Midnight Rose

by Shelby Reed

  Jakome moved gracefully for such a large man, Kate thought. And he obviously desired the sultry blonde in his arms. To Kate’s amazement, Delilah caught him by the neck and drew his mouth down to hers, unashamed and feral and hungry.

  Kate felt the power of that kiss even from a distance, and when her feet faltered, Gideon tightened his embrace around her. “Can’t tear your eyes away, can you?”

  “They’re just so…blatant.” She swallowed and refocused her gaze on the triangle of skin exposed by his open collar. “I thought she wanted you.”

  “She’s not particular when it comes to her friends.”

  “But you’ve been with her, haven’t you?”

  “That doesn’t sound like a question.”

  “Well…I suppose not.”

  “Why entertain the thought at all?”

  “I can’t help it.”

  Gideon smiled, his face exquisite and youthful in its relaxed state. “Jealous?”

  “Completely.”

  He pressed his lips to her forehead, his palms skimming her ribs through the thin black dress, up and down, then pausing at the low curve of her spine. He molded her against him, and with a jolt of pleasure she felt the breathtaking proof of his desire, hard and demanding, surge against her.

  “Delilah’s the past,” he whispered, his fingers drifting across the bare expanse of her back exposed by her dress. “I only have room for the here and now, and you’re all I see. You fill me up, Kate. You fit me.”

  A breathless shudder ran through her and she clung to Gideon’s shoulders, moved by the tenderness with which his lips brushed her hair. She wanted to get closer. She wanted…she wanted him. Sans clothes and friends and inhibitions, minus all the shadowed, undefined barriers that kept them at arm’s length from each other.

  She buried her face against the fragrant hollow at the base of his throat and let her fingers drift down the long, muscled line of his spine as she breathed in his scent. She did fit. His embrace felt like home.

  The music faded, and the next track was too quick-paced to feed the promise of seduction hovering in the air. Gideon drew back to look at her and she averted her eyes, burned by the heat in his black gaze.

  “Another drink to feed the fire?” Delilah purred as she glided past them. “Just the slightest nudge, dear Kate, and you’ll fall and fall, like Alice through the rabbit’s hole.”

  Her voice held a taunting note, but Kate was too enthralled to care. Though they no longer swayed to the music, Gideon hadn’t released her. Dreamy contentment wrapped around her as she stood in the protective circle of his embrace and pressed her cheek to his shoulder.

  The soft splash of liquid and the clink of ice cubes reached her ears as she leaned against him, watching Delilah move with easy confidence behind the bar. It would be so easy to close her heavy eyelids and drift off. Gideon would hold her against him, wouldn’t let her fall. He was the kind of man who’d sweep a woman up in his arms, like Rhett Butler with Scarlett O’Hara, taking two steps at a time up the grand staircase.

  Delilah set two drinks on the counter and lifted one pencil-thin eyebrow at them. “Come, then, before you both fall asleep standing up.”

  Kate shivered when Gideon moved away from her. The floor seemed to undulate beneath her feet, and a mild ringing in her ears told her she’d overstepped simple tipsiness. “On second thought, I don’t think I should drink anymore.”

  Returning with snifter in hand, Gideon smiled down at her. “Ready for bed, then?”

  The question seemed ridiculously loaded with innuendo. She’d been ready for bed—Gideon’s bed—since the moment she’d laid eyes on him. And being intoxicated fanned the fire, despite the invasive presence of his friends.

  “I think so.” Her gaze darted to the deep red beverage in his glass, the one that had delivered him such euphoria earlier. “What is it? May I try a sip?”

  When he hesitated, Delilah spoke up. “Give it to her, Gid. She might like it.”

  “She won’t like it.”

  “Why not let her decide for herself?”

  The easy pleasure had fled his features, replaced by an inauspicious scowl. “Trust me on this, Kate. It’s not for you.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. The way he’d spoken to her just now reminded her of an older sibling putting his kid sister in her place. “How would you know what’s good for me? I might surprise you.”

  He released an exasperated sigh, ran his fingers up the nape of her neck and sank them in her hair, holding the snifter to her lips. The room went utterly still as Jakome and Davide moved closer to watch.

