Deep Desire: The Deep Series, Book 1

There’s no leverage like seduction…until love takes a bite of his plans.

Deep, Book 1

As the Indiana Jones of historical erotica, there is no document existing—or just rumored to exist—Adin Tredeger can’t unearth. Why he would risk the biggest coup of his career to join the mile-high club is beyond him. But the disarming, dark-eyed man who somehow enters Adin’s locked airplane washroom has him completely nude and coming apart. All without a whimper of protest.

From that moment, Adin and Donte Fedelta engage in an international battle of wit and cunning. The prize—a priceless, 500-year-old journal with illustrations so erotic it could make the Marquis de Sade blush.

Yet Donte’s desire for the journal goes far beyond simple possession. The undead nobleman wrote it. And he’s not above using every trick in his otherworldly arsenal—including seduction—to get it back.

Chemistry draws them together even as fortune tugs them apart. But when a third party joins the chase, they must unite to fight an enemy with a deadly goal—to erase Donte from history.

This book is a rerelease of a previously published book, with substantial rewrites.

Warning: This product contains one cocky college professor, one centuries-old vampire who is out to show him who’s at the top of the food chain, and red wine. Because it goes so well with humble pie.

Deep Desire

Z.A. Maxfield

Dedication

For He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named—not Lord Voldemort—because kindness and generosity should always be remarked upon, and also for Elisa Rolle, whose scholarship, friendship, and Man Candy Days always bring a smile. Thank you, Elisa, for your help with the Italian in this book. (Any mistakes are all mine.) I’m grateful to you both from the bottom of my heart.

Author Note

Nocturns, Vigils and Matins all refer to the monastic nighttime liturgy. In my own inept way, when I originally titled this series, I envisioned a repressed but clever Renaissance-era boy, using these sacred words to refer to his private, carnal journal. With the help of the stellar staff at Samhain, and my amazing editor, Tera Cuskaden, I’ve retitled and re-edited these novels, but the kernel of the idea is still there. Thanks to everyone who helped make this series possible.

Prologue

When Adin woke up on Lufthansa Flight 456, it had already landed at LAX and he’d had the strangest night of his life. Words stuck in his sandy and arid mouth.

“I know he didn’t have too much to drink. I served him myself,” one of the flight attendants said. “Does he look pale to you?”

“Yes,” said the air marshal. “Better call the EMTs.”

Two other people gathered around him as he fought the dizzy spinning of his brain. He looked out the window and his heart slammed into his rib cage when he saw a familiar figure exit the plane. A hunger he’d never known before coursed through him, and he flushed from his head to his toes.

“Water,” Adin croaked.

“There you are.” The flight attendant, Marcia, motioned to someone toward the front of the cabin. “Welcome back. You were beginning to scare us. Do you have a medical condition?”

“Blood sugar gets low when I travel,” Adin murmured. Someone brought him water and a can of orange juice.

“Thank you.” He took a sip. It would hardly have been appropriate to tell her he’d become a member of the Mile High Club somewhere over the American heartland. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

“If you’re certain. We can call for assistance. Is there someone waiting for you?”

“I’ll be fine. I must be more jetlagged than I thought.” He threw the blanket onto the seat next to the window and got to his feet as if he were feeling better already.

“You’re bleeding.” With her gloved hand, she pointed to his collar.

“That’s odd.” Adin felt his neck.
Where the hell is my tie?
He held out his collar so he could see it. “Must have been the electric shaver. Sometimes they bite.”

“Well.” She didn’t look convinced but Adin could hardly tell her that the man who’d broken into the bathroom and fucked him had also bitten him. He stood, grabbing the seat in front of him, carefully testing his legs against the airplane floor. He turned away from their curious gazes to open the overhead bin.

“I’ll just get my case,” he said. “It’s in the—”

It wasn’t there. Motherfuck. The bastard had stolen his case. A terrible disappointment surged within him. He’d known somehow it would come to this—known he was being played.

Even as he’d allowed events to play out, he’d known.

“Sir?”

“Never mind.” He made his way to the cabin door. Exhaustion slowed his steps. It seemed his limbs didn’t move when or how he told them to. He imagined he was jerking like a marionette. He nodded to Marcia. “Thank you.”

