by Jill Myles
Liquid heat rolled through my body as his lips found my nipple, and my knees went weak as he scraped my breast with his fangs. My fingers dug in against his skull and all the breath escaped from my lungs. As long as Zane was touching me, I was in paradise. And I was so, so damp with need. “Zane,” I protested, my voice weak and thready. “What about feeding?”
He slid down to his knees, pressing his face against my hip, as if he couldn’t bear to stop touching me. “Jackie … I know it’s a lot to ask. I know.” He sounded like he hated himself for even asking.
“But you want to drink from me?” I finished for him, my hands sliding to the silky waterfall of black feathers. They all fell in one direction, smooth and evenly marching along the delicate network of bones. I glided my fingers over their backs lightly, loving the sensations.
He groaned and I felt his mouth press against the soft curve of my hip, his face concealed by the fluffy robe. “I shouldn’t ask. I know I shouldn’t ask. I just can’t stand the thought of drinking from someone else with you here.”
Even though I knew it was bad, I wanted to do it. Especially with him rubbing his face against my hip and brushing his feathers against my skin.
Torn, I debated the idea. If I let him drink from me, I’d be giving over my control of my body and trusting him implicitly. But … I craved the intimacy with him. I’d thought about nothing but his bite and his kiss for the last six months. And right now, I was so turned on that I could feel the heat pulsing loud in my veins, centered near where Zane rested his head. “But … Zane, won’t you get in trouble? I can’t stand the thought of you being in more pain.” My fingers left his feathers and slid back to his hair, moving the rakish lock of hair off of his brow.
He looked up at me, hope in his startlingly red eyes. “I can bite you where no one will see it,” he said, a hint of a smile curving his mouth up. “A soft, quick bite … in a secret place.” As if to demonstrate, he leaned in and nipped lightly at my hip.
I squeaked at the feeling of fangs against my skin. More liquid heat surged through my veins, the throbbing centering at my sex. A secret, forbidden bite? “Oh?”
His mouth slid along my hip and his other hand slid around the front of my thigh, his tickling fingers brushing against my sex. His mouth reached the bend where my leg met my pelvis. “There’s a large vein here. I’d only need a taste. Just enough to make you sleepy, if you want,” he whispered against my skin. “No one tastes better than you.”
He ran his tongue along the fold of my hip, starting at the edge of my thigh and working his way inward. By the time he got to the damp curls of my sex, my body was wracked with shivers.
He pressed a light kiss there, then stood. His wings spilled out behind him like a shadowy waterfall gleaming in the moonlight. He cupped my ass and dragged me against his hard erection. “You feel so good in my arms,” he said, his mouth pressing kisses along my shoulder, sliding the robe down my arm. “If you don’t want me to feed, we don’t have to do that. Just let me keep touching you.”
I brushed my hand along the front of his pants, outlining the straining cock pushing against the fabric. “Zane, the only person I’m worried about is you. I just don’t want Caleb to find out—”
“He won’t.” Zane pressed a quick kiss on my mouth, smiling again. He sucked on my lower lip gently, eliciting a moan of pleasure from me before tugging on the robe that pooled around my elbows. “Let’s lay this on the concrete.”
As soon as I took it off, the temperature on the roof seemed to drop a zillion degrees. Goose bumps covered my flesh and I rubbed my arms briskly.
Zane pulled me down on the robe. “I can keep you warm, Princess,” he said in a husky voice. “When my body covers yours, you won’t be cold.”
Just the thought of that made me tingle, and I laid down, reaching for him. His hot skin pressed against mine, and his wings swept outward, creating a windbreak as they tented against the concrete. He grinned at me. “Better?”
“Much,” I agreed, brushing the tips of my fingers against his wings in appreciation.
His hands went to his hips and he shifted between my legs as he undressed, then tossed his pants to the side. He moved back over me, all hot, hard muscle and delicious pale skin, and his mouth captured mine once more. My tongue swiped against his own, fangs scraping, and the taste of blood crept into my mouth.
Against my lips, Zane growled with pleasure, and I felt him push my hips apart, sliding in between them. The head of his cock rubbed against the hot, wet seam of my sex. I moaned into his mouth, biting his lip to show my pleasure. My hips arched against his, rubbing the length of him against my folds again.
