Dancing Dragon (24 page)

“
You are impossible to resist,” he breathed out between hard thrusts, letting our bodies start to build a magnificent heat between us, uncurling a wonderful lustful desire right inside and then just as I was sure we were both going to crest that wave, my mind stuttered, like a broken movie reel and the scene shifted.

Michel was still above me, between my legs, seeking his release. And Avery was standing over his broad shoulders watching every movement Michel made. A hunger filled gaze in his amber, ochre and jade eyes. His fangs were down, he seemed aroused. He was enjoying the scene and that made me want to please him more. His eyes met mine, encouraging me further, making me want to seek that final release and let Avery know how good Michel made me feel.

Craving Michel's touch, his embrace, I fell into the moment, savouring every sensation, knowing Avery was enjoying the show. Michel's glistening, sweat soaked body above me, the firelight casting shadows across the ridges and valleys of his smooth skin, his hard length filling me up inside, his muscles clenching with barely controlled desire. I clung to his shoulders, then scraped my fingers down his back. Avery's lips twitched, his eyes watching every move. Then I clasped Michel's rear, pulling him in on every thrust, making him pound into my body, causing him to cry out in ecstasy as our pace quickened further.

Images of Michel fucking me from above assailed my thoughts; erotic, lust-filled images of his hard cock impaling me, my body being slammed back into the rug at my back taking every brutal plunge he subjected me to, his possession of my physical self obvious in the angle the images were given. One shot after another, showing me exactly what Avery was seeing, was witnessing, was enjoying.

Suddenly Avery was crouched beside me, still watching everything Michel was doing intently, his hazel eyes flashing autumnal shades again. His gaze roaming over our bodies, then flicking back to Michel. After what felt like minutes, but was probably only seconds, he shifted his gaze to my eyes. His lips twisted in an unattractive smirk, his tongue came out and licked the corner of his mouth and as though he couldn't help himself, his gaze was pulled back to Michel and what he was doing to me from above. Avery's fangs lengthened slowly, he smiled appreciatively at the scene before him and hissed a purely vampire sound. His hot breath heating my skin, his hand scorching my flesh when he rested it against my own hand on Michel's butt.

Sensations rioted through me; Michel's lust and craze-filled emotions as he let the moment take him completely and also Avery's ardent desire to control me, all of me, from the moment I entered the room that afternoon, to now as he watched me being taken in such a fundamental way. I wanted him to be watching, I wanted him to participate in any way he could, I wanted what he wanted and nothing else.

The room was ripe with the smells of sex, the scents of vampire, Michel's clean cut grass and salty sea spray and now Avery's spicy cardamom and coriander and mint, a Moroccan combination so potent I wanted to whimper as it wrapped around me, drugged me, pulled me under completely and a part of me realised marked me as his in every possible way.

He whispered in my head,
call my name in your mind, call for me when you come
. His gaze flicked back up at Michel, jade washing through the amber. He licked his lips again, but didn't return his eyes to mine, just whispered in my head,
call my name.
His timing was perfect, Michel had brought us both to the brink, without hesitation I embraced the orgasm a
nd shouted Avery's name in my head as he commanded. Michel faltered above me, obviously having gained access to my mind in that instant, but he was too close to the edge to stop, he shuddered against my chest, emptying himself inside as Avery's laugh rang through my head; so wicked and impure and full of Dark.

You will do nicely, Sanguis Vitam Cupitor. Very nicely indeed.
And then he walked from the room and left me with me a sense of loss that felt so pure. Michel was pushing away from me and stumbling back on the floor, a look of pure shock and outrage gracing his face. The sense of loss was soon engulfed in a tsunami of confusion. What had just happened?

"What the bloody hell, Lucinda?" Michel shouted, each word branding me like fire.

I looked around the room, trying to get my bearings. Michel must have known Avery was there, he couldn't have missed him at our side.

"Why," Michel ground out between his teeth, his hand raking through his tousled hair, "would you call out
his
name?" He looked angry, bitter, but underlying it all, hurt.

"He was here," I whispered, he glared back with fists clenched.

"No he wasn't," he said very slowly.

I stared at him for a moment, trying to get my thoughts in line, trying to sort through the chaotic mess of emotions. Avery
had
been here, Michel had known and we both had wanted to please him, we both enjoyed him watching us making love.

Oh my God!
The words slowly sunk into my conscience, and they were not words I would normally think or say. I started to feel a little sick. I would
never
want
anyone
to watch such an intimate moment as Michel and I making love.

Avery had just fucked with my mind.
He'd had no right to have been there, witnessing this. He had no right to manipulate me like that. And I had been defenceless against his assault. I had believed something untrue, false.

I was
so
damn sick of men taking control of me. Lutin could could control my body, but not my mind. And Avery could control my mind, but not my body. They were both fucking with me and I had nothing,
nothing
, in my arsenal to protect myself with.

A sob escaped my lips, a pure sound of desperate unrelieved pain and fear.

I don't think Michel had expected my response. I could feel the confusion rolling off him, mixed with the anger and rage at me calling Avery's name in my head while I came. And the disgust at himself for being unable to pull out before coming when I had hurt him so. He hesitated, I felt him him sweeping my mind and then his arms were around me and he was cradling me to his chest, rocking me backward and forward and whispering, “It was only a dream,
ma douce
, he was not actually there. A projected image, nothing more.”

It felt more than a dream, more than just an image. My mind was still playing tricks. I could still smell him, almost feel his hand on me, in my head, in my mind, before my eyes and then I was heaving onto the hearth, bits of half digested scone and milky white coffee spilling to the floor, while Michel held my hair away and stroked my back, his
Sanguis Vitam
rising to surround us in a prickling cocoon of rage. No longer at me, definitely aimed at Avery and the images of what he had planned for the Dark vampire cascading through his and my mind.

