EIGHT
Erin settled back to watch, feeling the heat growing again as his long, clever fingers slowly unlaced the ribbons, pulling and tugging gently. His green gaze flicked from her face to the gap slowly widening between the edges of her corset. Appetite had sharpened his brutal good looks even more. Her own desire coiled in tight, hot spirals in her belly.
Unconsciously she bent her knees and spread her legs. His eyes snapped to her face, so fierce with hunger she licked her lips.
He growled.
Suddenly he sat up, grabbed the edges of her corset in both hands, and jerked. Silk ripped and ribbons snapped. Erin’s eyes widened as he dragged the remains of the corset off her body and threw it across the room.
Her fragile thong panties were the next to go, sacrificed to one impatient jerk.
Naked, wearing only her white lace stockings, Erin stared up at him as desire seared her veins in a white-hot wave. The bulge in his silk trousers looked more like a baseball bat than an erection. Slowly, darkly, he smiled. “Naked bound blonde. Now, that’s the way I like my dinner.”
Reece could smell Erin’s need. It perfumed the air with a salty, delicious musk he was dying to taste. She lay with her narrow wrists tied in black silk between those luscious breasts, her long legs spread, all that blond hair tumbled around her face. Her blue eyes looked dazed.
Within him, the Desire strained at the leash he’d managed to throw over it. His aching cock twitched. He decided to give her a look at it.
He caught the waistband of his silk trousers in both thumbs and began to tug downward, revealing the thick and straining shaft inch by inch. Erin licked her lips.
He wanted to plunge his cock between them.
Not yet, Reece told the Desire, pushing the pants the rest of the way down his thighs. His shaft bobbed as he kicked free of them.
“So is the horse still crying?” she asked, her voice rough with a mixture of arousal and amusement.
He lifted a brow. “What horse?”
“The one you got that dick from.”
Reece laughed. “You’re a very bad girl, Erin.”
“Yep.” Her smile was wicked as he eased down on top of her, catching his breath at the feeling of her warmed velvet curves. “And getting worse every minute. What are you going to do—punish me?”
“Oh, yeah.” He eyed the sweet, full mounds of her breasts. Her nipples were flushed pink, hard as cherries. “A tongue lashing is definitely called for.”
The feeling of that slim, naked body under his made his head spin. Shuddering in raw need, he closed his mouth over the nearest nipple and began to suck. The taste spun into his head like a Catherine’s wheel on the Forth of July, slinging sparks of pleasure with every revolution.
She arched under him, catching at his chest with her small, bound hands. His hold on the Desire slipped another notch. Quickly he caught her wrists and pulled them over her head. If he lost control, it would be over far too fast.
Which was why he’d better speed it up before the thin leash on his need snapped.
With a rumble of hunger, Reece began to nibble his way down her narrow torso, licking and biting gently at the full curves of her breasts. Next came the sweet, pale skin that lay over her delicate abdominal muscles. He paused to swirl his tongue around her navel until she squirmed, then switched his attention to the fragile jut of one hip bone.
“I take back the Boy Scout comparison,” she managed. “You’ve got a sadistic streak.”
Reece smiled and buried his nose in the fine golden curls over her pussy. “Who, me?” He gave one labia a gently taunting lick. “I just like my food nice and hot.”
Erin threw back her head and gasped. “You make me sound like a Big Mac.”
“Oh, no.” He pushed his tongue between her nether lips and closed his eyes in delight at the thick cream that filled her. “You’re much sweeter than a Big Mac.”
She whimpered and spread her thighs in invitation. Smiling, he settled himself more comfortably between them.
The smile became an outright grin as Erin arched into his mouth. Reece gave her another gently sampling lick. “Something more creamy than a Big Mac,” he decided, grinning against her cunt as she rolled her hips. “I know. Pudding.”
Her laughter held a note of outrage. “Pudding? You’re comparing me to pudding?”
“Egg custard?” He closed his mouth over her clit and suckled gently.
“I refuse to be”—she had to stop to pant—“compared to custard. Jesus, Champion, where’s the poetry?”
“Crème brûlée.” He parted her lips with two fingers and began to lick her with all the skill he’d learned over two centuries. “Sweet and creamy on the tongue.”
“Oh, God,” she managed. “Well, at least that’s French.”
It took Champion ninety seconds to rush her to a glorious, shuddering climax.
Lying limp and dazed in the aftermath, she was barely aware he’d sat up between her thighs.
