by Amie Gibbons
“We’re asking nicely,” Grant said, looking at the woman.
“He wasn’t,” she said, nodding at Carvi.
“Yeah, well, he’s a dick… or at least thinks with it.”
“She’s not a vampire,” Antonio said. “No one calls the king names.”
“The queen does,” Carvi said. “Not that it matters whether you believe us either way.”
“Will you help us?” I asked. “If you are not the monsters we were told, you want to catch a killer pointing us at you just as much as you want to find who framed you last year.”
“You know anything about that?”
“Short version. Help us out. Who’d want to frame you?”
“The Cribs.”
“Cribs?” I asked.
“Rival gang. Brothers. Call themselves the Cribs. Miami was ours for a few years, until these punks moved in.”
“They know any magic?” Carvi asked.
“Probably. We all have witches in our ranks. Good way to get a leg up on the competition is to have the best witch.”
“Good enough to do a spell here and not have you notice?” I asked.
“They’d have to be damn good, but I swear it wasn’t us.”
“Crap,” I said.
“They could be lying, or at least holding back,” Carvi said. “How about I take one or two to play with? I’m sure I could get all we’d need to know after an hour or two.”
“No,” Grant and I said as the gang members tensed.
“Do you know anything else?” I asked. “I’ll keep him at bay, but not if he’s sure you’re holdin’ out on us.”
“There’s only one way to keep me at bay, lea,” Carvi said.
“Well, two,” I shrugged and grinned like I was in on the joke.
“Valid point, but a man needs variety. I need some salsa in my life.”
I shook my head. “Again with the racism.”
“I’m telling you the truth,” the woman said. “We don’t know anything about any of this. I hate to say it, but we still don’t know who could frame us to that extent.”
I nodded and pulled out the cards we’d had made up for my fake identity. “If you think of anything?” And handed her the card.
She nodded. “I’m Maria. And yeah, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, so if any of us do.” She tilted her head.
“See, this is why we bring the ladies of the nests,” Carvi said. “Women have a way of cutting through the bullshit.”
“Well, it is my husband you’re threatening,” Maria said. “And the female of the species…”
“Is more deadly than the male,” I finished with her.
Carvi chuckled.
Shots ripped through the windows and walls and screams filled the room as sharp pain filled me.
I fell to the ground as the rain of bullets stopped and I had enough time to chuckle as blackness took me.
A drive by, how stereotypically gangster.
Chapter eight
“We have to call an ambulance,” came through the fog over my head.
“She doesn’t need one,” a male voice said. “My people will take care of her.”
“No.”
“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.”
Something made a whooshing noise and a crash.
“What kind of moron doesn’t take a girl to the hospital after she’s been shot!”
“A vampire.”
The world had the sense of moving around me and I lifted my arms, puttin’ them around a neck on reflex.
“How many times have we been here, lea?” a warm voice asked, lips brushing my forehead.
“Ummmm,” I lay my head on the shoulder. It’d take care of me.
“Grant, if you’d like to come, you can, but we’re leaving.”
Wind rushed by and the world went fuzzy for a while.
###
I opened my eyes, staring back up at that gold canopy again.
“Carvi’s bed. Again?”
“Yes, lea?”
“Ugh!” I would’ve jumped if there wasn’t so much weight on my body. “What happened?”
“You were shot in a drive by.”
“Oh, wow. Okay. Am I okay?”
“You will be. I had my healers take a look at you.”
“Oh, okay… what did they do exactly?”
“They use the body’s own natural healing processes to make your body heal itself quickly. This requires a great deal of energy though.”
“Is that why I feel like I have a giant man lying on me?”
He chuckled. “Probably. Though, I could lay on you if you wish.”
“No, I hurt too much.”
Everything was sore and felt like metal was stuffed under my skin.
“I can help with that,” he said, voice dropping down.
“Your blood?”
“Hole in one, lea.”
“Won’t you run outta energy if you keep doing this?”
“Vampire leaders can take energy from our people through a psychic connection. I’ve been taking a little from them to put into you. It’s why we hold our leaders to such high standards, because they have so much power. You should see the despots in the old world, drawing energy out of their people for pleasure and excess and not much else.”
Carvi crawled on top of me, keeping his weight on his arms. “I want you to feed on me, gather your strength, then fuck me.”
“Carvi, I told you, I can’t.”
“You can. You just won’t.”
“Same diff. But I will take your blood. Thank you.”
He smirked, laying on top of me, rubbing into me gently. “How often have we been here in the past day, lea? One day and I’ve gotten through all your defenses.”
“Not all.” I pushed against his shoulders and they moved about as much as a wall would.
Carvi kissed me and my hands gripped him instead of shoving.
God, it’d be so easy to give in, to open myself and say have me.
And he’ll lose interest the second I do.
Right.
Couldn’t fall for this. Guys did it all the time.
But I kissed him back, letting him plunge into my mouth, suckin’ him and feeling his tongue.