“See you next time.” She shot him a little wave.

He couldn’t help but hope it would be a long time before he flew again. A long,
long
time.

Chapter One

Adin checked his watches again. He wore two watches when he traveled, a habit so ingrained he even did it when he was traveling within the same time zone. One had been his father’s, a large and handsome, round, gold analog set to Frankfurt time, with a brown leather strap he’d replaced at least twice since his father’s death. The second watch on his wrist, a more modern, white-gold Rolex, showed California time. He’d come to the airport hours early to deal with security checks and now sat in one of the lounges trying to look relaxed with the last third of a drink in his hand. He didn’t want to project the image of overt wariness, but neither did he want to look vulnerable… It was enough to maintain the discreet and politely disinterested persona he had to affect when he was carrying something important. He shifted his eyes down and checked his case. Still there. Of course it was.

Only a handful of people in the world would be interested in his case and not simply the money its contents represented. Adin knew he was taking unusual precautions. Yet the feeling that he was being followed persisted. Even the night before, when he’d gone to the opera with his friend Tariq, he’d been completely unable to concentrate on the pleasures the evening afforded. He’d sensed another presence with them. He noticed it at the theater, and then later at Tariq’s home, where he spent the night. It bothered him enough to sweep the gauzy draperies back and open the French doors onto the balcony of Tariq’s lovely old flat, but there was no one there. Tariq teased him for being paranoid and then coaxed him back to bed and made him forget. Tariq could make him forget his name. Yet still…

Adin shook his head. He should be overjoyed. He was already famous in academic circles as an authority on antique erotica. Among his kind, the bibliophiles and the professors from the small private university where he taught English literature to recalcitrant undergrads, he was thought to be a dashing if somewhat eccentric fanatic with more energy than sense, who hared off after any clue to a manuscript that promised to be just what this one was—if the rumors about it turned out to be true.

Those colleagues who knew him well envied his gift for sourcing rare books, even those that historians and scholars claimed could not exist, as they had this one. He could also claim a gift for ruthless and intuitive bidding at auctions. But
Notturno
? Finding that was going to cement his status among his peers for a lifetime, as well as garner him the notoriety he worried he secretly craved. More than one of his peers thought of him as the shocking and unnatural Dr. Adin Tredeger, purveyor of exotic porn.

Notturno
would have been a great prize, regardless of its subject matter and age. From what Adin had seen of its carefully preserved pages it was in amazing shape. But with provenance in place, the nature and quality of the art scattered throughout the leather-bound journal, and the kinds of entries the owner made within it,
Notturno
was proving to be the most exciting find of his career.

Adin’s interest was piqued when a veiled reference to a journal, said to be written by an Italian count, used the term
amore vietato
,
or forbidden love. Swirling the remaining whiskey in his glass, Adin almost laughed again, remembering the look on the faces of the collectors he’d called to confer with in Frankfurt. They had been unprepared for the ferociously erotic text, or the fact that it illustrated a pair of very well-hung and hungry early-sixteenth-century Italian aristocrats, known vaguely by historians to have married advantageously and procreated and lived their short lives in relative obscurity.

At first glance,
Notturno
didn’t seem to describe a love affair as much as it chronicled a series of blistering sexual encounters between two men who wanted each other and, for whatever reason, played at games that would only become more widely written about and practiced after de Sade made them famous in the late eighteenth century.

The rumor, in fact, was that de Sade himself had come into contact with this very manuscript on his travels in Italy and had stolen from it extensively. That had turned out to be an exaggeration, but what little Adin had seen of
Notturno
was enough to put a blush on his face for weeks.

The journal itself, packed and preserved as best it could be for travel, weighed heavily on his mind. He hadn’t wanted it out of his sight. Yet circumstances made him cautious. The nagging feeling that someone else wanted it, that someone was out there waiting for the chance to get his hands on it, hadn’t left him.

Adin finished his drink and picked up his case. Any minute the call to board Lufthansa Flight 456, nonstop from Frankfurt to Los Angeles, would go out over the PA system, and he was ready. Glancing around again, he headed to the gate. The weight of the case shifted in his hand, heavy, a potent reminder of the gravity of the situation. Still uneasy, he turned a full circle but could see no one paying him any particular attention. He shook off the feeling and walked on.

