Chapter Eleven
“How about watching a movie in bed?” Tia suggested as they walked up the stairs to the second floor bedrooms.
Agile fingers danced at the small of his back, reassuring him she was still interested in the ‘bed’ part of the evening’s entertainment, but…a movie? Wyland didn’t know if he could keep his hands off her for the twenty footsteps it would take to reach his bedroom, much less for an hour and a half. Back at the Archives, he’d almost taken her on the table, heedless of the precious books he insisted no bare fingers touch. Thankfully, they’d driven home in separate cars, because he’d needed every centimeter of the drive to put a choke-chain on his libido.
“If you wish.” He wasn’t an animal. He could control himself—for a while, to please her.
She laughed, low and knowing, as she slipped her fingertips under his belt. “Haven’t you ever necked at the movies?”
Her suggestive tone shot to his head like top-shelf liquor. “No.” He hadn’t watched a movie in years, but any activity involving her luscious neck sounded intriguing. As they reached the top of the stairs and turned down the hallway, the household’s window shutters engaged, shutting out the rising sun with a whoosh and a click.
“Do you have a TV and DVD player in your room, or should we use Valerian’s?” she asked.
“I have them.”
“Let me get something from my movie box.” She gave his arse a cheeky pat before creeping across the hall to Valerian’s sitting room.
Her warm touch lingered, and her scent was absolutely intoxicating. He was drunk on her, absolutely piss drunk, and he’d barely touched her yet. Hell. It didn’t matter what film Tia chose, as long as she was lying on the bed beside him.
Beneath him.
On top of him.
Soon.
Entering his room, he flicked on the bedside lamp. After giving the room a quick glance—it was neat enough, except for his desk—he hurried to the bathroom. Thankfully, it was in better condition now than he’d left it, with the glass shower enclosure wiped clean of water droplets, and a new bar of soap at the sink. The damp towels he’d used earlier were gone, replaced with dry, fresh linens. On the toilet tank, a small wicker basket of pine needles and pinecones had appeared, filling the room with a subtle scent.
The utilitarian room looked like a spa. He cast a mental ‘thank you’ to Thane.
You’re welcome. Sleep well. With that, Thane withdrew, leaving him in privacy.
“What a beautiful room,” Tia said from the bathroom door, holding a slim black box. “So many shades of blue, and what a gorgeous shower.” She looked at the clear panel of glass, then at him, as if visualizing what he’d look like standing behind it.
Naked.
His teeth tingled, and his cock gave a warning throb. If he didn’t get her out of here, he’d take her on the hard tile floor. With a hand at the small of her back, he guided her back to the bedroom. Leaving her to explore, he bent to the chest at the foot of his bed and pressed a couple of buttons. A flat-screen television slowly rose, perfectly positioned for viewing from the bed.
“Awesome! Just like on Cribs.”
He wanted to bask in Tia’s obvious delight, but Thane had chosen the outrageous piece of furniture. “What is Cribs?”
“A show that used to be on MTV—you know, the music television station? Famous musicians would invite a camera crew into their homes for a day and show off their larger-than-life décor. And this—” she gave the mattress a testing push, then winked at him “—is where the magic happens.”
His blood pressure spiked. “What?”
“That’s what the people on Cribs always said when they toured the bedroom.” She scanned the room, running her hand over the bluish-gray duvet. “I have to say, your bedroom looks more modern than I expected.”
“What did you expect?”
“Antiques,” she said with a shrug. “Something a little more traditional.”
Meaning staid, of course. And if they’d had this conversation a year ago, she’d have been right. When Thane expressed an urge to redecorate last year, Wyland had given him free rein here in his private quarters. Unlike Valerian, he had no sentimental attachment to furniture; he was more concerned about functionality, utility, and a basic level of comfort. After spending gleeful weeks with color swatches, tile samples, and carpet squares, Thane had definitely met his requirements—the mattress was sinfully comfortable, and the L-shaped desk was a quantum improvement over the tiny Victorian secretary he used to use—but he’d never considered whether a lover might find the room pleasing.
