A Vampire's Claim (4 page)

“God, you’ve no sense of fair play, do you, love?”

“Play assumes a game, Dev.”

He’d lost his mind. “Whip’s mainly for cracking. Strikes are usually trick stuff.”

“But you can do both.” She wasn’t leaving him any room for escape.

“Maybe I should leave it at the one dance,” he said. She really didn’t understand the extent of what he wanted tonight. He wasn’t sure himself anymore.

“Elle, do you have a back room?” Lady Daniela spoke as if she’d known Elle all her life. As if she were a family servant. Dev almost winced at the imperious sound of it.

The woman gave her a gimlet eye, jerked her head at a door on the back wall.

“Good, then.” Lady Daniela turned to lead the way. Gathering his wits back about him, Dev shot Elle an ironic look. But he followed the Lady Danny, as he’d dubbed her in his mind. While her eagerness to get him alone for whatever reason was flattering, he was prepared for her reaction when she turned the knob and pushed her way through with confident determination.

Or so he thought.

She stepped right into the light of a sun a breath away from setting, because the door led not to a back room, but to the yard behind the building.

He’d been right on her heels and so pulled the door firmly closed, eager to have her to himself, only to find she’d spun on her heel and thrown herself into him with a gasp of genuine alarm. Reacting instinctively, Dev swung her behind him, back against the door to protect her with the shadow of his body. He was uncertain what the threat was, but he suspected his city lady had startled a snake on the back steps.

“Inside.” As she made the demand, she shoved at the door so the jamb splintered. It had a history of being stubborn, but apparently it had rotted through at last, though the shards of wood that fell off looked sound enough. He pushed it open for her with his palm on the panel above her head and she quickly lunged back into the bar. It was then he smelled burned flesh.

The three men were on their feet as she made a direct line for Elle, moving so swiftly Devlin couldn’t catch up in time. Elle was going for her shotgun, but before she could bring it out, Lady Daniela had caught the woman’s collar and hauled her halfway over the bar one-handed, as if Elle’s stocky body weighed as much as a doll.

“You human bitch,” she snapped. “I paid in advance for your drinks. Not to mention the filthy rooms at that boardinghouse leased by your cousin.”

“Love.” Devlin eased up beside her, quickly taking in the light burns on her exposed forearms. He hoped he wouldn’t have to get physical to intervene. Only an idiot got between two women in a blue. “Elle was getting back at you for putting on airs. Let her go now. She didn’t know you had a sun allergy.”

“I’ll be happy to give all your money back if you take you and your mob elsewhere.” Elle spat it out. Dev had seen Elle take an indifferent attitude toward foreigners before, but this was active dislike, tinged with the stink of fear.
What the bloody hell is going
on here?
“I’d even lend you transport, but it won’t have those nice dark windows. It’d be a shame if the engine died right before dawn.”

He realized he wasn’t disrupting a possibly entertaining brawl of hair pulling and female slaps. His own hackle-raising intuition, as well as the tense reaction of her men, told him that Lady D’s level of violence could be anything but entertaining. Another piece of the puzzle, one he was sure keyed in to both the aborigine’s and Elle’s not-so-subtle hint that he was playing with fire. And it was likely he was going to get sensitive bits of himself scorched.

“Elle, leave off.” As he reached out, Devlin judged Lady Danny’s temperament much as he’d gauge a croc’s appetite before he knelt by a creek to refill his water supply. When he put a hand carefully on her wrist, she flicked him a glance. “My lady, let her go.

Look, the sun’s said its final farewell for the day. You know how it is here. Sunset and then boom, it’s night. And just to be sure . .

.”

Determining that it was reasonably safe to step away a moment, and glad Joe wasn’t around to mix things up further, he turned, scanned the bar and found what he sought. Going to that corner, shouldering past the few men watching, he procured the paper parasol that Elle had as one of the decorations for the place. “I’ll bring it back,” he promised, before Elle’s scowl got any darker.

He gave it a twirl, drawing the lady Danny’s attention.

“A parasol to shade you, my lady. It’s even got this pretty picture of a Japanese lady on the outside, sitting beneath a bamboo tree.” He cocked a brow and won a quirk of Danny’s lips, though her eyes were still shooting sparks. Lord help him if her temper didn’t make her even more breathtaking.

“Dev, not for a million quid would I go anywhere with her and this lot. She’s not right. She—”

“Neither am I, Elle.” It was a gentle reminder, but he gave her a hard glance that said he wouldn’t be dissuaded. “And I don’t need a million quid, do I?”

Lady Daniela abruptly let Elle go, giving her a scathing look. “I paid for the room, and I’ll be staying. But that’s the last time you annoy me.” Her gaze flickered over Devlin in a way that made his skin tingle and his cock jump to new life, brainless appendage that it was.

“He’s mine for tonight. And he appears more than willing. Don’t interfere again.”

2

H
E’D never thought of himself as belonging to anyone, but as for the rest . . . well, there was no arguing with the simple truth.

Devlin stepped out into the night, offering his companion a hand down the rickety back steps this time. He’d brought the parasol, but as soon as he verified the sun was truly gone, he left it inside the door. He’d recovered his belongings, so they sat comfortably on his back again, a weighted reminder of reality he needed right now.

