The Hunted

by L. A. Banks

  He waved his hand and instantly transformed the space around her. She sank into a lush, king-sized bed that became the centerpiece of the room. White silk just for her. Much better. He snapped his fingers, adding appointments; the walls went marble, candles lit, a torch flared by the bed, a gentle breeze blew, and an instrumental version of her song came on. If only he had his own lair, he’d give her cliffs and make the moon her spotlight. He sealed the room’s exterior with silence. The clerics didn’t need to hear this.

  Carlos slowly took off his jacket. “You’re sure?” His eyes never left hers. She had no idea what she was getting herself into. He’d waited for this moment for years.

  She glanced around the transformed lair then looked back up at him and nodded. “I knew you were a master . . . had heard about . . . but didn’t know you could do stuff like this . . .”

  He didn’t answer her as he dropped his jacket and came to her. She had no concept of what he could do, if she’d let him. Trying to decide where to begin, he garnered patience. She deserved all the pleasure he could give her. He’d stop time until she begged him to let her go.

  He nuzzled the hair away from her neck, and she tensed. He planted a gentle kiss against it. Her mind began to close him away. “Don’t . . . I won’t bite you.” His whisper drew a gasp from her, and he chuckled low in his throat.

  She wasn’t sure if it was a vamp line, right now she didn’t care. He’d said that to her when they’d first met, and right now it meant the world. There was no resistance, any fear had been replaced by something that went way beyond that.

  It wasn’t a line. Didn’t she know what the feel of her skin was doing to him? It was an aphrodisiac, just like her scent. Biting her was the last thing he was thinking about, she’d already taken him back to that first encounter when they’d met—blowing his mind. He rubbed his face against her shoulder, and with that their clothes vanished. She had wandered into a master vampire’s lair . . . an innocent . . . in a priest’s house. Shame on it all, but he was already damned. Natural law superseded any other laws they could levy. He’d tried to warn her . . . he wouldn’t bite her. At least not yet . . . not till you beg me to.

  “I might,” she whispered. Shit . . . what was she saying?

  Yeah, she would. But not yet.

  He became dull heat, blanketing her, sending pleasure through every cell of her, licking away the sudden smolder he’d put onto her skin followed by a kiss that made it burn hotter. The arch of her neck was gasoline on his open flame. He lowered his mouth to it, like lowering a torch, and let the inferno consume him, then drew back to study her throat and willed himself to save the best for last. Not yet . . .

  Kissing along her collarbone, finding the delicate tips of her breasts, suckling the tight dark pebbles, making her moan and lift her hips until her fingernails dug into his shoulders, he took his time. He knew . . . soon. Yeah, he felt it all, too. Baby, be patient . . . you’ll want this to last.

  Abandoning the soft mounds of flesh to explore each tender underside, his tongue trailed down her belly drawing a slow hiss of air from her as she arched again. I know. The sound of her voice made his hands splay under her rising backside, drawing a harsh gasp from her with each gentle pull of skin, the smell of her unleashing bands of color behind his lids, every shudder almost making him forget this was her first time and that his mouth needed to take her, tease her, totally spend her.

  He buried his nose in a downy forest of curls where a stream of pure want spilled from her plump slit. Oh . . . man . . . she was so wet it was dissolving his control. And she smelled so damned good, was so swollen, he could hear her pulse between her legs. His moan traveled inside her, quaking her womb, causing her to grab the silk sheets in another hard arch.

  It made him mentally tell her the truth. Baby, you don’t know how long I’ve waited for this. Ever since he’d let her sleep untouched on his mother’s sofa. You know how many nights I went to bed jonesin’ for you, la amante? Losing my mind in my own mother’s house . . .

  Gentle caresses sent the message, he opened her with deep kisses, letting her feel the softness of his mouth against the soft slickness of her, preparing her to soon receive the opposite of that. Her fingers raked through his hair, holding him to her, a deep guttural moan aching within him as it pushed its way up her abdomen. He caressed her hips with his palms flat, tracing them, while his tongue drizzled pleasure into sweet folds and flicked at her bud. He let it find the deep cavity that had a throbbing rim, circling it, intensifying the ache, making it flutter with contractions, sending her voice through the roof as he probed gently at the thin skin that was partially blocking him easy entry—refusing to stop until the passageway became newly flooded. Then he drove in his tongue for real, claiming her sweet territory.

