Authors: Astrid Cooper
Tags: #dark fantasy, erotic romance, vampire, shapshifter
“I’ve seen a lotta strange stuff, but you…” He glanced down at her red-painted hunter talon. “I want the truth. All of it.”
She smiled tightly. “Do you, Ricardo O’Connor Rodriguez? Do you want to know that your world is but one small planet among a network of worlds that we of the Blood traverse and play and prey upon? That humans are nothing to any of us, but tools and meat and lives to be tormented and…sometimes killed. Do you want to know that?”
Lifting her gaze to his, she saw in the depths of his eyes, the horror, the fascination, a soul old before his time because of what he had witnessed. Knowledge had its price—in blood, in life, in death. He was beginning to realise it. But with the horror, she also saw determination—fierce determination and compassion. But compassion for whom? Surely not for the woman who was once his friend and who was now an unholy monster, a creature to be hunted and slain? This man was unlike any other she had encountered.
He sighed. “I have to help Monica. She was my partner. Hell, my friend.”
“You want to help her? Then forget her. Forget what she has become and remember her how she was, because she will kill you without hesitation. Her transformation was through fear and pain, not love. If done with love…” Mirra shook her head. If done with love, no power in the universe was stronger than the bond between a Blood and their Consort.
“And what are you?” Ric tugged her wrist, slamming her body against his.
She gasped at his strength. The tingling fire swept through her as her breasts pressed against his black t-shirt. “Let me go. You’ll regret it if you don’t.” In her current mood, he was in danger. Her hunger was gnawing at her, eroding control.
“Fuck regrets! Tell me what you are.”
“I am not a
what
. You would call me a succubus. Does that mean anything to you?”
“Women demons who screw the brains and life out of their human victims. The answer to every guy’s wet dream.”
“Or your nightmare, depending on what I decide to do to you.”
“I don’t think so.” His gaze raked her from head to heels. He reached out and ran his fingers through her hair which tonight was iridescent red, streaked with black, to match her leather miniskirt and camisole. “Honey you’re too small to threaten me.”
“You equate size with power? How ironic. How
human
.”
“Is that meant to accuse? I am what I am. At least I’m not some soul-devouring vampire demon.”
“I don’t devour souls. Not enough sustenance for me, though others aren’t so particular.”
“Fuck you.”
“Maybe. If you’re lucky.”
His wild gaze impaled her. Beneath his anger she saw his desire, the red flare of his aura. Curiosity burned within him, igniting his blood, fuelling his need. He was a man of deep hunger, deeper passion. Perhaps a man who could satisfy even her? She regarded him with narrowed eyes, her hearts hammering against her ribs.
The heated cinnamon-spice of his arousal coiled into her nostrils, provoking her own desire. Danger heightened his allure. She had to run from him, and from the rogue vamps. But who was more dangerous? Ric or them? They were after her blood and only death—hers or theirs—would resolve this night’s frenzy. But Ric wanted her in ways he could not imagine until she held him, and allowed that union of sex and blood.
She had been ordered to kill Ric, to tie up the loose ends. She couldn’t. She wanted him. She felt it in the taut muscles and the slow pulsing throb of blood in her veins. She licked her lips. Wanted him so badly it hurt.
He pulled her closer, lifting her. She went without hesitation and as his mouth found hers, she kissed him back, her tongue meeting his, thrust for thrust, push for push, lick for lick. He groaned into her.
“I want to fuck you senseless,” he said. “But I never do it in a car, it’s not...”
“Not?”
“Proper.”
She laughed. “After what you’ve seen, you still care whether a car-fuck is proper? Great Goddess!” She pressed her palm against his erection, then slowly unzipped his pants. Her fingers stole in between the leather and found his rigid, hot cock, thick and long. Ahhh. Everything she could want. Needed. Desired. She leaned down and took him into her mouth, curling the tip of her tongue around the head. She suckled, while his fingers snaked through her hair. She felt palms sliding over her body, pushing up the camisole, cupping her full breasts.
He tasted wild, intoxicating. His flesh was hard, warm, smooth. His thighs quivered and she heard his long, deep sigh. His hands lifted her head.
“I want you on your back.” He paused, laughing softly. “My mama would slap me hard if she knew I was fucking a stranger in the backseat of my car. What’s your name, sweetheart?”
