Hunting Karoly

by Marie Treanor

  I blinked. “Kill your own kind?” I said with awe. “You would do that?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “For me?” I whispered, wondering wildly whether I should be flattered or appalled.

  “No,” he admitted, depriving me of a reason for either. “Too many vampires impede the food supply.”

  Against everything I knew and believed in, laughter bubbled up and was ruthlessly squashed. “Completely amoral!” I pronounced shakily. “Is this stuff ready yet?”

  “Of course. So you will give me tonight?” he asked, lifting his hand to my cheek, cupping it briefly before trailing his smooth fingers down my jaw and throat, falling to my breast with one sweeping, brushing caress that made all my nerves leap and my nipples stand out and beg for more.

  I stepped back.

  “No.”

  Chapter Nine

  My guests “oohed” over the delicious smell of my vampire’s stew, demanding to know what it was.

  “Goulash,” I said wildly, and Karoly cast me a look of reproof. “Or something! Wine, Charlie.” I reached for the nearest bottle.

  But the vampire stepped over Don and Sam to reach unerringly for my forgotten bottle of good red.

  “Trust you,” I said, curling my lip.

  With his glass, he came back and sat beside me on the floor next to the bed, while I, kneeling, ladled out the stew and stretched across to give a bowl to each of my slightly tipsy guests. When I sat back down after the last, my bottom landed on something hard and knobbly, which I realized with shock was the vampire’s hand.

  I stared at him in surprise. I think I forgot to be outraged. In any case, he only smiled, without removing his hand. Moisture pooled between my lower lips, making me wonder how the hell I was going to concentrate on eating stew, let alone conversation.

  “So, Charlie,” said Ellie who had, naturally, maneuvered herself around to sit on his other side. “Are you off to a fancy dress party after this?”

  Politely, Charlie shook his head. His hand explored under me, making my breath catch. I reached for my fork.

  “He’s Scotch, Ellie!” Zack mocked.

  “So he is, smart ass, but I’ve been to Scotland and they don’t normally run around dressed like that, do they, Jen?”

  “Only for high days and holidays,” I agreed, squirming as the vampire’s hand finally made it under my skirt to the damp, heated cotton of my knickers. “And weddings. I’m sure he came south straight from a wedding, didn’t you, Charlie?”

  Charlie smiled beatifically while I lifted a forkful of stew to my mouth. He waited until my lips closed around it before he slid his hand inside my knickers to caress the curve of my ass. I nearly choked. As it was, my involuntary gasp must have shown anyone looking a fine view of my stew-filled mouth. Closing it hastily, I coughed to cover my lapse.

  Jesus, I really had to find some unobtrusive way to get away from his questing, teasing hand and yet…I couldn’t quite bring myself to. It was almost as if this way I had no guilt in enjoying the caress of his wicked fingers.

  I swallowed my half chewed food. My face felt as flushed as if I’d just drunk an entire bottle on my own. Hastily, with a not quite steady hand, I reached for my glass and took a sizeable gulp.

  My eyes fell on Ellie on his other side, animatedly talking to him while her hand touched his bare knee. Everyone else was eating and chatting, periodically telling Charlie how good the food was. With our backs to the bed, it was unlikely that anyone would be able to see my so-called cousin’s hand up my skirt.

  I lost track of the conversation. I barely ate. All I cared about was the crazy pleasures of my body and how the hell I could cover it up.

  I didn’t know what to do, where to look, so I gazed desperately at Ellie. She was very obviously giving Charlie the eye, smiling at him from under her beautiful, long lashes. That would have been bad enough but he had the gall to be smiling back at her.

  Indignantly, if somewhat belatedly, I changed position to try to escape his hand, but it followed me, suddenly gripping my upper thigh so that I couldn’t move.

  Hush…came his voice in my furious, befuddled head. Stay still… She wants me. I want you. All my attention is with you. And Jenny, shield your thoughts. Zack is sensing your excitement.

  Blindly, I took another drink, using the moment to shield as Hilda had taught me.

  In the meantime, Ellie, cow that she was, flirted too blatantly for the others to remain entirely unaware of her antics for very long.