"I will repay him for this,
ma douce
, you can be assured," Michel whispered vehemently against my cheek as he continued to hold me. I just clung to him, unable to utter sound.

I don't know how much time passed, but Michel didn't move us, didn't remove his arms from around my body, didn't stop rocking me, stroking me, supporting me. I didn't need to hear him say it again, I knew he had meant every word. Avery would pay and Michel would see to it. I held onto my kindred until the images faded, until his scent was the only smell I could decipher in the room, his touch the only sensation.

Eventually, although not fully recovered from Avery's assault, I had gained a little of me back. I was not going to give him that moment: the love Michel and I had shown one another through the worship of each others' body. I would not let Avery see how he had hurt me, by invading that very special and personal time. I would not show fear. I would not give an inch. And, by God, I would always stay on guard.

As calmness finally enveloped me, I slowly became aware of the anger boiling inside Michel. Not only anger, but through the Bond I could feel his frustration. And I was picking it was not isolated to today.

I gently pulled away from his embrace to look at him. Magenta and amethyst splashed a familiar combination in his eyes. He smiled at me; a small, sad smile. Brushed my hair back off my face tenderly with one hand and then his gaze skittered away from mine. A distant look stealing over his handsome face.

"Michel," I said softly. "It will be all right." I had no way of knowing if it would. It just had felt like the right thing to say. "We'll sort it out. We'll find a way to stop him from doing this again." Wishful thinking, but right then, I would have said anything to see a different look in those violet eyes.

Michel met my gaze, a pained look inside his eyes, and he sighed. "It is not just him,
ma douce,
" he said after a lengthy pause.

I waited for more, but he just went back to staring into the distance and didn't utter a sound. Finally, unable to stand that haunting look any longer, I took hold of his hand and whispered, "You need to tell me. Please. Let me in."

He began slowly, haltingly at first. Each word painfully drawn from deep within.

"I wish... I have only one wish,
ma douce
." He took an unnecessary breath in. "That you be mine."

I shook my head in confusion. I was his, he knew this. Didn't he?

He squeezed my hand and smiled ruefully.

"I am unaccustomed to competition,
ma douce
,"
he said, surprising me in my confusion. "Were it just you and I in this world, life would be easy. I would, I think, not have to doubt." He was losing me, I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about at all. "But instead," he said whilst lifting my hand up to his mouth and then laying a kiss on the back delicately, "I must compete first with a Nosferatin trainer, then a master vampire who was once a brother to me." His voice lowered ominously. "Not to mention the King of the American Families, to
now
a Fey Prince and a Vampire ejected from the
Iunctio
due to - by his own admissions - being corrupted beyond redemption." He sighed again and let my hand fall back into my lap. "You are mine, yet I must battle for that right again and again. For once I would like you to exist only for me.”

He stood up in that fluid puppet-on-a-string motion vampires have and proceeded to get dressed in silence. I didn't move, I couldn't. For starters, I couldn't believe that he had such doubt. That he thought, for even a moment, that these other... men, meant anything to me. That they would take from him, my love, my desire, my
ownership
of him and therefore his ownership of me. I hadn't seen this coming. Michel is always so sure, steadfast, unflappable. But like a human - like me - he was not as confident of his own attraction, as I had thought him to be.

He sat down on the couch and picked up his nearly empty Scotch, downing it in one gulp and then fingering the glass, clearly trying to decide if another shot was required. I sat up slowly, wrapping a blanket from the sofa around my body and just studied him. I wanted to reassure him, but somehow words just felt hollow right now. So, I just watched him walk to the drinks cabinet and pour another drink and then down that drink, and then another and then when I thought perhaps he was just going to get falling down drunk, he poured three fingers in his glass and turned to look at me, just holding the tumbler, no longer drinking from it.

“The Champion believes my sire is alive and well and in London." I was momentarily surprised he was changing the topic so. Granted we needed to discuss these pressing matters, why he was here, why Avery was helping him, but he caught me unprepared. Again. "He hasn't been seen nor heard from since I took his life four hundred and fifty-one years ago, but she is adamant that he has returned, from whatever hell hole he has been hiding in and as such, it is my responsibility that he goes back there. For good.” A sip of his drink. A grimace. “He wasn't easy to kill the first time, now I fear he may well be damn near impossible.” He paused, looked at the drink in his hand as though he hadn't realised he was even holding it and then downed the rest in one swift tip of his head.

I was on my feet and in front of him in a second, grabbing his wrist as he reached for the near empty bottle of Scotch on the bench.

“Don't,” I said, softly.

He paused, a small smile curving his mouth as he looked down at me. “Why?”

“Because it's wasted energy. You don't need it. You're better than this.”

His free hand came up and stroked my cheek, I felt myself lean in to his touch, his thumb slowly caressing my jaw.

“You always did see more in me than I ever could.”

We stared at each other for a good minute and then he took hold of my hand and turned his back on the booze, leading me to the couch. I wrapped myself tighter in the blanket, just lacking the energy to get dressed right now. We settled down side by side, his hand still holding mine, small circles being traced on the back of mine by his thumb. So familiar, so Michel.

“This is my London base. I have hardly ever come here, so I never felt the desire to redecorate. It is hideous, is it not? Poor Christopher has had to endure it for more than a century, but the location is good, the tunnels beneath it essential and it serves its purpose even if I despise its style. I had no intention of ever bringing you here. I would have found an hotel more suited to your beauty, had this trip been better planned. But here we are.” His hand waved out through the space in front of us indicating the room, the entire house, as he spoke those last words. I was getting the feeling that Michel wasn't quite himself right then.