Phaeton took another look for himself. There was nothing overly voluptuous or buxom about any part of her. It was just that all parts of her were so very . . . luscious. Aware of his attention, she turned and made eye contact across the crowded salon. Gazes locked, the little vixen opened her mouth ever so slightly. A pink tongue swept the underside of a peaked upper lip. The room, for a second, collapsed in size around them. The gesture caused a number of his vital organs to rush a surge of blood to his favorite extremity.
Phaeton tipped his glass for a last swallow.
A white-gloved steward entered the salon and rang a melodious set of chimes. The dinner bell. Another attendant, also liveried in a brass-buttoned jacket, opened a double set of doors. Georgiana turned to leave, but not in the direction of the dining room.
Peripherally, his gaze took in the delicate laces and bright colored silks of the fashionably attired as they drifted into supper. He dipped a nod, here and there, as the beau monde passed in a blur. A few oddly familiar faces, but for the life of him, he could not place the familiar spirits. He set his empty glass on a silver tray and wound his way through the room, in the opposite direction of sustenance. This evening his appetites lay elsewhere.
Phaeton stepped through the hatch onto the promenade deck. The night was clear and warm with a bit of moisture in the air. A sparkling carpet of stars swept across the sky overhead. He strolled toward the front of the ship and thought about a cigar, then thought better of it.
He found her standing near the starboard bow. He could have pressed close, but instead, kept some distance between them. She turned and struck a sultry pose with her back to the rail.
They were alone. He did not know how he knew this, for he made no inspection of the deck. And frankly he did not care. Her gown rippled with the breeze. “Lift your skirt.”
She tilted her head and rolled her eyes in the prettiest fashion. Not a refusal, but more of a flirtation. Her hand caressed a curve of hip and lifted her skirt enough to expose a dainty turn of ankle. His arousal was prodigious, yet he continued to trifle with her. He used two fingers to gesture upward.
Inch by inch, her skirt and petticoats rose. A delightful show of calf. A pretty knee. A silk-flowered garter. And above the top of her hose, a hint of peach-colored flesh.
With the slightest measure of control left, Phaeton closed the distance between them. He pressed her against the ship’s rail. Not too hard. Certainly not as hard as his burgeoning need. “Georgiana?”
“Mr. Black?” Droplets of perspiration, like tiny diamonds, sparkled across her nose and cheeks.
“Please, call me Phaeton.” He kissed the bridge of her nose and tasted salt—and a whiff of something spicy. The stubble of his beard brushed her cheekbone as he worked his way toward an earlobe. He reached under her gathered skirt and felt her body shudder. “Kiss me, Phaeton.”
He lowered his gaze to her mouth. “And if I kiss you, what is my reward?”
He enjoyed the playful squint in her eyes and saucy turn to her chin almost more than her words. “As if a kiss is not reward enough? What do you desire?”
He slipped his hands under her bustle and rubbed gently, as softly as a balmy breeze off the East China Sea. “More.”
The corners of her mouth lifted. She wrapped a limber leg around him. Good girl. “Then I shall see you snugly sheathed.”
He found the ribbon on her lacy undergarment and pulled. Silk fabric slipped over a rounded cheek, exposing a lovely derriere. Firm with just the right amount of jiggle. He moved in-between her thighs and slipped the tips of his fingers along the sensitive inside flesh of her limbs. She spread her legs wider.
Phaeton smiled. He didn’t even have to ask.
He caught a flash of scarlet in her eyes and caught his breath. Just a ripple of color, but even a hint of suspicion was bad enough. He quickly lifted silk pantalettes and retied the bow. “Arousing to see you again, Georgiana, or should I say Mademoiselle Gorgós?” He stepped away.
Deep crimson swirled behind midnight blue eyes. Her flesh took on a curiously ethereal form as something reptilian materialized before him. Scaly but feminine, with a pale luminescence. Her dress unraveled to lay bare high-set breasts and rounded hips. A gossamer snake of silk swirled over her nude form, entwining itself around voluptuous curves.
“Ah, there you are.” Somewhat wistfully, one side of his lip curled upward.
Fully formed, she was feline and serpentine all at once. Her skin glistened with pearl-sized, translucent scales that rippled with each rise and fall of breath. Her new, darker gaze traveled the length of his frame, admiring, exploring. She grabbed hold of his lapels and pressed him back against the ship’s rails. Every fiber of this female entity appeared to quake with anticipation. Sweeping aside her meandering skirt, she pressed his hand to her Venus mound, but his fingers retreated. In fact, his arm jerked backward. Awkward, even for Phaeton.
Regretfully, he stepped away. “Not that my soul is worth saving, but I make it a point never to lay with otherworld creatures.” His tsk was more of a sigh. “Pity—you might have saved this for later—crawled into my berth for the suffocating climax?”
