The Better to Eat You With: The Red Journals (31 page)

“You want this?” I demanded. “Last time we lost
control.”

“Oh, I want this very much.” His voice had deepened,
becoming husky, coaxing, drawing a shiver from me that seemed to utterly squish
any remorse I felt about my husband.

Jeepers,
I thought¸
who was this man before
he was a Vampire? Was he this dangerous to women when he was mortal?

 “Well,” I blushed, hands clenched, “they’ll hear us—“

Before I even finished the weak protest, he was
striding for the small docking station complete with iPod, and pressed one
button, one single button, and suddenly, Bush’s “Little Things” was blaring
from the speakers loud enough to drown out everything else.

Well, that shut me up.

Felix turned to me, his hands lifting to his shirt to
pop the buttons open, revealing pale, muscled flesh and the sharp, swirling
tattoo. I sucked in a breath, my heart kicking up faster and faster with every
loosed button, and my tongue was laced with iced coffee and his desire, making
me giddy. His shirt parted, revealing a chiseled torso and broad shoulders, all
a creamy shade of silk over steel. My fingers twitched to run over that silken
steel and trace the jagged edges of that spiraling tattoo and see just how big
it is with my tongue…

Glenn has broad shoulders too.

I flinched at the thought that came out of nowhere.

His skin would be that pale now, too.

I squeezed my eyes shut against the flickers of memory
dancing behind my eyes. Of skin, touch, sighs and things that lingered in the
heart of a young wife and heartbroken girl. I’d only ever been with one man. Never
even considered being with another, and there I had a Vampire seducing me.

Hunting me.

Hunting…

My eyes flew open as his scent enveloped me and realization
lit up my senses. My gaze snagged on forest green eyes shot through with olive
and sparkling with lightning gold. A predator amidst the forest shades. Felix
was hunting me, as surely as I wanted to be his prey. I’d been so concerned
with Vince coming after me that I’d grown complacent with Felix, relaxed and
submissive.

Now look!
I chastised myself.
Now you can’t
resist him! But he smells so good.

I inhaled deep again the bitter, spicy-sweet scent of
him and let it waft around me, the pulsing aroma of his need sizzling over the
skin of my arms as daring as a caress.

“Why were you in Summersville?” I blurted suddenly,
eyes flying wide.

Felix tilted his head and watched me, like the most unsettling
of aggressors, curious but still tragically dangerous. “Looking for you,” he
replied softly.

So many questions flew through my mind at a speed too
fast to process, and all I could do was stare at him.

“Red?” His voice was chocolate-rich and whisky-deep.

I drew my eyes up from the smooth perfection of his
chest and abs to meet the intensity of his stare.  He slid the dark shirt from
his shoulders, a rolling invitation to touch, and moved towards the bed, never
breaking eye-contact. The extreme focus made the sharpness of his gaze a
palpable touch.

Glenn never looked at me like that.

I swallowed, feeling awkward and unworthy of such
scrutiny, but when Felix dropped onto the end of the bed and held a hand out to
me, I didn’t hesitate to take it.

Yeah. Definitely doing that a lot lately.

Felix helped me up onto the plush covers, and then
released my fingers to scoot back to the pillows piled high at the headboard. I
could do nothing but follow him, crawling after him, held enslaved by the
promise burning in his gold dazzled eyes. Reclining back, he tilted his head to
the side, his eyes on me, and offered me his neck. I swallowed, my gaze
shifting from his captivating eyes to the inviting skin of his throat.

“My bite is too messy for there,” I told him softly,
looking back at his face. To claim his neck also seemed too personal, too
intimate.

“I heal fast, and your saliva is an anti-coagulant,” he
said, all practical, not moving.

I swallowed again, licking my lips, and his eyes
finally moved, flicking down to my mouth like he couldn’t resist a glimpse of
them. The knowledge that he wanted me was heady. He lifted his hands, opening
his arms, and gestured.

“Come to me,” he said. “You need it, and we both want
it.”

“How do you know?” I asked, shuffling closer.

His eyes met mine again. “I can smell your desire,
Red.”

I stilled, and then tilted my head back to sniff the
air…

Shit.

The citrus bite of orange and the giddy aroma of
chocolate mixed alluringly with iced coffee and anise, creating that same
intense perfume that had filled the plane so fast, so thick, and so
intoxicating.