  “Ellie, put the poor man down,” Sam commanded. “He’s not used to your pushy, lecherous ways.”

  Reluctantly, Ellie took her hand off his knee. She said to him, “I have a flat five minutes’ drive from here.”

  Somehow I managed to say, “You don’t want him in your home, Ellie, believe me. He’s an animal.”

  The vampire pinched my bum cheek and I laid down my glass before I broke it.

  “Oh keep talking, Jenny!” sighed Ellie.

  I laughed shakily. The vampire’s hand continued to stroke under my skirt.

  Inside my head, his voice said, One night, Jenny. Give me tonight.

  Bastard…

  You see how it is for you. For me. I could make you come just with my mind, but I can’t keep my hands off you and even here, in company, you love it. Imagine how it could be when they’re gone.

  I was having trouble thinking of anything else. Unless it was how I could come right now and hide it from everyone, including him. Impossible…

  Tonight, yes or no?

  Complete and utter bastard.

  Yes or no?

  Yes…!

  As if from a great distance, I heard Zack saying anxiously, “Is Jenny all right?”

  “She’s knackered, aren’t you, Jen?” said Jess. “Poor thing, you’ve had a hell of a day. Come on, guys, we’d better shove off.”

  The vampire slid his fingers out from under my skirt.

  I said shakily, “Sorry everyone. I seem to be falling asleep here.”

  “Great day for you, Jen. Well done,” Jess said generously. “Oh and great dinner!”

  “Great cousin, Jen,” grinned Ellie. “Can I borrow him?”

  The vampire shook his head, softening his rejection by rising fluidly to his feet to take her hand in his clean one and gallantly kiss it. Jealousy warred with a surprised pride in him.

  Ellie sighed. “There’s something about you.”

  If only she knew what! Over her head, Karoly cast me a quick, eyebrow twitching glance. I wanted to laugh. My aroused, frustrated body screamed silently for his attentions and his blazing, gold-flecked eyes told me he was well aware of both desires.

  I dragged my gaze free and waved my guests off, glad somewhere of their sincere-sounding compliments on the pleasantness of the evening. I had got away with it. God, what I had got away with!

  Shutting the door behind them, I closed my eyes, struggling with conflicting emotions of excitement and shame and anticipation. And the fact that my whole body pulsed with unsatisfied lust. Behind that, there was a kind of wonder and a complete loss as to how to deal with him now.

  Taking a deep breath, I turned to face the music.

  My jaw dropped.

  He stood at the side of the bed, facing me, totally naked. And God, he was beautiful. Almost exactly like my dream, pale, almost translucent skin stretched taut over his lean, hard body. His shoulders and chest were broad and muscular, his dark nipples gloriously tempting. A scattering of coarse, gold hair lit the way down across his flat, tight stomach to the more clustered halo surrounding his huge penis. Thick and erect, it stood rigidly to attention, adding sheer sex to his splendor and a fresh gush of moisture to my already drenched knickers.

  Why me? I thought numbly. How me?

  Because you’re everything I want.

  “You’ve had five hundred years,” I whispered. “Five hundred years of beautiful, intelligent, cultured, witty women. You can’t expect me to believe I matter. I’m just your qui
ck, amusing fuck with the randy little vampire hunter…”

  “You matter,” he interrupted. “I don’t know why, or how. Accept it.”

  I swallowed, mutely shaking my head. I had no resources for this. This wasn’t a short, frantic screw that my body talked me into during a moment of madness on a balcony. This was to be a whole night in the arms of a god, a hedonistic, evil god who said I was everything he wanted. What did that say about me? Nothing good, surely. And yet…and yet I had never been anything anyone wanted terribly much before.

  He said softly, “Come here.”

  “Why?” I countered at once, because I panicked.

  He only smiled. “Because I want to undress you.”

  Oh well, get the disappointment over with quickly. Go, girl.

  Inevitably, when I wanted to have most grace, the old clumsy gene kicked in, probably because I was trembling so much, causing me to trip over the shoe I’d cast aside earlier in the evening. I swore loudly. Ignoring both decidedly unromantic events, the vampire reached for me.

