Beauty's Beasts (17 page)

Nicholas’s breath caught. Then he kissed her with a passion that was almost blistering in its intensity. It took her breath away. His hand was under her hip, lifting her, holding her against him, and she could feel his cock against her belly, hard and throbbing.

His hand slid under her knee and lifted it. Her leg was draped over his hip. It spread her thighs as she lay on one hip beside him. His fingers curled over her ass. Her pussy squeezed.

And still his kisses continued. Her nipples raked his chest as he plundered her mouth with his.

She felt his cock press against her pussy entrance. The engorged head stretched the entrance and nudged inside.

She gasped into Nick’s mouth as he pushed into her. He thrust his tongue deeper into her mouth, and his fingers gripped her ass as his cock worked its way into her. When he was fully seated inside her, she could feel him pressing against her womb.

He looked into her eyes, inches from his own. “Heavenly,” he murmured.

Her pussy was rippling and clamping around his shaft, milking it. Nicholas’ extended teasing had left her too close to an orgasm. She could feel it building already, gathering and growing.

“Oh, Nick!” she tried to warn him, her hands fluttering at his chest, her eyes widening.

“Shhh…”he said, and pulled his cock from her with inexorable slowness.

Riley writhed and panted, her climax building like a runaway steam train, unstoppable. “Quickly!” she cried.

Nick slid into her again, making her moan at the delicious sensation and the utter desperation she felt. She needed more.
More
!

He gave another incredibly slow withdrawal and thrust, impaling her with his long cock. Riley was falling to pieces around him, though. She plucked at his chest, clawed at his shoulders and arms, as her climax drew closer, unable to hold it off. Her breathing altered. Disintegrated.

Nick’s fingers nestled up against her clit. Stroked it. “Come for me,” he urged her.

Riley closed her eyes as her orgasm slammed through her. She tried to stay on top of it, to control it by breathing through it.

“Don’t you
dare
control it,” Nicholas growled in her ear. “Let go while you’re with me.”

She gasped, her eyes opening. Nicholas was watching her as she climaxed, his blue eyes missing nothing.

He kissed her roughly, and his cock slid back into her. “You will scream for me,” he promised her. “You will let go.”

His fingers closed around her clitoris once more as his cock thrust into her. Riley wanted to tell him to give up, that she only ever came once, but his fingers were stroking, milking her clitoris in a way she had never experienced as he pounded into her, thrusting into her and abruptly, she began to tingle with the building waves of a second climax. She gasped, disbelief circling through her.

“Yes, sink into it,” Nick coaxed, his voice low. “Close your eyes. Focus on it.”

Riley caught his gaze. “What are you doing to me?” she moaned.

“What I promised,” he said, his voice rough. He kissed her, as his cock pushed deeper and deeper inside her. “Close your eyes,” he told her.

She closed them, and immediately she could focus on nothing but what his fingers were doing to her clit, and the delicious sensation of his cock sliding in and out of her pussy. The pleasure they created seemed to double just by closing her eyes and she moaned. Her climax built.

Riley gripped the bedcovers, a little frightened by the power of the approaching orgasm. It was building and building, sweeping through her entire body, stealing her breath, locking up her joints, shunting thought aside.

“I’m here,” Nicholas murmured. “Let go. Enjoy it.”

The reassurance was enough. She sank into the approaching climax and truly let herself go. It was for a moment as if the world stopped. Her breathing halted and her body arched. Her pussy clamped hard around Nick’s cock, milking it as he had done to her clitoris, and she heard him grunt softly and felt the spasms of his shaft as he came.

Then the climax peaked in waves of silvery pleasure that shuddered through her and she screamed in a low, hard voice that was utterly unlike her own. She couldn’t draw in a full breath. The climax kept her hovering on peaks of delight as Nicholas toyed with her, until finally, there was simply no more pleasure to be had. She was spent. Replete.

And abruptly sleepy.

She realized she was curled up in Nick’s arms, her head against his chest. His cock was still buried inside her.

His lips pressed against her temple. “Sleep for a while. I’ll go and get some food for you.”

“No, it’s too dangerous,” she protested sleepily as he withdrew from her body.

