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“If you want to communicate an idea to a man’s brain, you talk to him through his pecker. It’s like an ear horn, y’all.”
Musing on Lothaire’s seduction had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Ellie still craved him like crack.
Hate her. Want her. For a week, Lothaire had kept his distance from Elizabeth, leaving her with Hag and ignoring her when they were forced to be together. Never had he needed her more than now.
And I can barely keep my thoughts from Elizabeth, my lust under control.
Lying back in his bed, he carefully unzipped his pants over his aching erection. As he clasped it in his fist and began to pump, he wondered whether Elizabeth had brought herself to come since their last time together. While he’d been so busy thinking about his miserable sexual state away from Elizabeth, he hadn’t thought about hers. She was a lusty female.
Inside his home, caressing her virgin sex. That delicate bare flesh growing so slick . . . The idea sent him into a lather and his fist bobbed. Would she take his suggestion and penetrate herself with a finger? Or two? Or would she wait for him to teach her . . . ?
What if she had waited on him? I want her hands on me. I want her to see me come. Elizabeth had enjoyed watching his seed spill. If he returned to her, he might coax her to wring it from him. With her mouth.
She wore a bikini. A tiny one. Triangles of cherry-red material strung together. Her golden skin was sheened with oil. Coconut oil—an exotic, and therefore erotic, scent to him. His jaw slackened, his cock jerking in readiness. I hadn’t even known this sight would greet me!
Her bikini taunted him, the material clinging to stiffened nipples and the faintest hint of her cleft. He’d bite her under each triangle—
“Take off your top, pet.” She gasped. “Stop calling me that, asshole.” “But you are a pet. I feed you, shelter you, stroke you. And you bring me amusement. Now, do as I say.”
“Right, Lothaire. I have nothing else to be ireful about.” “Ah, you must have missed me.” “Not as much as you clearly missed me.” She lifted her sunglasses, rolling her eyes at his erection.
She ran the end of one string tie against her bottom lip. “You want to see my breasts?” she purred, casting him that blinding smile. He sat upright in his chair, tensing in anticipation. “Get Saroya to show you.” Smile gone, she reached for her beer, crooking her finger around the bottleneck. As she swigged, he thought, Not classy. But oddly . . . arousing.
“Do you really want to go there? Because, oh great king, you came in your pants.” His eyes narrowed. “Isn’t that what happened with every other one of your conquests? Just because I’m not poor, imbecilic, and vulgar like them doesn’t mean I’m immune to your charms. Now. Take off your top.”
Elizabeth and her games. Which he might enjoy more than he cared to admit.
She adjusted the material to the right, just enough to reveal . . . her tan line. Fuck, that was sexy to him. He’d bet her skin would be searing to the touch.
He’d snapped his fangs at them, hissing blood and spittle. While they debated who got to decapitate their prey, another Valkyrie had strolled into their midst. With her jet-black hair and brilliant golden eyes, she’d been incomprehensibly lovely to him. “Spare this one, sister,” she said. “He’s special.” “How so, Phenïx?”
“Have you no mate, female?” he’d asked, intrigued with her, though she was his natural enemy. “I was betrothed to Loki for a time. Which did not proceed smoothly for obvious reasons. So for now I am an unrepentant manizer.”
In the coming years, they’d stalked common foes, growing to trust each other, at least enough to watch each other’s backs when on extended hunts. But Lothaire had never learned patience, and his obstinacy put them at odds on occasion. Her lucidity continued to dwindle. Still, they’d had much in common, and a grudging respect had grown. He remembered once confessing to her, “Phenïx, you are the only one—”
“Though a foe, Nïx is the only one I know who matches me in age and knowledge.” In madness and weariness. “We have a history.” And so his life would be altered without her in it. “I decided long ago that I could always kill her, but I could never bring her back.”
“Don’t you wish you could see—and touch?” “I’ve spent the last seven days wishing I could touch. Now I plan to.”
“I hate you!” “Feeling’s mutual,” he grated with difficulty, the rána burning. Blyad’! Of course he hated her.
“You won’t incite me to kill you,” the vampire said. “So cease trying. If I were going to do it by my own hand, I would have by now.” For the briefest second, Ellie thought she saw him frown, as if he’d just realized that was true.
“Elizabeth, you do not recede. You finish this with me!” She narrowed her eyes up at him. “Just keeping the terms of our deal. If Saroya wants her turn, then I’m supposed to get out of the way, right?” “You little bitch, don’t you run from this!”
“You are growing besotted with your little mortal concubine. Look at you—it’s almost as if you’re pining for her. Almost as if she were your Bride.” Which Elizabeth likely was. Though Saroya had once believed she herself had triggered Lothaire’s blooding, she no longer did. For him to have feelings for such a loathsome creature? Something larger was at work here.
Doubts ate at Lothaire’s confidence, eroding it. Even if he could bring himself to believe that Elizabeth was his Bride—and that was a very big if—there was nothing he could do about it.
It couldn’t be her. Surely. Because he’d been so averse to her humanity, Lothaire had never allowed himself even to consider that Elizabeth might be his Bride. Now, apparently, I’m going there.