  She called his name in her mind and it instantly came up from her throat low and deep. That was the sound he’d been waiting to hear. She’d called his name, repeating it like the refrain of a song that soon lost its beat and measure, drawn out on a spasm that choked before it died on a breathless gasp.

  Tears filled her eyes and spilled from the corners of them down the sides of her pretty face. He could taste the salt in each fast-running drop the moment they hit the air. When he lifted his head to witness his handiwork in her expression, a sheen of fresh orgasm-perspiration made her skin glisten. He felt her total surrender, saw it glittering in her irises, the torch fire making it dance as her hands again found his shoulders and she slowly closed her lids, tilted back her head to expose her throat. He ran his tongue against his teeth—not this time. Not her first time. No. He’d be gentle.

  But it was her ragged breathing that was messing him up, just like her urgent arch had . . . just like her racing pulse did. He slid his hand down her inner thigh, opening her wider, the rapid thud in her femoral artery a magnet. He was trying so hard to simply love her like a man, and not like what he truly was. She had given herself freely without him having to employ any powers of seduction from the dark side of his being, and that gift deserved to be cherished with the best he could give in return. Pure pleasure.

  He studied her face, the tilt of her chin, and allowed his eyes to slide down her throat, her deep breaths burning him. He watched her chest rise and fall, lungs expanding and contracting like she couldn’t get enough air—because of him. She was in his bed—his lair. She had gone against family, just for him. She had crossed a prayer line and left a fortress—just for him. He hadn’t even called into the night for her, and she knew what he was, but yet she came to him on her own, regardless. And she was writhing beneath him—warm . . . wet . . . suffering with a need he understood all too well.

  It messed up his reason, her sweet seduction had, and now it was threading its way through the dark crevices of his mind . . . that place within him that had wanted her like this for so long. He had to honor that request, as well as his own nature. The night was young, and he owned it.

  He slid against her like they shared the same skin, swept his cheek hard against the side of her neck, making her shudder, then captured her earlobe with his lips, suckling it, drawing the same pleasure into it that he’d just visited upon the delicate bud between her legs. He could feel her open her eyes with the gasp she’d released, shocked. Yeah, hombre, do her right. The night was young, and so was she. She’d never been with a man before. Don’t break the seal on this package too fast—be all-pro. Give her the best.

  Her grip tightened on his shoulders as he left her earlobe just before she climaxed, and he breathed a command into the canal of it. “When I call you, come to me. Hear?”

  She nodded and shut her eyes tight, her body moving beneath him, trying to capture him within it, but he shook his head no. Not yet. Her response was a series of short pants that he stopped with his mouth, his kiss deep and feral as his tongue scored the roof of hers and concentrated on a single point.

  In his mind he could see that agonized strobe of tender flesh within her canal. It hid just behind her cervix, deep
, like a glowing ember that had never been properly stoked. He copied its throb into her mouth, using the tip of his tongue to make the transfer, then deepened the French kiss until she almost choked on her own spit when she came hard.

  He abandoned her mouth, but not the sensation it carried, depositing points of pleasure along her jugular. Damn right, the road to Hell was paved with good intentions. He wanted every kiss to claim her, every brush of her earlobe to devastate her. He wanted to be able to glance across a crowded room at her and take her over the edge. He demanded an imprint like a maker’s mark. A permanent bond. She was his, and he’d rewire her body’s circuitry until she only responded for him.

  While kissing her shoulder he went into her mind with purpose, a hard-thrust thought, like he was planning to do to the rest of her later, only to be so rewarded by her fantasies that he almost wept and busted a nut himself. Entering her thoughts so fast had felt like he’d just plunged into her up to the hilt. It took him a moment to steady himself through a shudder and her diaphragm-sent moan. Her smooth hands were running up and down his back, sending shivers with them as they slid with his sweat and her legs wrapped around his, then slipped over his hips to anchor around his waist.

