“Okay, Mom.” I smiled at her. “But why couldn’t I stay home with auntie?” I didn’t want to go to the Austrian Ambassador’s stupid Christmas party. The ambassador’s son kissed me once, and it was awful. The last thing I wanted was to see that boy again.
Mom angled one of her perfect eyebrows in a pointed arch. “I thought you wanted to come with us—”
That had been the truth before Slippery Tongue had slobbered all over my face, and his hands had become tentacles.
“And Marella has a big date,” Dad added.
“I think her fiancé is going to propose tonight.” Mom’s voice warmed up, her eyes going all bright and watery as she looked at Dad.
I knew they were going to kiss. My parents were always very affectionate. Mom said it was her Italian Prince that had thawed her British demeanor, but she didn’t seem to mind all that public display of affection, so I stopped them. “I could’ve stayed home by myself,” I said.
“Of course, but since you seemed enthusiastic when we went to buy your gown for tonight, I thought you were looking forward to this party, and now we are too far away from home to take you back.” Mom smiled her sweet smile at me, and I felt like a spoiled brat again.
How could she do that with just a smile? Was it one those super powers only parents got?
“Okay—” The loud noise of brakes cut the rest of my sentence.
The car spun and spun and spun, then turned several times. My seatbelt strapped me to the backseat, strangling me, and I screamed. My head knocked the glass window more than once. When the Jaguar stopped, I could see little, and blood covered my face. It took me a moment to realize that I was hanging upside down. The rush I felt in my head and the dizziness that made me nauseous made sudden sense.
“Mom? Dad?” I tried to free myself, but I couldn’t move my arm and reach the buckle to release my seatbelt. Tearing pain followed. Was it my arm? Everything hurt. “Mom! Dad!”
Nobody answered my cries. Two dark forms dangled in the front of the car. But inside the Jaguar, everything was wrong. The ceiling—or it was the floor—was too close. I called my parents again and again, but they never answered.
Loud steps echoed outside.
“Help!” I screamed. “Help us!”
Stiletto boots stopped just outside my window. A heartbeat passed before the face of a woman appeared, framed by the jagged glass. Black eyes stared into mine. Cold sapped through my bones when the woman’s mouth flattened into a thin line as if she were smiling at me.
From the front of the car, a moan emerged, drawing the woman’s attention away from me. Next, a strong wind swept my hair in every direction, and my head lolled. Behind the veil of blood, I saw arms reaching inside the carcass of the Jaguar. First my father, then my mother were yanked away from their seats, their bodies following the contour of the car as if spineless, like rag dolls.
Terror mounted inside me, but I couldn’t scream, only silently sob. Crunching, snapping, then sucking were all I heard. The scent of old coins filled my nostrils, making me gag because I knew it was wrong and evil, and it had to do with the terrible silence that had followed the other horrible sounds. Then the steps resumed, and the cruel face was staring at me again. Next, I was being thrown out of the car and into a field. I landed with my head at a strange angle. My parents lay a few meters ahead, under the harsh light of a street lamp.
“Mom… Dad,” I whispered, but it was just a wheeze, gurgling with the blood seeping out of my mouth.
The woman’s face appeared in front of me. “Finally something fresh tonight,” she said, and her voice was as cruel as her mocking expression. Then she dipped her head, and her mouth closed against my throat.
Pain exploded before my eyes as the woman’s head bobbed. The suckling sound I had heard before resumed. The light from the streetlamp flickered and dimmed. Or maybe it was just my brain shutting down, but I couldn’t see my parents any longer. It pained me more than the agony I was enduring at the hands of that monster.
Slowly, my consciousness slipped away. There was no tunnel or light at the end of it. Just pitch black surrounding me. Then the suckling sound stopped. It was abrupt. One moment I felt the mouth at my throat, the next it was gone, and shrieks perforated my eardrums. Wings blew over me, turning me over. A blur of movements filled my impaired sight. I thought I saw arms, legs, even teeth that were too long and sharp.