My heart began to pound. I started to pant. My skin
stretched tight over my bones the more I inhaled. I could taste us on my
tongue. A light dusting of everything I could have if I just moved forward and
took what he was offering. I nearly moaned as something long forgotten clenched
inside me, awakened by his blood on the plane and aching for another tasted
since.

My lips parted against the elongating of my fangs. My
eyes opened to take in Felix laid out like a delicious platter of wanton
delights, and I hadn’t even realized I’d closed them. Before I knew it, I was
straddling his lap, pressing down onto his need enough to make him hiss in a
breath, and my hands were sliding over warm skin, smooth and pale.

The green of Felix’s eyes were almost completely
engulfed in gold, and upon seeing them, my vision swamped itself with dark
yellow, heat rushing from my stomach and flooding outwards, sliding down my
limbs to leave them heavy. Leaning forward, I ducked my head and licked him,
from collarbone to jaw, and my eyes rolled back in my head at the flavor of
him. Felix’s hands gripped my hips, and I spread my knees wider, the barrier of
my plaid pajamas and his slacks were nothing against the intense satisfaction
of hearing him groan under me.

I brushed his skin with my fangs once in warning, then
stretched my jaw wider and slid my fangs effortlessly into his skin, aiming for
veins rather than arteries. Felix’s grip jerked on me, and his hips bucked up
once on reflex, and then my mouth was filled with his taste, the flavor
ridiculously more intense than what his skin had been.

It was sharp, rich and crisp.

All the scents that were him were the same in the
taste of his blood, and it flowed down into me and burned, hot and heavy and
undeniable, and I moaned against his skin. The power of him rushing through my
body and bringing to life every cell as if they had been nothing but excess
tissue before. I was giddy with the potency of him. Drunk, again, on the power
of his Vampire essence and wanting more.

More.

His breath whooshed over my shoulder in sharp pants,
and his hands alternated between pushing me down and pulling me up, rubbing me
against the hard length of his excitement even as his own hips rolled.

My hips began to undulate of their own accord as my
fingers threaded into his hair. His blood was a liquid-inferno pulsating from
between my legs, burning me from the inside out. It took all thoughts of
anything but him and me and this and the ultimate culmination far, far away,
just like last time.

Just like last time.

Never this good with Glenn.

I released Felix’s neck with a gasp and licked my
lips, tasting him and feeling an answering throb deep and low. I dragged my
tongue over his neck, sealing the wounds, and moaned as I caught another
swallow of his essence, bucking and pressing and gripping with hands and
thighs.

Felix’s hand suddenly slid up my tank, cupping bare
breasts and thumbing the tight peak. I surged upright with a gasp and bucked my
hips faster against him, grabbing his wrists to keep them there. His pupils
were huge —nothing but a halo of fine Vampire gold. His fangs were down, white
and sharp and gleaming.

On instinct, I leaned forward and licked one sharp
point. The flick of my tongue was quick and his reaction faster still. Even as
I was leaning back, he was moving with me, and his lips were around my nipple
before I could even suck in a breath.

“Felix!” I moved harder against him, faster,
desperate, the climax just on the cusp but not going over, heat racing over my
skin and pulsing in my core, expanding out to throb at every pulse point.

“Ride me, pet,” Felix groaned against my tight flesh,
the dark rumble vibrating through me as a sharp sting caressed the flesh held
teasingly between his lips.

Fang? Had he cut me?

“Oh, God, just like last time.”

Just like last time.

My arms slid about his bare shoulders, my nails
digging in as I rocked my hips hard and fast, his rigid arousal rubbing over
and over and over, right where I wanted, making the pressure grow, inflaming
me, beckoning me,
demanding
I cum.

Now.

I cried out, pleasure crashing over me in a white-hot
wave that left stars dancing behind my eyes. My thighs quivered at the
intensity of my orgasm, and the liquid fire that burned inside me escaped in a
hot rush from between my legs.

Felix’s strong arms banded around me as he hissed in a
breath, and suddenly he was bucking up into me, his powerful thrusts taking
hold of my waning climax and ramping it right back up until I was gasping out
another hot, wet, ecstasy-filled peak, and he was groaning loud and long into
my flesh.

