Then it became impossible to think. The taste of her went to his head, the feral bloodlust inside him shuddering in a pleasure so intense, it threatened to send him to his knees. He wanted to stretch out naked on top of her in a lush, comfortable bed, to sip over an hour, tasting and kissing his lover as he stroked his cock slowly in and out of her.
He wanted to drink and drink.
Breaking contact before the greed stole his mind, made him a glutton, he licked over the marks, ensuring they’d heal just slowly enough that others would know she was his. Aroused all over again by the thought, he licked once more, his veins hot and heavy, his head buzzing. “You are a drug.”
Her buttocks clenched under his hold, her breath a rasp. “Jesus, you’re potent.”
Realizing he’d brought her to the edge of orgasm, he licked over the marks again. “I should let you suffer as I’ll suffer.” Despite his threat, he shifted their bodies so that his thigh was in between hers.
Urging her to ride his thigh and cursing their clothing, he sank his fangs into her one more time. He made sure it didn’t hurt, but didn’t pump in the pleasure-giving compound.
Her back arched at the dual wave of sensation, her cry shattered silver in the air.
Retracting his fangs before he could take more than she’d offered, he licked again and again at the wound as he rocked her against his thigh. Her nails dug into his nape, and it made the feral thing in him bare its teeth in bone-deep pleasure. The bloodthirsty beast was holding on by its claws, but that was all right. It could be patient now that she was in his arms. It could pretend to be rational for a while longer.
Going limp as the last ripples of ecstasy squeezed her dry, Ash turned her head into his neck . . . and kissed his own pulse, her arms tight around him. If he hadn’t already given himself to her, he would have at that instant. Holding her close, he drowned in her scent, in her warmth, in her.
Ashwini had thought about sex before—it kind of tended to dominate the mind at times when you weren’t having any, especially when a certain sex-on-legs Cajun kept flirting with you. But the one thing she’d never really considered was how it’d feel to be held . . . held with such fierce devotion that she could feel it in her bones.
“Don’t let go,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “Don’t let go.”
“I won’t.” Walking backward and taking her with him in a quiet display of strength, he tumbled them onto the bed. And then he tightened his embrace, thrust one of his thighs between her own, and locked his body around hers.
Tucking her head under his chin, she drew in the scent of him, the warmth of him, and felt things in her snap and break and knew she’d never again be the same. “I don’t think I’m so tough after all, Janvier. I don’t know if I can go any further.” The sex she could’ve handled, but the way he held her, it destroyed, threatening to make her break the promise she’d asked of him.
Janvier’s hand curved over her nape. “I could hold you for eternity.”
Closing her eyes on that bittersweet vow, Ashwini just lay wrapped in him, and when sleep came, she went into it warmer and safer than she’d ever been. Yet the darkness lapped at the edges of her mind, showing her things she didn’t want to know, didn’t want to see. A vampire with skin a shade darker than her own and vivid black eyes, his razored black goatee paired with hair braided tight to his skull, used a whip on the white, white skin of a woman who screamed, welts rising over her breasts and her stomach.
Two strokes broke the skin, drew fat droplets of blood.
Yet when the vampire used the handle of the whip to violate her, the woman’s scream was that of orgasm. Heavy lidded in the aftermath, she begged for him to release her from her bonds. He laughed, gave her what she wanted . . . and she crawled to abase herself at his feet, begging to pleasure him.
“Master, please.”
Laughing again, he put his booted foot on her shoulder and pushed her to the floor, where he shifted his foot to her throat and held her down while he kissed a golden-skinned girl with ripe young breasts and innocence in her eyes. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen and she wore only her skin and a fine gold chain around her hips. Closing his hand around her throat, the black-eyed man began to squeeze.
The girl’s face went pink, then red, her eyes bloodshot. When she scrabbled at his arm in a final panic, he smiled and kissed her and continued to squeeze. Too soon, she was limp in his arms and he used his grip on her throat to throw her onto the black-sheeted bed in the center of the room. Taking his foot off the woman on the floor, he made her unzip him, then used her mouth with a vicious lack of care before kicking her in the ribs.
She curled up into a ball, her eyes wet and worshipful, but he ignored her in favor of the limp, lifeless girl on the bed. Covering her with his body, he began to feed, his throat moving in long, deep drafts . . . and his hips in a way that said he wasn’t only feeding.
“No!” Coming awake on a scream, Ashwini grabbed Janvier’s phone where he’d left it on the bedside table. “Call Trace,” she said to Janvier, who’d woken when she did. “Find out what Khalil’s done to the girl.”
Janvier didn’t question her, just made the call. “Adele had already entered the room after security alerted her,” he said once the conversation ended, his features grim. “The girl is alive. Barely. Trace says she’s twenty and a regular at Masque, extremely popular because of the illusion she gives of being even younger.”
Heart thudding and skin damp, Ashwini nonetheless didn’t break away from Janvier’s side, his arm around her and her own around him. “Did she know she was about to be choked almost to death then sexually used when she went into that room with Khalil?”
“He has used her similarly before.” Janvier put his phone back, his movements jerky, his voice rough. “I have no argument with adults who choose to play on the edges of sexuality, but in times past, when the mores were different, Khalil targeted the true innocents.”
Ashwini caught a grinding anger she rarely heard in Janvier’s tone. “You knew someone he hurt.”
“A girl from the bayou, maybe fourteen and awestruck by the wealthy vampire who showed an interest in her. Six months after she ran away from home to be with him, the piece of shit returned her, hollow eyed, addicted to opium, and broken on the inside.” His voice shook. “A year after she drowned herself, her father told me that Khalil had said she was trash, worth a little amusement but not for keeping.”
“Bastard.” Eyes narrowing, she focused on what Janvier had remembered. “He used the word ‘trash’ specifically?”
“Or something very similar.” Janvier wrapped himself fully around her again. “But I wouldn’t put all my faith in that, cher. There are too many old vampires who see humans as disposable . . . But Khalil has the cruelty to do what was done to Felicity, and the wealth and experience to hide his deadly perversions. I will make sure he is constantly under watch.”
“You might not even need spies,” Ashwini muttered. “I seem to have a direct surveillance feed to his life, thanks to a simple brush of skin.” She banged her head against his breastbone. “I don’t mind sex dreams—but why can’t I have sex dreams that don’t make my blood run cold and my hand itch for a gun?”
Kneading the back of her neck, Janvier shifted slightly until he was on top of her. His kiss was wet, his body weight delicious, and his skin so hot her own blood ignited. “I’m not a sex dream, but perhaps this poor Cajun will do as a substitute?”
Ashwini pretended to consider it. “It’d work even better if you took off your T-shirt.”
Janvier complied. Straddling her, he said, “I’d say the same.” It was a dare.
Not about to break her streak of never once turning down one of his dares, Ashwini managed to strip off her shirt. It left her dressed in a demi cup bra in polka-dotted black with pretty yellow detailing along the edges. When he scowled and gently ran his finger over her scar, she said, “It doesn’t hurt and the vamp who did this is dead.”