flesh.
She moaned hotly into his ear, her reaction sweet and intoxicating him. Payne closed his eyes, eased his fangs out and gave a shallow pull on her blood. It flooded his mouth, hot and heady, scorching him with its intensity. He had never tasted anything like Elissa. He could taste the magic in her veins, tinny but strong with a sharp edge. His body reacted to the blissful taste of her in an instant, cock as hard as steel against his tight jeans, the pleasure of her blood flowing into him obliterating the pain he should have felt. He sank his fangs back into her, deeper this time, unable to resist his need to mark her for all to see.
Payne moaned against her and drank deeply of her sweet blood.
Elissa clung to his upper arms, her fingertips pressing into his flesh, short nails digging through his shirtsleeves. Payne clutched her bare bottom and ground his erection against her stomach, aching to be inside her in every way possible.
“We really don’t have time for that.” She sounded breathless and as intoxicated as he felt. “If you start that again, I won’t want to stop for hours.”
That drew a smile from him. Blood spilled from the corners of his lips and he closed them over the wound and sucked again. She moaned, the sound wanton and delicious. The scent of her arousal drove him to take things further with her and satisfy both of their desires, but she was right. If they got down and dirty again, they would be at it for hours. He fully intended to drive her mad with pleasure next time.
“We can play again when we’re at the incubi compound.” There was a hopeful edge to those words.
Payne groaned in agreement, strangely pleased that she still wanted him after everything he had already revealed to her.
The thought of taking her again caused his incubus side to flare into life. He drew pleasure from the vision floating around his mind as well as the taste of her blood as it flowed into him. Ecstasy. He had found Heaven.
The vampire side of his nature said to bite her harder.
Payne forced himself to withdraw and swiped his tongue across the bite mark to seal the puncture wounds. He wasn’t going to hurt her. Not Elissa.
He licked the rivulets of crimson from her bare chest, cleaning her up and savouring this all too brief moment of contact with her. He ran his tongue around her pert left nipple and she moaned, the sound breathy and wanton, filled with hunger that he wanted to satisfy. She clung to him still but the pressure of her grip was already easing and her heartbeat was steadying.
Payne set her away from him and stepped back. Pink flushed her cheeks and her pupils blotted out most of her silvery irises, her desire there for him to see as well as smell on her. It was hard to resist his urge to grab her, drag her back into his arms, and kiss her until she surrendered to him. Her gaze flickered around the room, occasionally falling on him, her air hesitant now, edged with awkwardness that brought a smile to his face. She didn’t have to be ashamed that she had enjoyed his bite. It pleased him.
He swept his fingers through his sandy hair, preening it back. Elissa’s eyes met his, she blushed again and then turned, walking on wobbly legs to the bathroom. Payne forced himself to turn away from temptation too. He adjusted the rock-hard erection in his jeans and focused on mundane things to make it go away as he walked stiffly into the main room of the house. He finished buttoning his shirt and then pulled on his socks and rammed his feet into his boots and tied the laces. He arranged the hems of his jeans over them and then sat in the wooden chair beside the desk. The spell book Elissa had been reading was still open. He glanced at the page.
A cloaking spell.
He looked closer. Not the sort that hid someone from others but the type that hid something about someone. Something specific.
What did Elissa want to hide from everyone?
She came out of the bedroom and paused at the threshold. Payne eased back in the chair and she wiped the nervous expression from her face. It didn’t hide the emotion behind it from his senses. Why did the fact that he had noticed the spell scare her?
Elissa grabbed the satchel and his gaze roamed over her as she slung the black leather strap over her shoulder. She had dressed provocatively again, pairing dark blue jeans with a black halter-top. Again, no bra. The black material gathered under her breasts and flowed from there. Pale pink stars decorated the hem.
“Not on duty?” he said and she quickly shook her head. So, whatever she had lost and wanted to regain was a personal matter. Interesting. “You know what my grandfather looks like?”
Payne had almost choked on that word. Grandfather. Bastard. He would be lucky if Payne could control his urge to rip him apart with claw and fang. He wanted him dead, but he couldn’t kill him until he had what he needed.
She nodded.
His eyes narrowed on her. “Does he know what you look like?”
She shook her head and Payne didn’t believe her. If she was lying, his grandfather might recognise her and bolt, and Payne would never get the ring for Chica and Andreu.
Payne stood and held her gaze, giving her a moment to amend her answer. She didn’t. He held his hand out to her and she slipped hers into it. The warmth and softness of her hand had heat coursing up his arm and through his blood. He pulled her against him, wrapped her in his arms, and stared down into her eyes. She looked as nervous as he felt. What did an incubi den look like? He really did hate going blind into a situation. Was he about to teleport Elissa into a nest of vipers who would all be out to get a taste of her?
He pulled her closer. He wouldn’t let them have her. Elissa was his.
He focused on the feeling in his chest and teleported.
They landed in the middle of the moonlit gravel drive of a very beautiful Georgian manor house. Elissa shifted in his arms, rubbing against him in a way that had him gritting his teeth and struggling to focus.
“The whole area is cloaked,” she said and he looked down at her. She glanced up at him, her eyes briefly meeting his before she scanned the area again. “It’s a powerful concealment spell. No wonder only incubi can find this place. I wouldn’t be surprised if we haven’t
just popped off the grid completely.”
Interesting. Did that mean that to her kind, she had just disappeared? It was certainly a convenient spell for the incubi to employ. No one would notice if an incubus accidently killed their host here. That person would just look as though they had gone missing, never to return, and those looking for them would never find a trace of them. Payne didn’t want to imagine how many lives had ended in this place, or how many bodies the elegant grounds now concealed.
His senses sharpened, eyes assessing his surroundings as he put all of it to memory and searched for a sign of trouble. The first thing that Payne’s sensitive hearing picked up was the continual hum of moans coming from the house. His incubus side flared up again, lured to the surface by the sexual energy crashing over him. He had never experienced something so intense. It pressed down on him, urging him into surrendering to his sexual desires, goading him into sucking down the pleasure and getting high on it. His knees threatened to weaken. They trembled.
He trembled.
Payne growled, crushed Elissa to his chest and ground his erection against her belly. She stared up at him through wide wild eyes.
“Payne, your eyes are glow—”
Payne cut her off with a hard, aggressive kiss. He dominated her mouth, forcing her to open for him and thrusting his tongue past the barrier of her teeth. She wriggled in his arms, rubbing against his cock. He growled again, hunger tearing through him, driving him to obey his instincts to feed from the female in his arms. He needed to get inside her. He needed to fuck. He teleported and reappeared closer to the mansion. Elissa grunted when he slammed her back against the wall and pinned her there, trapping her body with his, caging her in his arms. He mastered her mouth, not giving her a chance to draw breath, desperate to drink down her pleasure and spark more within her.
She pressed her hands against his chest.
Something slammed into him, hot and fierce, sending him flying backwards through the air. He landed hard, spraying gravel in all directions and rolling. His arm twisted beneath him, pain shooting outwards from his shoulder, and he growled as he finally halted on the driveway. Sharp hot pulses beat through his bones, dampening the hunger that had spiralled out of control within him, giving him a chance to claw back some semblance of sanity.
Bewitch (Vampire Erotic Theatre Romance Series Book 5) Page 9