Hours later, Adin’s restless mood worsened. Flying west at dawn, they were chasing the darkness. He was cold and needed a shave. The seemingly endless hours on the flight made him thirsty and dry. They’d had good weather so far, and he guessed it would continue, given that it was midsummer. The weather in Los Angeles was bound to be hot, and he hoped the final authentication would go smoothly so he could get home—for a while at least—before business called him out again or the school term started.

Adin checked the time. They were probably somewhere over the Midwest. He rose and made his way through the darkened cabin in his stocking feet, headed toward the bathroom with his toiletry kit, knowing that later he would have less opportunity as people began waking up.

Once inside he locked the door, got out his electric razor, and plugged it in, getting ready to defoliate. He had his iPod on and was listening to the Black Eyed Peas’ “Pump It” as he prepared for his morning routine. He didn’t want to arrive in L.A. jet-lagged and spacey. A quick look in the mirror revealed his suit was rumpled; he planned to change as soon as he got to his hotel.

He’d closed his eyes while he brushed his teeth. A draft and a change in the light made him look behind him—someone had opened the door. Shock stilled his tongue when a dark, handsome man entered the tiny, cramped stall with him. The bastard closed the door and leaned against it, squeezing Adin farther into the small space.

“What the hell?” Adin almost choked. “Occupied.” He pointed to the little slider. “
Occupe. Occupado
. I’ll be out in a minute.”

The man made no move to leave. The rich texture of his clothing appeared annoyingly unaffected by the long flight, and his face, which Adin might have described as striking had he not been pissed off, was implacable, unperturbed.

“Excuse me.” Adin paused his music.

Dark brown eyes showed a hint of warmth but gave off nothing of what Adin’s intruder was thinking. “Of course. Go ahead with your ablutions. I will wait.”

“Excuse me?” Adin framed it as a question the second time. “It’s customary to wait
outside
.”

“I think you’ll find that I’m not a very customary man, Adin.” He said Adin’s name like a warm caress—
AH-din
—the way it was meant to be pronounced.

“Have we met?”

“No, not really.” The man had a full, mobile mouth, sensuous, with lips that looked dark and just a little dry from flying, as if he’d been compensating by licking them. Adin wanted simply to gaze at him—to watch him to see if he’d do it again. Sure enough, the stranger’s tongue swept out and over them, luscious and glistening. “If we had met, you would remember.”

“I see.” Was this bold stranger coming on to him? Adin relaxed, fractionally. “Who are you, exactly?”

“I don’t know who I am, exactly, Adin. I doubt you know who you are,
exactly
. I will say that I’ve been an Italian count, a poet, an artist, a fur trader. A professional gambler. That was fun. Once I even owned a brothel in San Francisco, but the girls were far more trouble than they were ultimately worth.”

Actor,
thought Adin dismissively, turning back to shave. “I’ll be out in just a minute.”

“Where are my manners? I’m called Donte.” He reached for Adin’s shoulder and turned him back around.

“Donte? Not Dante?”

“Dante? No,
DOHN-tay
. Like you are
AH-din
and not
AY-den
.” The man had a peculiar accent, as though he tasted each word like a treat, rolling it on his tongue and biting it off like it was juicy to him.

“Donte then. As soon as you leave I can—”

“I saw you, you know, at the Opera Frankfurt. What was your friend’s name?”

“Tariq.”
Why did I answer?
Something about Donte’s gaze was so compelling…

“Tariq. A good name. I saw you together and knew he would have the privilege of fucking you at the end of the evening while I would have to go home and imagine it.” Donte put out a finger and lightly trailed it down Adin’s cheek. “So
pretty
.”

“You are on crack,” snapped Adin, jerking his head away. He’d known he was being stalked. Felt this man’s eyes on him.

Worried now, he eyed the door against which the intruder was leaning. He’d originally thought no one could harm him on an airplane at thirty thousand feet, but this man? This man was dangerous.

“Don’t be afraid, Adin,” Donte crooned, his voice moving through Adin’s body like good liquor. Donte stroked his hair softly, and God help him, Adin leaned into his touch.