A shock wave of energy knocked him down and sent him sliding along the polished wood deck. He lay stunned momentarily, as the female demon swarmed over him, thrusting herself against his manly parts. He groaned. “Such a naughty succubus.” Between caresses, this night creature would attempt to mount, then strangle him. There was nothing left to do but feign a struggle.
At some point he would have to extract himself from her sexual alchemy. But not . . . immediately. He rather enjoyed this part of the macabre dance. There would soon come a delightful, helpless paralysis. He would chance a moment or two of pleasure before those invisible bonds took hold and began to choke.
Irises contracted into vertical slits as bulbous orbs swiveled up and down his torso. Georgiana had become decidedly less attractive.
The buttons on his trousers loosed. “Dangerous play, love.”
Phaeton lifted his head as his cock sprung to life. It couldn’t hurt to ask. “Might the naughty succubus swallow the dragon?”
Her answer came in the form of a pink tongue covered in shimmering scales and a long hiss. Soon, she would genuflect on his chest. With nostrils flared, bearing down hard, the she-devil would squeeze with all her considerable might and crush the air from his lungs, the living soul from his body.
Her scaled tongue lengthened and tickled his earlobe. Clawed fingers wrapped around his brick-hard prick and stroked. Good God, he ached for release.
The vixen’s luscious mouth uttered a deep, throaty sigh and moved lower. “Cocks up, Mr. Black.”
“Mmm, the pleasure is mine.” He reached into thin air.
“Got nothing to do with your pleasure, sir. They’re comin’ fer ye. Shake a leg now and be quick about it. We made Port o’London last night.”
Phaeton’s eyelids flew open. The blurry visage of an old sea dog squinted down at him. He jerked awake at the sight of the gray-bearded geezer. “Crew sez they lost their share at cards last evening.”
Phaeton rubbed his eyes.
His tête-à-tête with a night terror had been a stimulating hallucination—while it had lasted. He blinked again, and brought a wild bristle of chin hairs into focus. “Good God. That you, Mr. Grubb?” He barely recognized the croak in his own voice.
Rummy old Joe Grubb flattened weathered lips into a thin line. “Crew claims ye cheated ’em.”
Despite the blistering hangover, he vaguely remembered a card game as well as a good deal of grog guzzling. “Preposterous.” Lifting his pounding head, he reached down to scratch his crotch. A rat chewed on a trouser button.
Phaeton hurled himself out of his hammock. “Bloody hell.” He caught a swinging length of knotted rope and managed to remain upright. The rodent skittered away into the deeper shadows of the crew’s quarters. Listing to one side, he called after the creature. “Georgiana?”
He ventu
red a squint about his surroundings. “Where am I?” This was no luxury ocean liner but a rat hole in the bowels of a seagoing vessel. A listen to the chorus of snores indicated a number of men slept in the hammocks strung about the hold. He was in a cargo ship. But not the Topaz. And what had happened to America Jones?
He recalled making port in Shanghai. There had been a screeching argument, as well as a long, pointed weapon tossed at him. On further consideration—he shook his head—he was quite certain that the altercation between him and America had not been the cause of their separation. Again, Phaeton tried to shake the whiskey fog from his brain.
The gruff old seabird poked him in the rib. “Crew sez ye could see through their cards,”—his one good eye circled about—“as if by magic.”
A blast of rotten breath sent Phaeton backward. “Possibly, but—”
Something surly and imposing stepped through the hatch tossing a cutlass back and forth between clenched hands. Good God. The ogre-sized sailor did seem familiar. Phaeton struggled to recall last evening through a cloud of smoke and spirits.
“Now see here—” He straightened up and backed away from the angry seaman. “Let me assure you, I have no peculiar ability at cards—luck of the draw.” A broad swipe of the sailor’s sword took out several hammocks, which fell onto a cold damp floor. Phaeton grimaced. More rudely awakened sailors with pockets lightened by grog and card play.
His heart rate and blood flow elevated to the correct level of alarm. He feigned a left and tilted sideways, barely avoiding the next slash of the blade. Phaeton retreated as a number of rousted sea dogs fell in behind the hovering thug with the menacing sword. Air buffeted past the end of his nose from yet another swing.
No time to lose.
Using a bit of potent lift, learned from a man full of such unearthly tricks, Phaeton flung himself into the air, banked off the ceiling, and landed atop a sleeping sailor. Arms out to his sides for balance, he grabbed hold of an overhead line and pushed off the grunting chest beneath his boots. He aimed straight for the seamen in pursuit, swinging across the barracks, head down, balls out, he struck the lead man. The rest of the crew toppled over like ninepins.
Phaeton released the rope and landed near the main hatch. He grabbed his hat from a nearby hook and scooped up the loose cutlass sliding across the floorboards.