  He didn’t trouble with fastenings. One tug opened my shirt, spitting buttons across the floor. He pushed it back over my shoulders and down my arms to the elbows, then paused to look at me. It was an effort to hold his gaze but I managed it, searching with dread for the first signs of disappointment. His eyes darkened. The gold flecks seemed to leap with lust. And, it seemed, with a different kind of need. For the first time, I let myself consider that it might be as great as mine. That against all the odds, this beautiful, alien creature could be my long sought and never found soul mate.

  Slowly, his hands moved from my elbows to my breasts, cupping them over my bra, tenderly rubbing his thumbs over my pebbled nipples to feel their hardness. Apparently satisfied, his fingers drew in around them ’til I gasped, then moved to the bare skin above my bra, slipping in and down my cleavage. There he took one side of my bra’s central seam in either hand and, in one forceful jerk, tore it apart.

  “Please!” I got out, half laughing, half weeping. “I’ll have no clothes left!”

  “Good,” he growled. His gaze devoured me with such obvious appreciation that the last of my embarrassment vanished. Instead I felt proud and deliciously cherished. The vampire bent to take my left nipple into his mouth, tenderly pulling, tasting it with his tongue while his hand palmed my other breast, kneading, stroking. With his other hand in my back he pressed my lower body into his naked, rigid cock, then fumbled for the zip of my skirt. There was the sound of more ripping fabric and the skirt fell around my feet.

  Hastily, I pushed down my own knickers. As I did, my hand came in contact with his erect cock. Inexplicably shocked, I paused. Ignoring my own underwear, I wrapped my shaking hand around the long, thick shaft, glancing up at his face to see, I think, if he objected.

  He didn’t appear to. His head lifted from my breast with closed eyes and an expression close to blissful. Encouraged, I moved my hand on him, working the skin slowly up and down, using my other hand to caress the angry head ’til it bled clear juice. I squeezed and he growled low and deep in his throat.

  His eyes opened, watching not my arousing hand, but my face. For some reason that tugged at my heart, melting something deep inside me, way beyond what mere sex, even with him, could reach. My throat constricted. I wanted to drown in him, weep and laugh all at the same time.

  Behind the naked lust, his eyes softened. They were scarily profound and I wanted to know all of him, every complicated layer. More immediately and more intensely than I’d ever wanted anything, I wanted to give him pleasure.

  So, avid, I knelt and flicked my tongue around the head of his cock, lapping up the droplets of salty moisture. He tasted amazing—strong earth, exotic spice, as powerful and exciting as the man himself. So I licked my way down the delicious spiral of veins to the root, then with a moan I didn’t even try to hide, I wrapped my lips around his cock and sucked, hard. I lashed it with my tongue and pumped with my hand. With my other hand, I cupped one of his balls, rolling its strange, velvety hardness in my palm, drumming it with my fingertips.

  Hearing a strange, choked sound, I glanced up from his cock and found his eyes blazing at me with such force, that I was suddenly shy again. I loosened my mouth. My hands dropped. I spun away from him, collecting my torn and fallen clothes with unprecedented tidiness. If I couldn’t please him…

  “Oh you please me,” he said huskily. “And you can suck my cock any time except now. Now I want this.”

  I felt his cool hands on my naked hips, shooting delicious waves of desire through me. Swiftly, they caressed around my curves and then gripped, drawing me back into him. There was an instant when I felt his cock nudge my bottom, my pussy, when I tried to straighten, to prepare myself for the moment and then in one hard movement he pulled me onto its entire length.

  He whispered, “It’s been long, too long, since I fucked you.”

  I was so wet already that there was no pain, but I still cried out with the shock as well as the sheer coldness of him. His cock filled me with hard flesh and exciting sensation.

  His hands moved on my hips, pushing me forward, dragging me back. I moaned with pleasure, straightening, the clothes still clutched in my oblivious hands. He brushed them away as he ran his hands from my hips to my breasts, cupping and kneading. I reached up and behind my head, searching for his, to bring his mouth to mine.

  Finding it at last, I latched on to his lips, desperately sucking him into me, licking his teeth, biting his tongue. The vampire growled, his mouth pressing back, fighting mine for dominance. I made him work for it, sneakily squeezing his cock between the walls of my pussy to force a gasp that would loosen his lips. It didn’t. He groaned into my mouth, devouring it, ravaging it, lifting me so that his shaft went all the way inside me, right up to his hard, heavy balls.