  No, it wasn’t over yet. Sweet torture was divine, didn’t she know? He gently pushed at her knees until she released his waist. He chuckled low in his throat as she shook her head to tell him no more, not again, that the pleasure was unbearable. He savored the fact that she was beyond words, even telepathically. Stop? Not hardly. He wasn’t finished leaving his brand.

  He gathered up everything she’d forbidden herself on a hard inhale, letting the tension in those secret places build like slow thunder, moving down her torso, trailing her belly with his tongue again, collecting and stroking each time she’d whimpered alone in her bed, connecting to every time her hand had cautiously slid down her stomach searching for release alone but denied, years of pent-up want straining to hold out and do the right thing, her pillow her lover. Six years of agony, of night sweats and wet dreams . . . years of brutal intensity unanswered, her delicate hand a poor substitute for him. Oh, baby, you suffered . . . want me to kiss it and make it better?

  When she nodded quickly, tears streaming down her face, he let it all go with a deep plunge of his tongue, finding her unspoiled opening once more. He sent all of her denied release as a spiral of sudden climaxes bound to shock waves of pleasure, answering each unquenched night he’d endured in the pulse of his tongue.

  In a subtle fusion he made both his pent-up agony and hers collide on his deepening kiss and offered her the threat of spontaneous heart failure lick by lick . . . six years was a long time to want somebody this badly . . . didn’t she know he had the power to make her feel it all at once, in one incredible flash-fire moment? Love her like a mere man, impossible now. She was more than a woman; she was his Neteru. You ready?

  This time she released his name in the key of G, perfect pitch, then riffed the scale with one shrill word—“Yes.”

  Oh . . . yeah . . . the night was young, and he was night itself. He was gonna put his thing down hard so she’d never question him again, or tell him no.

  Yet her seizure had almost made him forget that it was indeed night, just like her voice had . . . and her sobs . . . damn . . . he had to remember to breathe. She had scorched him like daylight; her burning response left him near ash. He nipped her inner thigh, but didn’t break the skin, determined to finish the brand with authority. But she grabbed his hair, her spine a snap-flex that had her almost sitting up to make him look up at her.

  “Oh, fuck it—stop playing, Carlos,” she whispered, tears washing her face, her voice coming out fast, harsh, so urgent that it made him shudder.

  The expression in her eyes stunned him for a moment, so had the husky demand. It had instantly caused a groin contraction that filled his shaft with hot fluid pressure. He could feel it pearling at the tip and oozing from it in a thin, clear line down to the sheets. She’d made him want to slide inside her so badly his vision was blurring. Damn, he was gonna lose control if she kept talking to him like that. But not tonight. He’d brand her with pleasure, just like she’d branded him with her Isis—a slow, sizzling burn. He would molten-bronze cast that shit before he was finished with her. Make her banish the word no.

  He came to her fast, covered her in a hot slide against her, and kissed her hard, then broke from her mouth and held the sides of her head, but didn’t enter her. He made her look into his eyes as his fingers tangled through her hair. “I don’t want you to bleed, not there.” He heard her mind shriek that she didn’t care as her pelvis gyrated beneath him. Fuck it, he did. “Uh, uh, I don’t want you to ever associate pain with me, not there, baby. You don’t want it like that. Neither do I.”

  Focus. He slid his hand to her back, pressing against it hard to hold her close, giving her a little bit of what she craved, just the tip, and held her pelvis down against the mattress to keep her from moving, to keep himself from moving and in check. He dropped his voice low so she would pay attention. “Let me work it in slow. Trust me.”

  He had to stare at the wall for a moment to get himself together; her contractions were like a desperate siphon, her voice had unraveled to an agonized wail carrying the word, “Please.” when a sob of pleasure ripped through her and she begged him to hurry and put it in hard, he almost did. His breathing was getting ragged, and the point on the wall wasn’t working.