“I’m Mirrazan.” She smiled, then froze, shocked. She’d told this man her name. Her true name. But it felt right. If nothing else, for the dangers they had shared this night, Ric had earned the right to her name. “And we’re not in the backseat.”
“Not yet.” He lifted her up and over, and she slid down against the cool leather. He tugged off his jacket, set aside his holster and gun, and removed his t-shirt. In the moonlight she saw the muscles, the tensile strength of his body. Whipcord and silk, his skin tensed beneath her touch. A trail of fine dark hair led her gaze down his chest, to navel, disappearing into his leather pants. His magnificent cock jutted out from between the leather. Mystery and mastery—this she read in his eyes, in his body.
“Ric,” she whispered.
Smiling, he eased over her, nestling his weight between her thighs. He peeled off her boots, and raised one leg to nibble her ankle, her toes, biting gently. His fingers traced up her leg to her thigh, to her core.
He laughed gently as he fingered her. “You shave there?”
“Are you shocked?”
“I don’t shock that easy. I like it, more skin to touch and taste.” He stroked down, found her clit and ran a nail over the sensitive mound. She arched off the seat.
“Riiiiiiccccc.”
“You enjoyed that? Good. Some more, then.”
A finger dove into her, two, three, twisting around, parting her wide with his strokes, sometimes deep, then shallow. One finger to the side. Retreat. Two fingers centred. Retreat. Three fingers to the left, back and forth around and around. The pattern of his finger-fuck changing, keeping her guessing, driving her into a frenzy of need. All thought fled, to just the narrow focus of wanting him. For the first time in a long, long time, Mirra was mesmerised beneath a man’s firm, knowing ministrations. Heat raced through her, tension coiled. He kissed her deeply, tongues clashing, stroking, seducing.
As she tugged at his pants, she heard his sharp hiss.
“Christ, babe, sheathe those damn claws of yours, you cut me.”
She carefully eased his pants down his body. He assisted, shucking his boots and flinging his trousers aside. She stared at him.
“Ric, you’re beautiful.”
“That’s my line, isn’t it? You’re beautiful, Mirrazan. Beautiful.” He leaned into her and she stroked his arse, slipping her fingers between the cheeks, to his hard balls, to the base of his cock.
“No, babe.”
“Ric, don’t you want me to play with you?”
“Nope. I’m going to fuck you hard and rough. Is that okay with you?”
“Yes.”
He settled over her, his weight parting her thighs, his cock plunging into her. For a moment her muscles clenched around the intrusion before accommodating his girth. His entry was sudden, deeper, the pace fast. It matched her mood, her hunger. Hard and fast. A need so deep it was frightening.
He hammered her against the seat, the car rocking with his thrusts, with her thrusts in return. His hands spread beneath her buttocks, raising her up to accommodate new directions. She laced her fingers through his hair, absently feeling the texture—like velvet.
For a moment the thought intruded that it was a pity his hair was cut short, she would have liked to twist his hair around her talons, suck it. He could always grow it for her in the future, because she was going to allow him to live. Ric. His name. Her responsibility. Her lover. Hers… She let him take her where he wished, inexorably to that oblivion. But he paused time after time as she came to her peak, as he neared his peak. With control, unusual for a human, he brought them both back to a level of restraint before beginning anew.
She grasped his buttocks pushing him down, as far inside her as he could reach. In response, she felt his explosion. He flooded her and her own body wept with heat. He rocked against her as spasm after spasm engulfed him. She fed his hunger, fuelled his desire, taking him past the brink, feasting her fill of his sex. He spilled into her again, and she took all he offered, channelled it into her need, bringing them to another plane where desire, hunger, pain and death lurked. So easily, she could take everything from him, his love, his sex, his life… But he would live and she would love him.
He moaned, and she closed the drain of his energy to her, enjoying, instead, his strokes within her, the musky-spice smell of his body over her, the feel of his warm, sweat-slicked skin sliding over her.
Ah Goddess!
The scent.
The touch.
The power.
