Reborn Vampire Romance: Blood Courtesans (11 page)

“Just a caramel latte.” I lifted my head to look up at him, aware that the small movement exposed my throat.

He sniffed the nape of my neck, burying his nose there, his fangs just pricking my skin. “The contrast between bitter and sweet is tantalizing.”

“Mmm,” I moaned as I pressed up against his fangs, wanting them to break my skin. I welcomed the pain; it meant I was still alive. Also, the things he did to me while feeding were pretty spectacular.

He refused to bite and pulled back, releasing me as he did so. “I could have sent someone out for your latte.”

I shook my head and removed my coat, draping it over a dining room chair. The compact apartment layout had the dining room just inside the entrance. “It’s not the same.” I’d wanted the freedom to pretend everything was normal. ‘Pretend’ being the key word. I was probably in the denial phase of my life going to hell.

“A bullet to the head isn’t any fun either.” He made a gun with his finger and aimed it at me. “They’ll either shoot bury you or make you rise to their bidding like a slave. Is that what you want?”

I sighed. “It’s just the suspense is killing me. Sitting here feels like a mistake.”

His expression became serious. “I can turn you tonight.”

I gulped, the offer making my blood run cold. To his credit, Kristos was giving me a lot of space and time to try and process the inevitable. He’d also set my mom up with medical care in a first class clinic under an assumed name to protect her. He was an all around gentleman...if that could be said for a bloodsucking vampire. I trusted him, except for when I didn’t.

I also wasn’t so sure about this ‘become a vampire’ thing.

He gave me a fatherly kiss on the forehead. “You’re going to have to decide soon, Myra. I can’t keep you safe forever.”

I leaned against him. “Thank you for trying though.”

He hugged me and then his hands began to roam my curves. His fingers tugged at the buttons on my blouse.

I put up a hand to stop him. “What are you doing?”

“I’m up. I’m hungry. We have no place to go and some free time before the others wake. In short, we are alone and I plan to take full advantage of that fact.” A wicked grin spread across his mouth as he spoke. “Consider this your punishment for breaking the rules.”

I arched an eyebrow. “You’re letting me off lightly.”

“That,” he peeled my shirt away from my chest, exposing my bra, “remains to be seen.”

Kristos led me to the bedroom we shared, discarding my clothes as we went. By the time we crossed the threshold, I’d lost my shirt, my bra and my pants. He pushed me down on the bed and inched my panties off, tossing them over his shoulder.

I reached for him, wanting to undo his shirt, but he evaded my touch. “Not yet, love. Look into my eyes.”

I hesitated. “That’s such a cliché. I can’t believe you just said that.”

He chuckled. “Just look into my eyes, Myra.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

Kristos ran his hands along my stomach and up to cup my breasts. I shivered as he caressed their sensitive tips. “You’ll be missing out.”

I made the mistake of looking up and making eye contact, wanting to see his face. His gaze captured mine in less than a second. I now knew that he’d been doing this to me since we met. I’d naively thought his eyes were irresistible because they were sparkling aquamarine blue, but it really was whatever magic that made a vampire a vampire. I’d been a virgin on a few different levels when I first met Kristos.

“Come for me, Myra.” His voice sounded distant and distorted as if he spoke underwater. My body however, heard him crystal clear and bucked as a hard, fast orgasm washed over me. The whole time our eyes were locked on each other, the windows to our souls wide open. His were full of darkness that threatened to spill out and consume me. I imagined mine were like those of a doe cornered by a hunter, wide and brimming with shattered innocence.

Kristos allowed me a second to recover and once my breathing had resumed at its normal rate, he said, “You will come every time I command it, understood?”

I gave a slow nod, bowing to his compulsion. A shiver went through me at his forcefulness, the way he just took my body and made it his. Kristos was a considerate man and attentive to my needs...except when it came to sex, then he just took what he wanted, what he needed, without asking. He’d indoctrinated me into a world where blood and sex were one and the same. Now I could never go back.

He broke eye contact then and kissed his way up my body. Swirling his tongue in my belly button, he gave the command. “Come.”

My back bowed this time and little shrieking sounds escaped from my throat. He moved up, nuzzling the hollow under my sternum, where my ribcage diverged to separate sides of my body. Making his way to my breast, he paused, mouth poised to take in the nipple, which jutted up in a little salute at the mere promise of his touch.