He pulled back. “See? You want this. You want to be taken.” He thrust against me and I gasped, hips rising with him. “You want to give in. You want to know what it feels like.”
He pulled my head up to his neck and I bit in, right where I had last night. The scars were already healed.
I sucked on him and he thrust against me, hard under his slacks.
The blood rushed through me, waking every bit of my body, making me press into him.
“Does your blood make me want you?” I whispered.
“I tell you a secret, you tell me one,” he said, nibbling on my neck.
“Okay,” I said.
“I was never human, not fully. My power is seduction. I make the blood run hot, make the libido rise. Everyone wants me if I make them, even Grant.”
“So it’s not real then?”
But I rubbed against him, wantin’ him all the same.
Everything ached, but for a whole new reason.
“It’s real. It’s attraction as any attraction is. That is based on chemicals. This one is based on the same thing, just magical ones.”
“Pheromones,” I said as he grabbed my breast through the thin bra.
“Exactly.”
He kissed me and I opened my legs. He’d have to pull back to take off my pants. Just opening a little couldn’t be too dangerous.
“Fuck it,” he said as we broke apart. “I’m taking you. Tell me no if you don’t want it, but I’m done waiting for a yes.”
Carvi got on his knees and undid my pants, yanking pants and panties off with the ferocity of a hungry cat.
I opened my mouth and the no wouldn’t come.
Carvi grinned and pulled me up to sitting, unhooking my bra without looking.
“What happen
ed to my shirt?” I asked.
“Cut it off you, to get to the wound. I licked it closed. Grant was very disturbed.”
“Don’t sleep with him,” Grant had said.
But I wanted to.
I wanted him with everything in my body. I wanted him the same way I’d wanted Quil.
Quil?
But he’d said it was okay.
You don’t believe that, an evil voice inside said.
I’d talked to him. I knew that.
He was coerced, or testing you, or his queen ordered him to. But he’d never be okay with sharing you with Carvi. He knows too well how evil Carvi can be.
Carvi pulled off his pants. If there were any underwear, I didn’t see them.
He kissed me and I wrapped my legs around him, pushing his hard and ready length against my belly.
“Carvi, I want you,” I said as we broke apart.
I fell into the vision so fast I didn’t know it wasn’t real at first.
The world was similar, but so different. The gold canopy was made of flames and the openings didn’t show glimpses of a fancy hotel room, they were waves crashin’ against the bed.
“Carvi?” I asked.
“Your power pulled us in, lea,” he said, kissing me.
“Is this real?”
“No more so than the other vision.”
“Why?”
“You’re at war with yourself. You want me. I can feel every bone aching for me. But you can’t allow yourself to go there, so your powers pulled us here. You can fuck me here and not have the repercussions in the real world.”
“So my powers don’t want us to have sex?”
“I guess not.” He grabbed my leg. “I’ll take this for now.”
And shoved in.
I gasped. It wasn’t real, but I felt him push in, shove me open when I wasn’t quite ready.
“Are you this tight in real life, lea?” he asked, thrusting again.
I cried out and nodded.
“Too hard?”
“No, go. Have me, Carvi. Just in here, I’m sayin’ yes.”
“Because it’s not real?”
I nodded and he put his weight on me, burying my face in his chest.
I looked up and he grabbed the board at the back of the bed with one hand and pinned my hand with the other.
“It’ll give you a taste. But I will have you in real life. You will say yes.”
I held him with my legs and he squeezed my hand and pounded me, made me cry out.
Made me scream my pleasure as I spasmed around him.
He slid out and I opened my eyes in the real world.
My body still ached, but the edge was gone.
Carvi was still hard and climbed on top of me.
“Carvi,” I said.
“I get it. You’re not ready in the real world yet. There’s a lot more we can do.”
He grabbed one of the ties from the curtain next to us and jerked it off. The curtain fell and I whimpered.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Showing you what I do best,” he said, takin’ my hands and tying them together, then to a little flap on the headboard.
“Is that what that thing’s for?”
“Yes.”
“Carvi, I don’t like pain.”
“No, I noticed. You really did not like being shot. But you do like to be dominated.”
“Carvi, this whole thing is insane. I almost died. We shouldn’t be playin’ when I just almost died.”
“That’s exactly when we should play,” he said, kissing me again, pushing himself against my opening.
He held it there though, could’ve pushed in, and I couldn’t stop him.
Didn’t want to try either.
He rubbed against my opening as he kissed me and I arched up into him, pulling my mouth away.
“Go down on me?” I asked.
“As the lady requests,” he said, dropping down.
He sucked on my clit with no warning and I jerked into him, straining against my bonds. He stuck a finger up me and then the next, moving it fast as he flicked his tongue like a vibrator.
I came fast, holding onto it, but it left too quickly.
“I still need to go,” I said.
“Say the word and I’ll be inside you.”
“I can’t… it’s too much.”
He smirked. “When you get sick of lying to yourself, let me know, until then, this is still fucking, just a different type.”
He grabbed my thigh hard enough to bruise and I squeaked, wiggling.