“For you, maybe. Azazel won’t try for me. It’s you he wants. I’ll be careful.”

A blanket was dropped over her and a pillow placed under her head.

She woke some time later. It was still daylight, so Riley knew that not much time had passed. When she checked the clock over the fireplace, she saw that barely ninety minutes had gone by. It was just after eleven in the morning.

The door to the apartment opened and she realized that the key fitting in the lock was what had woken her. She sat up, bringing the blanket up with her, as Nick stepped in and shut the door, locking it behind him. He was carrying shopping bags of food in one hand.

He was wearing his long black coat, black jeans and Damian’s old teal sweater, which made his eyes look even bluer, if that was possible.

As he turned around from locking the door, he saw her sitting on the bed and paused. “You’re awake. I thought you’d be out for hours yet.” And he smiled.

It struck her with the impact of an earthquake.

She loved him. She loved Nicholas Sherwood with soul-destroying intensity. It was that simple. She wanted to be with him. Always. And she had loved Damian the same way.

She pulled her knees up under the blanket and hugged them. “You know, don’t you?” Her voice shook. She could feel her eyes filling with tears.

Nick’s smile faded. He put the bags on the sofa and crossed over to the bed. He didn’t sit on it. He didn’t try to touch her. “I know,” he agreed. “A human’s pheromones change when they fall in love. Yours have changed.”

“That’s what brought you out of your funk. Not sex at all.”

He studied her. “You make it sound like a bad thing. Love is never a bad thing.”

“Damian said love could be perverted.” Her tears fell then.

“Only between perverted souls. You’re not one of those.”

“Are you?”

“Not if someone like you can love me, Riley.” He took a deep breath, his chest lifting. “You are like a fresh breeze after centuries of despair. You’re hope personified.”

“I’m just a person, Nick. I have faults. Foibles. Don’t make me out to be something I’m not.”

“Oh, I know your human flaws all too well,” he said, with a quick smile. “I love them all.”

“Love?”

“Did you think you were the only one who toppled into this?” he asked softly.

Abruptly, the meanings behind the morning’s lovemaking and talk shifted and became clearer. He had known all along that she loved him. He had been hiding his love for her.

“Nick…”

He sank onto the bed beside her. “I was born in 1163 in Oxford, and I was milk brother to John Lackland, Richard’s brother. You know of whom I speak?”

“King John?” Riley breathed. She could feel her eyes widening.

“He became king later, yes,” Nick agreed. “By then, I was cut off from my family affairs.”

With a jolt, she realized that Nick meant he had already been turned a vampire.

“
Family
affairs?” she repeated.

“A courtesy title. John and I were friends, as milk brothers usually are. Were.” Nick grimaced. “My real family were lost to me as well.” He evened out the bedcover with his long fingers, then lifted his gaze to hers. “I was the eldest son of the Duke of Bradford. We were heading to Oxford for a tournament, at the command of King Henry, and were waylaid by what we thought was a highway thief. My father was elderly, nearly forty by then and unable to defend himself. Israfel was always a strategist. He killed my father first, then my younger brothers. That left me alone. He wanted me, you see. He isolated me, and by killing my family in front of me, made sure that shock partially disabled me, too. It worked. With his natural strength he barely had to work to take me.”

Riley found her mouth was dry. She swallowed. “This…Israfel. He was the one who made you?”

“He was my maker and my first vampire partner, yes.” Nicholas began to smooth out the bedcover again, almost compulsively swiping at the embroidered satin. He watched his fingers. “The tournament had been called to celebrate my betrothal to the King’s cousin, Mary. The feast was to take place that night.”

Riley said cautiously, “You loved her? Mary?”

“I was to meet her that night.” Nick’s eyes lifted to lock onto Riley’s. “I welcomed the marriage, Riley. I wanted it. I wanted the children.” His face spasmed in pain. Abruptly, he got to his feet and moved to the window. He leaned his fist against it. After a moment, he rested his forehead against it, too, as if the cool glass was soothing.

Riley slipped from the bed and threw on his robe and belted it. She came up beside him and wrapped her arms around him. She didn’t speak.

After a moment, Nick pulled her around him and put his arm around her. “You wanted to see the human in me, Riley. That’s all that’s left of him—a pathetic scrap bundled up in pity.”

