Nightborn

“You told me to buy a dress. I followed your instructions.” She came around the car to stand before him. “Don’t you like it?”



She must still be addled by the drugs, he decided. “Come inside.” He closed the gap between them and took her by the wrist. “I will send for the doctor.”



She didn’t move. “I am not sick.”



“Do the other nuns at the convent dress and behave like trollops?” He tried to pull her along.



She came around him, her skirt riding up as she delivered a side kick to his knee and another to his shin that sent him sprawling. As Korvel lay there, stunned, she walked up to him and planted one shoe on his chest.



“I am not a nun, and you are not my master,” she said calmly. “So you may go back to your women and leave me alone.”



Simone had reached the end of the alley when Korvel jerked her around. “Say that again.”



“Leave me alone.”



He shook his head. “The first of it.”



She moved faster this time, but Korvel felt the coil of her muscles and countered the attack, using just enough strength to subdue her. When she stopped resisting he put his face close to hers. “Say it again.”



“I am not a nun.”



He released her and moved a short distance away, staring at the brick wall as he battled back his temper. He heard her come up behind him, her movements causing the red silk to whisper against her skin.



“I never told you that I was a nun, Captain.” She stood close enough for her breath to warm his air.



“You live in a convent,” he told the wall. “You wear nun’s garments, and pray with a rosary, and do good works. There is—was—a cross hanging about your neck.” He felt steady enough to look directly at her, which he realized at once was a mistake. “What the bloody hell was I supposed to think you were? An exotic dancer?”



“You’re not supposed to think about me at all,” she reminded him. “I’m nothing to you.”



His fangs pulsed as they stretched out in his mouth, as aching and eager as if he had not fed in a week. “Why do you live at the convent, Simone?”



“When I was a girl the sisters were my teachers, and they became very fond of me. When I left my father’s house they offered me a home and a purpose. I wear a habit when I leave the convent because that is what is expected.” She touched the place at her throat where her cross usually hung. “I’ve never taken vows or joined the order. I can’t. I don’t believe in God.”



“In your room, I watched you pray.” His jaw tightened. “Another pretense?”



Simone shrugged. “Habit. I do it because it pleases Flavia to believe I have faith. It is easier than arguing with her.”



“Why let me believe you were a nun?”



“You did not tell me what you believed.” At last a flicker of shame passed over her features. “Besides, if you had asked, I would have told you.”



“I have been calling you ‘sister’ for days,” he said, snarling the words. “You knew precisely what I thought. You wanted me to believe you had taken vows. That you were an innocent.”



The laugh she uttered had a tinge of self-mockery. “I offered you sex, Captain. You refused me.”



“Another of your maneuverings,” he countered. “You knew my honor demanded nothing less.”



“I knew nothing of you, you oblivious ass.” Her upper lip curled. “Your precious honor didn’t stop you last night, did it?”



Simone regretted the taunt from the moment it left her lips. Last night Korvel had not forced or coerced her; she had wanted it as much as he had. If she had refused him he would not have touched her. Now in her anger she had wanted him to feel as wretched about it as she did, but she had succeeded only in shaming herself.



“I shouldn’t have said that. I apologize, Captain.” Unable to look at him another moment, she walked out of the alley.



The few pedestrians Simone passed stared at her, as if they knew what a fool she had made of herself. She changed direction, retreating to a narrow, shadowed lane that led between the gates and walls surrounding some private homes.



The sound of water tickled her ear, and she stopped outside the iron gates leading to a private courtyard. Inside a garden of ivy, lemon trees and evergreens surrounded a tall, tiered fountain. Simone gripped the bars of the gate, resting her forehead against them as she watched the silvery streams cascading into three basins cast to resemble blooming flowers.



The sound of approaching footsteps made her look down at the latch on the gate, which was not locked, and then up at the shuttered windows of the dark house. She opened the gate and slipped inside, ducking behind a lattice of leafy vines. As the scent of larkspur mixed with the greenery around her, she closed her eyes.



“My women.”



Simone looked up at Korvel, and braced herself as he lifted his hand. When he caught a tendril of her hair and drew it away from her face, she shivered. “What about them?”