Then someone was at my side. I would have recoiled when a hand reached down to caress my face, but I was paralyzed.
Eyes of the deepest green stared into mine. “You’ll be fine,” the man said…
Chapter Twenty-Two
Fabian
I felt the pain I was causing Stella, forcing her to remember her past, but she deserved the whole truth, not a sweetened version of it. So I kept talking, even if it was tearing me apart to hurt her.
“That night, Malvina had summoned me to her villa in the Appian Way. She had in mind to have some fun with a few courtesans she had rented for the occasion—pain-sluts who would do anything to be punished by Malvina. I’d never been into pain or humiliation—that was the main reason I parted ways from my maker as soon as I could—and I refused her offer. She wasn’t pleased and told me that I would pay for my insubordination. Other times, she had threatened to take it out on innocent bystanders because she knew it would hurt me more than any torture. I thought she was bluffing and left.”
Even though, during the past years, I had rehearsed the story in my mind a few times, the next part was hard to tell. I looked at Stella, and she nodded for me to continue.
“Only, this time, Malvina had decided to teach me a lesson. I was driving back to my house when I heard the screaming. I saw the overturned car by the side of the road, and the two bodies lying still—no heartbeats. Malvina was busy, draining a young girl. I didn’t think. My body reacted before I knew what I was doing. It was the first time I attacked my sirra, and like tonight, she was too shocked to fight me back. Fortunately, your parents’ car was equipped with a satellite tracking system that warned the police and sent a patrol car and an ambulance right away. Vampires had just come out in Europe, and Malvina couldn’t risk a diplomatic fuckup, so she left before the police arrived, giving me time to stabilize you. But you needed lots of blood, and the amount I gave you bonded us.” I paused, waiting for Stella to assimilate my words.
Her shuddered breath was followed by a sob. I hardened myself against the impulse to turn her in my arms and kiss her sorrow away. I would have made love to Stella with my hands and mouth, just to give her respite from reality. Finally, she turned and pressed her hand against my chest to push me away. I didn’t resist and stepped back, giving her space. Keeping the physical distance was harder than I thought, but I respected her need.
“I’m sorry. It’s my fault that Malvina is out to hurt you.” Stifling my urge to touch her, to caress her arms to keep the cold at bay, I closed my hands by my side. “She has wanted to make me pay for my refusal for a long time. What better way than using you like a puppet to strike against me?”
“Why me?” Stella asked.
I stepped forward. “Because when vampires bond, it’s forever, and if anything happened to you, I would be carrying the burden of it for the rest of my life.”
“Why?” she asked again. This time, her voice shook, and her hand flew to her chest.
“Why do you think I’ve never moved to Los Angeles, even when I mostly work with American studios?”
She stared at me, her bottom lip slightly trembling.
“I’ve never wanted to leave you, and I’ve always traveled back to Rome in between shoots, no matter where I was because I had to check that you were okay.”
Her head shook. “You were gone for months at a time.”
A soft chuckle echoed in my chest. “Try days. I flew back and forth more than twenty times when I was working in Tibet.” As a vampire, I didn’t tire easily, but I didn’t particularly enjoy flying and went through all that traveling only f
or Stella.
“I never saw you. Your house was always dark—”
“I hid my whereabouts so that nobody knew I was in Rome. So that Malvina didn’t know I was home and wouldn’t put two and two together.”
“All the parties you threw? All those women?”
“Those too were for Malvina’s sake. If she thought that I didn’t have a favorite, she wouldn’t bother to look closer into my private life.” I saw in her hurt expression the question she wouldn’t ask. “Sex and feeding go hand in hand, and I need to feed.” I wouldn’t apologize for my nature. Mortals didn’t have to make amends for their need to breathe. Still, my words hurt her again, so I let my body speak for me.