The next thing she knew, he flipped her effortlessly onto her stomach. Her nervous system still jangling from the furious climax, she lifted her head woozily as he pulled her onto her knees, ass in the air. “Champion, what—?”
She had her answer when he drove into her in one hard, stunning thrust. The sensation of being filled so completely, so ruthlessly, damn near blew off the top of her head. She managed a strangled yelp. And then he was riding her, stroking hard in and out of her hot, cream-filled core.
“God!” She pulled herself up and managed to brace onto her elbows. The silk belt tied around her wrists spilled over the fur in front of her as Champion fucked her, jarring her body with his long, steady lunges. Erin shuddered under the onslaught, dazed and overwhelmed by the sensation of so much hard cock stuffing her.
“Oh, yeah,” he purred in her ear, bracing his hands beside her head as he lowered himself over her until he covered her completely. “Open yourself up to me. You’re so tight. Like a silken fist wrapped around my cock. How does it feel?”
“Big.” Her dazed brain couldn’t manage any word longer than one syllable. “So hard. Oh, God!”
One hand clamped down on her bound wrists as he braced himself on the other, pumping deep. She lifted her butt for him, setting her knees farther apart on the mattress. Letting him take her however he wanted.
And he apparently wanted her fast and deep and without mercy, in long, ramming strokes that reached halfway to her heart and sent her building orgasm coiling up her spine. She threw back her head and keened at the tension, at the blinding pleasure just out of reach.
“Give me your throat,” he growled in her ear.
Arousal hit her in another hard punch at the rough demand. Obediently Erin tossed her hair back and turned her head, baring her banging pulse to him.
He stopped thrusting and leaned down. She looked up at him from the corner of one eye and saw his open fangs.
The bite made her jolt against him, driving his seated cock another inch deeper. She whimpered in helpless lust.
And then he was feeding, drinking her blood as he began to fuck her again, driving even deeper and harder than before.
Erin quivered at the maddening triple penetration. He was buried to the balls now, taking her in short, ruthless strokes that coiled her rising orgasm tighter and tighter and…
She screamed as it exploded in all its ferocious glory, a dark wave of pleasure that dimmed her sight.
Champion drove in one final hard stroke and stiffened with a growl, still drinking from her as he came.
As the aftershocks pulsed through her, Erin collapsed bonelessly. Without breaking his hold on her throat or his penetration of her cunt, he rolled over with her until she sprawled on top of his hard, muscled body.
Spread like an offering as he fed from her throat.
After almost three hundred years, Reece had finally met a woman he could love. And the odds were very good he’d end up destroying her.
The bitterness of that knowledge gnawed at him even now, as he lay with Erin sprawled on top of his body, limp with sated pleasure, the taste of her blood in his mouth. His cock was still inside her, though he could feel it slipping slowly out as it softened.
She deserved so much better than this.
He thought of the women he’d known and enjoyed over more than two centuries as a vampire. Mortals and Latents and Majae, the beautiful and the brilliant, the courageous and the honorable and the skilled. Erin had it all, wrapped in one luscious package that managed to arouse both his lust and his admiration.
Damn, he didn’t want to do this to her.
If the Change went bad, that wonderful mind would crack under the Mageverse’s psychic battering, and he’d have to kill her. Even if she proved strong enough to withstand the sudden acquisition of all that power, if she couldn’t break them out of the cell, Geirolf would return and kill them both.
Well, no, Reece realized, as his heart sank. He couldn’t allow her to be used that way. He’d have to kill her himself.
Their only chance—and it seemed slim—was that Erin could use her power to break them free. And even that was a dicey proposition, because they could easily end up facing a death sentence from the Majae’s Council. True, the witches would probably understand, given the seriousness of the situation with Geirolf. But the Majae could be a capricious lot, and he’d learned long ago he couldn’t always predict what they’d decide.
All they needed was for someone to have a vision indicating Erin was dangerous, and they’d end up facing a Round Table execution team.
Not that any of that mattered one way or another. Reece was committed to Changing her now, regardless of the outcome. And he’d been in combat often enough to know that if you concentrated on the fact that you were probably going to die, you were virtually guaranteed to do just that.
The thought of his own death didn’t really bother him. He should have been dead centuries ago; he could hardly bitch about the hand he’d been dealt now. But Erin was a different story.
If the next couple of hours were all she would ever have, he was damn well going to make them good ones. Starting right now.