Perhaps Thane had.
Tia crouched in front of the entertainment center and turned on the DVD player. Opening the black container she’d brought with her, she extracted a disc, and slid it into the machine.
“What’s tonight’s feature?”
“Bram Stoker’s Dracula.”
He froze.
“Come on, don’t be so stuffy.” When she rose, there was a remote control in her hand. “It’ll be fun.”
Fun? He glanced at the plump, accordion-pleated folder sitting on his desk. If she only knew how much bloody work Bram’s little story had created for him over the years.
“There’s this really hot ménage scene…”
His pulse gave a bump. If Tia wanted to watch a movie, they’d watch a movie. Even this movie. He’d focus her attention elsewhere soon enough. “Would you like something to drink?”
“Sure, what do you have?”
When he opened the small refrigerator next to the desk, he blinked in surprise. In addition to the usual water, juice, and blood, there was a six-pack of Tia’s favorite soda, several bottles of excellent wine, and a beautifully arranged platter of cheese, fruit, and crackers.
Tia chose the Riesling. “I’ll start the movie.”
As he dealt with the cork and poured, he heard a series of electronic clicks. Fabric rustled, making his body hair stand on end. His perfectly-tailored suit coat suddenly seemed two sizes too small.
Tia Quinn was finally in his bed.
He took a deep breath. Another. A third. Once he regained a modicum of control, he picked up the wine glasses, turned toward her, and nearly dropped them.
Tia Quinn was naked in his bed.
She was under the duvet, on the side where he usually slept, her shoulders bare against the pillows she’d propped against the headboard. Her clothes were strewn across the carpet, dropped where she’d removed them. Right next to the bed was a wisp of white lace, a garment so insubstantial it barely deserved the name.
He swallowed with an audible click.
“Wyland?”
His gaze jumped to the bed. The Tiffany lamp turned her reddish hair to flame, and the green tips glowed against the pale gray pillowcase. Her eyes sparkled, and her skin seemed lit from within. She was a kaleidoscope of color against his monochromatic sheets. He didn’t know where to look first.
“Wyland? The wine?” She sounded amused, as if she knew exactly how addled he was. He walked to the bed and handed her a glass. “Thank you.” Her throat shifted as she drank, her shadowy veins fluttering beneath her skin. Jerking his gaze away, he took a hasty gulp from his own glass. “Mmm, this is lovely,” she said, her lips wet from the wine. “And look at you. Pure suit porn.”
His suit? Pornography?
She ran her finger down his thigh, her eyes skimming his body with appreciation. “There’s something so arousing about a beautiful man wearing a beautiful suit. That steely gray, with your coloring?” Her lips made an approving moue. “Gorgeous.”
No woman had ever complimented his appearance quite so frankly before. The roles—the rules—regarding sexual congress had definitely changed since he’d last had relations, and…he liked it. How utterly refreshing that a woman could look at a man with frank sexual hunger in her eyes, and not hide her desire. That a woman could speak openly and without shame about how much he aroused her. He sat on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping with his weight. “You’re the gorgeous one.” Was there anything more beautiful than seeing your own desire reflected back from the face of your lover, her anticipation written there for you to read?
Such a thing could enslave a man.
Setting her glass on the nightstand, she brushed the covers aside, rose to her knees, and pressed her nude form against his fully-clothed body. She slid her hands under the suit coat, stroking upward from his stomach to his chest. “I love the suit,” she murmured, trailing her mouth along the border where his shirt collar met his neck. “But why don’t you take it off?”
Each word was a maddening caress. Down at the foot of the bed, Vlad the Impaler kissed his doomed wife Elisabeta goodbye, but Wyland was too busy watching Tia crawl away from him on hands and knees to care.