Before she could protest, I reached her and took her face in my hands, then I slid one to her nape and pulled her closer to me, until her mouth was almost touching mine, but not quite yet. Dipping my head, I brushed her lips. Stella didn’t respond at first, her mind fighting the primal nature of her physical response to me. I could feel it in the way her breath hitched. She could have transformed her stillness into action to push me away, but she didn’t move. I pressed my hand against the small of her back. Her warmth enveloped me, and I felt the moment her will lost its battle, leaving her vulnerable to my touch. Her body relaxed under my hands, and she molded against me, surrendering.
“Stella,” I whispered against her throat as I crushed her soft body to mine. “I’ll take care of you.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Stella
Despair, rage, sadness, and other emotions I couldn’t name filled my heart until I thought it would explode. But then Fabian stepped closer, and I discovered that my heart could expand to host longing as well. And even desire, but it felt wrong to add that sentiment to the already overflowing cauldron lodged inside my chest.
Fabian had related devastating news after devastating news, but all that had taken for me to melt in his arms was his nearness. Nothing else.
“Just hold me,” I said.
In response, he rocked me as if we were slow dancing, his hand caressing my back in long strokes. His gesture was what I needed, and for several heartbeats, he was the only thought in my mind, erasing the pain and the hurt from my heart. And in that sweet, suspended moment, where nothing else mattered, I started falling for Fabian. I’ve always had a celebrity crush on him, but until tonight, he had been only an exciting fantasy, a dream that was both scary and sexy, a figment of my imagination I would cling to when reality was too stark to contemplate. But he wasn’t just the handsome bad boy the press was so fond of. Fabian was so much more to me.
Sweeping his arm under my knees, he cradled me to his chest and walked the whole length of a narrow corridor. He entered a bedroom and deposited me on a soft mattress. Instead of pressing his body against mine as I had expected him to do, Fabian lay next to me, his green eyes taking me in, his hand seeking mine.
He brought our united hands to his lips for a kiss. “I’ll give you anything you want.”
I knew that there wouldn’t be another moment like this one, with all the heartache and the pain, just as beautiful and perfect because it was raw and true.
“Give me one perfect night.” Before reality crashed in.
Fabian’s eyes flared with a burning light, and his body tensed. After what looked like a long internal debate, he finally nodded, then lowered his lips to mine, and his free hand latched to my nape.
I kissed him back, moving my body against his, my hand on his shirt, unbuttoning it with trembling fingers. Under my fingers, his chest felt like sculpted marble, but he was no statue. Fabian moaned low in his throat when my touch lowered to his abs, tracing the contour of his defined muscles. His hands too began a path of discovery across my body, lowering the silk of my bodice, cupping my breasts. I whimpered when he teased my nipples to taut peaks, but pressed against his hand when he stopped and searched his lips for another kiss. I opened to him when his tongue sought entrance, my head swimming already. Then my body took control over my mind, and my hand lowered to his waist. This time, I would let nothing come between us. I yanked the leather belt from his pants, opened the button, and lowered the zipper. My fingers inched inside his pants, and I found him hard and pushing against my touch.
It was all new to me, this giving and getting, this feeling of floating and sinking, the anticipation of it all, yet it felt natural with Fabian. His hand reaching under my skirt, raising the fabric higher and higher still, uncovering me, baring me to him. Then he pushed the gown over my breasts, my throat, raising my arms with it until he slid it over my head, and I was completely naked under his stare. He kept my united wrists on the headboard, his other hand trailing across my breasts, down toward my navel, then dipping at the junction between my legs, brushing me there. I was molten lava under his soft touch. His finger curled against my bud, and his mouth suckled at my nipple.
The intensity of his caress almost made me come undone, but he paused long enough to let me breathe and regain control. Not for long though; his lips followed a scorching path down to my core, stoking my senses once again, faster and harder than before. His tongue lapped and teased and joined his finger at my entrance. Soon, I was panting, moving against him, and whimpering again when a second finger entered me. Fabian didn’t pause when I reached the brink but pushed me over with his tongue flicking at my bud, and his fingers pinching my nipple. I screamed his name, riding explosive pleasure for as long as his touch coaxed the most exquisite of sensations.
