by Kresley Cole
Few knew there was a second reason that Néomi had chosen her dream of ballet over following in her maman's footsteps, tempting crowds of men as a femme fatale: Turning males into frothing, gawking, mindless beasts had been too... easy.
With merely a throaty laugh and a dab of her tongue at her bottom lip, Néomi could send a man diving for his hat—to cover his stirring lap.
Too easy. And Néomi had always craved a challenge.
With a wicked grin, she decided it was time to draw on her shady background, time to put away the popguns and engage the cannons. And Néomi had a hidden arsenal he couldn't even comprehend.
10
Perhaps I haven't been stimulating enough for you, vampire?" Néomi made her voice a breathy murmur. "And didn't I promise that I'd show you more than a garter if you could only see me?"
She tugged her skirt up slowly, making the fabric appear to bunch in her hands. "I have a bit of experience with what men like to... be shown."
When she'd bared the tops of her thigh-high hose, she asked, "Still not stimulating enough? Maybe Conrad wants to see my panties instead?" Just before she revealed them, she floated into the corner, the one that was farthest from his vision. He'd have to turn fully to see her there.
"The line... the line... " he muttered urgently.
He must be talking about some line with her that shouldn't be crossed. "Yes, Conrad, the line! Let's cross it! Or am I going to have to up the ante? Very well," she sighed. "You drive a hard, hard bargain. But I feel overdressed anyway, and since you're so deliciously naked... " His body shot upright with tension, muscles bunching in his neck and shoulders. "Here I am, in the corner, unlacing my dress." She made her voice drip with sensuality and her dress rustle as she removed it. "I'm doing it slowly for my vampire. Oh... so... slowly."
Did he just growl?
She moved forward to dangle her dress in his line of vision. Like a lure for an animal, she eased it back toward the corner.
He gave a groan as if defeated and turned. His jaw slackened.
She stood with her back to him, peering over her shoulder, wearing only her garter belt, hose, and her tight black panties. "I knew it, vampire," she said with delight.
His riveted gaze lingered over her face, descending to her back, her ass, and her legs, then slowly back up again. His voice broke when he rasped, "Turn around for me." Had his accent ever sounded so heavy?
He was talking to her, the first person to address her in eight decades. She was trembling with happiness and gratitude, elated by the interaction—and helpless not to be excited by his heated looks. She faced him with her arms crossed over her breasts, not shyly, but provocatively.
He ran a palm over his mouth. "Y-your arms now."
Standing against the wall, she removed one arm, then the other, raising them above her, appearing to rest them against the wall. With his gaze locked on her breasts, he clenched and unclenched his hands as if he was imagining squeezing them. She felt a thrill when he subtly rubbed his tongue over a fang, those red eyes smoldering like embers.
"Did you think I was bluffing?"
Never glancing up, he gave her a sharp nod, as if he didn't trust himself to speak.
"I never bluff. If it took baring my body to prove you can see me, then look your fill, Conrad." When he finally raised his eyes to meet hers, she tilted her head and cast him a flirtatious smile. "But why have you ignored me?"
He said, "Because you're not... you weren't real," then winced as if he found his comment idiotic.
He'd thought she was a hallucination! Poor vampire! He hadn't ignored her for any reason other than the need for self-preservation. "Do you want me to be real?" Drifting away from the wall, she sauntered toward him, her eyes holding his. He didn't seem to realize that he was easing toward her, leaving the spray of the water. "I'm Néomi," she purred.
"Néomi," he repeated absently. "Does nothing abash you?"
She shook her head, and her hair bounced over her shoulders and lower. When the locks swayed across her nipples, his gaze dipped once more. "And it's difficult for me to regret undressing when my vampire's giving me a look that makes my toes curl."
He swallowed hard, his Adam's apple working. "I make your toes curl?"
She nodded. "Would you like me to come in with you?"
His brows drew together. "Why would you want to?"
She told him honestly, "Because right now you are my favorite man in the entire world."