  Brackish fluid met her tongue and flowed between her lips, filling her mouth with the acrid taste of metal and salt. So salty, so…wrong. There was something fundamentally wrong with the taste. It reminded her of…blood?

  “Oh—” She jerked back from the glass and grimaced, wiping a hand across her mouth. “That’s awful.”

  Jakome slapped Gideon on the back and roared with laughter. “There you have it, my friend. It’s awful. I’d say that sums it up as neatly as I’ve ever heard.”

  “It’s a delicacy,” Delilah offered with a smirk. “An acquired taste.”

  Ignoring the laughter of his friends, Gideon frowned at Kate. “Did you swallow it?”

  “Unfortunately. I didn’t know what else to do.”

  Withdrawing a handkerchief from his pocket, he gently wiped the red streaks from her hand, his expression stony. “I’m walking you to your room now.”

  A fresh wave of drowsiness washed through her, elicited by the mere thought of her downy pillow and cool sheets. “Sounds good to me.”

  “Goodbye, Kate.” Davide leaned against the bar, looking as satisfied as a well-fed cat. “We’ll be gone in the morning.”

  She paused at the door, her hand clutched in Gideon’s. “It was such an interesting evening. Will I see you again?”

  “That’s up to Gideon.” Knowing amusement danced in Jakome’s brown eyes. “But I have the funniest feeling our paths will cross another time. Goodnight, Kate.”

  “Sleep tight, you unruly creature.” Delilah approached to press cool, dry lips against her cheek. Then she lifted her mouth to Kate’s ear. “Mai l’ange du passage de la mort au-dessus de vous.” A whisper. Nearly indecipherable, but it sent a wave of disquiet through her anyway.

  “Did you hear what she said?” Kate asked Gideon as they walked through the darkened dining room.

  “Yes.”

  “It was French.”

  “That’s right.”

  “What did it mean?”

  A muscle ticked in his jaw and he looked away from her.

  “What, Gideon?” She stopped, caught his sleeve. “What did she say?”

  “Mai l’ange du passage de la mort au-dessus de vous…may the angel of death pass over you.”

  Chapter Ten

  Hand-in-hand, they climbed to the landing with slow, weighted steps. When they reached the hunt scene painting, Kate stopped in her tracks and swayed. “I feel so strange.”

  Gideon slipped his arm around her. “Are you sick?”

  She shuddered and pressed her hands against her eyes. “No. I’m…I don’t know.” Her palms slid from her face and she stared at him as though seeing him for the first time. “Kiss me,” she said huskily. “Put your hands on me.”

  It took a moment for Gideon to absorb the searing demand. And with a jolt, he knew the truth. Delilah had slipped something in Kate’s drink, and the single sip of blood he’d so foolishly allowed her had exacerbated the aphrodisiac’s effect.

  Despite his instant and protective reaction to hold her at arm’s length, an answering surge of want rose within him, as wild and demanding as the bloodlust sure to follow. “Don’t tempt me,” he warned, his body instantly hard. “I mean it, Kate. Now isn’t the time.”

  “Your guests can go to hell. I want you in my bed. Inside me.” She flowed against him, hand sliding down to the placket of his pants, where his erection push
ed, steely and demanding, against the hungry pressure of her palm. “Ah, Gideon, you’re so hard. So big. Just like I dreamed. I have to touch you.” Harsh words, vehement and hungry. Delilah’s tricks had turned Kate into someone Gideon didn’t know.

  “I don’t care how we do it,” she whispered against his ear, a vocal caress that raised the hairs on his arms and raced blood through his penis, so that it jerked painfully beneath her palm. “Hard and fast, in my bedroom, or right here on the stairs. Against the banister, right where someone could find us. You’d like that, to fuck me right here. You’d like the thrill of it, and so would I. Let them all watch—I don’t care.” She stepped back, her fingertips slipping up the hem of her dress in tortuous increments to expose the satin-covered triangle at the apex of her thighs. “Do it, Gideon. Take me right here.”