“You told me to go back to my women.” He traced the contour of her cheek. “You meant the females from the club. You saw me with them, and it made you do this. Why?”



“I woke up and you were gone.” She sounded like a sulky child, but she didn’t care. “I came downstairs to find you, and there you were, with four of them crawling over you. How could you be with them after last night? What’s wrong with me?”



“I used them for blood, Simone, not sex.” He moved his hand to the back of her neck, where his thumb brushed over the fine hairs on her nape. “There is nothing wrong with you.”



“I watched you put your mouth on one of them.” She touched her breast. “Here.”



“In public I must feed with discretion. I took blood from her there so that her dress would cover the marks from my dents acérées.” He glanced down. “Are you wearing anything under yours?”



Now he was teasing her. “It doesn’t matter.” Another time she might have joked about her outrageous behavior, but not tonight. Not while the longing for him still twisted inside her. She ducked out from under his arm. “I will return to the hotel and collect our things.”



“I am not done with you.”



Korvel turned her around, backing her up against the iron gate as his big hand slid down over her hip to the hem of her skirt. She forgot to breathe as she felt his fingers stroke up the outside of her thigh.



“Stockings.” He pushed the skirt up out of his way, his fingers inching along the satin ribbon of her garter from the outside of her thigh to her waist. He then slid his hand around her and followed the small of her back down to the bare curve of her bottom.



“Captain.”



He ignored her shocked whisper. “No knickers.” With his other hand he tugged the edge of her bodice away from her body. “And no brassiere. I thought as much.”



“The girl in the shop said they would show through the lace.” She inhaled sharply as he shifted his hand back to the front of her hips. “If you want sex—”



“You are obsessed with sex.” He worked his fingers through the thatch of her body hair, playing with the small curls. “Is it because of me, or have you always been this way?”



She went rigid. “I am not a whore.”



“No, you’re not. No whore offers such passion.” One finger parted her. “Feel how wet you are here, how hot you burn beneath my touch? A whore is hard and cold. You’re softer than the silk you wear, Simone.”



He was touching her as he had last night, but only because he felt sorry for her, because he wanted to appease her. It made her angry all over again. “I don’t need you to pity me.”



He stared at her. “Is that what you think this is?”



Korvel scooped her up into the cradle of his arm, snatching her off her feet and carrying her over to the fountain. Simone grabbed his shoulders, too startled to do more than hold on, and a moment later found herself on her back on the widest of the lounges beside the splashing water. The cushion under her sank as he straddled the lounge.



“Are you mad?”



“As it happens, I am.” Korvel loomed over her, positioning her before he reached for the front of his trousers. “Look at me. Look at me.” When she did, he guided his penis to her, working the dome of it between her folds. “This is what I have for you. Only you.” He pressed it, breaching her body. “This is why you wore that dress. For me. You want to tempt me, inflame me, have me on you like this.”



Even flat on her back and pinned as she was by the weight of his body and the spike of his sex, Simone could think of a hundred ways to hurt him. All she could do was watch his eyes as he pushed into her, and feel the stretch and ache of her softness around his thick, hard shaft.



Korvel pushed her skirt up around her waist and looked down at the mesh of their bodies, holding himself deep inside her as he reached for her bodice and pulled it down to bare her breasts. His hands covered them, weighing and kneading before he pinched the tight tips.



It was too much, Simone thought, feeling the welling of some terrible emotion inside her. “Why now?”



“Because this is what I want.” He slid his arms under her, lifting her up to give her a slow, deep kiss before he pressed her face to his throat and began to move. “I want to fuck you, Simone. And I think you want it too.”



The delicious scent of his skin captivated her; she parted her lips so she could put her tongue against his cool skin. He stiffened as he felt the damp caress, and within her body she felt his penis surge.



Korvel draped her legs over his arms, spreading them wide as he forged deeper. “This time I want to feel you come all over me. You come on my cock.”



Simone clenched around him, trying to hold him in the deepest part of her, but he dragged his shaft back, leaving behind a hot, wet emptiness. She almost shrieked until he stroked into her again, stabbing through the quivering ache and touching some part of her that sent a jolt through her belly and breasts.