Dracula's Desires (16 page)

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Authors: Linda Mercury

BOOK: Dracula's Desires
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The principality boasted a vibrant and diverse nightlife for humans. For a vampire, it was a dazzling array of flamboyance combined with elegance. A blink of light in a darkened corner caught her curiosity.
What was this?
The light in a ground-floor apartment a block away switched on to reveal the very well-built young man inside.
Valerie's excellent eyesight noticed two things. First, he was very young. Of course, everyone was young to her, but he certainly couldn't be more than twenty-two or twenty-three.
Second, he had some sort of problem with curtains.
He had the smooth, tight skin of a fit male in his sexual prime. Then he dropped his towel.
This was a treat she didn't want to miss.
His hairless skin stretched tightly over his muscles, giving her an X-rated anatomy lesson. The lines of his defined abdomen pointed her eyes right to his already half-hard cock.
She touched her own belly as he sprawled lazily in the chair by his desk. A small tube of lotion appeared from seemingly nowhere. He drizzled the creamy fluid over his genitals.
A few testing pulls and his penis filled, jerking to full mast.
Valerie moistened her lips. How her boys would love to see this. She would have to tell them all about it.
He smeared the clear lubricant over his reddened cock. Valerie could almost hear the faint slide of skin over skin as he pulled his foreskin down to reveal a purplish head. The tight bare skin of his balls sent a wash of heat to her clitoris.
His body had the perfect curve from shoulder to hip—a mouth-heating wedge of man-flesh. What a naughty, naughty boy, she thought, as she touched her own nipples. What a shameless exhibitionist. She hid in the shadows, her index finger wiggling past the waistband of her panties.
Her nipples rose when he threw back his head, displaying a lean, corded neck that sported a still-bleeding shaving cut. She rubbed a canine with her tongue. Oh, she could give that bad boy a ride he wouldn't forget.
She squeezed her breast with her free hand and hoped her men were having as much fun as she.
“John,” Lance whispered. He trailed the backs of his fingers down the other man's cheek. The clear sky, the sea, the shining moon turned the evening unspeakably romantic. “I don't want to hurt you.”
“Fuck that,” John retorted. “No. I'm going to fuck you. Fuck you telling me what we're going to do.” John's fists ripped Lance's tuxedo shirt open. “I'm going to kiss you. And you are damn well going to kiss me back.” He took Lance's face between his hot palms and leaned in, only to stop a few centimeters from Lance's suddenly dry lips. “Kiss me like you damned well mean it. I'm not some shrinking virgin.”
John had had sex with other men? Jealousy skittered down his stomach.
John read his mind. “You think I was damn well waiting for you to pull your head out of your ass?” His growl shot straight to Lance's cock.
Lance growled back and raked his fingers through John's hair. John's breath smelled of apples and spice as he hovered over the angel like some black-haired god of lust.
“Then stop dicking around and kiss me already. Or are you going to talk me to death?” Lance taunted.
John narrowed his eyes, obviously fully aware of Lance's manipulations. “So be it.”
Their noses bumped. Their teeth clicked. And the tussle for dominance was on.
John was a little angry. Lance was a little jealous.
Finally John bit Lance's lip and pulled back. “How dare you leave me?”
“I, for one, do not question the Boss,” Lance replied, his teeth punishing John's earlobe.
“I suggest you start,” John snarled, his fiery French blood mixing anger with passion. John slapped Lance's pectoral muscle, a symbolic punishment. Lance pinked under him, John's handprint coming in bright relief. The sting of John's blow distracted him.
Lance grunted and wrestled John underneath him. He worried at John's lower lip.
Their love was not lost, but it was foundering in resentment and hurt. One of them had to apologize. He'd damaged both Valerie and John while he was working. And even though it wasn't his fault, he'd still been inconsiderate and thoughtlessly cruel.
He rested his forehead against John's. He felt the smaller man hold his breath.
“I am sorry, John.” Lance let his lips touch John most tenderly.
“Accepted.” John kissed Lance back. It felt like a promise. A promise to be fair to each other, to start over with each other's best interests in mind.
The kiss turned hot again. Their teeth came out again, but in overwhelming pleasure, not in anger. Soon, Lance was rubbing and thrusting against John's solid erection. The friction on their pants against his cock drove Lance wild.
John's hands were feverish hot and relentless. They caressed his nipples, squeezed his ass, dug into the knotted muscles of his back. Next, they coaxed the tattered remains of his Henley off his body.
“Come on,” John gasped. “I want to see you. All of you.”
Lance leaned back on his heels and skinned off his shirt. John wriggled out of his own white sleeveless T-shirt, the ribbed soft kind that was made to make the male body utterly delectable. Lance took a moment to admire John's masculine grace.
As a teenager, John had been wiry and compact, his muscles long and flat like a swimmer's. But now, he'd grown into the promise of his youthful vigor. The muscles in his chest had thickened, grown more defined, even more masculine. His stomach, while not cobblestoned, was flat and ridged. Lance let his gaze go even farther down to where a line of black hair disappeared into John's waistband.
John's penis pressed proudly, tenting the fabric of his dress slacks. He tucked his arms behind his head, letting his legs fall open. He ran his palm over his chest, flicking a nipple.
“Took us long enough to get here,” John said.
Lance popped the top button of his jeans. “Then let's not waste any more time.” He palmed John's cock through the fabric. The hard flesh burned his hand, despite the layers between them. John curled up off the bed and unzipped Lance's pants.
He made a pleased sound when he saw that Lance had gone commando. His cock bounced free as if it were spring-loaded. John took it in his hand. Lance groaned and looked to the heavens, then back to see John squeezing the engorged shaft. Lance's cock head purpled under those pressing fingers. He was going to orgasm all over that lean, fine body if John didn't stop that right now.
“All you had to do was ask,” John said and let go. He wiggled his way out from under Lance's leg and knelt up until they were face-to-face.
The kiss went on and on, far more tender, lingering in its sweetness. John felt the shattered pieces of his soul fuse into a semblance of his former self.
Lance shivered under John's hand. All that silky smooth skin over firm muscle; John couldn't stop petting him. The curve of his bicep, the way his shoulder sloped perfectly into the line of his lats. Lance's wings had disappeared so perfectly, seamlessly blending back into his body. John spent delighted moments enjoying the cord of Lance's vertebrae and the delicious feel of thick muscles under his fingertips.
“We just gonna kiss?” John murmured.
“You got a better idea?” Lance hummed as he licked the inside of John's elbow.
“You could actually take my pants off,” John suggested. “And put that mouth of yours to some real good.”
Lance whipped John's slacks off too fast for mortal eyes to see.
“I'm going to make you see God,” Lance warned, his fist stroking John's cock head.
 