  I cried out again, surrendering gladly now to his mouth’s strength. He spun us around, breaking the astounding kiss at last and pushed me on to the bed so that I was kneeling. With the force of it, I fell forward onto my hands. He gripped my hips once more and thrust into me hard. I gasped. He pulled back, making me moan and pushed in again. With every stroke he grazed my G-spot and involuntary little animal noises spilled out of my mouth. My pussy convulsed around his cock.

  “You don’t know what it was like,” he ground out, “wanting you so much while keeping my face straight for your psychic friends, smiling at some other woman while you wriggled, all hot and moaning inside. How I kept from throwing you on the floor and taking you there and then in front of them all I will never know.”

  His words sent my reeling senses into overdrive, gathering the waves of climax for the earth-shattering explosion surely only seconds away. They also made me crow with triumph that I had not been the only one of us so wildly aroused during dinner and that seemed to drive him even wilder. The power of his thrusts gathered furious pace, heating his cock and mixing the fire and ice inside me once more. I moaned continuously, writhing on him, pushing back into him, squeezing his cock and twisting on it with ecstasy, my hands clawing the quilt as the orgasm finally crashed over me.

  My pussy pulsated, grasping his cock, drenching it. Hearing it begin deep in his chest, I managed to gasp out through my own pleasure, “Don’t…howl!”

  For answer, his arms slid under mine, drawing me upright and he buried his face in my neck. His suppressed howl vibrated through my throat, intensifying my climax. His sensual lips pulled strongly on my skin, his sharp teeth grazed it. I knew he would bite me. I was terrified. I longed for it.

  His growl became a groan of pain. His open mouth dragged up my neck and jaw and fastened on my lips. While his cock shuddered inside my pussy, he buried the wild noise of his violent pleasure inside my mouth. I sucked it in, swallowing it, swallowing him with my own sudden tears, acknowledging in that moment the blinding truth that no matter who or what he was, what he had done or would do, I loved him.

  I wrenched my mouth free to stare up at him. Massive satisfaction w
arred with a new, terrible need in me. How could I not trust him now? When he hadn’t bitten me? His green eyes were still opaque with his own bliss. He was all I wanted.

  I gasped, “Oh Jesus Christ, Charlie, bite me!” And offered my neck again.

  Intelligence glimmered briefly in his lust filled face, a flash of disbelief and triumph. Then he fell on my oversensitized neck, sucking, licking, teasing and I lost myself all over again. His still-hard cock began to move inside me once more, relighting the fading sparks of delight. One of his big, sensitive hands gripped my pussy, making me throb, and I moved with him, twisting my head in ecstasy. His razor-sharp teeth punctured my skin. I cried out at the intense mingling of pain and pleasure, felt him pull the blood through my veins and into his mouth. Through this weird yet undeniable bliss his fingers moved among my labia, on my clitoris, his cock fucked me in perfect rhythm with his sucking mouth and orgasm tore me apart like a hurricane.

  To complete my joy, he came again too in huge, shuddering jolts that kept me there long beyond what should have been possible. The sucking on my neck lessened and stopped. His trembling tongue licked my wounds and the pain faded, much faster than the pleasure.

  We came slowly back to Earth, slipping down in each other’s arms to lie on the bed, pressed together like spoons.

  At last, I whispered, “If I hadn’t asked, you wouldn’t have drunk from me, would you?”

  “No.”

  I turned in his arms, absorbing the sight of him lying there in my narrow, single bed, his fair hair falling loose around his face and shoulders. I touched it, running my fingers through it and smiling at its silky smoothness.

  “Does that mean you’ll stop killing too, if I ask you?”

  “No,” he said regretfully. “I’m a vampire. But I will promise to think twice about it before I do it.”

  Was that good enough? I wondered doubtfully. Just what was I prepared to live with? Or without?

  “And I will never touch your family or friends,” he added, with just a shade of anxiety. He paused, clearly remembering Maggie and Davie and God knew who else at the wedding. “Again.”