“So good,” he murmured, and his mouth began to trail down my breasts again. “I don’t think I can wait much longer.” He thrust against me, the hot slide of his flesh parting the lips of my sex and brushing against my clit. The head rubbed up and down the slick channel, teasing a wordless cry from me. My feet slid along his body, toes curled.
His mouth slid to my breasts again and he wrapped his fingers over each one, my nipples peeking through. “So delicious, my sweet, sweet Jackie. Maybe I should bite you here again. Remember that?”
His mouth dipped between his fingers, capturing my nipple with warmth. A moment later, I felt a hot, intense jolt of pleasure and pain. Blood welled to the surface and he licked it away, teasing the hard points of my nipple as his tongue swirled around it. He moved to the other side and repeated it.
I was writhing by the time he rotated his hips against mine, and my hand reached for his cock. I needed him inside me. Now. “Zane,” I breathed. “If you don’t get inside me in the next minute, I’m going to make you regret it.”
“Every moment I’m not deep inside your body, Princess, is a moment I regret.” He leaned in and gave me a soft, tender kiss … then thrust his cock inside me.
A hot whimper escaped my throat, and my body arched with the intensity of the pleasure. “Oh God, yes!” My legs curled around his hips, my fist shoving against his shoulder. I raised my hips, waiting for the next thrust and was not disappointed. He thrust into me so hard that the robe—and my body—skidded a few inches across the concrete. He grunted with pleasure as well, the next thrust equally rough and hard. I wrapped my arms around him to anchor my body for the next wild thrust. This was not the tender meeting of lovers; this was six months, of mutual pent-up, aching need.
I gladly accepted the next ramming thrust, gasping his name. He pushed so hard into my body that it felt stretched to the limits, yet every thrust seemed to seek a little deeper, scraping along the concrete and shredding the robe underneath us. Harder and faster he plunged into me, his hands gripping my hips roughly so he could shove even harder inside me. Each thrust was equal parts pleasure and pain, but I welcomed all of it as I reached for my orgasm. The stark, aching need on his face was burned into my mind. “Look at me, Princess. I want to see you come,” he growled as he slammed into me again.
I was close, but I wasn’t there yet, and the next thrust was equally delicious and equally toe-curling. I wanted this to go on forever, and because I was early in the Itch, I didn’t have the deep need that pushed me over the edge within minutes. Zane didn’t have a similar issue, though, so at his next thrust I slid my hand between us, sliding apart my flesh and exposing my clit. I couldn’t masturbate as a succubus; all it did was torture me since I needed someone else to bring me off. But I could still help an orgasm along. When he drove home again, his flesh slid hot against my clit. One more rough thrust and I was gasping his name, locked in the shudders of an orgasm. I held back the scream of pleasure in my throat as he began to thrust harder and wilder, until he cursed, growled my name, and then shuddered, heat flooding through me as he came inside me, hard.
I sighed in contentment as he fell over me, my hands clinging to him. Despite the chill in the air, his flesh was moist with sweat against mine. He pressed a kiss to my brow and sighed at the robe, located somewhere around our feet. “I’m sorry we had to do this on
the roof of the hotel.”
“You do seem to have an aversion to beds,” I agreed, teasing. “Pillow phobia?”
“Bed only counts if you’re in it with me,” he said, then kissed my mouth one more time before sliding lower. His mouth kissed down my belly, and my body—languid and bruised and scraped up but feeling wonderful—began to awaken again.
“Time for the bite?” I said, wiggling a little under him. It was hard not to get excited at the thought. Vampire bites were a treat I normally forbade myself, seeing as how it shut down my mind and made me share head space with a vampire. Since succubi didn’t sleep, it felt like I was letting a bit of my self-control go, trading it for feeling even closer to my vampire lover.
Then again, a vampire bite was also the precursor to a shattering orgasm.
Choices, choices.
He was lapping at my skin at the bend of my hip, and I shivered and arched up. “The sun will be up soon, Zane. Hurry up and do it.”
