Cruising the Strip (17 page)

“Thank you all so much for participating,” I heard the session moderator say, and in an instant the stage was deluged by eager audience members. I answered questions, made reading recommendations, and handed out the bibliographies I had prepared for those who wanted to research the topic further. When we were finally forced to vacate the room for the next session, I made my way down the central aisle, my focus on the far corner of the room. She was gone, and I laughed inwardly at the sharp pang of disappointment. Of course she was gone, as far from my reach as the women in the pages of the books whose passion I guiltily took as my own.

With my briefcase in hand, I quickly crossed the lobby, skirting around the long line of conference goers that had formed to pick up a complementary box lunch. I preferred to eat alone, somewhere quiet, with my thoughts and, yes, my fantasies for company. Balancing the social requirements of an event like this against my innate need for privacy was a constant challenge, and one that tired me. Unfortunately, Las Vegas casinos were not known for quiet or privacy—everything was geared toward constant stimulation, feeding the adrenaline rush that kept people on the edge, kept people awake, kept people taking a chance. As I crossed the gaming floor, I envied the jubilant, almost frenzied gamblers. They were so alive, the very air reverberated with the collective pounding of their hearts. In contrast, I felt like a shadow, a closed book waiting to be opened so life could begin.

Shaking my head, I tried to dispel the unsettling images. I didn’t often allow myself the luxury of self-analysis. Despite my frequent feelings of being not quite part of the world around me, I had work that I loved and pleasures that satisfied me. I spied an overstuffed chair next to a small table tucked into a corner of one of the many lounges bordering the main casino, and changed course to claim it. That was when she stepped out of the shadows as if she had been waiting for me. Even though it was the middle of the afternoon in August, inside the casino it was perpetual “any time,” neither night nor day. With no clocks, no windows, and only the artifice of fabricated worlds as a backdrop, it was easy to lose touch with reality. Or whatever passed for reality anywhere but here.

“Chase Rogers,” I said, recognizing her now from book cover photos that didn’t do her justice. Up close, I was struck by the perfect pallor of her skin. Not so much the absence of color, but an ethereal translucent white that made her appear flawless and timeless and as nearly untouchable as Michelangelo’s
David
. Nearly untouchable, because I had an overwhelming, completely irresistible desire to run my fingers over the faultlessly etched curve of her cheekbone. And I did, with just the tips of my fingers. Her skin was as smooth and cool as I expected. Carved marble.

“I’m sorry.” I dropped my hand. “I have no idea why I did that.”

“Perhaps because I wanted you to.”

The rich timbre of her voice struck me deep inside, like tinder bursting into flame, and I knew I would do anything she desired. Distantly, I was aware of people passing by, but it seemed as if we existed in a circle outside the everyday realm of ordinary lives. Her gaze never left my face, and she hadn’t moved closer to me, but I felt as if she was exploring my body in the most intimate of ways. My face flushed and I felt a stirring between my legs. Incapable of moving, I clutched at the gossamer strands of reality before they completely slipped away.

“I love your books.”

“You don’t find them too violent? Or too dark?”

“No, I don’t find consuming passion too violent. I don’t believe that needs so deep you bleed from them are dark, only powerful. After all, blood is life.”

“And what would a vampire story be without blood?” Chase’s pale, perfectly shaped lips thinned slightly, with what might have been regret.

“Incomplete,” I said immediately and saw her eyes, which I had first taken to be a deep brown, suddenly become so black the irises nearly merged with the molten centers. I couldn’t look away, and feared I would never want to.

“Are you here alone?” Chase asked.

“You know I am,” I answered, certain it was true without understanding how.

She held out her hand. “Come.”

Her long, tapered fingers were cool as they closed around mine, and as she clasped my arm close to her body, I felt the power in her deceptively slender frame. I was aware of hallways, an elevator, a door opening, but I viewed these commonplace things as if through shifting fog. A sharp, pungent odor swirled around us, like leaves burning on a cold autumn night. My skin tingled as if I had stepped from a hot springs into a frigid snow. My blood rushed so close to the surface, I felt more acutely alive than I ever had before. Beside me, Chase moved with effortless grace, her expression unreadable, at once intense and remote.