She reclaimed her wine before settling back against the pillows again, not bothering with the blankets this time. Pale skin, soft curves, firm muscles over fine bones…the multicolored Tiffany lampshade spilled color over her shoulders and breasts, highlighting her pebbled nipples. Her waist nipped in, flaring out to hips that any Renaissance master would yearn to sculpt or paint. Sleek thighs, muscular calves…her feet were crossed at the ankle, exaggerating the vee of her mons.
“Start with the jacket,” she murmured.
His pulse pounded. He’d never undressed for a lover before. Deirdre had always— No. Deirdre had no place here. The past had no place here—not when Tia, this enchanting, exasperating woman from the here and now, watched him with a hunger she didn’t hide.
Her hot gaze slowed time to honey.
When he set his wine on the table next to hers, the click of glass against wood sounded unnaturally loud. He toed off his shoes, nudging them under the bed so no one tripped on them, then shrugged off his coat. She made an inarticulate sound deep in her throat, one that made his body hair stand on end. She watched his hands, staring at them as he draped the coat over the foot board, as he reached for his belt. Leather creaked. Metal clanked. He flicked open the button at the waistband, then worked the zipper over his straining cock. Leaving the pants sagging at his hips, he yanked out his shirt tails.
Bloody hell, how was a man supposed to focus on the task at hand when she lay there, wearing nothing but skin and light, watching him so greedily?
Her gaze was a phantom, caressing him through the air. His cock throbbed; his bollocks ached. Energy snarled low in his pelvis, a long-forgotten sensation.
“God.” Her throaty curse was poetry.
He made fast work of his shirt buttons, yanking it off and dropping it to the floor. Shoving his hair aside, he grasped the neck of his undershirt, hauled it over his head, and tossed it next to the dress shirt.
She chuckled.
“What’s so funny?”
“Men undress so matter-of-factly. No delicacy to it whatsoever.”
He refused to think about where she’d gained such knowledge. After a fortifying breath, he stepped out of his pants.
Tia’s avid gaze raked him up and down. “Calvin Klein boxer briefs. Very hot.”
He still thought it was a strange thing to have another man’s name written on his smalls. “They’re quite comfortable.” Rather, they usually were, when his penis behaved itself instead of fighting with the fabric.
As she moved toward him, he didn’t know where to look. At her erect nipples, standing out in little points for his tongue? At her hips, shifting so mysteriously? Arousal flushed her cheeks, flashed in her eyes, and her fangs glinted in the light. Kneeling before him, reaching for him with a graceful hand, she looked as alluring as a courtesan.
When she cupped his cock through the soft cotton, he clutched her shoulders for support, locking his knees as she explored him with keen, knowledgeable hands. Cock, bollocks, hipbones, his arse…no bit of his anatomy was spared. His breath hissed as he watched. Obviously, he’d forgotten more about foreplay than he remembered, because this was torture, sheer bloody torture.
She lifted her hand. Before he could miss her touch, she was crouching, rubbing her cheek against his hard, aching flesh.
“You’re killing me,” he gritted out.
She smiled against the head of his cock. Before he could recover from the diabolical caress, she opened her mouth. Hot breath blossomed through the soft cotton, twining up his pelvis and spine. She pulled at the elastic waistband, working the garment over his arse and down his thighs. Letting gravity pull the fabric to the floor, she grabbed his hips and put her mouth back on him—not on his cock, but on the crease where his leg joined his torso, right over his femoral artery.
He drove his fangs into his lower lip, tasted his own blood. How had the little witch zeroed in on his most sensitive erogenous zone? As she licked and nibbled at the sensitive skin, his lifeblood surged like a whitewater rapids. His penis throbbed with every beat of his heart.
He wanted to wallow in the suck and pull of her mouth. Wallow in her until he drowned.
But when her tongue swirled against his skin, as if preparing it for her bite, he jerked away, tipping her back against the pillows and following her down. He came to rest covering her body, her full breasts pillowing his chest, lying between her spread thighs—an equally dangerous position.
