In the Blood (17 page)
“It has been a very long time since I’ve had a virgin,” he murmured against her flesh. “The blood is too sweet for my tastes. But I forgot how much fun this is.” His palm snaked beneath her shift, gliding across her belly and up to cup her breast.
She shuddered as a rush of heat flooded her core, swelling her untouched flesh and setting a nearly unbearable tension there. She pressed her thighs together and arched her back, moaning. Galerius slid up her body to cover her mouth with his again, his hands bunching the shift and raising it. He broke their kiss only long enough to pull the garment over her head and discard it, then pressed her to him again. When her exposed skin met his, she moaned and opened her legs, raising one to hook around his waist.
He laughed low in his throat and eased her leg back down. “Do not rush me.” His cold, wet mouth moved from hers to kiss her chin, her jaw, suck her earlobe. Annabelle was powerless to do anything but clutch at his shoulders and gasp. He laved a trail down her neck, bit her shoulder gently. He smoothed his hands down her arms, raising gooseflesh there. Every movement he made brought him in contact with a new part of her body, a new part to be set alight with sensation. When his mouth closed over her breast again, she shrieked and writhed beneath him. When he stroked her other breast, rolled the nipple between his fingers, she could not breathe.
All the while, she burned, ached, rubbed against him and bit her lip to stop the senseless pleas that would escape if she tried to speak.
His body was cold and hard, as if it were carved out of stone, yet somehow he felt alive. His breath chilled the places on her skin where moisture still lingered from his kisses. He moved his attention from one breast to the other. The sensation lost nothing to repetition, and she writhed beneath him.
Never in her life had Annabelle felt so out of control, so reckless, so…free. All thoughts of being a proper lady fled, though she had not truly cared to act the part of a proper lady to begin with. Still, being loosed from the restraints of what was and wasn’t allowed sent a delicious thrill through her.
Galerius slid down her body, though she gripped his arms and whimpered for him to stay where he was. He trailed his fingers down her stomach, and the flesh there trembled under his touch. He moved ever closer to the part of her that demanded his attention, sliding the muslin drawers over her hips. She held her breath as the cool air touched her enflamed flesh. She was too exposed, too open to his gaze and touch, in a way no one had seen her before. A pang of anxiety forced her legs together, but his body between them impeded her, and he dropped to his knees in front of the bunk and forced her legs wide apart with a hand on each thigh. The breath she had held rushed out of her in a shuddering moan she could not restrain. Certainly he did not intend to put his mouth on her there…certainly he would not…
Magick made him human. Only love can keep him that way.
Uncross My Heart
© 2011 Jennifer Colgan
After a century of living
la vida muerta
, Julian Devlin’s closest ally casts a de-vamping spell that leaves him defanged and demoted from his hard-won place in Baltimore’s vampire hierarchy. Disoriented by his transformation, he can’t even find his way home.
The indignities don’t end there. Before he can explain to the quirky consignment shop owner why he’s hiding in her basement, she’s punched the newly re-acquired breath out of him and smacked him upside the head with her knock-off purse.
Zoe Boyd’s scream could have peeled paint from the walls—if she could get her heart out of her throat. Common thugs aren’t supposed to have a smile so panty-melting that she finds herself apologizing for scaring
him
.
She’s also too busy managing her friends’ love lives to take on an ex-vampire with revamping and revenge on his mind. Until she guides him home and ends up neck deep in his world of trouble.
As Zoe risks her life to give him back his death, she warms the soul Julian never thought he’d own again. And when he tracks down a devilish witch who can reverse the spell, immortality without Zoe suddenly seems like cold comfort…
Warning: This novel contains sensual love scenes between a fashion-forward hero and a fashion-unconscious heroine, abuse of Italian loafers, and a few love bites. Don’t worry, freshly sharpened fangs don’t hurt. Much…
Enjoy the following excerpt for
Uncross My Heart:
He even haunted her dreams.