Then I was inside a room unlike any I had seen in the hotel thus far. The windows were covered with heavy brocade drapes, the dark, richly papered walls lost to shadow. The only illumination came from a heavily shaded lamp in one corner of the bedroom just beyond the room in which I stood. The bed was raised, with gleaming carved posts at each corner. The very air felt thick and languid against my skin.

I dropped my briefcase on a nearby chair and started forward without invitation, knowing my destiny as if I had been in this place before. Chase caught my hand and turned me back to face her.

“Do you know me?” she asked simply.

“I feel like I do.” In the low light, her skin took on color and mine blanched until the hand I extended to touch her once again was the same shimmering white as her face. I wondered if my eyes had turned from blue to the fathomless black depths that looked back at me. “I recognized you this afternoon.” I touched my breast, over my heart. “Here.”

Chase made a sound low in her throat that was half moan, half growl before clasping my shoulders and pulling me to her. Her mouth on mine was hot in the way ice burns, and I opened to a heat that was not flame, but something far more dangerous. Through my half-closed lids the room took on a hazy red glow and I would have fallen if Chase had not wrapped one arm around my waist, cleaving me to her. Her body was hard, power beyond simple strength rippling beneath the surface. I pushed her jacket from her shoulders and she freed one arm, then the other, never letting me slip out of her embrace. Tilting my head back, I offered my throat while I pulled at her shirt, knowing I was tearing the fine linen and not caring. When I slid my hands beneath the pale weave, I touched perfection. Sleek, flawless skin, perfect breasts—as pristine and pure as driven snow. I caressed her, brushing my fingertips over her small, hard nipples until she groaned against the base of my neck. I felt the graze of her teeth, careful and restrained. When I gripped the back of her head and urged her to plunder, she pulled away.

“No.” And for the first time, her implacable countenance faltered. She trembled as I stroked her breasts, and I saw hunger smoldering in her eyes, a hunger that went deeper than anything I might touch.

“Yes.” I retreated from her embrace but gripped her arm, compelling her to follow me to the bed. I felt her reluctance but would not let her deny us what we both craved. “Yes.”

I held her gaze as I unbuttoned my blouse, unzipped my skirt, and removed each article of clothing until I was completely nude. She watched me, strangely helpless, as if the slightest movement would break the spell and we would find ourselves once more in the brightly lit, noise-filled chaos of the other world. The world where we had never belonged but lived as exiles, incomplete and forever wanting.

“Please,” I whispered, reaching for the gold belt buckle at her waist. I opened her belt, then worked the zipper down. Hooking my fingers over the waistband, I searched her eyes. I saw worlds in them, past, present, future, sliding around me and over me and through me until I was dizzy. “Please.”

And then the landscape beneath the dark mirror of her eyes shifted, and flames leapt in them. She tore her shirt away and cast the remnants aside. Then she grasped my arms and pushed me down on the bed, following an instant later after she’d shed her clothes. When I reached up to draw her into my arms, she clasped my wrists, one in each hand, and forced my arms down to the bed. At the same time, she knelt between my thighs, forcing my legs apart, so that I lay exposed, arms outstretched, legs open to accept her as she curved above me, a specter of fire and ice.

“Touch me,” I begged, and she brought her weight down upon me, roaming my neck with her mouth as she fit her sex to mine. My skin burned wherever hers touched mine, and I writhed beneath her, swollen and hot. Although she kept my arms pinned so I could not hold her, I wrapped my legs around her thighs. She was hard against my hardness, wet against my wetness. When I rubbed myself against her, she moaned and I felt the sharp bite of teeth at my throat.

“Take me,” I urged, thrusting up as she bore down between my legs. Blood pounded, thick and heavy, in my loins, making my clitoris pulse in time to the beat of my heart. Our one heart. “Fuck me, please.”