A half-naked ghost with high, plump breasts wants to get into the shower with him.
And he has no idea how to go about processing this. He starts sweating, his teeth grinding. He has no experience like this to draw from.
He was born and raised in a conservative culture. As an adult, he's never been wholly unclothed in front of a woman, certainly has never washed himself in front of one.
Yet this female is standing before him, clad in only her hose, garters, and a pair of wicked panties. They're black and lined with a tight band of jet lace that cuts up across the generous curves of her ass. Her breasts are proudly bared.
She's acting as natural as if he and she were wed. I don't even know her last name.
Unable to help himself, he rakes another hungry gaze over her body. She's surprisingly defined, her legs taut and strong. The lines of her form are lithe—a dancer's body, with softly flaring hips and a tiny waist he can span with his hands.
And those breasts...
He shakes his head. She's too pretty. A half-naked beauty dropped into his shower? Into his life? This simply isn't in keeping with his fortunes over the centuries. "You're probably not real." When she grins, he curses his clumsiness with this. He wishes for Murdoch's ease with women—he never has before, even when he'd recognized at a young age that he lacked charm.
"Do you often see things that aren't real?"
"Daily." But if she is real... "Come in. If you wish to."
Her gaze holds his as she drifts toward him. She has sultry blue eyes, knowing eyes. Hypnotic. He finds his body arching toward her of its own will.
She floats into the stall with him. Inside, the water doesn't wet her, instead sparking off her like minuscule electrical flares, seeming like glitter.
A dream—an erotic one. Can he really be naked with an almost nude dancer? Enjoy it.
Bloody how? He can't feel lust. He isn't erect. And... she's a ghost!
That doesn't seem to be stopping her. He can sense her energy, as strong as it's ever felt to him. It radiates off her in waves, slingshotting from her to him and back again.
"Le dément has a magnificent body, n'est-ce pas? So strong, virile."
He feels that increasingly familiar heat on the back of his neck. "Do not call me that again."
"So you speak French among all your many languages?" When he replies with a curt nod, she says, "Well, what shall I call you, then? Conrad the Mad? Conrad the Crazed? Or I could call you my vampire?" Softening her tone, she says, "I think you like that."
How can she read him so well?
She murmurs, "If you can hear me, and you can see me, I wonder what else is possible. Perhaps I can... maybe I can try to feel you?" The yearning in her voice staggers him. "I feel nothing, you see. My hands pass through everything."
She can't touch, and he can't get erect. But at least he still experiences pleasure—the tang of blood on his tongue, the exhilaration of a bracing wind.
"Maybe if I concentrate very hard, maybe with you... I could feel." Before him appears a fragile, pale hand with shining dark nails. A petal lies starkly on the back of her wrist, then tumbles away to vanish. "Can I try to touch you?"
At least she asks this time. His voice a rasp, he says, "Do as you will."
Her hand begins to tremble as she inches it closer to him. Electricity pricks his skin as she nears. Can she feel him? Does he truly want this? Yes, Christ, yes, he does. But it glides right through his chest. His skin tingles at the spot, making the muscles tense, but he has no perception of pressure.
She seems to sag with disappointment. Once more she attempts it, running her hand down his torso. He experiences the same electrical feel, which isn't unpleasurable.
"I suppose it's not meant to be." Her tone is wistful, and this bothers him—he feels as if he's disappointed her.
After coughing into his fist, he says, "I could try... to touch you."
In an instant, her expression brightens again. He's effected that. So easily?
"Where would you like to, Conrad?"
Before he can stop himself, he's peering hard at her breasts.
"Then touch them," she murmurs, each sultry word like a stroke.
Her energy begins to make him restless. Strange urges rack him. He wants not only to touch her there, but also to kiss her flesh until she clings to him, to drag his tongue over her jutting nipples. Would she like that? Could he make her moan?