With one subtle shift of his hips, he could be inside her.
One. Subtle. Shift.
A desperate groan escaped.
She wrapped her arms around him. Whispered his name.
Her eyes were heavy with arousal, and soft, slick heat gathered between her thighs. The lamp highlighted her collarbones, casting shadows at the juncture where her shoulder met her neck. Under her skin, blood rushed through her arteries and veins, branching out into tributaries he yearned to explore.
Deep in his lizard brain, a small voice whispered, “Drink.” He could please them both, and level the playing field between them, in one fell swoop.
So, so tempting.
He reached for the lamp, but she stopped him with a hand on his forearm. “Leave it on.”
Such sex-drenched words. Such a throaty demand. She’d probably packed more sexual experience into her meager thirty years than he had in three hundred.
Her strong legs came up, wrapping around his hips. “Leave it on,” she murmured against the notch between his clavicles. The points of her fangs scratched his skin. “Leave it on and fuck me.”
The wicked word blasted him broadside, lighting up his brain stem like a Beltane fire. He grabbed her head and kissed her—a wild, uncontrolled kiss, a clash of lips, teeth, and tongues. A kiss that drew blood—his, hers? He licked into her mouth, trying to gather more of its delectable, dark sting. His hips gave a helpless, instinctive roll.
He paused, panting, as his penis notched against the opening of her vagina. So warm, so wet. He gave another testing flex, hissing at the give of her resilient flesh.
“I have condoms in my purse.”
Condoms. The sensible, clinical word was a lifeline. Last night, he’d noticed the birth control patch on Tia’s hip, but condoms were a necessity between lovers who hadn’t yet exchanged sexual histories. His last sexual experience had literally occurred in the Victorian Age. “I’ll get them.” He levered his upper body off hers, then paused. Thane had provided everything else he needed for a romantic encounter; why not condoms? He reached into the bedside table’s drawer, and sure enough, came out with a small black and gold cardboard box.
He peered at the label. Ten latex condoms, pre-lubricated with a reservoir tip. “Ribbed for her pleasure,” he read. What the hell did that mean? The last time he’d used a condom, latex hadn’t been invented yet, but…surely they worked the same way?
Tia grabbed the box and tore it open, spilling condoms onto the bed. Snatching up a strip, she tore off a single small packet, ripped it open with her teeth, and withdrew a small, flexible disk about the size of a British crown. He smelled latex, and chemicals—odd but not off-putting, especially compared to sheep intestine—but before he could take it from her, she nudged him back, rolled the condom onto his penis, and pulled him back between her legs.
He lifted a brow. “Such efficiency.”
“You were taking too long.” Reaching to the nape of his neck, she none-too-gently pulled at the elastic band he’d put back on in the car. His hair spilled down, curtaining their faces.
Even in the shadows, her eyes mesmerized him. The combination of green and brown reminded him of tender shoots pushing through rich, fertile soil in springtime.
Damn it, now he was waxing poetic. When had everything gotten so bloody convoluted?
She broke their gaze, wrapping her arms and legs around him, pulling him closer. The tip of his cock skimmed her slick folds. Tia writhed against him, clawing at his back and tugging at his hair. A delicate pink flush suffused her cheeks, chest, and neck…her beautiful neck, with its enticing blue veins... He nuzzled them. Nipped.
She tipped her head back, giving him unfettered access. “Drink from me,” she whispered. Her words were a dark, sultry invitation, an invitation to as much pleasure as a vampire could possibly stand.
He looked down at the fluttering vein, stared at its rhythmic throb. Imagined driving his fangs into it, and drinking her lush, rich lifeblood. Yes, having access to her thoughts and emotions would help level the playing field between them, but—
He couldn’t.
Could he?
It had been so long.
No. He couldn’t drink from her if he wouldn’t let her drink from him in return—and thanks to Valerian, she’d already sipped more of his blood than he was comfortable with.
