Read Angel at Dawn Online

Authors: Emma Holly

Tags: #Ghost stories, #Vampires, #Horror, #Paranormal, #Fiction, #Romance, #Paranormal romance stories, #Motion picture producers and directors, #Occult fiction, #Ghosts, #Occult & Supernatural, #Love stories

Angel at Dawn (36 page)

BOOK: Angel at Dawn
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Viv didn’t answer. Christian touched her shoulder.
What happened next was utterly unexpected. Light burst out from his skin and he went board stiff, the illumination bright enough to shine through his clothes.
“Lavaux,” he gasped, staggering back a step.
Lavaux was the name of one of his father’s men.
“What is it?” Grace stood and put her hand on his arm.
Christian shook himself. Sweat was beading on his forehead, faintly pink with blood. He grimaced as he tried to paste his glamour back where it belonged. Some inner turmoil prevented it. Light continued to flicker across his skin. Curious, Viv turned her pummeled body under the crisp white sheets.
“My God,” she said. “What’s the matter with his face?”
Grace forced her brain to work fast. “He confiscated one of those reporter’s flash things. It must have gone off in his pocket.”
“That’s not what flashbulbs do.”
Christian squeezed Grace’s fingers hard. “Sorry,” he said, then pushed awkwardly from the room.
“There’s something wrong with him,” Viv insisted.
Grace didn’t have another story to reassure her, even if she’d been inclined to search for it then. “I have to go after him. I’ll try to get him to promise not to take action against your attacker unless he talks to you first.”
She didn’t wait for Viv’s response as she hurried into the corridor.
To her relief, she discovered Christian sitting in his car. He must have run there with vampire swiftness, but he hadn’t disappeared into the night. He sprawled behind the wheel with his head back and his eyes closed. As she slid in the other side, he opened them and turned.
“God,” he said, a shaky laugh in it. “It’s ridiculous how happy I am you came after me.”
“I felt the same when you followed me to the Bowl.”
He rubbed his knuckles across his forehead. “I love you, Grace. I don’t think these feelings can go away.”
She nodded, because she didn’t know what to say. He laughed softly at her response, though she didn’t think he really saw it as humorous.
“I wanted you to know me,” he said. “But I never planned on you knowing this.”
“I wish you’d tell me what ‘this’ is. If I can, I’d like to make you feel better.”
It was Christian’s turn to nod.
“She’s Lavaux,” he said. “Viv is Lavaux reincarnated.”
“Your father’s man? The one who killed Philippe and Matthaus and maybe tricked Hans into that accident with the boar?”
Christian swallowed, his eyes still a little wild. “I saw it when I touched her. I was feeling—I like Viv, Grace. I admire her talent and her ambition, and I felt bad that she had to watch you . . . that she saw you seem to fall in love with me. Then, with all that . . . sympathy welling up in me, I discovered she was my enemy.”
“That was then, Christian.” Grace slid her fingers over the fist he’d balled on his thigh.
“Right,” he said. “That was then.”
Looking at him, she barely recognized his face, and this wasn’t just because his glamour was in tatters. There wasn’t a sliver of ice in his expression. He was struggling with his emotions, clearly unsure what his conclusion about this situation should be.
“I killed Lavaux,” he said. “After you disappeared. He ran away before the battle on the bridge ended, but I tracked him to his home in France. He was barely surviving on his family farm with his younger brother. I guess their parents had died, because no one else was there. I didn’t hesitate, Grace. I killed the brother, too, when he tried to defend Lavaux. At the time, considering what Lavaux had done to my friends, it seemed like justice for him to watch his sibling’s blood run into the ground. But neither of them could have harmed me. I was a vampire then.”
He shook his head, the fist he’d made bunching underneath her hand. “I can still feel Lavaux’s flesh giving when I spitted him on my sword.”
“So it confused you that you were willing to protect her from her attacker.”
“Yes,” he said, one deep crease running up his brow.
His eyes pleaded with her to help him make sense of this, or maybe it was absolution he wanted. Grace thought back to her own reaction to discovering the truth about her boss. She drew a slow breath before she spoke.
“I can’t tell you killing them was okay, though Lavaux doesn’t seem to be dead now. I guess I understand why you did it. The right and wrong of it is too big for me to judge.”
“Do you think I’m a monster?”
“I’ve never thought that. Do you think you’re one?”
Her question took him aback. He sat straighter and stared at her. “No,” he admitted. “Maybe I should, but I don’t.”
They looked at each other through the bars of brightness and shadow cast by the lights in the parking lot.
“Do you still want me?” he asked.
She cupped his face. This was a tiny thing to confess, given the rest of what she probably harbored in her heart. “From the moment we met,” she said. “Then and now.”
Seventeen
G
race’s confession sent a sensual wave rolling over him, one that actually left him weak in the knees. “I’m taking you home,” he said. “We’re going to finish what we started.”
She put her hand on his thigh, high up. “Good,” she said. “Please go fast.”
He probably broke a land-speed record. Halfway there he had to urge her to cup his cock; his erection was crying out that badly for attention.
“You won’t come?” she asked, after which she blushed. “I mean, I know you can finish more than once, but—”
“I’ll save all the times for you,” he promised, mentally cursing the next stoplight. “I just need you to hold me.”
Taking him at his word, she unzipped his jeans and worked her hand inside. Her grip found his base and tugged wonderfully upward. Luckily, the hour was late and traffic was sparse. No cars were near enough to see.
“I do have to drive,” he reminded even as his hips rolled greedily off the leather seat.
“You’re a vampire. Use your special powers of concentration.”