Then he withdrew, slowly, the retreat a delicious tease in itself, as her muscles reluctantly released him. He knelt precariously between her thighs in the space offered by the back seat. She flung her right leg around him, holding him steady. He fastened his mouth upon her pussy lips, drinking, tasting. Fingers and tongue explored her, at first separately, then working in tandem to bring her to another peak. He hoisted her legs onto his shoulders and she crossed her ankles around his neck as he savoured her. She shivered at the delight, the only sound in her ears, the labouring of her hearts amid the deliciously sensual erotic lap and smack of his lips upon her lips as he feasted at her slit.
She let him do as he wished. She, who had always been the mistress, now relinquished the power, for once trusting. He brought her to another climax, her essence spilling hot over his tongue, his fingers.
“Babe, your taste…” he whispered against her flesh, the lapping, interspersed with gentle bites.
“This, for you, Ric.” Her hunger assuaged, she touched his temples, brought him pleasure and then a climax that turned him inside out. He screamed and sank against her, spent, unable to move.
She righted him and held him and pumped his cock hard. He smiled, his eyelids tightly clenched, his mouth parted in a snarl. She actually heard him growl! The sound made her shiver. Growling was good.
“Girl, you’re something else.”
That made her smile. She was three hundred and fifty years old—hardly a girl. “Now I have to leave.”
“Not yet.”
She touched his temples again, and sent him the command to sleep. But he resisted. Great Goddess! How could he possibly reject her command? Yet, he did. She sent another command, this time more forcefully and he gasped in pain.
“Forget me,’ she said. “Forget all you saw. F.o.r.g.e.t.”
“Not likely.” He snapped his eyelids open.
Mirra froze in fascinated horror as she saw the slitted green pupils. Green, not black…what the…? He transformed before her gaze into the lean shape of a black jaguar. Then back again to human. Correct that. Not human—
shifter
.
He grinned lopsided, his green and gold eyes blazing. “You didn’t know?”
“I had other things on my mind.”
“Not notice I was a shifter? I’m mortally offended.”
“Insufferable conceit.”
“Of course. I’m a cat.”
“What are you doing playing the human, the cop…?”
Playing
! That was an understatement. He had completely deceived her with his disguise. She wasn’t often compromised, and when her sisters found out, there’d be hell to pay. After they finished laughing at her. Then, she’d answer to the queen.
“Well, I’m a cop. Truly. Much more fun than just playing at being human.”
“Cats!” She hissed, her talons descending. Ric took her arms and set them over her head, holding her wrists in one hand.
“Retract those bloody claws of yours.”
“No.” She squirmed to be free. “I’m going to carve you into little pieces.”
“You’re welcome to try, babe.”
“Go to hell and fuck you.”
“I believe I just fucked you.” He grinned, swivelling his hips against her open thighs. “Want it again?”
“I’d rather die.”
“Oh, you won’t die of it, I promise you.” He growled, then purred, a low rumble in the back of his throat that vibrated all the way through her bones.
“Stop that! You play and risk all, not content with the thrill of the chase, hell no, you have to tease and play as a cat plays with a mouse. You’re supposed to declare yourself to Blood-kin. That’s the law.” She grimaced. “Cats!”
“Succubus.”
“At last I played fair with you, not teasing—”
“Sweetheart, you don’t know what
tease
means. I’m gonna show you.” His finger stroked over her slit.
“Release me.”
“Not yet. I’ve bitten you,” he replied.
Her hair stood on end, her talons extended. “You did not!”
“Yep.
When you were screaming your release. Didn’t notice, huh? Tsk.” He laughed. “Not very observant for a demon. But now you’re mine.”
“Afraid not. Takes more than one bite, kitty-cat.”
She tore free from his grasp, slapped him across the face and kneed him in the gut. She was aiming for his balls, but he dodged, just in time. She flung him aside and
leaped out of the car. Her bare feet hit the broken pavement. She yelped in pain.
“Hey, girl, you can’t run far like that,” he called after her.
Mirra tugged down her clothes, cursing, forcing away the pain of cut feet. “Go fuck yourself, cat!”
“Nope, I’m gonna fuck you. Come back here and I’ll return your boots. Eventually. If you’re a good demon.”
She glanced back over her shoulder and glared. He was propped up on his left elbow, reclining over the bonnet of the car, his naked body bathed in the moonlight, his turgid cock glistening with her essence. For a moment—just a moment—she was tempted to return and do unspeakable sex with him, before she gutted him from throat to groin.