  Gideon’s control snapped. Lunging forward, he shoved her hard against the banister, buried his fingers into the thickness of her hair, and crushed his mouth down on hers.

  Instead of jerking back at his ferocity, Kate’s lips opened beneath the assault like lush rose petals, her tongue darting to meet his, mating and mingling and flavored with hot, sweet desire. The vestiges of blood lingered there too, and with a groan he lapped at it, his hands pushing the delicate straps over her shoulders.

  The Kate he knew was vanishing with every erratic breath, and in her place stood the unruly creature Delilah had proclaimed her. Heat radiated from her slender body as she wrapped her arms around his neck and molded herself to him. Her breasts rose and fell beneath the thin black dress with increasing urgency, and within her veins, carnal need propelled the jolting, rhythmic thrust of blood. This woman was uninhibited, untethered by decorum…undone.

  “I’m burning up for you,” she whispered, guiding his palms down to her breasts. “I want you, Gideon. I need you.”

  “God help me, I need you, too.” His mouth skimmed her throat, teeth nipping carefully, so carefully, even as the urge to sink them into her satin-hot skin overwhelmed him. It was wrong no matter how he considered it, but her wildness sucked his control away and replaced it with searing lust. He’d fought this moment too long, and now he dissolved beneath its force so readily, he could almost hear the dark spirits laughing.

  “Feel me,” she whispered, breath hot against his ear as she shoved his hand down to her thighs. “I’m so hot. So wet. Don’t make me wait.”

  He halted their hands. “Kate, no. No.”

  “But why?”

  He couldn’t meet her eyes, didn’t want to see the drug-induced haze that darkened them and turned them the color of liquid chocolate.

  “We’ve both been drinking,” he said, aware suddenly of the trickle of moisture down the side of his face. Perspiration. Christ. He didn’t know his body could react this way. “You’ll be sorry. In the morning, you’ll—”

  “In the morning I’ll wake up in a cold, empty bed, aching and alone, if we listen to your voice of reason. I want you, I have for a while now, and it’s not the alcohol talking. For crying out loud, I only had one drink. One.”

  Oh, God, what did Delilah do to you? What did I do?

  “Come upstairs,” she urged, her features flushed with desire, lips swollen from his kiss. “Come with me, Gideon.”

  Every cell in her body beckoned to him. Come with me.

  Helpless to resist, he followed her up the west wing staircase, knowing he could offer her nothing except the quick release her body craved. This time wouldn’t be veiled by filmy dreams, either. Pleasure would have to be delivered with lightning speed, before she could touch his heart and unleash the barely restrained monster inside him.

  Kate moved ahead of him to turn the doorknob, threw open the door and allowed him entrance into her bedroom.

  When she reached to turn on the light, Gideon stopped her. “No. In the dark.”

  “But I want to see you. Naked and beautiful, like that night in the pool. I wanted you even then, Gideon. I wanted to put my hands on you. Stroke you.” Pressing against him, she slid her palms down the front of his shirt to his abdomen, lower, drawn to his heat and hardness. “Like this…” Her hand gently squeezed his cock through his pants, and he felt the constriction deep in his testicles, in his veins, in his heart.

  The muscles of his body tightened, heat suffusing his skin as blood thundered in his ears. He hadn’t even touched her naked skin and already the metamorphosis from man to anomaly had begun.

  For a moment he let her fingers rub and play with him through his pants, reveling in the fresh rush of hunger it triggered. She was so innocent.

  He was starving.

  Carefully, deliberately, he closed the door behind them and turned the lock, extinguishing the last bit of light. Her arms were waiting for him in the pitch black when he faced her again, and he stepped into their sacred circle, wanting to sink into her.

  Cool air sipped at his chest and he glanced down, preternatural vision discerning her fingers slipping his shirt buttons through their holes. Her aura radiated around her in rays of saturated reds and purples, lighting the narrow space between them, while nothing but darkness limned his own body. No glow, no color. A beast whose very being swallowed light.

  He wavered. Kate, listen to me. You don’t know what I am, what I’ll do to you. The warning caught in his throat, as it had other nights with other ill-fated women. Caroline. He’d tried to tell her and she’d laughed, until his crushing kiss drove the amusement from her yielding body.