He needs to cage her in with his body, to keep her from getting away from him, and finds himself backing her against the shower wall. She could have floated through it, but she lets him surround her. He raises his knee beside her and his chained hands over her head.
Positioned like this, he gazes down into the loveliest eyes he's ever seen. As if a breeze has swept a path through the fog of memories and confusion, he feels clearer as he beholds her face. He feels centered.
Feels... feels... felt...
He felt clearer. Conrad felt centered. His very thoughts seemed to arise differently. They were more focused, each one distinct in his mind.
And Conrad wanted to understand why.
Was it her, or the drugs? What exactly was she to him? A suspicion prodded at his consciousness, but he pushed it away.
Her lids grew heavy, her breathing faster, as if she was losing herself in the moment. She was small and perfect. Yet even with his red eyes and scarred, hulking body, she looked at him... hungrily. Could ghosts feel desire?
Not only was she a ghost, a creature he had no experience with, she was a sensual female—again, a creature he had no experience with.
Conrad wanted to try to touch her—because she was both.
With an audible swallow, he eased his hands toward her mouthwatering breasts.
Had she arched to him? He covered their outline with his big palms, but he only experienced the same electricity.
He saw her lower her gaze, as though to see if he'd reacted. He dropped his hands, shamed that he wasn't hard. At that instant, he wished he could be. "You can't get me aroused." He backed away from her, standing under the water. "I haven't been in three hundred years."
"Do you not wish to be?"
"Do you want me to be?"
"Yes," she began with a smile in her voice. "I was thinking that might be nice to see."
He'd once been so proud. Now a creature who didn't even have a body made him feel shame. If he was blooded, his shaft thick with lust, what would she think then? "It takes a special female to tempt me back to life. I'm thinking one with flesh and blood. So you're not her."
"You're speaking of your Bride?"
"Be glad you're not," he said, but with this new clarity, he began to wonder.
Tonight Conrad had recalled what he'd once coveted, what he'd been filled with regret never to possess.
I'd wanted a woman of my own.
One to claim and protect. One to pleasure. As a mortal, he'd longed for this constantly. What if this female was his?
His arm injury ached under the spray of the water. If the curse of that mark was true...
Was this little ghost the one his life had been leading toward? He recalled the chills he'd felt when Nikolai had merely uttered the name of her home.
Conrad had been forced here, sensing it was the first step on a doomed path. His dream... her doom.
"You need to stay away from me." I have to escape this place. "For your own good."
Her brows drew together. "Vampire, I don't know if I can."
Nikolai walked in then, Sebastian behind him. "What's going on in here?"
Conrad lunged in front of her, snapping his teeth at his brothers. Fury churned at the idea of her undressed and in the same room with them. His fangs sharpened with his aggression. To her he gave a half-growl, half-hiss over his shoulder. "Leave. Now."
"But they can't—"
"I said now!" he bellowed, making her squeeze her eyes shut. She flickered before she vanished.
He'd frightened her. He should frighten her.
"What the hell's going on, Conrad?" Nikolai had another syringe at the ready.
Can't have another. He needed to process what had just happened with the female. Clutching his forehead, he struggled to beat back the rage. To stifle the memories that accompanied the fury. Nikolai hesitated with the shot—he was the one who'd said mastering the memories was possible. Conrad endeavored to do it now... .
Time ticked by... Control it. He must have been succeeding because Nikolai ultimately pocketed the syringe.
"You brought it back, Conrad," Sebastian said proudly. "That's the first step."
Nikolai was more cautious. "Who were you talking to?"
"Just leave me to dress." Conrad's tone was weary now, his body fatigued from the battle in his mind. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
Now that the female was gone and her scent had faded, Conrad had doubts about what had just happened as well. His brothers didn't pursue it—because they probably knew they wouldn't believe him. Hesitantly, they left to wait outside.
After turning off the water, he dried himself. For the first time in perhaps three hundred years, he decided to study his reflection. Stubble, eyes blood red, hair too long and cut unevenly.