We collapsed back onto the pillows, and the sweet
post-orgasmic lull was tingling over my skin and beckoning me to slumber
happily in my satiation. Felix didn’t seem to mind me slouched over him, his
hands smoothing up and down my spine. He seemed less inclined to move than I
did, simply breathing deep our combined scents filling the room.

“I think,” he slurred, “I lost my legs again.”

I chuffed a laugh and replied, “And we
still
didn’t swap underwear.”

G.C. Logistics.

Geoffrey Carver Logistics.

Glenn Cutter Logistics.

My soul was icy cold as I stared at the entrance to
the glass fronted building and saw my husband’s initials emblazoned in bright
white, like a mockery above the door. Seeing them made me realize how blind I’d
been. I’d been so focused on Vince, Felix and the atrocities of Ambrose… The
thought that Glenn was alive never occurred to me. Not after my first one
hundred years of searching for him.

Then of mourning him for another hundred.

And then missing him every day since then.

Now, this sterile, clinical looking building with
Glenn’s initials on it was a scornful representation of what Ambrose considered
his former self to be; plain, functional, and lacking any kind of individuality
to all the others of its kind around it. Basically, Ambrose was saying that
there was nothing special about Glenn. And that, if anything, showed me just
how far away from my husband Ambrose had become. I guess he’d never seen these
buildings at dawn, when the rising sun reflected off the glass like a million
mirrors, giving back the sky its own canvas in hues of fuchsia, orange and
gold.

I wriggled my toes in my DC’s then shifted my hips,
resting my weight on the opposite leg and the skirt of my fake school uniform
hitching up on the opposite side. In exactly four minutes, I was going to cross
the street and just walk in the front door, straight across the lobby to the
security guard behind the desk and knock him out. In one hit. It wasn’t that I
couldn’t do it. That I could overpower a human male was not in question. What
had me fidgeting was the warm hum of awareness in the back of my head.

Less than four hours ago I’d woken up from a sleep so
deep I hadn’t even dreamed. I was so well-rested and lethargic that I hadn’t
even wanted to move. I was on my back, one arm stretch up and tucked behind the
pillow under my head. The rest of me was entangled in warm, sexy Vampire who
smelt simply divine.

Felix was sprawled over me, literally. One arm wrapped
about my torso, the other, snaked beneath my neck. His body was half covering
mine, and his thigh was pressed to my backside, my legs bent and arching over
his hip with my feet tucked into the back of his calf. His face was pressed
into my throat, his breath hot on my skin, his breathing deep and slow, like he
was inhaling me. Claiming me.

He was also a total bed hog. My lips curved slightly
in amusement as I had noticed I was almost at the edge of the bed, and he was
spread out over the rest of the four-poster. We were both under the down
comforter, and our scents were so thick in the air, had been for so long, that
you couldn’t discern our individual fragrances. I was surprised by the realization
that our combined aromas were …sultry.

That’s when I’d sensed the sleepy laughter bubbling in
the back of my mind. It was shockingly intimate in its familiarity, as fine as
a caress, all heat and sensual enticement.

“Don’t get angry,” the Vampire had murmured into my
neck, his breath soft and sleepy and hot on my skin, making me shiver right
down to my toasty toes.

“I’m not.” I had replied, confused, frowning.

How is he…? I didn’t know what to call it. Connected
to me? Linked? Oh God… bonded?
My memories instantly flashed to that brief
sting of pain I felt when his mouth was at my breast, and I knew instantly that
he’d cut me, and taken my blood, effectively cementing our exchange into a
bond.

Felix had chuckled softly. “Don’t panic either.”

I had gone utterly still, my mind focusing on the
mental ‘scent’ of the Vampire snuggled into me, physically and in the recesses
of my own consciousness. It kind of felt… crowded. But not in the sense of
being smothered. More like a bar when the music is good and the atmosphere is
good.

Felix, in my head, felt good.

Blimey.

“I gotta take a shower,” I had told him, and shuffled
out of bed and to the bathroom. And thus had proceeded to stare at myself in
the mirror and try to
not
think too hard, while unintentionally
wondering how much I was feeling and/or thinking Felix was picking up. If the
constant hum of faint amusement tingling along my synapses was anything to go
by, the answer was most definitely…enough.