 
“Minerva, we're home,” Lance called as the three carried their suitcases into the apartment.
“Did Glenath and Anthony behave around you?”
he thought at her.
“No drug-fueled orgies!”
She sounded disappointed.
Orgy? Lance stared at John in shock.
John shrugged. “So the kid's precocious. We can handle it.”
B
ONUS
C
HAPTER
G
LENATH AND
A
NTHONY
'
S FIRST
DAY
Prague, 1969
 
 
T
he girl looked about thirteen with her hippie hairband and orange bell-bottom pants. When she stopped by his box to light her cigarette, Anthony O'Neill couldn't help but call out, “Hey! Does your mother know you smoke?”
The girl exhaled smoke through her nose before answering.
“Does your mother know you accost women on the street for no good reason?” she replied tartly. With that, she flicked her ash, away from his little nest of cardboard and blankets, and continued on her way. “And for God's own sake, take a bath!”
Pert thing, he thought through the haze of blood and alcohol he had numbed himself with for the last twenty years. He shifted to go back to sleep. Anthony hoped that he wouldn't dream of his mother and sisters again. As he closed his eyes, the girl entered a nondescript government building.
He sat bolt upright. The same building he had observed a small army of werewolves enter less than an hour ago. That little girl was going to get eaten.
Anthony shuffled himself out of his tangled blankets, haunted by the memory of the women he couldn't protect before. As he stood, paper fluttered all around him. Confused, he focused through his cloud of booze.
Nearly five hundred francs lay on his bedroll. That rude infant had given him enough money for a room, a bath, and real blood.
Her curls of smoke still lingered in the air as he gathered up the money. Most dragons hoarded their treasure, instead of sharing it with others.
Anthony decided he'd better hurry.
 
 
What in God's own name reduced a vampire to living on the streets in such squalor? Everyone knew that the undead were fastidious creatures, preferring cleanliness and comfortable surroundings.
Glenath Tempesta hurried through the empty corridors of the former military building. Her sandaled feet barely made any noise against the scuffed marble.
Two years ago, when she enrolled in seminary, she wrote to Luc Breton, the Great Wolf. According to legend, the European Great Wolf was the head of all the Shadow Creatures, able to make binding agreements on behalf of the paranormal society.
Her secret correspondence had culminated with him agreeing to meet her here, alone, in this very building.
Her legs shook. She sincerely wished she toked up before this. At least she would have died feeling really groovy.
Oh, no. Instead she had to do this sober. She twitched her jacket around her neck. At least the pile of papers she hid in her roommates' birth control basket would tell the world what happened, and how to dispose of her remains.
Glenath shook out her shoulders, threw her head back, and changed her scurry to a strut. She'd gotten further in getting humans and supernaturals to speak to one another than anyone before. That would be a fitting legacy.
This had to be done. She could no more stand back and watch the species destroy each other than she could let a child stand in the middle of a busy street.
She was going to make Luc Breton agree with her. Even if it took her giving him indigestion for the rest of his life.
 
 
“You're afraid,” Luc jeered, pleased at her scent. Even the scent of her fancy Parisian cigarettes couldn't overcome the smell of her fear.
“Of course I am,” she replied. “I am not a great fool.”
The obnoxious human looked him in the eye. She couldn't have been older than fourteen.
“Nor am I a liar. I came alone. I see that you did not.”
How did she ever see his bodyguards hidden in the shadows? Jake, his enforcer, stepped to stand behind the petite girl.
She stiffened, but kept talking. “I would say that makes you even more afraid than I am.”
Luc's mother had once told him, “You can laugh, you can cry, or you can destroy those who challenge you.”
Luc nodded at Jake.
The man gripped the girl's untamed brown hair and exposed her throat to Luc. She kicked with surprising effectiveness, but couldn't break Jake's hold.
“I have no fear of you. We are stronger. We are faster. We rule the night.”
“How many litters have been killed in the last week, Great Wolf?”
Did the child ever stop talking? He dug his claws into her chest, puncturing the skin.
“Twenty-five pups have been murdered in the last week, Great Wolf.”
How did she manage to make his title sound like an insult? He bit her shoulder, warning her.
But she didn't scream. She didn't even stop talking. “Thirty the week before. We are destroying you.”
Luc couldn't take her chatter anymore. He set his teeth into her throat. No one would find her body.
“Now really, Luc. Is that necessary?”
A red-haired vampire pushed himself off the doorjamb. The girl's eyes widened at the freshly bathed and dressed vampire. He tapped a police baton against one thigh.
First, an idealist, now a vampire with a great big stick. It was too much. Luc threw his hands in the air.
“Fine. I give up. Let's talk.”

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