Tenderly he unwrapped the silk tie from around her wrists, then gathered her into his arms and rolled from the bed. She stirred and lifted her head as he carried her across the room. “Where are we going?” she asked sleepily as he deposited her on her feet beside the Roman bath.
“I thought you might want to wash,” he explained as he went down on one knee to roll those lace stockings down her smooth, endless legs.
She yawned hugely and braced a slim hand on his shoulder as she lifted one foot so he could tug the stocking off. “Actually, I’d kind of like a nap, but I guess we’d better get back on it.”
Reece lifted a brow. “Well, if you’ve got something you’d rather do…”
“Mmmm. Definitely not.” Erin grinned languorously at the ceiling. Then the humor drained from her face. “But we really do need to get me Changed before Geirolf comes back for his human sacrifice.” She frowned as he went to work on the other stocking. “Come to think of it, I wonder why he didn’t just hang around to watch us do the deed?”
“Good question.” He tossed the wisp of silk aside. “Then again, he’s been locked up in this cell since Merlin walked the Earth. Maybe he just couldn’t stand the thought of being in here again, even for something like this.”
“Makes sense. I’m already sick of this place myself, and we’ve only been here two days.” Naked, Erin turned—giving him an excellent view of her delectable ass—and stepped down into the water. She sighed in pleasure and bent her knees until she could submerge herself to the chin.
Reece moved to the selection of oils and soaps he’d sorted through earlier, lifting them one by one and sniffing until he found a couple that smelled like her: richly, sensuously female. He picked both bottles up and stepped down into the bath with her.
“What’s that?” Erin asked, eyeing the bottle with misgivings.
“An aphrodisiac.” He grinned at her dubious expression and poured the contents of the bottle into one hand. “Just kidding. I think. No, one of them is shampoo. The other’s some kind of massage oil. Courtesy of our amazing enchanted cell. Though why Merlin created it to be so generous to a monster like Geirolf is a very good question.”
“Some people are just too civilized for their own good.” She tilted back her head as he began working the cream into her long blond hair. “Mmm…” Her throaty purr at the sensation made his sated cock twitch in reviving interest. “That feels really nice.”
“Yeah,” he said hoarsely. “It does.” And it did. Her thick hair slid through his fingers like rich, raw silk. The scent alone, lush with femininity and Erin, was enough to make his blood rise hot. Closing his eyes, he let himself sink into pure languorous pleasure, cherishing it—cherishing her—with all the passion of desperation.
Once he’d turned her hair into a pile of lather, he let his soapy hand stroke lower, finding the long, delicate line of her neck, the fragile bone and flesh of her shoulders. His exploring fingers discovered delicate muscle drawn hard and knotted, so he dug in his thumbs there and began, carefully, to massage the tension away.
Erin drew in a deep breath and released it in a long, sensual purr. “God, I needed that.” She let her head drop back to rest on his shoulder. Lather slid from her hair to run down his spine in cool, fragrant dollops.
“You’re tense,” he said, smoothing her soapy hair back with one hand as he continued the massage with the other.
“Yeah,” Erin admitted. “I’m scared of messing up. Scared of not being able to hack the transformation.” Her tone hardened. “But not scared enough to back out. Not with everything that’s riding on it.”
He studied her, hearing the sincerity in her heartbeat. “You really were willing to use that knife, weren’t you?”
She hesitated, then sighed. “Yeah, I was. You’ve got to admit, there’s a certain logic in it.”
He went back to work on her slender, knotted muscles. “Where did all this come from?”
She groaned. “Damn, you’re good. All what?”
“All that toughness and dedication.”
“I’m not that damn heroic, Champion.” She didn’t even open her eyes as he massaged her neck. “I’m just trying to do the job.”
He lifted a brow. “Somehow I don’t think fighting demons is in the FBI oath.”
“I’m not FBI anymore. I’m not even Outfit.”
“Very true. Yet here you are, ready to risk your life and your sanity to stop Geirolf. Why is it so damn important to you?”
She opened one eye and turned her head to look at him. “What, preventing the destruction of mankind isn’t a good enough reason?”
“Well, yes, but it’s such an overwhelming task, most people would have trouble taking it seriously. And I think it’s more personal to you than that.”
He felt her narrow shoulders tighten even more under his hands. “I’ve told you about David.”
“But why were you in the FBI to begin with? You’ve got to admit, it’s not the typical career.”
She hesitated, then shrugged. “I come from a long line of soldiers, that’s all. I grew up listening to the propaganda. You know, Semper Fi and all that stuff.”