Growling inwardly, and mentally swatting at the damn Vampire
sniggering at me in my own damn head, I had half scalded myself in the spray of
the shower in my distraction, but it was enough to bring me to my senses.

What the bloody hell has he done to me?

That single question had ricocheted around my mind and
set off sparks of panic like the lights in a pinball machine. My insides had quivered
with unease all the way through my shower, through my dressing and my banter
with Felix through the bathroom door, through breakfast with the Shifter twins,
and the informative and enlightening conversation with Vincent about Ambrose’
sire.

My sire.

My stomach had been heavy with agitation all
throughout learning how my husband, newly turned Vampire fledgling, was raised
by a Vampire that was certifiably insane, despite being an Ancient. Or maybe
that was why he was mad. Being thousands of years old might well make you a
little eccentric. It was said that he believed a Vampire and a Werewolf bite
could produce a hybrid with all the species’ advantages, and none of their
faults. The night the Wolves went after the poachers in my village, the Vampire
followed in their wake.

At the time, he went by the name Charaka. Before that,
he had been Miloslav—loosely translated from Slavic to mean ‘lover of glory’.
He was rumored to be one of Vlad the Impaler’s original warlord generals, and
was considered to be just as blood hungry as his liege. He had disappeared off
the grid for a few decades, had appeared again in the Werewolves’ history the
night Glenn and I crossed his path, and then had disappeared again—with my husband.
He’d managed to turn a couple of men from the village, but had taken a special
interest in Glenn. He had been intrigued with my husband’s ability to create
little animals from chunks of wood, and was supposed to refer to the ornaments
as ‘the collection’.

My stomach had all but forced itself up my throat.

Was Ambrose the Collector? Was he kidnapping
Immortals for a menagerie?

Miloslav’s death was alleged to have been about
fifty-odd years ago, but the details were shady and inconclusive. It was also
around that time Ambrose was beginning to make a name for himself, and,
unsurprisingly, when the disappearances were believed to have begun. Ambrose
was said to speak fondly of his sire, which he referred to as Milo,
conveniently meaning ‘solider’ in Latin.

As we had finalized the finer details of acquiring the
other half of the broken program from Natasha’s workplace, I had to concentrate
on keeping my hands from shaking. I had gripped them tight in my lap, or in my
pockets, or I crossed my arms over my middle, so no one would see how unsettled
I was. I had reasoned with myself that I had every right to be nervous, even
scared. It didn’t stop the shaking, and it didn’t make me feel better.

The fact that I was cognizant of another being taking
up residence in my own damn head didn’t help. It felt like at any moment, Felix
was going to whisper dirty little ditties from the corner of my own mind, and I
wasn’t going to be able to stop my reaction!

Because I don’t have enough issues with people
thinking I’m crazy as it is.

So, there I stood, dressed in a school uniform, a pack
on my back, the street damp under my DC’s and the night sky threatening more
rain.  I stared at the glass front building named after my dead-but-not-dead
husband, whom I’d mourned for far too long, thinking far too hard about another
man whom I dry-humped – again – to orgasm in the wee hours of the morning.

And to think choosing the color of my shoes used to
be the main event in my week.

I could not have come up with a more unexpected, life-changing,
fuck-my-life scenario in my existence even if I were looking to make a change
that drastic.

I miss my nest.

Sighing heavily, I tugged up my over-the-knee black
socks and skipped my way to the glass doors across the street, pigtails
bouncing and swinging as I pushed my way inside. I swaggered across the pale
marble floor, my expression camouflaged to overly perky and open, as innocent
and young as I could get it.

“Hi.” I beamed at the security guard over the desk,
who stared at me as if I had two heads.

“Hello,” he replied warily. He had a friendly face and
big, open brown eyes with laugh lines creasing the corners. His hair was brown
and awash with grey and thinning, and he had a bit of a pot-belly. He was
probably someone’s dad. Someone’s husband. And for an instant, I felt bad for
what I was about to do.

“I’m waiting to meet my dad but he hasn’t come down
yet,” I explained as a speed only the adolescent could understand. “Can you
check to see when he’ll be finished?” Cue the big, naïve blink.

Security guy gave me a tender look, even as his eyes
skimmed the row of piercings I only just now realized I forgot to take out of
my ears. I wondered if I reminded him of his daughter. Or granddaughter.

