She arched her breasts into his chest, releasing his arm in order to climb onto his lap even more, all the while matching his delving, thrusting tongue with her own. Then, giving a sharp twist, she nicked his lip with a fang. Chas tasted blood as their mouths smashed together, and felt the deep shudder trammel through her as she sucked brutally at the cut, drawing in a bit of his life.
He eased away when she began to unfasten his belt. "Let's go," he murmured, shifting his hips from her questing hands.
She was out of the booth before him, and when he stood, he remembered to stagger a little. "Follow me. " Valia took his arm.
Chas didn't want to be seen leaving with her, but there was little he could do about it except keep his face averted and move quickly. The sooner they were out of sight, the less likely they'd be noticed.
By now, the whiskey had begun to soften his control and loop wickedly through his mind. Still, he was assured and confident as they slipped out of the saloon into a dark hall.
"This way," he said, tugging at her when she would have led him to one of the private rooms. He knew better.
Valia didn't resist; she would have no reason to. With superhuman strength and lethal fangs, she didn't fear a mere mortal man.
It was too bad she wasn't dealing with one. Chas hid his tight grin by backing her up against the wall for a long kiss and a serious grope between her legs. She moaned and hissed into his ear, and he felt the scrape of fangs against his bare throat. Ducking away just in time, he said, "Impatient, are we?" and directed her into the storage room behind the tailor shop.
He'd hardly closed the door when she was on him, kissing and tearing at his clothes. Her eyes were pink-red beacons in the darkness, and he stumbled back against a stack of crates under her onslaught.
They crashed into the wall, and even in the darkness, the room tilted and spun, and he had to the Night
He couldn't hold back a groan of pain and release as the blood burst free and he tumbled into that dark place of pleasure and need. She writhed against him, moaning and stroking, sliding belly to belly as she fed on his blood. He responded, sagging against the brick behind him, filling his hands with her breasts, allowing himself to think only of the moment. . . of the heat and rising release pulsing through him with each of her gulps.
When she pulled away, covering his mouth with hers, he tasted metallic blood. Revulsion surged deep in his belly, but eroticism pushed it away as he devoured the vampire's mouth. Chas shifted, moving so she was pinned between him and the wall. Her skirt lifted, she gripped his cock and guided him into place, all the while panting in his ear, moaning and gasping against his throat.
As he slammed inside her, blind with arousal and pain, desperate to fight off the darkness and find relief, she bit him again, viciously and deep. Chas cried out as the orgasm flooded through him, shuddering and quaking a violent release.
Then he spun away, staggering from her. When he turned, he had his stake in hand and in one smooth movement, he plunged it into her chest.
Valia froze, her ruby eyes flaring wide, her fangs pale and white in the dim light. Then she was gone in a cloud of ash.
Chas leaned against the wall, breathing heavily. The whiskey surged sickeningly in his belly, loathing and remorse washing over him in a dark, vile wave.
And yet his body still hummed and twitched, still breathed of repletion, still wanted.
"Sebastian. "
"Giulia," he breathed, reaching for her. But his hand swiped through air and fell uselessly to his side, among the twisted blankets and sheets of his bed.
The movement threatened to pull him out of sleep, out of his dream. Caught in that moment in between the two planes, he fought to stay deep in slumber, to remain in the nocturnal realm with her. It had been so long since he'd dreamed of his beloved. He stilled, willing himself to slip back into the embrace of Morpheus. . .
"Sebastian. " Giulia smiled at him, her eyes soft and filled with love. She was still there. "You are relieved. "
"She accepted the call," he replied from deep in his slumber. "Now to finish it. And then the long promise will be kept. "
She shook her head sadly. "But your work is not finished. You still w your great-great-grandmothert -ear the rings. There is more to come, mi adorate. You must be strong. " Her dark hair swirled around ivory shoulders, her expression rosy and alive as it hadn't been in life. She stood at the side of his bed, so close he swore he felt her push against the mattress. He reached for her again, desperate, and again his movement was ineffectual.
But this time, when his hand fell helplessly to the bed, he lurched out of the dream. Fully awake. Damp with perspiration and hard with need, his heart pounding, the blood surging through his veins.
Flinging the bedclothes away, he sat up and looked around the shadowy, windowless chamber. Heaved a long, heavy breath. Wiped his eyes.
A burst of fury and loathing shuttled through him. He snatched up a glass from the table and whipped it into the wall. The fact that it shattered beautifully, exploding in a glittering rage, did little to calm his own.
By God, when will this be done?
Wasn't a century of hell long enough of a punishment? A hundred years of uncertainty, of temptation and iron control and loneliness, held together by the gossamer threads of an occasional dream and his own damned blind hope.
Every day he felt his hold on sanity waver and falter. He was exhausted, stretched taut and terribly thin. He felt like a candle that had burned down to the last of its wick and was nothing more than a tiny blue dot of flame, struggling in a deadly pool of wax.
And now that Macey Gardella had come into the fold, so to speak, he felt even more strongly the tenuousness of his battered control. She was his hope, his salvation-or so he believed, so he prayed-and yet she could just as easily be his downfall.