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.
“Elissa,” he gritted out and slowly pushed himself into a position where he could check on Elissa, fearing he had hurt her and needing to see with his own eyes that he hadn’t.
Elissa stood with her back pressed against the wall, breathing hard, fear coming off her in strong waves. He battled his urges, struggling to get them locked down, not wanting her to fear him or hate him, and not wanting to hurt her. He would if he lost control again. He had never been around other incubi and he swore he would never go near them again if he made it through this because he didn’t like how it made him feel. It triggered something within him, pushing him dangerously close to the edge.
“Maybe this was a bad idea,” she whispered.
He struggled to subdue his hunger for her. “I think we need to get in and out as quickly as possible.”
That had to be the first time he had ever said something like that. Normally, he liked to take his time about things, drawing them out. He grinned to himself, wicked thoughts spiralling through his mind and lust fogging his senses. Gods, he wanted Elissa naked and bucking beneath him. He would make it last all night and she would be weeping, begging for release before he finally gave it to her.
She nodded and it took him a moment to clear his head enough to remember what they had been talking about. In and out. He grinned again, dirty thoughts crashing back into his head. He managed to shove them out before they got comfortable this time and pushed onto his feet. His head spun. What had she hit him with? Whatever spell it had been, he had deserved it. He blinked and gave the world a moment to stop dancing before his eyes. Elissa approached him and he held his hand up, warning her to give him a minute. He still hadn’t got his hunger in check. If she laid a hand on him, he would have her back in his arms and breathless again, or worse. He had no qualms about public sex or inclement weather. He would take her right on the drive.
“You okay?” she said in a voice laced with concern and he blew out his breath and nodded.
“Ready.” As he ever could be. What he was about to walk in on was going to tip him over the edge again, he knew it, but he had to go in there and get that ring.
He kept some distance between him and Elissa as they approached the manor. The door was open a crack. Evidently, incubi didn’t worry about intruders. Hell, they probably welcomed them to the party. Anyone who had come here had probably been lured by the sexual pheromones the gathered incubi were throwing off. Willing hosts for the males inside. He pushed the heavy wooden door open and stepped into the building, Elissa trailing behind him.
Payne stopped dead and Elissa bumped into his back.
He had thought that the erotic acts he witnessed on the stage of Vampirerotique were hard to handle. He had been mistaken.
The orgy happening right on the pale marble floor of the elegant vestibule of the mansion was the epitome of hard to handle.
He tried not to stare, and not only because the incubus in him was loving it and he had a sick urge to strip off, join in and reap the rewards. He didn’t want the sight of seven naked males tangled with what looked like at least twelve females seared onto his eyeballs.
Elissa gasped. One of the men looked at her, his blue and gold eyes shining brightly, his smile wicked. Elissa took a step towards him.
Payne realised he had overlooked something critical and it royally pissed him off. The males here could lure and control Elissa. Over his dead body.
Payne roared at the male and grabbed Elissa, pulling her into his arms and tucking her against his side. She still tried to get to the man, wriggling against Payne and elbowing him. Payne turned his snarl on her and her eyes darted to his. Shocked didn’t cover the horror in her eyes.
A dark-haired male approached from a corridor on Payne’s left, this one actually dressed, wearing a smart dark grey suit. “Can I help you?”
The male’s swirling eyes dropped to Payne’s arm around Elissa and he raised his eyebrows at Payne’s markings visible beyond the rolled up sleeves of his shirt.
“I want to see him.” Payne knew without a doubt that the man would know exactly who he was talking about.
The man nodded and waved his arm towards the corridor he had come from, a smile plastered on his face. Payne kept Elissa close to him and followed the male, his senses on high alert, tracking every other male in the room. If they looked at her, he would kill them all.
They walked down a long red and gold corridor. There were no paintings on the wall on his right but dark stains marked where some had hung in the past. The windows on Payne’s left revealed the lamp-lit gardens. Elissa trembled against him. Payne squeezed her shoulders and she lifted her eyes to his. He smiled, wanting to comfort her and reassure her that she was safe even when he wasn’t sure whether that word was applicable to either of them. What the hell had possessed him to agree to come to this place? The distance between him and the orgy was growing, but his dark sexual hungers weren’t lessening. They roared within him, fiercer than ever, driving him to take Elissa and teleport them somewhere private.
Or forget the private and the teleporting part, and just take her right here and right now, regardless of their company.
The male opened a door on his right and disappeared into a room. Payne struggled with his incubus hungers, trying to get a lid on them, and peered into the pale blue room. It looked much like a library or a study, with bookcases lining the walls. Some of them even had books, although they looked as though someone had tossed them onto the shelves, uncaring of how they landed. A large oil painting hung above the fireplace directly in front of Payne. The smoke from the fire must have damaged it over the ages, clouding the image depicted on the canvas. He couldn’t make out the landscape.
Payne entered with Elissa tucked close to his side. The man swept his hand towards the deep blue couches encircl
ing the fireplace.
“Do sit. I will be but a minute.” The man disappeared.
“What the freaking heck are you doing?” Elissa hissed.
“I need his scent and since you said that my grandfather had never met you, I figured it would be safe to meet him. Believe me, Sweetheart, I want nothing to do with the son of a bitch. As soon as I have his scent, we can find his room in the mansion, get what we came here for and get the fuck out.”
“I lied.”
Payne groaned. Why did his instincts have to have been right about that? He looked around the lushly furnished room, searching for a place where she could hide while he got a whiff of his grandfather. He needed somewhere safe, away from other incubi. They were near the end of the mansion, far from all the fucking, but it still set him on edge and made it hard to concentrate. There was a closed door off to his right. He focused there, panic setting in, trying to determine whether incubi were getting their ends away in that room too. No sign of life.
Payne grabbed Elissa’s hand and pulled her towards the door.
Someone appeared in the room behind him.
He whirled to face them, his heart lodged in his throat. Elissa kept her back to them. Relief blasted through him.
The man again.
“I am afraid the master is out and will not return until tomorrow.” He preened his dark unruly hair back and smiled. “I have arranged for a room for you. Will you stay the night?”
Payne noticed the way he didn’t look at Elissa. His blue and gold eyes remained rooted on him. Payne was still wrestling with the fact that his grandfather didn’t just live in this den, he ran it.
Everything in him screamed to refuse and get Elissa the hell away from the constant threat of danger. While he couldn’t control her, every incubus here could. He was damned if he was going to let them use their charms on her to get her into bed. She belonged to him.
He couldn’t leave though. It would look suspicious.
He forced himself to nod.
The man’s smile broadened. “Would you care to join us? There are many willing females here who would feed your every desire. You may enjoy them.”
Dark and Deadly: Eight Bad Boys of Paranormal Romance Page 34