“There’s no one here now, sweetheart. Everyone’s gone home.”

My smile dropped, and my lip wobbled slightly for
effect. “Really?” At his sage nod, I glanced away, mumbling, “Oh…maybe I was
supposed to meet him at school…” I patted my pockets, pulled out my phone, and
pressed my lips into a line as tears filled my eyes. “My cell is dead.” I
looked up at the security guard, whose tender gaze was still so kind. “Can I
borrow your phone?” When the guard hesitated, I let my fake tears choke me as I
said, “Please? It’s dark out.”

After a moment, the guard sighed and nodded, “Fine. But
make it quick.”

I gave him a brilliant yet watery smile, bounced
around the desk, and promptly knocked him out cold with a well-aimed right
hook.

I caught him as he began to slump, and slowly lowered
him to the floor. Whatever granddaughter I reminded him of wasn’t getting her
gramp’s back with a bloody noggin’, that’s for sure. And call me sentimental
but…I was a granddaughter once.

Glancing up at the cameras dotted around the reception
area, I blew a kiss to the one staring right at me, followed by a wave, then
skipped over to the elevator, hit the up button, and stepped inside. As the
doors slid shut, I shifted myself to stand right under the camera, and selected
a random amount of floors. I actually only wanted floor sixty-three, but
thirty-six, forty-eight, fifty-seven, sixty-nine, seventy-nine, and ninety-four
seemed like good numbers to choose.

At floor fifty-seven, however, I slipped out, waltzed
along the darkened corridor, and into the stairwell, taking the steps two at a
time up to sixty-three. By the time I’d cleared the twelve flights, I knew my
cardio was seriously lacking, and determined I should probably hit the gym when
I got some off-time. Though, I hated running. Seriously, when you have an ample
chest (and mine hadn’t been small to begin with), you can’t run. Even with a
bra, it still feels like I’m going to knock myself out with my own tatas, and
running down the street after a bounty while holding my boobs was hardly a
professional look.

But I digress.

On floor sixty-three, I was to exit the stairwell,
turn left and move twenty feet to the next door. Behind that door would be a
supply closet with an air vent. A very specific air vent, I had been drilled to
understand, that would allow Felix to enter the multi-story office building. All
I had to do was ensure that the vents were clear. I didn’t know how Felix was
getting in at sixty-three stories up, or how the hell he was getting in through
that tiny vent, since he weren’t exactly scrawny. But all my questions went
unanswered—or
ignored
, depending on whose perspective you saw it from.

So, I did what I was told, wrinkling my nose when the
supply closet turned out to be a cleaning cupboard, and the acrid stench of
confined cleaning products burned away any sense of smell I might have had with
the first inhale. I moved to the designated wall that Fletch had pointed out on
his blueprints, and slid the cabinets away to the side. The vents were utterly
clogged with dust and cobwebs, as if the cabinet had been there a long while. So,
dragging over an empty bucket, I upturned it, stepped up, and using an old
cloth that still felt damp, I cleared the muck. Instantly, a cool breeze
ghosted into the room, lifting away some of the disinfectant and bleach, some
dust and damp and mold. I leaned in and sucked in fresh air in a vain attempt
to get my olfactory sense to work again, and got a faint of wisp ice, coffee
and anise.

With a sigh, I spun around on the bucket—and froze.

A very Felix-shaped haze was rapidly forming within
the confined space of the cleaning cupboard. Strong legs straddled buckets and
mops, narrow hips blocked hanging damp cloths, broad shoulders brushed
cabinets, and then laughing green eyes that matched the constant amusement in
the corners of my mind.

I gaped at him as he casually adjusted the fall of his
long-sleeved T and cracked his neck, taking in the skin tight black top and
jeans and the wind-brushed hair and newly flushed cheeks. He’d fed before
meeting me, and yet, the fact hardly registered as my gaze darted from him to
the vent, then back to him. I did this for a good few wasteful moments before I
finally found the motor-skills necessary to speak my utter shock.

Because everything was suddenly all falling into
place.

“You can teleport?” I squeaked.

He instantly hushed me, and then enunciated, “
Misting.
”

I stared at him and pointed at the vent, “You can
bloody teleport!”