“Too hard.”
“I get that a lot,” he said. “I love a girl with juicy thighs just ripe for the picking.”
He sunk his teeth into the fat I hated and my head tossed back as the pleasure swamped me.
I orgasmed and held it, letting the pleasure take me over.
I screamed something I couldn’t even understand and Carvi mounted me again.
“Say yes, lea. Say it and that’ll just be the beginning.”
“I don’t trust you,” I said, biting his chest.
He arched into me with a moan. “Trust what?”
I pulled against my bindings and still couldn’t get them to budge. “I don’t trust you not to get what you want and leave.”
“Oh lea, you are so innocent.”
He inched down, staring up at me with that wicked gleam. “Why would I lose interest in someone so tasty that quickly? Say yes. We’ve fucked in your visions twice now. We’ve done damn near as much in real life. Do you really think intercourse is that much further?”
He bit into my other thigh and I screamed, arching up into him.
“Yes!” I screamed as I came.
The door burst open and Grant came running in, gun up.
He slammed to a stop and stared at us.
God, we must’ve been a sight.
Me tied up naked, blood and bites on both thighs, Carvi sucking on me as I screamed.
“Grant!” Carvi said. “I thought I smelled you. So glad our girl’s a screamer. Won’t you join us?”
Carvi slid out of bed and Grant kept his gun on him.
“If she’s not there willingly,” he said.
But his voice didn’t have that edge to it.
“Oh, she is,” Carvi said, voice hot and thick.
I could almost see him pouring it over Grant.
“I was sincere in my offer,” Carvi said, movin’ too fast for Grant and getting behind him. “Not even to do anything with me, but with her.”
Grant’s eyes went to me like he couldn’t help it and heat rushed through me.
“You’re no fool, Grant,” Carvi said, voice slow and textured.
His power’s in his voice. Eyes too, but voice, yeah.
Siren, maybe?
“You can tell she’s wanted you from the day you met her,” Carvi continued as he took Grant’s gun out of his hands. “Look at her. She loves you. It’s not just lust like she feels for me, she would give her heart and soul to you the second she thought you wanted them.”
Carvi walked them towards the bed and Grant gulped.
“She likes being dominated. That’s why she’s tied up. You could command her, grab her hair, choke her. I know desire, Grant. You have it, no matter how suppressed. She’s young and firm, wet and willing. You don’t find that every day.”
I wiggled against my bindings as Grant met my eyes.
Heat flushed through me and I saw myself through his eyes.
Young, high breasts, flat stomach, but enough curves in the hips and thighs to make me a woman.
He wanted me.
I snapped out of the vision and smiled, arching up off the bed.
Showing off.
I fell back to the bed.
What was I doing? Seducing Grant?
He was my boss, and even if he wanted me, he didn’t love me, not like that. He saw me as a child, one he had to protect. He said he felt like I was a teenage daughter more than anything else half the
time.
Then again, right now he wasn’t looking at me like a teenager.
Well, not like any grown man should look at one.
I licked my lips and Carvi put Grant’s gun on the nightstand and climbed back on the bed.
“It’s okay, Grant,” Carvi said. “I have a feeling I’m not helping here since our Grant is truly straight, so I’ll be outside.”
He paused. “Oh right, your legs.”
He put his head between my legs, licking the wounds closed and they healed over, leaving only two scars, then slid off the bed and closed the door behind him.
Grant and I stared at each other.
It took a moment to see, but he was shaking, whole body doing a mini earthquake.
“Grant?” I said, voice low and breathy.
“I can’t,” he said, so horse the words came out barks.
Weren’t those the words I’d said to Carvi?
Giving in to Carvi felt like surrender, like I’d lose if I actually let him have me.
But here? With Grant?
I was the seducer.
I licked my lips.
“I love you, Grant.”
It was the first time I’d said that outside the joking way I said it when he brought coffee or take out.
I’d meant it those times too, but we could pretend I didn’t.
“I know,” he said, closing his eyes. “I will not take advantage of you.”
He clenched his fists so hard I was afraid he’d break something in there and shook in place.
“You wouldn’t be,” I said. “It’s not taking advantage to make love to someone who loves you.”
“It is if they’re fifteen years younger than you and don’t know a good god damn thing about the world,” Grant said. “It is if you’re being played by a being as old as Jesus who was probably fucking someone while he was being nailed to the cross. I will not be manipulated. And I will not be corrupted.”
Grant crossed himself, grabbed his gun and walked out.
I slumped.
And broke, dry sobs making me shake.
Carvi came in a moment later.
“Well damn. I thought he’d give in.” Carvi shrugged. “Oh well, more for me.”
I squeezed my eyes closed. “Carvi,” I said, voice breaking, “I am so, so out of the mood now. Please untie me.”
Carvi did. No jokes.
I curled up and cried, and the big, bad, corrupting vampire curled up behind me, holdin’ me.
My heart ached and my head pounded as sobs ripped through me. I curled up tighter and held my legs to my chest.