“Stella—” His voice was but a hoarse whisper, but commanded me to open my eyes and look at him.
Dark green pools stared back at me. His chiseled mouth was parted, and the expression on his face was tense, but I wasn’t scared of him any longer.
“I want you to be my first,” I said, reading the hesitation in his stillness.
He lowered his lips for the sweetest of kisses, my taste and his mixing in my mouth.
Rolling over me, he said, “I’ve never received a gift so precious.”
His knees parted my legs, making space for him. He positioned his hardness against my core. He pushed, opening me, and I held my breath, waiting for the pain. He kissed me deeper, stroking the inside of my mouth. Mimicking the thrusts of his tongue, he filled me, slowly stretching my passage, retreating one moment, only to press inside me the next. His hands caressed me, traveling down to my thighs before hooking under my knees to pull my legs over his back where I anchored them. The new position opened me completely to his invasion. He leaned to kiss me again, surging forward at the same time. With one final thrust, he tore through my virginal barrier, filling me completely. The sharp pain was soon replaced by warmth as he moved inside me, pushing his body deeper into mine. Pleasure started mounting again, stealing my breath, my thoughts, sending me into the stratosphere.
Then his fangs descended against my throat, and fear suddenly gripped me.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Fabian
Stella’s blood called to me, and I couldn’t ignore the summoning any longer.
Since our first kiss, her scent had been driving me crazy, but now that I had breached her hymen, the tantalizing bouquet of her vital essence was too much to bear, and I couldn’t have controlled my fangs if my life had depended on it.
Exercising control over my baser instinct didn’t come naturally to me; I had never had to. I didn’t bed virgins and never formed an attachment to my feeders. One night with Stella, and I had broken all my rules at once. But I had always known it would be like this with her. I waited until I couldn’t wait any longer before approaching her because our bond would make everything more difficult. But also better, stronger, more vivid, and worth waiting for a hundred years.
My fangs descended on her soft skin, piercing her flesh, and I exulted at the pleasure driving inside me, reaching so deep I gasped against her throat. Her blood flowed in my mouth, sweet and fresh, sating within a few gulps the hunger constantly gnawing at me. The demon in me wanted more, more of her tight
sheath around me, more of her essence, more of her moans and cries. With the last of my coherent thoughts, I realized that I would never have enough of Stella, then I drove into her, thrusting mercilessly, sucking from her vein.
Her moans became louder, faster, following the rhythms of my body, softening under me, then arching against me, coming off the mattress as she squeezed me deeper inside her. So deep, I didn’t know where she ended and I began. Her face transformed in the ecstasy of the moment. Before such a sight, I was one with my demon, and we had never seen anything as beautiful as her. Her soft cries became mewls, then she collapsed to the bed, taking me down with her.
“Fabian,” she whispered, and even her voice had changed.
My name murmured like a prayer was my undoing, but I wouldn’t hurt her. I forced my demon to the back of my mind and I drove into her one last time, letting my body find its own release.
There were no words left, only her fast breathing and the frantic thumps of her heart. I cradled her head in my hands and sought her swollen lips for a long kiss. Still hard, I reveled in the sheer joy of being inside her. My demon was still lurching in the back of my mind, trying to escape, demanding I pound into her again, and again, and again, until she bled, feeding from her, draining her, until our bloodlust was sated.
But this was Stella underneath me, and I would have starved before I hurt her. I had doubted my strength earlier, when I discovered she was untouched by men; I thought my demon would override my senses, depriving me of my will. But I now knew that she made me stronger. And weaker, at the same time. One glance at her half-closed eyes, at her soft glow that was the result of our lovemaking, and I was powerless. I would do anything she asked.
Desired: A Vampire Blood Courtesans Romance Page 11