  Death darted around him once again, a malevolent voyeur. And yet Gideon did nothing to stop Kate, just stood aching and pleasured under her hands, wanting her too much as he balanced on the edge of humanity.

  Her fingers never faltered as they parted the sides of his shirt, and then her mouth bit at his bare chest, wet and enticing, eating him, taking him in quick, erotic nips. He flinched at the sting of her teeth, the soothing lap of her tongue. His shaking hands tangled in her hair and with a rush of anticipation and dread, he recognized her intent as she lowered herself to kneel before him.

  In the velvet, disembodied blackness, he felt her tongue dance over his stomach, leave a trail of heat and moisture, bringing him to excruciating hardness. Under her frantic fingers his belt and fly loosened and then her hot, sweet breath seared his erection through the thin material of his briefs, and every muscle in his body screamed for release.

  If her mouth touched his cock, the price would be very, very high.

  Grappling for control, he grasped her elbow and urged her to her feet. She swayed, eyes closed, lashes dark against her cheeks. “Why’d we stop?”

  “We haven’t.” He tugged the hem of her dress to her hips and lifted her so that her legs wrapped around his waist. In response she threw back her head and squirmed against him, found the hard ridge of his penis and ground down on it through layers of material.

  “Gideon,” she whispered, her lips caressing his ear. “Are you going to fuck me now?”

  A groan rumbled through him. He wanted to rip at his clothing and ram himself into her slick, waiting body right there, in the middle of her bedroom, lost in a moonless night. But he would pay for it with everything decent in him…and Kate, with her life.

  The sinew in his back rippled as the shadows climbed his spine, his teeth growing dagger-sharp against his tongue. He couldn’t kiss her now. Her tender mouth would be pulverized.

  “Please,” she murmured. “The bed.”

  “Christ…” The word gritted into the night, wrenched from an inhuman throat. The change was happening before he could fulfill her frantic need. And he wanted to give her everything, everything left in his blackened heart, for all she’d brought him. Lightness and laughter in a world of eternal dusk. And love. Gideon the man had sensed it and reveled in it, but the aberrant creature climbing through him now didn’t know the meaning of the word.

  Kate’s fingers slid into his hair, holding his lips against her throat as he carried her to the bed.

  Setting her on the mattress, he fo
llowed her back and leaned over her to pin her restless hands above her head.

  “But I wanted to touch you. To make you come.” Frustration and lust thickened her words as her body thrashed beneath him. Tears leaked from her eyes and he licked them away, the salt like ambrosia on his tongue. “Please, Gideon. Please.”

  “Not this time, Kate. This time is all for you.” It wasn’t his pulse that pounded in his ears now, but hers. Every thud of her heartbeat burst around them like a cacophony of drums, every brush of platelets and cells in her veins like the swish of satin.

  Holding her wrists captive against the mattress with one hand, he slid the other down her body, over the dress wadded around her waist and across her straining hips, to the juncture of her thighs, where damp, feminine heat radiated, white-hot and demanding.

  Her delicate panties shredded like paper beneath his hand.

  Lost in the dark and mindless drug-induced lust, Kate couldn’t possibly see the creature taking Gideon’s place, and for a moment he gained ground over his instincts and held back.

  Don’t hurt her.

  Then another voice, familiar and ancient, rose from the center of his darkest heart. Take what she’s offering. Sink into her and feed from her. Fresh blood, fresh life. Take it. There is no forgiveness.

  Silence fell, thick and heavy. The black spirits that hovered ever near him froze in anticipation of his next move. Holding his breath, he brushed his fingers through her soft triangle of hair to her wet, yearning flesh, parting her, a careful foray to locate the center of her need. Then with a tortured exhalation he found her, slipped a single finger inside her, just the tip. Beckoning, teasing, until she whimpered and thrust hard against his hand. Then he plunged deep, one finger, two, feeling her unfold like scalding silk to draw him in, circling quicker with his hand when her back arched away from the mattress and she cried his name.