I felt his fangs sink into my skin. Pain flared, followed by a roll of pleasure so intense that my calves locked up, and a shuddering orgasm bolted through my body, a stronger, more powerful cousin to the one that I’d just had. And this time when I cried out his name, even Zane’s hand over my mouth couldn’t silence it.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I drifted in and out, a hazy fog surrounding my senses. A vampire’s bite was a narcotic, leaving me half comatose and drifting in and out of his mind. Through the connection, I had the vague sense of Zane wrapping the robe around me as he stifled a yawn. He gathered me in his arms and descended over the side of the building again, wings lightly fluttering until he landed on my balcony.
Ethan was there—I couldn’t focus on his face but could guess that he was disapproving. He took me from Zane and tucked me into the bed.
From there, the dreams got weirder. Flashes of pain swept through my mind. The neck rope. Sharp teeth. Torture. Feathers filled my mind—ripped, bloody feathers. I couldn’t focus on why I kept dreaming about feathers, until the dream changed slightly, and I stared up at the face of the vampire queen.
Mercy, said the voice in my dream.
Except it wasn’t my voice, it was Zane’s.
“I betrayed your trust, and for that I am sorry.” Not a true apology. He’d never apologize for maneuvering around her—not when it kept Jackie safe.
The queen seemed to sense his reluctance. She reached forward, her fingernails like tearing claws. The ripping pain shuddered through his wings again, and feathers rained down around him. The delicate bones of his wings were half bare now, the web of skin covering them resembling a plucked chicken’s.
“You came to me and I gave you wings. I can take them away again,” she purred in his mind.
Not the wings. Not again. “I’ll do anything you want.”
“Show obedience to me and only me. It will not be easy.”
A feather fell to the floor, landing on his clenched fingers and leaving a red stain on his pale fist.
What else did he have to live for? He’d lost one love and traded her safety for wings. He could do it again. A collar was nothing, as long as it kept this love, this woman, safe from the queen.
The clawed hand slashed against his wing again, ripping once more. He screamed in pain, nearly collapsing. “I will do it. I am yours to command.”
I bolted awake, panting hard. Sweat covered my brow and I blinked rapidly, staring at my surroundings.
Hotel room.
Bland, pastoral scene on the wall.
Ugly lamp next to the bed.
World’s biggest virgin at the foot of the bed.
I was back in my own head. Ethan sat cross-legged in front of the TV, a soda from the mini-fridge in his hand as he watched what looked like The View. He barely glanced at me as I swung my legs over the edge of the bed, clutching my stomach as nausea shot through me. Zane’s dreams … was that what had happened to him while I’d been gone, laughing it up in Mexico?
He’d nearly lost his wings again for me?
“I ordered a lasagna for you from room service,” said Ethan. “It is in the small fridge. I thought you might be hungry when you woke up.”
Normally I would be. Right now I just wanted to vomit. My head was still filled with bloody feathers. “Thanks.”
He clicked the TV off when a commercial came on. “I feel we must talk, Jackie Brighton.”
“Just call me Jackie,” I said. “And can we talk after I shower?”
He nodded.
Twenty minutes later I was feeling a bit refreshed, more awake, and the visions of bloody feathers were receding from my mind. Starving, I wrapped a towel around my head and one around my body, and headed for the mini-fridge.
Ethan gave me a horrified look. “What are you doing?”
I took the plate out of the fridge and picked up a plastic fork. The lasagna looked kind of hideous cold, but I shoved a big forkful into my mouth anyhow. Yep, kind of gross, but I needed carbs. “Eating,” I said to Ethan between bites. “You want some?”
“I meant your clothing.”
“Oh.” Jeez, I sure wasn’t used to being around a dude who was a prude. “Uh, the only thing I have with me is my dress, and it’s kind of, you know …”
“Slutty?”
I stared at him, fork frozen halfway to my mouth. “Wow. That stings a little.”
He shrugged, getting up from the bed. “LC told Heidi the same thing on the television.”
I stared at him. He’d been watching The Hills. Funny, he didn’t strike me as an MTV fan, but there was no accounting for taste. “I guess.”
As I stood there, he took off his shirt, then handed it to me. “You can wear this over your dress until we retrieve your clothing.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you,” I said, taking the shirt from him and smiling. “You’re all right, you know that?”
