Medusa's Heart: A Contemporary Paranormal Erotic Romance Novel

by Joey W. Hill

  “Well, I didn’t think that a beard and moustache on a woman could look pretty,” she admitted. “But Charlie has made it intriguingly…attractive.”

  “That’s as much to do with her subject matter,” he said gallantly.

  “I agree,” Charlie said with a smile. “It’s very difficult to downplay your beauty, Medusa, but that’s another reason I chose the costume I did. It and the glasses mask it somewhat, because another thing they will be looking for is a woman of extraordinary beauty.”

  “Beauty is not only in the eye of the beholder; it is inside the beholdee and shines outward.”

  Yvette had arrived in her usual silent way. She included them both in her next directives. “This is a small town, off the beaten path. We’ve been promoted as a typical circus. People don’t know otherwise until they attend, so today you should be relatively safe moving around the town, especially with your disguise. But should you sense anything amiss—”

  “We’ll return here and you can send us back into the portal in a heartbeat,” John said. He gripped Medusa’s hand. “I won’t take any risks with her. I did some training at one of the bases not far from here, so I know the area. Doesn’t mean I’m any more comfortable with it, but she’s insisting on Starbuck’s.”

  “It’s a universal addiction,” Yvette said dryly, and met Medusa’s gaze. “We must occasionally live so that those who would try to hamper our existence don’t gain the upper hand on our hearts and souls.”

  The vampire stepped closer and reached beneath the hat to run a light finger along Tunneltrap’s dark body. Though he was concealed by Medusa’s black hair, the vampire had no trouble locating him and giving him the stroke without disturbing Medusa’s silky ringlets. “They will be all right,” she told Medusa. “Perhaps when you return you can spend the afternoon in the forest with them, letting them enjoy the trees and nature in the way intended, to thank them for their agreement for this.”

  “How did you know I was worried about them?”

  “You have rather transparent features.” The vampire’s long nail slid along Medusa’s cheek, an intriguing caress. When John shifted closer, Yvette tossed him an unreadable look.

  “Think I will seduce her away from you, human male? I would be far more likely to seduce you both into my bed. I like variety.”

  She stepped back before John could respond, though Medusa wasn’t sure he would have. He looked as if he knew the best way to deal with Yvette’s challenges was to withhold comment. Medusa was imagining the two of them twined with the vampire in her large bed, her wickedly curved nails scraping over the scars on John’s back. The scars Medusa had given him. Hers. She found John’s hand. Yvette noted it, a glint in her eyes.

  “Ah, young love. It has so much room to grow and learn.” Moving to Charlie, she tunneled her fingers through the dressmaker’s long hair and took a firm grip, drawing her head back as she shifted behind her. Charlie leaned against the vampire and offered her throat without hesitation. Medusa held her breath at the sensual picture as Yvette didn’t immediately take the invitation. Instead, she cupped the young woman’s breast and stroked the nipple to tautness beneath her thin dress.

  “Don’t be late returning. Performers are required to be back on premises two hours before show time.”

  Yvette was speaking to them both, forcing Medusa to pull her attention back to her. John was giving Yvette a barely masked exasperated look. Yet consciously or not, he had shifted into an almost mirror position behind Medusa, and had evidence pressed against her that he wasn’t entirely unaffected by the erotic sight of the two women.

  Yvette studied Medusa as she slid her fangs slowly along Charlie’s carotid. Charlie lifted her hand to touch Yvette’s, but at an admonishing noise from the vampire, she dropped it back to her side, giving her Mistress full access to whatever she desired. “Do you feel ready for the performance tonight, Medusa?” Yvette asked. “Any stage fright?”

  “No,” Medusa managed. Fortunately, it was true. As she and Merc had practiced the flight sequences in the main tent, or Big Top as they called it, she’d become more comfortable with what was expected. It was just flying. Choreographing aerial maneuvers had been surprisingly enjoyable, and Merc had seemed dedicated to helping her do her best.