“Come and come and come,” he said just before his mouth closed over my nipple. My body instantly obeyed and pleasure wracked me until I barely felt his fangs pierce my breast. He sucked me as if he were a nursing babe; strong long pulls of his mouth that tugged on my nipple, forcing the blood into his mouth and tightening the wet darkness at my core.

Reading my body like Braille, his hand drifted to the cleft between my legs. Eager, I spread wide for him and his fingers teased the sensitive bud there. Despite the multiple on-command orgasms, I still wanted more. My appetite for him ravaged me like wildfire.

Switching breasts, he did the same on the other side. The orgasms shuddered through me, wringing the moisture out of my body. Sweat broke out on my upper lip and my skin became hot and damp. A seeping wetness pooled at my center and his fingers dipped in and out of it, stoking the heat to a fever pitch. With his hand where it was, my pleasure stretched out for impossibly long plateaus.

He watched my face as he fed. My focus was in and out, like flickering lights in a thunderstorm, but I saw the way his mouth kneaded my breast and how his throat moved as he swallowed my blood.

After he’d fed from both breasts, he left the bed to remove his clothes, revealing a sculpted physique that would have made Michelangelo swoon. Then he parted my legs and his hard length pressed against my wet entrance. My hips thrust up, wanting all of him already.

That made him smile and go all the slower, teasing me. I whimpered and reached for him, trying to pull him in, but he danced away from my grasp. He claimed me inch by tortuous inch, a pace that left my core desperate to be filled. When he finally sank all the way inside me, I groaned with satisfaction.

“How many times do you want to come?” he asked.

“It’s up to you.” With a finger, I caught a drop of blood from my breast and pressed it against his lips, giving myself to him completely. He sucked my finger into his mouth, fangs scraping over my knuckle.

Releasing my finger, he said, “Come.”

I arched, gasping as the wave rushed me, pebbling my nipples as it went. Before I’d returned to earth, while I was still swept away, he had me come again. Then again.

It seemed as if my body’s capacity for pleasure was endless. There was no sense of fatigue or any fading of my response. I came for him every time like it was the first orgasm. The heaviness in my limbs, though, and the way they shook when I tried to move belied my fatigue, but I didn’t really feel it. I was too caught up in Kristos’ eyes, his touch and the way he filled me to the point of bursting.

Kristos leaned down and bit my neck when he reached his own climax. Before his fangs slid through my skin as if I was made of water, he paused to whisper, “Come for me, Myra.”

I screamed, my hands digging into his shoulders. The orgasm bucked through me fierce as a wild horse, threatening to trample me into oblivion.

When he finished, he rolled to my side. I remained frozen in place, trembling as aftershocks zapped my system. My mind fought to maintain awareness. All I wanted to do was sink into the soft darkness of sleep, but one simple sound put me on hyper alert.

Someone was knocking on the door. Not our bedroom door, which would not have alarmed me at all as it would have been one of Kristos’ men. No, the knocking came from the front door.

Not only did no one know where we were, they shouldn’t be in the building let alone on our floor without being buzzed in. An adrenaline surge burned away all my lethargy and I bolted out of bed, every muscle taut, my ears straining.

Kristos responded in kind and we both stood in tense silence willing the knock to have been a fluke. It wasn’t. The knock came again, more insistent this time. Whoever was out there knew the apartment was occupied.

This was bullets-are-probably-about-to-fly bad.

Kristos frowned. “Get dressed and stay here until I give the all clear.” He pulled on his pants and snagged his gun from the bedside table.

I didn’t know anything about guns other than his was sleek and black and that I wished I had one. For once, I’d like to be the one doing the shooting. I hated feeling so defenseless.

Kristos left, shutting our bedroom door after him. I got dressed and then cracked the door open which gave me a clear view of the apartment’s entrance. Kristos was peering through the peephole.

I heard a muffled voice speaking from the other side of the door. I was too far away to make out what was said, but Kristos seemed to understand it just fine. Holding the gun behind him and out of sight, he opened the front door.

A tall man with swarthy dark features stepped into the apartment. I gasped, covering my mouth with my hand. It was the man from the coffee shop. Shit. I’d been spotted.