“Oh?” He started massaging the length of her back, rubbing circles around each fragile vertebra.
“Mmmm. Yeah. My dad was a Marine. He died in the last fighting in Vietnam when I was just a baby. Never got to know him at all.”
“Tough break.”
“A lot of people in my generation caught that particular break, though. And my granddad worked really hard to provide that paternal…whatever. Oh, down some—yeah, that’s it.” Her sensual purr had his body tightening, but he ignored it, hungry to hear more of her story.
He wanted to know her, know more about her. He told himself it was because he needed to understand his ally in this unlikely mission. “So your father was a hero.”
Erin nodded. “Though there was a time I didn’t see it that way. I was maybe fourteen or so, and we were studying the war in U.S. History class. I ended up railing about it to my granddaddy. Something about old politicians sacrificing young men.”
He made an encouraging noise in his throat as he explored her slim muscles looking for another knot.
“My little anti-war speech didn’t sit too well with Granddad.” She shrugged. “Not surprising. I’d known he’d been in the Army during World War II, but what I hadn’t known was that he was one of the GIs who’d liberated the Jews in the death camp at Dachau. He’d never talked about it before.”
“The ones who’ve seen the worst side of humanity don’t,” Reece said softly, remembering some of his own past battlefields. “Talking about it means reliving it.”
“Yeah. And this was evidently pretty damn bad. The whole story just exploded out of him in this wave of horror and rage. He talked about the emaciated corpses piled up like discarded garbage, about the crematoriums, about the horror and the stench and the pity. About how stopping the Nazis had been the right thing to do, no matter how many good men we’d had to spend to do it.” She took a deep breath and blew it out. “And then I said something really stupid. ‘But that was a good war.’ And he said, ‘Erin, there is no good war when you’re fighting it. There’s only necessary wars.’”
He nodded. “Smart man.”
She was silent a long moment. “My brother ended up enlisting in the Marines, too. Fought in the first Gulf War. He came back talking about Saddam and starving Khurds.” Erin shrugged. “Sounded a lot like Granddad.”
Reece nodded thoughtfully. “Quite a legacy.”
“Yeah. I considered going into the service myself, but while I was still in college, my roommate’s little sister got molested by a neighbor. I watched what the family went through—my friend and her mother and the little girl. That was when it hit me that I didn’t need to go overseas to find evil.” She shrugged under his hands. “So I decided to use my degree and try to get on with the Bureau. I succeeded, and here I am.”
“No wonder you’ve got that self-sacrificial streak,” he said aloud. “It’s practically written into your family’s genetic code.”
“No, actually, I have no desire to sacrifice myself.” Her voice firmed with determination. “Like Granddad said, the idea is not to die for your country, but to make the other son of a bitch die for his. And I’m not going to die. I’m going to make this work, Champion. I’m not going to fail.”
“I know that.” And he knew he had to believe it. Any doubt on his part could infect her, and that alone could doom them.
Erin pulled away and threw a quick look at him over her shoulder. “Didn’t you say earlier that there was a good chance I’d go nuts?”
He hesitated, weighing how to answer. “You’re a strong woman, Erin.” Unfortunately, he would have said the same of Lizzie. Apparently, there was more to it than strength, though nobody was sure what. Sometimes even the Majae’s Council made mistakes.
She grunted. “Let’s just hope I’m strong enough.” Bending her knees, Erin plunged her head under and shook her hair, sending streamers of soap and gold swirling around her lush body.
When she stood again, turning toward him, lust hit him in a hard, low blow in the belly. The soaking blond strands had plastered themselves over the delicious curves of her pale breasts. Water streamed down her body. She tossed her head and peeled the sopping mass back from her face. The unconscious arch of her body as she moved made his cock rise to full, aching erection.
Opening her eyes, Erin caught sight of his face and grinned a bit wickedly. The raging lust he felt must be written all over his face. She glanced down at his groin. “Whoa,” she said, taking a half step back. “You don’t need much recovery time, do you?”
Reece swallowed, trying to get some moisture back into his dry mouth. “We don’t, as a rule.”
Erin gave him a sidelong look that held more than a little flirtation. “You as in vampires?”
“Yes, we as in—” He broke off with a gasp as she reached out a long, slim hand and cupped him. “You’re good at that.”
“I know. So are you all hung, or are you just blessed?”
He let his head fall back as those slender fingers circled his shaft. “Right now I’m feeling exceptionally blessed.”
She laughed softly, still caressing him. “Based on the evidence, I think I’m the blessed one.”