  Despite her snakes’ reaction to him, she couldn’t point to anything the part-incubus had done that could be called inappropriate. She stayed on guard with him because of the way he looked at her, but she wasn’t sure if he could control that. As she’d learned the timing of her banking and turns, he’d more than once been there to steady her so she didn’t hit a center pole or crash into other props or the tent walls. The slide of his hands along her body had been intimate, no mistaking it, but the male was an incubus. Clara had told her there were certain things he couldn’t turn off. Not yet.

  “Most sex demons don’t have long lives,” she’d told Medusa. “A lot of them get destroyed by Dark or Light Guardians who are in charge of watching out over nonhuman interactions with the human world. That’s because the older sex demons get, the more they lose touch with whatever humanity they have. A fully mature incubus might gorge himself on the life energy of a whole village in a single night and leave nothing but husks. Not because they need that much food, but because once they start, they’re like addicts. They don’t stop. ‘Eating’ becomes everything.”

  She tuned back in to the present, aware of John watching her. Yvette was also, while continuing to play with Charlie’s quivering body. Medusa smiled brightly. “Truly, I’m ready. I’m looking forward to it. When variety happened on the island, that usually meant bad things. Someone trying to attack me, a need to hide or fight for my life. Here, something different happening is a good thing.”

  “Unless it’s the Big Top coming down because someone didn’t set a center pole correctly, or one of the clowns misses his cue because he decided to get drunk before the show,” Yvette said. She straightened, keeping her hand on Charlie’s shoulder to hold her in place. “But I expect that’s still better than fighting for your life. Enjoy your outing. I plan to take my meal from Charlie and enjoy her charms.” The vampire curled a lock of the dressmaker’s long red-gold hair around her fingers. “You may stay and watch.”

  “We have a mocha latte waiting,” John said firmly, ignoring Yvette’s chuckle as he tugged Medusa out of the tent. Medusa glanced over her shoulder, mesmerized as Yvette dipped her head and bit into Charlie’s shoulder without any other foreplay. Yet Charlie’s expression was one of bliss, her eyes half closed, lips parted. An arousing plea broke from between them as Yvette slipped a hand inside the waistband of her skirt to massage between her legs while she drank her meal.

  The pressure of John’s grip drew Medusa fully outside the tent. He let the flap fall back into place as they moved away. While he seemed as if he wanted them away from the heady stimulation, he had his arm around her, his hand molded over her hip, his fingertips kneading the top of her buttock in an urgent way she recognized. Pressing closer to him, she slipped her hand inside the opening of his button down shirt to caress his chest, the rough curling hairs there. When he glanced down at her, she saw the same desire in his expression that she was sure was in her own.

  Quickening his pace, he ducked into one of the storage tents, populated by crates and a series of mirrors leaning against them. With a firm hold on her hand, he positioned her before one of the mirrors and then clasped her waist, standing behind her to meet her gaze in the reflection.

  Bending, he kissed her throat as Yvette had Charlie’s. When he used his teeth, a bolt of sensation went through Medusa. His capable hands slid over her hips and abdomen and up to caress her breasts.

  “You wanted to stay and watch,” he said.

  “So did you,” she answered, breathless.

  “Yeah. Vampires are dangerous that way. You can get caught in that net they spin and never find your way out. But all I want right now is you.”

  She purred, laying her head back on his shoulde
r, and drew in a breath as his hand slid into her leggings, down into her panties, and stroked between her legs as Yvette had done to Charlie. “I want you wet for me, not just her,” he growled, shifting his other hand to her throat, clasping right below the silken hairs of the beard Charlie had made so realistic. Yet it was still her beneath all of it, responding to the things he did to her so easily.

  “I am,” she promised. She struggled against his hold, not because she wanted away, but because it did something to her, feeling his strength pitted against hers, overwhelming her, taking her…

  The climax was short but intense, shuddering through her as he watched her in the mirror, her parted lips and glazed eyes. He kept stroking her through the aftershocks. “My beautiful snake-girl,” he said. “Mine.”

  “Yes.” She turned weakly in his arms, and he let her. Curling her fingers in his shirt, she swept her lashes down. “I want to do that for you.”