“Wyland.” Her gaze was steady on his. “Don’t mind-fuck this to death. I want you to know me. I want you to drink from me. I want to feel your fangs and your cock inside me.”
“Tia…” How could she take such risks? How could she give so freely, expecting nothing in return? Once he drank from her, he’d be able to read her like a book—until she learned to protect her mental boundaries, at any rate.
Tia wrapped her arms around him, embracing him. “Drink from me.” Her eyes glowed with heat, anticipation, and welcome. Her pupils were huge, dark as the infinite night sky.
With a minute shift of his hips, the tip of his cock skimmed her slippery heat. He stilled, closing his eyes and clenching his teeth. Her heels dug into his arse, spurring him on. With a slow, steady glide, he buried himself to the hilt.
“Mmm.” Her velvety groan twined around his vitals, her fingernails biting into his back with a tiny, erotic sting. Her arms and legs tightened, enveloping him in a languorous embrace.
Through the ultra-thin condom, he felt every hot clutch and ripple with a violent clarity. Do not spend. Do not. He would bring her pleasure first, even if it killed him.
He started to move—slowly, so slowly—trailing his hands anywhere and everywhere he could touch, delving his tongue into her sweet, tart mouth. He lost himself as their lips and hips surged together, swallowing her throaty moans whole. Lost himself in the lush cavern of her mouth, and in the tight, slick channel he forged again and again.
They strained together, harder. Faster. Her inner muscles clutched and clung. “Please,” she whispered, her eyes blind and wild. “Now.”
Tilting her head back, she exposed the long, white column of her neck.
He stared, mesmerized, as if he hadn’t written a half-dozen textbooks detailing its anatomy. As if he hadn’t examined, resected, and repaired every millimeter of every life-giving tributary, a thousand times over.
He couldn’t resist.
He couldn’t refuse.
This is the most selfish thing I’ve ever done.
“Wyland…” Her hips moved faster, her breath huffing against his ear in thin, reedy moans. Her heels dug into his buttocks, spurring him on.
He homed in on the external jugular pulsing just under her skin. He gently nuzzled it, licking and swirling with his tongue.
She suddenly tensed, her body strung tight as a bow. “Oh, god.” The strong muscles of her vagina clenched around him, poised for the leap. One more hard thrust—another—and she shattered beneath him with a cry, her nails biting into his back.
He plunged his fangs into the tender vein. Her lifeblood gushed like a geyser, flooding his mouth. A searing bolt of pleasure sizzled into him, zinging between fangs, brain stem, and cock. Sunlight, shadows, sweet and tart…endlessly complex…a throb of Valerian’s immense power… His sensory system was going haywire, but he didn’t care. He could do nothing but swallow or drown, drink and thrust, drink and thrust until she was fully satisfied, until… Ah, there it was—that exquisite ferrous filament, a receptor his greedy DNA immediately recognized.
Reaching for him.
He reached back, and felt the delicate synaptic connection click into place.
Oh, my.
Right? She sighed, trailing a languid hand from his hair to his stinging back to his arse. The gush in his mouth had slowed to hot, silky pulses, but he didn’t mistake it for weakness. She was strong, so strong—strong enough to share her blood with him and ask for nothing in return.
Guilt nudged at him. Her boundaries were non-existent—she didn’t know how to protect herself yet—and now, he could read her as easily as a billboard.
She thought he was smoking hot, and didn’t think him old and decrepit in the least. She was intrigued by him. Confused by him. He was the best lover she’d ever had…and she wasn’t entirely happy about it.
His hips picked up the pace, his chest puffing with an absurd masculine pride. I’ll show you my best.
Her white grin flashed. “Bring it.”
His eyes narrowed, but then his orgasm was looming, rearing over him like a huge, cresting wave. He could do nothing but thrust, and let it pound him down.
Let it take him under.