His appearance was disturbing even to him. And this was an improvement over the last several days. He bit out a curse. When human, he'd never given his looks more than a rare and passing thought.
But then, he'd never wanted to impress anyone before.
As he changed into the jeans his brothers had left for him—the shirt would be impossible to put on with the cuffs—he considered taking down Nikolai and Sebastian, but he was weakened.
Besides, he had a better idea... .
When Conrad exited the room, Sebastian said, "What made you so riled back there?"
Need to make them think I'm recovering. "Nothing." Am I recovering? He'd go along with his brothers for now, until he could escape them.
When Sebastian held up a roll of bandage gauze with his brows raised, Conrad hesitated, then extended his injured arm.
As Sebastian rebandaged it, Nikolai asked, "How'd you get this?"
Conrad muttered. "Occupational hazard." Courtesy of Tarut, an ancient and powerful dream demon who worked with the Kapsliga.
He and the demon had been trying to kill each other for centuries, but neither could quite manage it. Yet just two weeks ago, Tarut had scored a crucial victory.
He'd marked Conrad with his claws. If the tales about dream demons were true, then whenever he and the demon slumbered at the same time, Tarut could retrieve clues to his whereabouts.
Conrad had believed the curse of the mark was just folklore, the demons using tales of it to their advantage. But the injury refused to mend.
And that was only the first part of the curse. Legend held that Conrad couldn't heal until either the demon had been slain—or Conrad had had both his most fervent dream and most feared nightmare come true.
"You have to have a dream to lose it," Tarut had said at their last clash.
Conrad might actually be closing in on one. He stifled a shudder. His dream... her doom.
"You look a thousand times better after the shower," Sebastian said. "You're definitely getting more focused."
He shrugged. It wouldn't matter. Besides Tarut, Conrad was being hunted by at least half a dozen contingents that wanted him either captured or executed.
The Kapsliga, his former order, sought his death because he was an abomination to them—a vampire who wore their symbol on his back. They'd made him their priori
ty, dispatching Tarut and other assassins after Conrad.
Then there were countless offspring of Conrad's victims, all seeking to avenge their fathers, swords in hand.
And it was only a matter of time before he became the target of Rydstrom Woede, the fallen king of the fierce rage demons, and Cadeon, his heir.
Conrad had come by information that they would kill for.
Dozens of demonarchies held Conrad as enemy number one; he worried about none of them—except for the Woede, as the pair was called.
None of these adversaries would hesitate to destroy anyone who stood in their way. It was possible that Conrad and his brothers could be taken down without his lifting a finger.
"Are you ready to drink?" Nikolai asked.
"The only thing I drink that's not fresh from the vein is whiskey," he lied.
In the past, Conrad had drunk bagged blood, but he refused now. Though he was getting thirstier, he didn't need nourishment as often as other vampires, and he'd be damned if he bent to their will in this.
Murdoch had called him stubborn, and Conrad couldn't deny it. After being captured, chained, and drugged, Conrad wouldn't prove obliging to their futile plans—especially when he wouldn't be here much longer.
He'd noted that each brother had a key to his chains. When the ghost returned, he would get her to steal one. And then he'd be gone.
Nothing could be simpler.
11
Two goddamned days. The female hadn't come back to his room for two days. For that time, Conrad alternated between a burning desire to get free and a need to discover what she was to him.
During the nights, his brothers had returned and tried to reach him, but he had no time for them. Even if he was improving, the part of him that might have responded to his family was dead.
Besides, his mind was consumed with thoughts of Néomi.
Now he gritted his teeth, struggling to remain calm. He was trapped, unable to seek her out. If he went into another rage, his brothers might force him to leave this place, jailing him somewhere else.
And he wasn't through here, not yet, not until he figured out if she was affecting his mind. Though he was still having episodes of uncontrollable violence, his aggression and rage were becoming more manageable. Just the fact that he'd pulled back from the edge in the shower attested to that.