  She was pressed against his abdomen, so she could feel his erection. His gaze burned into hers. She’d never done that for him, though she’d tasted him that once on the island. She vividly remembered how he’d reacted to that brief touch and, now that she’d seen how he reacted to her volatile response when his lips and tongue were all over her sex, she wanted to see if he reacted with the same near-violent pleasure.

  He seemed to be weighing whether or not to allow her to serve him that way. She sank to her knees, her fingers hooking into his belt, and looked up at him, lips parted and eyes conveying how much she wanted to pleasure her Master.

  He muttered a quiet oath and put his hand to his belt, unbuckling it with that clinking sound that tingled through her nerves. “Do a good job and I’ll buy you a chocolate muffin to go with the latte.”

  His voice was gruff and she hid a smile behind the bright heat of her desire. When she knelt and wrapped her hand around his base, she relished the steel heat of him, the taste, the tensing of his muscles as she slid down his length with lips, tongue, the wet heat of her mouth, determined to give him the same pleasure he gave her.

  Muffin or no muffin.

  She followed her own desires and instincts, as well as his firm guidance to learn the way of it, and discovered she loved the way he reacted, the contraction of his thigh muscles under her forearms, the way he thrust himself into her mouth, the fervent words he said to her as he came closer to his release. It was a carnal version of the rapture she’d felt at Athena’s feet; the hint of what service could mean in a sexual context. It had teased her adolescent mind then, and came to fruition now. When she raised her lashes, his eyes were like gray fire. She somehow knew that him seeing her look up with a pleasure-filled gaze, while her mouth was stretched by his thrusting cock, was what sent him catapulting off that ledge.

  She fought to swallow him down, not spill a single drop of the salty, thick liquid of his seed. His groans sent shivers of pleasure through her body, amazing her when it provoked her own quickly recovering response. She wanted him again.

  She wondered at that, trembling as he slowly slid from her mouth and tucked himself back into his jeans, refastening them before moving to a crate to sit down. When she shifted so she was still kneeling at his feet, all without rising, that heat kindled in his eyes anew.

  He lifted her up onto his lap, making her straddle him. Her legs curved around his hips as he wrapped his arms around her and pressed his face into her breasts and throat. When he spread kisses over both, she dropped her head back. Her breath caught in her throat as he sealed the heated moisture of his mouth over her left nipple through her clothes. He paid equal, thorough attention to the right.

  At last he lifted his head and caressed her face with one large hand. His expression was so enraptured by her, she couldn’t deny how it spoke to her own heart. It was not just her body he held in his hands.

  “Did you ever imagine this?” she asked. “Me being in your world? Doing things with you like you might do with another woman here? Have coffee?”

  “No,” he said. “I didn’t let myself get that far. I started with just getting to you, to the island. I figured anything else after that would be frosting on the cake.” He chuckled against her breast. “And you’re already a hell of a cake.”

  She stroked his short hair, the curve of his solid skull, and smiled, pleased at what she was sure was a compliment. “My island was your sanctuary, wasn’t it? From your life before.”

  “No.” He lifted his head. “That was you. Still is.”

  She pressed her face against his, closing her eyes. When he cupped her buttocks through the thin leggings and moved her against the fly of his jeans in a slow, pleasurable rub, she savored the feeling as he did. It didn’t matter that he’d just released. He wanted to feel that contact still, and so did she.

  “Is it wrong that I wanted to watch them?” she asked. “Yvette and Charlie? Is it dangerous in the way Merc is dangerous?”

  “No. If we stay here for any length of time, my guess is you’ll get the opportunity again. A lot of the players are into the Dom/sub stuff. Like you already heard”—he gave her a look full of erotic heat, recalling that potent conversation—“when they’re not getting ready for a performance, they’ll have play parties and set up some of the same equipment they use for performances for different purpose.” He sighed. “It’s just a lot of this stuff is new to you. I want to give it to you in bite-sized pieces but hell, I’m only human. Watching two beautiful women like Yvette and Charlie go at it, I could completely forget about slow and bite-sized and take you right there in front of them, devour you whole.”