And yet, as his restlessness increased and his doubt weighed on him to a crushing degree, his first impulse was to touch Elizabeth. Not because she was his Bride, but because she could pleasure him, making him forget his troubles for a time. “Force her to surface,” he bit out.
“Why aren’t you even trying to seduce me?” “You feel no desire for me. You never have. I can wait for the human—who does.” “How do you know it won’t be better with me?” “Because it can’t possibly be better with anyone.” The words said aloud rocked him—the truth said aloud.
“Then perhaps I’ll keep you and Elizabeth. You will be my queen, and she will be our dirty little secret. A hidden concubine who comes out only in my bed.” Perfect. Just as he deserved a goddess for a queen, he deserved a young, nubile female to appease his lusts.
Lothaire lay beside her in his bed, trailing the backs of his fingers from her navel to the valley between her breasts. She was dressed in a sexy teddy; he was naked. “I like you in red,” he said, his voice raspy, making her shiver even more. “I’ve been awaiting you.” “What . . . what are you doing?” “I’ve decided to give you a chance to atone for your earlier insolence. With head.”
“Because of a few shifter beheadings? Come on, Lizvetta, it’s not as if I went around cock-slapping gnomes.”
“Why would you be unfaithful to Saroya? The first time we were together was because she was late for a date, the second just happened, but this would be premeditated. Why can’t you just wait for your Bride? It isn’t me you want—you’ve told me a thousand times how inferior to Saroya I am. I swear I will let her rise.” Ignoring her, he commanded, “Return to this bed now.”
“No. He won’t. You’ll never know another but me. Now, come back to bed and stop behaving as if this is some kind of event. We’ve pleasured each other before, and all I want from you is to exchange a couple of orgasms.”
“Do you want me to work for it, then?” Lothaire’s voice grew husky. “I will, Elizabeth. I’m not above seduction to get what I want.”
His eyes locked on hers with that predatory glint, and she again felt like his helpless prey, the object of a merciless vampire’s lust. For some reason, the idea of that made her breaths shallow.
Lizvetta, with your hot skin and hot blood.” He stretched her arms over her head, pinning her wrists there once more. “Let me see if I can’t stoke a fever in you.” With his free hand, he rolled one nipple between his thumb and forefinger. “Do you like this?” “No!” She gasped out the word. “Liar. And what about this?” He pinched the other one. Her hips bucked. “No!”
“Be my dear, and tell me you want me.”
“Look at your pretty nipples.” His tongue twirled one, making her choke back a cry. “They beg me to taste them, blood stiffening them until they’re like little berries. It will be everything I can do not to pierce them.” He snared the tip between his teeth . . . and gently tugged.
don’t want me to continue?” He stopped everything—his suck on her breast, the skillful play of his fingers. “Lothaire . . .” “Beg me to. Tell me you need me, that you desire me alone.” She shook her head. “I feel your trembling, feel you getting slick. Why are you being so stubborn?”
“For seven days, Lizvetta, I’ve thought of this constantly. I know you’ve needed me as I have you.” The underlying vulnerability in his words was almost her undoing.
“Saroya can’t want you as much as I do, Lothaire. No one can.” So similar to what he’d said about Elizabeth. In a breathy voice, she murmured, “I’ve been aching for you.”
“Say it again. Tell me how much you ache.” “I’ll show you.” When she leaned in and pressed her lips to his, he worked to control himself—taking her mouth in a slow, languorous kiss, their tongues lazily tangling.
“My poor, poor vampire”—she tongued one of his nipples, making him shudder—“all you ever wanted was me in a red teddy, giving you head.” Somehow he tensed even more. Voice gone hoarse, he asked, “Am I to have what I want at last?” “No.” She removed her gown all the way, tossing it aside. “Only the head.” “I suppose I’ll have to make do.”
“You’ll have to be patient with me while I stumble my way through this.” Patient? His shaft hadn’t been sucked in eons; Lothaire wouldn’t last through her stumbling. Without warning, he traced to stand at the foot of the bed. “I’d rather teach you how.”
“I’m about . . . to spend, Lizvetta.” His voice was ragged. “Be my dear . . . take it from me . . . and I’ll reward you, beauty.”
She was too tight, her maidenhead getting in the way. “This needs to go.”
“You can’t.” “I can! Your maidenhead’s mine.” He drew his fingers out, thrusting them back in.
“It still hurts?” When she nodded up at him with glinting eyes, something twisted in his chest. How could anyone harm her? So beautiful, so trusting. “Tender little mortal . . . I’ll make it better, then.”
“Taking all of what’s mine.” Hands splayed under her ass, he lifted her like a bowl to his lips, pressing his opened mouth between her legs, slipping his tongue into her folds. “Lothaire, no— Oh! Ohhh . . .” He tasted the sweet bite of virgin’s blood mixed with her own honey; growling low in his throat, he almost spilled on the floor. “Dreamed of tasting you, Lizvetta.” He nibbled, he licked, he devoured.
“Have you ever had a man tickle you here?” He gave it a stroke. “Lo-THAIRE!” she screamed, her back bowing. “You sound surprised,” he teased. “I take it you like this? Was it worth a bit of pain in the beginning?” As he rubbed it again, he darted his tongue over her clitoris— “Oh, my God,” she sobbed, clenching the sheets. “I told you I’d teach you how good it can feel.”