Joe Grubb broadened a toothless grin. “Cut and run, Mr. Black.”
Phaeton flicked the brim of his bowler. “Pricks to the wind, Chief.”
He bolted down into the cargo hold, removing belaying pins as he ran. A flurry of cargo net enveloped, then whisked him up into the air above the cargo hatch. Several good swings of the blade loosed the web of rope and he dropped onto the wooden deck. Halfway across the gangplank, Phaeton glanced back. Christ.
He teetered precariously at the sight. The whole bloody lot of them were following on behind. He turned and made a dash along a pier stacked with cargo and crowded with dockworkers. Vaulting over large bales of cotton, he squeezed through stacks of tea chests and skirted cartloads of whiskey. A sprint over a footbridge led him away from the chaos of the docks and into the refuge of a covered alley.
He ducked into a dank niche off the lane and waited for his pursuers to pass by. Once the seamen were well ahead, he darted back into the lane and made his way toward the cabstand on Westferry Road. Trotting along behind a loaded drayage cart, he was steps away from the bustling thoroughfare when one of the seamen gave a shout from behind.
Phaeton pivoted toward the surly bloke who came at him hoisting a belaying pin. He drew a pistol from his coat, knowing full well the chamber held no bullets. The sailor lunged just as a fast-moving carriage passed between them. The brief respite afforded him the opportunity to abandon all sense of propriety. He wrenched open the door of the passing vehicle and tossed himself inside.
From the floor of the carriage, amid a flutter of pretty lace ruffles and petticoats, Phaeton perused shapely legs covered in pale stockings. “My word, things are looking up.”
JILLIAN STONE spent years as an advertising creative, winning many national awards, including the Clio and the New York Art Director’s Club Gold. She is a member of Romance Writers of America, winner of a Golden Heart award, and is now multi-published in historical romantic suspense and steampunk romance. Jill lives just outside Temecula, in southern California’s wine country, and is currently working on new novels for both series.
Please visit her on the web at www.jillianstone.com.
In the gaslit streets of Victorian London, phantoms rule the night, demons dance till dawn, and one supernatural detective dares to be seduced by the greatest power of all . . .
He’s the Man with the Magic Touch
A master of deduction, seduction, and other midnight maneuvers, Phaeton Black is Scotland Yard’s secret weapon against things that go bump in the night. His prodigious gifts as a paranormal investigator are as legendary as his skills as a lover, his weakness for wicked women as notorious as his affection for absinthe. But when he’s asked to hunt down a fanged femme fatale who drains her victims of blood, he walks right into the arms of the most dangerous woman he’s ever known . . .
She’s the Devilish Miss Jones
Pressing a knife to his throat—and demanding he make love to her—Miss America Jones uses Phaeton as a willing shield against the gang of pirates chasing her. As deadly as she is, with a derringer tucked in her garter, Miss Jones is not the vampiric killer he’s been staking out—but she may be just what Phaeton needs to crack the case. As the daughter of a Cajun witch, she possesses uncanny powers. As a fearless fighter, she can handle anything from Egyptian mummies to Jack the Ripper. But when an ancient evil is unleashed on the world, she could be his only salvation . . . or ultimate sacrifice.
A master of paranormal deduction—and paramour seduction—Phaeton Black has a knack for bumping into things that go bump in the night, from ghoulies and ghosties to long-leggedy beauties . . .
Mooning for the Moonstone
Barely escaping the clutches of a succulent succubus, Phaeton Black returns to London only to get sucked into another unearthly scheme. Professor Lovecraft has been tinkering with the secrets of life and death, replacing body parts with the latest mechanical marvels. To succeed, he needs to tap the power of the fabled Moonstone—and he needs Phaeton’s help. Of course, Phaeton would prefer to investigate the more interesting body parts of Miss America Jones. Perhaps, bringing his lady friend along for the ride won’t be to too much trouble . . .
Shanghaied in Shanghai
The bewilderingly beautiful and bountifully gifted daughter of a Cajun witch, Miss Jones is always up for an adventure, especially with Mr. Black as her traveling companion. But when Phaeton is mysteriously shanghaied in Shanghai, America thinks he’s run out on her. Stranded in the Orient—and steaming mad—she’s prepared to look under every stone for the missing detective. The case has put them both in the most compromising positions, but this time, Miss Jones is on top and Mr. Black is at the bottom . . . of a truly infernal plot.
BRAVA BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2013 Jillian Stone
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
Brava and the B logo are Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
ISBN: 978-0-7582-6900-3
First Electronic edition: July 2013
ISBN-13: 978-0-7582-8912-4
ISBN-10: 0—7582—8912—X
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The Miss Education of Dr. Exeter (Paranormal Investigator) Page 27