  She didn’t think that sounded bad at all. She framed his face in both hands, bemused as always by the slimness of her fingers against his masculine features, the differences between them that seemed to mesh so well together. “I want to be devoured by you sometimes,” she admitted. “Get lost and never find my way back.”

  “Same goes.” Lifting her off of him, he rose, towering over her. As he did, he blew on one of the hat feathers. Despite the casual gesture, his eyes were intent and heated on hers. He wanted more. So did she.

  “Then no mocha latte.” She made the abrupt decision with full enthusiasm. Who needed coffee, even if it was the most wonderful coffee in the world, according to John Pierce’s magazine? This moment was still far better.

  Stepping back from him, she removed the hat, pulling the pins free from her hair. “Salia Motana.”

  It was the trigger phrase Yvette had given her to remove the spell on the snakes. As she felt them slowly start to rouse, she pulled the other pins from the netting, letting them roll free and her hair loosen to spill down her back. She shrugged out of the coat and unlaced the tunic so she could draw it over her head. When Charlie had bound the wings, she’d done so with wide, stretchy strips of cloth she’d wrapped around Medusa’s torso above and below her breasts. Taking her shoes and leggings off, Medusa stood before him in black silk panties and the upper body wrap.

  “Will my Master free me so I can fly?” she asked.

  His eyes glittered in the darkness. Stepping close to her, he fingered the edge of the wrap. “I would have taken you out for coffee,” he said.

  “I know that. I’d rather you take me. Several times. I want to come to the performance tonight with my body well-used and marked by your attentions. Please, Master.”

  His gaze snapped to hers. “You’re getting real good at asking me for what you want, sweetheart. In a very pretty way. I like that.”

  Tunneltrap slid groggily over her shoulder and rested his head on the section of wrap above her breast. John captured her nipple below it and shaped it to a peak with stroking fingers as she swayed on her feet, her eyes half closing.

  “I’ll free you after I take you. Don’t want you trying to fly away from me.”

  She caught her lip in her teeth as he paid similar attention to the other nipple. Her toes curled into the floor of the tent, a worn smooth wooden platform.

  “Call me that again,” he demanded.


  “Master,” she whispered. His mouth was hard, his eyes like concentrated lightning upon her. Though she’d just given him a release, his cock was already starting to press against his jeans again. He caressed her face.

  Charlie had given her an ointment to remove the beard and moustache adhesive. John had pocketed it with the soft cloth she’d recommended using so it wouldn’t cause abrasions on Medusa’s face. He drew them out now and began to take off the facial hair with careful, gentle hands. “I want to see you as you are.”

  He could. He did. He’d done that from the beginning, and it hadn’t been a matter of seeing her beneath the features other considered monstrous. He’d accepted those as part of her. Thanks to that, he’d opened her eyes to the realization that she considered them part of her, too. She recalled her earlier thoughts about her snakes. It worried her an act of trust, something good and positive, might take them from her, dissolve them to nothingness like her forked tongue or talons.

  “Hey…” He’d finished and was stroking her face with his fingertips. “Where’d you go?”

  “I’m afraid of losing them.” She lifted her arms and, responding to her feelings, the five snakes came forth, overlapping her arms. She turned her face toward Ratqueen, closing her eyes as the snake bumped her face. “This is frightening for them, too, John. Help us know it will be all right.”

  “That’s my job. And it will be all right.” He caught her chin in thumb and forefinger to hold her gaze. “I know it. They know it. Trust your Master.”

  Even though unease still trickled through her breast, when he bent and kissed her, that and his words helped. He wrapped his fingers around her raised forearms, allowing the snakes to slide over his knuckles and glide around his wrists, binding him to her.

  The kiss was slow and deep, his tongue twisting around to play with hers, his lips teasing, teeth pressing against her flesh. She swayed, and he put his arm around her back, hand dropping to smooth over her backside.

  “That outfit you’re wearing tonight. Does it show any skin?”