“Damian knew this, didn’t he?” she asked gently. “That’s why you both became involved in the raising of my mother.”

Nick sighed. “Except you’ve missed the one obvious connection.”

She looked up at him.

“Damian did have children before he was turned,” Nick said softly. “You and your family are indirect descendants of his.”

She could feel her eyes widening again. “You two are so closed-mouthed…” She sighed. “Were,” she amended.

“It’s a defense mechanism, honed from centuries of practice,” Nick said. “We rarely let anyone in.” He straightened up from the window, and pulled her against him even tighter. “I may still slip from time to time. I’m out of practice. Damian knew everything there was to know. I didn’t have to explain anymore.” He shuddered. “God, I miss him.”

Her eyes filled with hot tears. “Me, too.”

The katana skidded away from her numbed hand. Riley tucked herself into a ball and rolled after it. She reached out for the hilt, but before she could curl her fingers around it, Nick’s hand snapped down over her wrist and yanked it away from the katana. She was rolled away.

Riley pulled her knees up to her chest and when she was flipped onto her back as she expected to be, she found Nick looming over her, his broadsword lifted up high, exposing his chest in order to give him the room he needed to stab.

She planted her feet on his chest and shoved. Hard.

He staggered backward, his sword arm flinging out sideways to give him balance. It was the opening she sought. She surged to her feet, and grabbed the katana with her left hand as she came up. Nick wouldn’t be expecting the sword in her left hand. He would be watching her right hand.

She pushed his flailing left hand aside with her empty right hand, stepped inside his guard, and brought the katana blade up under his chin. His head jerked up as he felt the touch of the blade. She warded off his sword arm with her left elbow. It was too late, anyway. Her blade was already against his throat.

He grew still, his eyes locked with hers. “You swapped hands.”

“I knew you would be watching my right.” She smiled. “Not going to pull my hair today, Nick?” she asked sweetly.

They were training in the same cleared-out area as before, with the sofas pulled back, and the training mat laid down on the floorboards, making a twenty-foot informal dojo.

Riley wore a Lycra camisole and yoga pants, both black, and Nick wore thin black sweat pants that sat low on his hips…and nothing else. The sight of his chest and shoulder muscles working as he wielded the heavy broadsword had at first been a distraction to her. She had learned the hard way not to let her gaze get caught by his rounding and flexing muscles and sinews. A smack on the ass or legs with the flat of his sword hurt. Nick meant business when he stepped onto the mat.

Now he considered her question about pulling her hair with the same sort of seriousness. It was almost impossible to tease him when he was in his teacher role. “You beat me fairly…and Damian didn’t see it this time.” He looked around the mat, as if visualizing her last sequence. “You’re ready.”

She nodded. “We tackle Lirgon tonight, then?”

He took a deep breath. “Tonight,” he repeated. “As long as you agree not to get yourself killed. Damian would never forgive me, wherever he is.”

“I’ll try to avoid it.”

“Then could you drop the blade from my throat, hmmm?”

She smiled. “I kinda like having you at my mercy.” She nudged the blade a little higher, forcing his head back. “It’s not often I get to have you dancing to my tune.”

“You just
think
you have me at your mercy,” he growled. His right arm moved, and she knew he was going to try to pull her down like he did once before, but she blocked the move by throwing out her elbow and pushing the blade in deeper. A fine line of blood showed on his throat and he hissed.

“I
do
have you under my control,” she told him.

“Yes,” he admitted. His fangs had descended, and his voice was hoarse.

He liked her having control
.

For a man like Nick, who must keep control at all times, handing over that control in certain circumstances would be a thrilling thing. She realized with a start that she had caught a glimpse of the power structure of Nick’s relationship with Damian and how it might work with her.

Her body was pulsing with this unusual excitement. She kept the sword in place, reached up to grab a handful of Nick’s hair and kissed him, hard and rough. She thrust her tongue into his mouth, flicking it over his fangs.

He groaned. She felt his body shudder.

Riley hooked her foot behind his heel and yanked with all her strength. Nick went down hard, landing on his back on the matting. The impact pushed the air out of him with a gusty grunt and the floorboards shook.