His eyes flickered silver, then faded to black again.
Ha! “You totally got off on giving me your shirt, didn’t you?”
He gave me a defensive look and turned his back to me. “Do not be inappropriate, Succubus.”
He totally had gotten off on giving me his shirt. I smirked as I slipped on the silver dress and began to button his shirt over it. It nearly swallowed me whole, so I knotted it at my waist.
“Are we going back to the house?” I asked Ethan, grabbing a bottle of water and taking a swig. “I’d like to see if we can find some hint as to where Remy disappeared to before I become bait. Not to mention that my clothes are there, and we need to return what’s left of your tux … or at least pay for the damages,” I said.
“We should do something,” Ethan agreed. “You cannot continue to walk around with your female flesh exposed.”
I choked on the water I was sipping. “Please, please, don’t ever use that phrase again. Please.”
He gave me a chiding look. “We have much to do before the vampires awaken, Succubus. Best that we get started.”
We returned to Remy’s house after returning the tuxedo. I was now $1,500 lighter and had been the recipient of a firm talking-to from the tuxedo rental employee. Not that I could blame them. It looked like the tuxedo had gone through a war.
I was starting to get used to the sight of destroyed things, I thought as I stared at Remy’s house with dismay. If Joachim had caused this much destruction to Remy’s stuff, how was my poor friend faring?
A sympathetic hand clapped on my shoulder. It was supposed to be a pat on the back, but given the size of Ethan’s hands, it nearly knocked me on my face. “You are upset, Succubus. Retrieve your clothing, and I will begin to pick up the mess here.”
“Thank you,” I said, the guilty knot in my throat not receding even slightly. I kept staring at the shattered bar, the destroyed couches. Everything Remy had worked so hard for—trashed. “I know you’re just doing it to get a fix, but still, thank you.”
He stiffened and gave me a wounded look. “Not everything I do is for my own needs.”
As he grabbed a roll of garbage bags from the kitchen, I went up the stairs to my bedroom. I dug through several boxes of my old junk and pulled out some T-shirts and jeans. I was a woman on a mission, not a tramp on the prowl for some tail. Casual clothes were best.
I moved to Remy’s room and began to glance through her things. Where was she hiding in New City? Other than some co-workers, the vampires, and myself, did Remy have any human friends? She mostly loved and left a string of men. Could she have temporarily shacked up with an innocent human?
As I sat on the edge of the bed my BlackBerry rang, and I glanced at the caller ID displayed on the screen. The university? I hesitated, then sent the call to voicemail. If they were calling because I’d left the dig, I didn’t have time to try to explain it. Nor could I tell them where Noah was at the moment—best to just avoid that sticky situation entirely.
Then I noticed I had seven messages waiting. Frowning, I dialed over to voicemail and listened to the first one.
“Hey Jackie,” chirped one of the assistants, her voice trembling. “This is Becky. Where did you get this painting? Call me.” She rambled off a number so quickly that I wasn’t able to decipher it. Which wasn’t a problem, because the next message was from her, too.
“Is this some sort of joke?” she said when she called back. “Are you testing me?”
Five minutes later, she’d left me another message. “This isn’t a joke, is it? Oh God, Jackie. Where did you get this? Did you steal it? Oh my Godddddd.” A rapturous trill squeezed from her throat, so loud I had to hold the phone away from my ear. “Do you know what this is?”
Well, no. That’s why I’d turned it over to the lab to have it carbon-dated and to have someone analyze the words written on the back. My instincts were telling me one thing, but I wanted cold, hard science to prove me right.
Sure enough, the next message was from her again. This time, a few hours had passed between calls. “Jackie, it’s Becky again. Call me. Please. This is so exciting. I’ve talked to everyone in the department and we all agree—it looks like a Da Vinci. The signature, the medium—oil on a panel that’s consistent with his other paintings. The time frame, the perspective. Oh my God, Jackie. Oh my God! There’s a thumbprint on the back and we’re going to run it against a few things. If it’s not Da Vinci himself, it’s got to be someone from his school. There’s no mistaking this. How did you come up with it? Call me.”