Zoe walked through a dark place where cold water dripped and unseen creatures scuttled around her feet. She didn’t scream in response to the brush of wiry fur against her bare ankles only because
he
was beside her, his hand on her shoulder, guiding her toward a safe refuge.
“Where are we?” she asked, and her voice echoed.
“We’re almost there. You have to hurry.”
She obeyed him, picking up the pace through the grimy water that swirled around her feet, but the very atmosphere of the place seemed to hold her back. Each step sapped her strength and brought her no closer to her goal.
“Don’t let them catch you,” Devlin told her. “Keep running.”
She tried, but the harder she pumped her legs, the slower her progress became until she was certain she was moving backward. His warm hand slipped from her shoulder, and when she turned to look for him, he was gone, replaced by a looming, shapeless shadow that wrapped cable-like arms around her.
A hand clamped across her lips, cutting off her air supply. Her lungs protested. She kicked and struggled and finally opened her eyes to find Julian Devlin hovering above her.
“Don’t scream. I won’t hurt you.” Julian dropped his hand from Zoe’s lips and backed away from her bed, hands up, his movements deliberately slow and non-threatening.
In the blue neon glow of her bedside alarm clock, her pale skin looked like alabaster, and her eyes were huge and terrified. Clutching a thin blanket to her chest, she scrambled to a sitting position amid the tumble of pillows that populated her bed. “How did you get in here? Are you insane? What if I kept a knife under my pillow or something?”
“You don’t. I checked.”
She squeaked in indignation. “You broke into my house.”
“No. I let myself in with your spare key, which you obviously put back right where you got it from after we came in before. You know, you’re asking to be murdered in your sleep, or worse. It amazes me that a girl as trusting as you is still alive.”
“You weren’t supposed to look.”
“I looked. Sue me.” He shrugged. This had all been too easy. He’d probably be doing her a favor by draining her dry as soon as he transformed back. This blonde gypsy belonged in another era, a simpler time when people left their doors unlocked and everyone knew their neighbors. Either that or she needed a body guard twenty-four/seven.
“What are you doing back here? Didn’t you find someone to help you?”
He sighed. A lie would be easy, even if it did little to preserve the mere shred of dignity he had left. “It’s almost dawn. I needed someplace to go before sunrise, and I was kicked out of the bus station. They don’t allow people to sleep there anymore, I discovered.” Truth was, she was the only trustworthy soul he could find at this hour.
She blinked at him. “Sunrise? Um…humans can go out in the daylight. Or have you been revamped already?” One delicate hand slid toward her slender throat. Julian watched the subtle movement with a mixture of amusement and—dear God—arousal.
She’d traded her peasant blouse for a thin-strapped tank top. Clingy and white, it contrasted with her honeyed skin and did little to hide the sumptuous curves of her breasts, now peaked with taut nipples. Gooseflesh stood out on her bare arms. He wondered if she might be considering the possibility that he would lower his lips to her neck and drink…
He blinked away the traitorous thoughts. “No. I’m still human.” He laughed. “I guess I’m so conditioned to avoid sunlight that it never occurred to me. Nevertheless, I need a place to sleep for a little while. I don’t have enough cash to go to a hotel, and if I use my credit cards, I could be leading Lambert right to me.”
“Vampires have credit cards?”
“We’re undead, not Amish. How else would one purchase Gucci loafers?”
Warm yellow light illuminated her skeptical gaze when she switched on the bedside lamp. “Okay, silly question. I admit it, but give me a break. It’s four fifty-nine A.M., and I just woke up with a man’s hand over my mouth. You’re lucky I didn’t bite you.”
He let his gaze roam her half-hidden curves again. She’d be lucky if he didn’t bite
her
one way or another. “I apologize for sneaking in…something I would
not
have been able to do if you had an ounce of common sense.” He tossed the spare key to her and, just as he’d hoped, she let go of her death grip on the blanket to catch it.