The man’s eyes, black as night, scanned the apartment and found me within seconds. He gave a feral smile and beckoned me forward. “Ah, there you are, my tesoro. Come out where we can talk, eh?”

His voice carried in the apartment, a baritone with an accent so thick it almost sounded like he was choking on English. I looked to Kristos for guidance and he nodded, his expression one of resignation. Whoever this man was, he was no stranger and no immediate threat given that Kristos hadn’t shot him on sight. I stepped out into the living room, careful to keep my gaze averted. I wasn’t sure yet if this stranger could do to me what Kristos did with his eyes and I didn’t want to find out either.

“You’re up early, Arlo,” Kristos said, his voice carefully neutral.

Arlo waved a languid hand. “I can meet the sun when the situation requires.” He gave me an arch look which I saw in my peripheral vision. “Even go out for coffee and play the human.”

I frowned, angry at myself. I’d been such an idiot to think coffee was worth this risk. It wasn’t.

“How did you find us?” Kristos crossed the room to stand next to me. Instinctively I edged closer to him, almost bumping him with my shoulder. He gave me a warning look and stepped to the side. With a start, I realized I’d been blocking his gun hand.

Arlo shrugged. “The council has spies everywhere, but I have more spies than the council.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Council?”

“Ah yes, tesoro. Has Kristos not told you? The council is our governing body. They are quite interested in your progeny here. As am I.” His studied me while I stared fixedly at the carpet. “She’s lovely. Looks like her father.”

“You know my father?” I couldn’t keep the eagerness from my voice. I’d wondered about him all my life, even more so now that who he was had resulted in a blood price on my head.

“He is my maker, tesoro.” Arlo gave a little bow. “We are blood you and I. Brother and sister, albeit in an untraditional way.”

“What are you doing here?” Kristos growled more than spoke.

“The council is interested to know if your progeny will take after her father.  However, I see she has not been turned yet.” I risked a quick glance at Arlo and found him looking at me, speculation shining in his eyes. His gaze was heavy and full of power. I quickly focused back on the carpet. I would have to be careful not to be sucked in against my will.

“We’re working on it.” Kristos’ tone was terse.

“You should know some in the council would prefer her as a human. They want to try and breed her.”

My mouth dropped open at that and a sense of horror made my stomach fall. “What?” I couldn’t keep from a shrieking a bit.

Arlo sighed as if finding my alarm tiresome. “You are half vampire yet still mortal. It may be that you can birth others like you. You are a tesoro, a treasure.”

“Why would they want more like me?” Kristos and I exchanged glances. Mine reflected my surprise, his was full of guarded suspicion.

“To make a better vampire, what else?” Arlo smirked. “But the council does not know all your father’s secrets, tesoro. Or else they would not make such a plan.”

I crossed my arms to hide the fact that my hands were shaking. Our conversation had delved into the realm of crazy conspiracy theories...about me. The whole thing freaked me out. “Tell me about my father.” I forgot myself and looked up at him again, but he wasn’t looking at my face.

His eyes were transfixed on my neck. From the heat burning my cheeks, I knew that my heightened emotions had blossomed in a blush from my chest up to my face. It was one of the things that Kristos found most attractive about me. Apparently, Arlo felt the same way.

“You’re quite beautiful,” he murmured. He raised his hand, extending a finger as if to touch me. I was well out of reach, but cringed anyway.

“Tell me,” I said, repeating my question. “Tell me why you’re here. Tell me about my father.” What I really meant was ‘make this go away.’

Arlo strode over to one of the leather armchairs in the small living room. “Very well.” Sitting down, he assumed an upright, almost prim posture. He gestured to the chair across from him inviting us to join him, but neither Kristos nor I moved. “I was the first vampire your father made. I was there when his first child was born.”

“I have a brother or a sister?” I put a hand over my mouth in shock.

Arlo shook his head. “No, tesoro. I killed it. It was unfit for life.” He moved his hands as if twisting a neck. “I killed the others too.”

I stared at his hands, a chill running up my spine. For some reason the stitches in my palm began to itch like crazy, as if responding to his words. I curled my fingers into a fist and dug my nails into the wound, fighting the urge to scratch at it frantically.