She released one arm and kissed me as she slipped her hand between us. I cried out against her mouth as she filled me with those long, cool fingers that heated me inside until I felt my body turn to flame. I cupped her neck, refusing to let her draw away as I thrust my tongue into her mouth, exchanging fire for fire. She pushed deeper inside me, and I felt my orgasm ripple and spread from the tight walls around her fingers to the base of my clitoris and down my legs. I tossed my head and felt a sharp pain in the side of my tongue. Then I tasted blood. My blood. My blood, her fire, our passion.

She jerked her head away, crying hoarsely, “No.”

“Don’t stop, I’m coming,” I moaned, as she reared back. I reached for her as she knelt between my thighs, her arm as hard as stone between my legs. “I’m coming. Please.”

“Remember me,” she whispered as she bowed her head over my body and drove me to orgasm, once and then a second time, until the breath left my body and I pleaded helplessly for her to stop.

She was so beautiful, kneeling between my legs, and through the haze of my own pleasure, I thought I saw her eyes glow red, as if reflecting the passion she had unleashed upon my body. Reaching down, she began to draw the sheet over my body, but I found the strength to raise myself and still her hand.

“You haven’t come,” I murmured, cupping her cheek as I kissed her. My fingers were so hot now that she felt even cooler. “What do you need?”

“Nothing,” she said, her voice thick and low. “You’ve given me everything I need.”

I framed her face with both hands and searched her eyes. The fire still burned in them. “Not quite everything.”

Finding her hand, I drew it to me and pressed her fingertips to the place where the pulse still beat hard and heavy between my thighs. “I need you, too. I need you inside me. I need to be inside of you. Please don’t say no.”

“You don’t know—”

“I do.” I kissed her, my hands in her hair, my breasts against her breasts, my tongue searching for what we both needed. I felt a small stab of pain again and then the clean, coppery taste of my blood. She trembled and would have pulled away, but I would not let her. She was so much stronger than I, but her need made her weak. Now, in the heat of our wanting, I was the stronger one. I guided her down as I lay back, until her face brushed the inner curve of my thigh.

“Take me,” I whispered for the second time that night. “Drink me,” I implored, for the first time in my life.

Still, she tried to resist, but I pressed myself to her mouth. Her tongue was soft, her mouth gentle, her hands careful as she entered me again. I caressed her jaw as she kissed me, her fingers taking me closer to coming with each stroke.

“I’m close, I’m close,” I told her. “Please, come with me.”

She groaned, and I felt the last of her resistance fall before the rising tide of our singular need. Then a wave of heat like nothing I’d ever felt before seared through my being, burning a pathway to my heart, to my soul, to a place beyond time. She filled me and I filled her, with all that we were.

When I awakened, the sheet covered me and she was gone. I bent my leg and saw the small shadow of a bruise in the bend of my thigh. In a few hours, it would be gone. In a few hours, she might be gone. But I didn’t intend to wait that long. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and reached for my clothes.

I intended to find her. What is life, after all, if not the flame of passion?

Just as Micki Wright laid her chips on the Pass Line and held out her hand to accept the dice from the stickman, a deeply tanned blonde with ocean blue eyes and short, sleek hair edged up to the craps table opposite her and nodded as if they were acquaintances. They weren’t. Micki had never seen her before. She didn’t forget women built like her—etched muscles in her biceps and forearms, broad swimmer’s shoulders tapering to a narrow waist—and all of it nicely showcased in a black silk T-shirt stretched tight over prominent pectorals and small, neat breasts. Micki couldn’t see much of her black jeans, but she had no trouble imagining the toned thighs and firm ass that had to be there. After a few brief seconds admiring the very impressive package, Micki turned her attention back to the table.

“Dice are out, hands high,” the stickman called, and the players around the long, narrow table lifted their hands off the rail. Micki shook the dice and let them fly. They bounced off the far rail, and the gamblers drew a collective breath as the small red cubes came to rest. “Natural seven,” the stickman announced. Everyone cheered, and the dealers paid out the bets.