Delicious. He’d have climbed into the bed with her if he hadn’t been so desperate to keep her trust for just a little longer. He needed this girl. And he hated needing her. “Do yourself a favor and hide that somewhere else. Better yet, give it to your boyfriend for safe keeping.”
“I told you, he’s
not
my boyfriend.”
Good
. The thought crossed his mind unbidden, and he squashed it. “Can I borrow your couch? Just for a few hours?”
Her lips quivered a bit before she responded. “Sure. I’ll get you a pillow and a blanket.”
“No need to treat me like a guest.”
“But you are one.” She rose, and Julian’s gaze traveled up and down her bare legs, pausing only briefly at the still-red scrapes on her knees. She’d hurt herself running from him and, for some inexplicable reason, he regretted that. He shook off the unproductive thought and took inventory of the rest of her outfit.
Tiny panties rode low on her hips, leaving a band of naked skin beneath the hem of her skimpy top. Ah. The twenty-first century had so many advantages over the nineteenth. Each decade, it seemed women became less inhibited about their bodies. It made being immortal so much fun.
She moved unselfconsciously now, and Julian followed her into the living room. When she bent over to retrieve a blanket and pillow from within the square hassock, he stifled an appreciative sigh.
She tossed the items at him while he debated sinking his very human teeth into one creamy inner thigh. “Put your eyes back in your head, Romeo. I already told you, I’m nobody’s entrée. Now, go. Sleep. I’m going back to bed in my room behind a door that locks, and there’s no spare key above the frame, so don’t get any ideas. If you’re still here in the morning—the
actual
morning—I’ll think about cooking you breakfast, and we’ll talk about getting you a decent place to stay until your house is fixed, okay?”
He stared for a full second, dumbfounded by her. One bite. Just one bite was all he wanted. “Okay.”
She disappeared into the bedroom then, shutting the door firmly on any further comment or fantasy on his part.
Disappointed but still oddly amused, Julian made himself comfortable on her couch.
Zoe’s heart thundered in her shamelessly exposed chest. She’d just been parading around in her underwear in front of a lunatic—a drop dead gorgeous lunatic—who’d stolen into her bedroom in the middle of the night.
Her face burned with shame and something else. He’d been looking, and she’d enjoyed letting him look.
In the Blood
Abigail Barnette
Her blood is his lifeline. His love could be her salvation…
Call girl Cassandra Connely drifts through life in a haze of guilt and sedatives, burdened by a deadly mistake from her past and plagued by nightmares of horrific, clawed creatures. Her newest client is a mouth-watering distraction, and she finds herself intrigued by Viktor Novotny’s eccentric…tastes. Until he touches her, and her nightmares become real.
One look at the woman in the hot red dress, and Viktor rests assured he will hang onto his humanity at least one more night. In the century since an attack turned him into a vampire and killed his wife, regular sexual encounters are his only defense against becoming a mindless Minion. Yet when Cassie agrees to be his companion—and meal—for the evening, she stirs his soul in a way he hasn’t felt since his lost lover.
Viktor’s haunted eyes pull at her heart, but Cassie cannot bear to feel anything, ever again. When she flees his apartment, though, she is in more peril than she knows. Tasting her blood without completing their union has left Viktor hungry for no other but her. And vulnerable to the very Minions that wait to drag him into the void. Worse, Cassie is their next target…
Warning: Contains explicit love scenes that will make your blood boil over, including a brief m/m encounter, ill-advised (but oh-so-sexy) use of sharp objects, and hypnotic kisses that could—just for a moment—make you imagine you are Viktor’s lady of the night.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
577 Mulberry Street, Suite 1520
Macon GA 31201
In the Blood
Copyright © 2011 by Abigail Barnette
ISBN: 978-1-60928-339-1
Edited by Linda Ingmanson
Cover by Kanaxa
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
electronic publication: January 2011