“I’m not afraid.” Adin wasn’t, but he worried he should have been. He shook his head to clear it. “I will call for the air marshal, and I’m sure neither of us wants to go through that.”

“No, we don’t. But you’re curious. You want to know why I’m here. You want to know why I invaded your privacy.”

Adin’s mouth, already dry, was now crusty and stuck. “W-why?”

“For this,” Donte whispered, sliding his hands up to the collar of Adin’s shirt. He worked his fingers into the knot of Adin’s tie, removing it with a long, slow, sensuous glide. Donte’s touch feathered over Adin’s skin as he freed each button from its fabric prison. When he uncovered skin, his silky fingertip moved over Adin’s nipple.

Adin hissed in response.

“I knew it.” Donte smiled. “So pretty.”

Adin’s body caught fire at Donte’s—at this
stranger’s
—indecent caresses.

Adin sagged against Donte, tugging the shirt off his shoulders, letting it slide to the floor. They had no room to maneuver, less than the space they stood in, but now they grappled, straining together, bumping knees and shifting, groping and digging, muscle and sinew and bone melting in the heat of passion.

Adin’s body responded with lethal hunger. He closed his eyes. “I don’t usually—”

“No, of course you don’t,
caro
. Never, ever.”

Adin laughed at that. He was certainly about to, damn it. He writhed against the beautiful man who worked open his trousers, pushing and tugging until he was almost naked. “No, but I really don’t—”

“I can see that.” Adin’s trousers and briefs hit the floor, and he stepped out of them in a daze. “You are willing only for me, yes?
Un
amore vietato
,
non
?”

“Yes.” Adin tried to back up, but there was nowhere to go. “No! This is insane.”

“Yet here we are.” Donte cupped Adin’s face with both hands. “You are already nude, and you haven’t yet even put your lips to mine. Come, Adin. Kiss me.”

And Adin did. His whole life—his whole world, all his thoughts and feelings and desires, were supplanted by the suggestion to kiss Donte.

He registered that it could not be real. It was some kind of glamour—some magic of the moment. Something that worked within his brain like oxygen deprivation, but he kissed Donte and went on kissing him. When Donte pulled his thick, uncut cock from his trousers and pushed Adin up against the wall, Adin wrapped his legs around the handsome man and pressed his feet on the backs of Donte’s muscled thighs for traction, his only murmur causing the briefest time-out for Donte to put on a condom and slick himself with lube, which Adin supplied from his own damned toiletry kit.

Then there was nothing but the exquisite, ever building pleasure/pain—the pressure of penetration.

Donte parted Adin’s ass cheeks and took him in a single, powerful, red-hot invasion that was at the same time, confusingly cold. A wrenching fullness that was too much, too soon, until agony evolved into something glorious and
breathtaking
.

Adin breathed in sex and man and something else, something extraordinary that teased at his senses, infusing the air with the aroma of fresh herbs and night, complex and earthy and completely at odds with getting busy in an airplane bathroom.

The scent was warm and reassuring, even though the man who held and coolly fucked him was anything but.

Donte was impossibly strong; his muscled arms held Adin steady while his cock surged into Adin’s ass. His kisses were possessive and demanding. Adin could only cling, kiss back, and melt beneath the heat racing between them.

He lost himself in the act, so blind to all but sensation that when Donte sought out the tender flesh at the junction of his neck and shoulder and bit down, an immense shockwave slid down Adin’s spine, ending in orgasm so powerful his vision grayed out. Thick ribbons of jizz pulsed between them—ropy, silent splatters from Adin’s cock as he fell, limp and sated in Donte’s arms.

Donte followed, stiffening while Adin convulsed around him. He jerked his hips, fierce and hard, slamming Adin’s back against the wall and staying deep within him while he gave up his seed.

They came down together, their ragged breathing fading, mellowing to sighs.

Donte allowed Adin to slump to the commode while he removed and tossed the condom. Donte cleaned the semen stains off his suit as well as he could, glancing at himself in the mirror.

Adin couldn’t see Donte’s reflection. The angle, he supposed, was wrong. He would have liked to see Donte’s face just then. His legs trembled uncontrollably and he felt utterly, completely spent.