She didn’t duck her head down into his lap until they reached the three-quarters mark. He gasped, but he didn’t stop her. Those wet, warm pulls of hers felt too good. Eventually, though, their effect was more than he could withstand. He dropped his hand gently to the back of her neck.
“
Grace
,” he warned, his fingers stroking beneath her hair.
Heartless or perhaps aware that select parts of him didn’t want her to stop, she hummed and continued sucking his stiff and quivering upper half. Needing his hands for driving, he gave up. Maybe gritting his teeth would enable him to hold on. Grace seemed to be counting on it, to judge by the little tricks she tried with her tongue. The Thunderbird’s gears ground as he shifted down and turned into Nim Wei’s dark estate. The place was empty. Everyone was out or off at the hospital. Pebbles flew out from under the wheels as he fishtailed the car in front of Grace’s house.
Those first few seconds of being able to concentrate on the pleasure she was giving him were heaven. The next few reminded him how close he was to shooting everything down her throat.
“We’re home,” he groaned.
Her lips released him grudgingly as she sat on her heels. Bereft and stimulated to the screaming point, his cock poled straight up and shuddered. Christian wasn’t the only one in a wound-up state. Grace was a picture he didn’t think he would soon forget. Her deep red hair was tousled, her cheeks and lips flaming pink. She reached behind her and shoved the door open. As she backed out, he saw she’d removed her shoes. The sight of her stockinged feet drove a vicious kick of lust through his groin.
Barefoot equaled prey to the neck-biting beast in him.
Not that Grace was thinking of herself as prey. The way she looked him over made him feel dangerous. Her guard was gone, her eyes like gems set ablaze. When she wet her lips, her desire for him was completely unconcealed.
“Stay where you are,” she said throatily.
The beast struggled at her order, but the man loved it. In that moment, he would have given her anything she asked. His life, his ranch, the head of his prick on a silver platter. He watched her, rapt, as she caught the hem of her soft gray dress in both hands and pulled it over her head. Her undergarments were crisp white lace, glowing in the darkness. Over the years, he’d seen many fashions in underthings. With the overkill this decade favored, her bra turned her breasts to rockets while the panties shaped and lifted her in ways her already feminine figure didn’t require. His libido didn’t mind the exaggeration. Certainly, the messages her stockings and garters sent about the places they
didn’t
cover had his blood simmering.
He really had no suaver option than to ogle her. Finding appealing body parts was no problem, but when she ran her hands up her torso, their path magnetized his eyes. His fangs were throbbing, his neglected cock knotted with desire. She cupped her breasts, and his mouth watered. His gaze refused to rise far enough to check if she was smiling.
“We should go inside,” he rasped. “We’re steps from the door.”
“I want you to take me on the hood of your car.”
Desire blinded him. If that’s what she wanted, that’s what she’d get. In a flash, he was out of the car and on her, shoving her forward over the still-warm metal with her arms outspread. The cry Grace gave out was pleased. Satisfied this was what she wanted, he ripped the crotch of her panties and kicked her knees apart.
Her thighs shone white against the black car.
“Keep your hands where they are,” he ordered. “It’s my turn to touch you.”
He went to his knees on the gravel, turning so his back was to the wheel well. He spread her thighs wider with his shoulders.
“What
are
you doing?” Grace asked.
“Warming you up. And you’re not to move a muscle.”
He slid his fingers inside her first, curving them, massaging her, until her warmth ran over them in the cool night air. She squirmed, of course. She was always responsive to his caresses.
“Stay,” he reminded and tipped back his head to lick her.
She gasped at that, not expecting it. Like any oral-fixated creature, he was good with his tongue. Tonight he stroked it like a blade up and down her seam, skimming and teasing her hungry nerves until her little wriggling motions turned into stronger bucks. The scent she gave off was incredible.
“Chris-tian,” she said, his name breaking on a groan.
He didn’t suppose she meant for him to get up, but he did, folding his full height around her and cupping her in his palm.
“Jeesh,” she said as he sank his fingers back into her from the front. Christian smiled at her titillated annoyance. Right then, driving her to orgasm was the last thing he intended.
He dragged his fangs along the soft skin beneath her ear. He knew the languid motions of his hand were frustrating her. “Had enough of going fast tonight?”
She panted before she answered. “Is that a trick question?”
“No.” He pushed his cock against the creamy petals of her labia, riding it slowly, luxuriantly, through her wetness as his thumb searched out her clitoris. The little organ was swollen, begging to be rubbed. When he did, not quite firmly enough, a fresh rush of moisture ran out of her.
“I don’t—” She twisted her hips in an attempt to drive his teasing fingers deeper. “I don’t understand what you’re asking.”
He nipped her earlobe just enough to draw blood, the tiny taste causing his prick to thump crazily. “In a way, this is our first time. Because you remember me. Because now you know how long I’ve been missing you. I want it to be big. I want you—us—to come together in one long explosion.”
“And?”
“And I can’t do that if I rush. I thought, maybe, you’d try to hold back with me.”
He bumped her entry with his crown, then eased into her in a single lubricious glide. He filled her a millimeter at a time, his cock pulsing ever harder as she enclosed him. She was snug, but she took him—with a sigh that told him how much she liked being stretched by him. When he was all the way inside her, pressing that rapturous spot at the end of her, she couldn’t leave her hands where they were. One came off the hood to grab for his hip.
BOOK: Angel at Dawn
8.73Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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