  Oh . . . shit . . . this woman was fine. She was like a piece of rare, passionate art, needed to be displayed proper in the correct venue, mounted right and handled with care, not ruined. But her voice was blowing the lid off his mental black box. It was taking him places that he knew he didn’t need to go . . . not for her first time. But, shit, his possessiveness was loosed, he was a Scorp before he died . . . and she needed to know what she’d been missing from him all these years. Needed to know one voice, one pair of hands, one set of eyes when she closed hers at night—his. He owned this; her pussy was claimed. She was his territory. Fuck a pillow—never again, not on his watch. Tell me it’s mine!

  The side of his hot face caught her temple; she arched, nodded, sputtering, sobbing, and answered him righteous.

  “Oh, God, yes, Carlos, it’s yours.”

  Exactly.

  That was probably his undoing . . . Especially when she sobbed and told him it always had been his. True he was a vampire, but he was also a man. Her shudder became his sudden shudder, and his kiss against her throat became more aggressive than intended. He almost dropped fang. She smelled so damned good, and the way she felt around him, her legs constricting his waist, squeezing him in the rhythm she was aching for—hard stroke. But no, if he went there, it would be all over way too fast. She was holding him to her, her nails digging into his skin until he could smell his own blood. That’s what I’m talking about.

  “When I call you like this, for this, don’t make us both suffer,” he said on a ragged breath. Her gasp was his answer. “I don’t care what your family’s got to say,” he whispered hard against her neck. “This is between me and you.”

  “I will, I swear,” she said, weeping under his hold, her voice a knife to his system, slicing it, cutting away his will. “I can’t take it.”

  He cradled her in his arms, and eased against her, slow, steady, then brought one hand to her hip to still her frenzied movements so she wouldn’t hurt herself. Then he stopped and kissed her forehead, her eyelids, the bridge of her nose, her mouth. With his heart full he moved against her in small, smooth increments, letting her adjust to his weight, to his penetration of her body. He allowed himself to fill the tightness until his pelvis touched hers. Caressing her cheek, he nuzzled her temple, and stayed away from her throat—lest he forget. But her mind ravaged his as it begged for him to take her that way as well.

  She couldn’t stand it. The pleasure was so profound it made her nearly insane. She let her voice go. No shame. There was no way to hold it back anyway.

&n
bsp; Each touch set a glowing iron of hot want to her skin . . . his mouth, oh God, this man’s mouth . . . she never knew. Seconds seemed like hours, and minutes had fused into what felt like days, time had literally stopped as he tasted her ear again while lodged deep inside her not moving, left her writhing, wet, sweaty dazed, in a fever, and now he wouldn’t let her move as he sucked her earlobe and made her feel it in her bud.

  Every inch of him that covered her was purely honed strength, and she allowed her hands to travel down his back, dip into the valley of his spine that rose again into his tight ass that clenched on the slow down stroke. Have mercy. Thick muscular thighs pushed against the bed, against her, in a maddening, lazy rhythm designed to spare her, but prolonged the agony of needing immediate release one more time.

  Sweet torture, sweet Jesus, this man was finding parts within her, sensitive spots, hidden deep and stroking them with his lazy rhythm, making her beg him to go faster . . . wanting him to hit that spot he found down deep . . . shit, he could bludgeon it, just hit it. Her mind pulled him, begged him to keep coming back to that place being kissed by his shaft then gone, returning slowly to pass it again, making her arch, making him hold her hips tighter to slow the pace, the compromise almost shattering his promise to himself that she’d heard through his skin. Hell yeah, she’d come to him for this—any night—just call. He owned her. Her eyes were crossing beneath her shut lids. Any night, every night, just don’t stop. There was no pride when it came to something like this . . . if she’d only known.

  And the feeling . . . the feeling of those muscles moving beneath taunt skin as they contracted in a dance, a slow salsa, good lord . . . he had to stop. Oh, lord, he’d better not. Ribbons of light scored her shut lids, a current of electricity tore through her until her body seized and convulsed and the shudders would not end. She couldn’t breathe, forgot how to, his face burned her cheek as his head burrowed into her shoulder. The wondrous release shot up the core of her, shook her womb, entered her spinal cord, and imploded at the top of her skull. She was gonna die from pleasure, have a damned stroke. Her stomach muscles pulled her up hard, his weight on her notwithstanding, jerking her, whiplashing her; she could only ride it out holding his hair and his back with her fists till it ended.