“The sun just said its final farewell? A bit poetic for a bushman.”

“Oxford, remember? See, it’s right pretty out here. Though we might get eaten by mozzies.”

A pair of kookaburras perched in a stately gum tree over the small billabong. The birds’ raucous, laughing cry always made Dev think they were expressing their amusement at human folly. Appropriate for this moment.

“The bugs won’t bother either of us, as long as you’re standing near me.” As she surveyed the water hole, he got the impression she was drawing in the night air, settling down. Perhaps trying to regain her composure.

“So why did you want to bring me into a back room, love?”

“To start what I intend to finish in my rooms. I can be impatient, on occasion. The perils of youth, I’ve been told.” An ironic quirk of her lips again, suggesting her good humor was returning.

Now it was his turn to steady himself. The effect of her bold words was dizzying, as more blood rushed downward than his brain could spare.

“Looks like this is a favorite gathering space.” She nodded toward several rough-hewn benches and chairs.

“Yeah, there’s a nice wind off the water, when the creek bed’s not dry.” He knew it because he actually preferred this area.

Usually he ended up back here, where he could breathe better. He’d nurse a beer, get up a card game, stumble off to his swag on the veranda only when he was well buzzed and too sleepy to dream. Wouldn’t be that way tonight, though. He couldn’t imagine her preferring anything other than a soft, clean bed, a courtesy he was sure she was used to having from a lover.

She’d traveled a few steps away, releasing his hand, and now she turned. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper like that,” she said.

“Sometimes I let it get away from me.”

“You don’t owe me the apology, love,” he said mildly. “Talk to Elle.”

Lady Daniela snorted. “I don’t owe that one an apology. She knew what she was doing, right enough. I just mean control is important.”

“More important than anything else?”

“Pretty much.” She threaded her manicured fingers through some loose tendrils of blond hair, but her gaze was riveted on him again. “Though there are always things that tempt me to think otherwise. Do you know your Australian history?”

He grunted. “As much as any lad with more interesting things to do.”

“Liar. Oxford scholar. ‘All I see I claim.’ ” Her gaze coursed from his toes, moving slowly . . . so slowly. “That’s what the first settlers said. No wonder they felt that way, looking at terrain that could give them so much. If they understood its mysteries.”

“Let’s go to your room.” He straightened, his voice thick. Stepped toward her. “You can claim everything you want from me, love.”

The pupils of her eyes had dilated in the near darkness, grown larger so he was actually having some difficulty seeing the blue.

“Rooms. I have the whole upper floor,” she said. “The windows are open, and there’s a door to the veranda. You won’t feel trapped.”

“Why does one woman need a whole floor of rooms?” He decided not to comment on how she’d picked up on the fact he didn’t like to feel closed in.

“My needs are not small. And tonight I intend for a bushman to demonstrate his prowess with a whip.” That smile again, feral enough he wondered if it was a smile at all, or more likely the expression of another species whose language he didn’t yet know.

The small boardinghouse was nothing fancy, of course, a frame building set up on pilings for air flow. Basically, it served as an alternative to the hotel, which housed mainly single stockmen. But it was clean and they’d tried to create a parlor for guests to play cards or keep one another company. There was even a brace of not-too-dingy lace curtains at the doors leading out to the veranda. He watched, bemused, as she slid the meager furniture of sofa and chair against the wall to clear floor space before he could join her to assist. For all she looked so refined and willowy, she was a strong thing.

“Take out your whip,” she said. And without further ado, she began to pace back from him, until she was near the opposite wall.

Then she started to slip the buttons of her white shirt.

That froze him in place, watching the cleavage evolve into the high white curves of her breasts, like a bird’s wings. And she didn’t wear some practical brassiere bought out of a catalog, like most women he’d known. Her bosom was held in a lacy, transparent garment that not only made it look ready to spill out at any moment, but showed him the soft smudge of mauve nipples. Saliva gathered in the back of his throat as she shrugged out of the shirt. When she loosened her hair, it drifted over the molded cups and swung back over the upper arms, her rounded shoulders.

“Come here and take off my boots.”

He moved, even though the commanding tone bothered him some, as if she fully expected to be obeyed.
Don’t make an issue out
of it, mate.
Wryly, he suspected that quelling directive had been barked straight from his cock to his floundering brain.

“Lady Daniela.” He wet dry lips. “So you never explained that. Am I with nobility, then?”

“Aristocracy. Nobility is a virtue. I have few of those.”

He let his gaze drift appreciatively. “I’d argue that, my lady.”

When he reached her, she was leaned up against the wall, folding her hands almost demurely beneath the cushion of her backside.

Even though the pose lifted those breasts, drew his hungry attention to them, she lifted a leg, braced her heel on his thigh, stopping his forward progress. “My boots, Dev. If you’d like to see the rest.”

Picking up her ankle, he slid to the heel to take hold. While she hadn’t said to do it, he also took off the thin sock beneath, his hands whispering along bare skin now, the slope of her calf and delicate structure of her ankle, the arch of her foot. Her lips parted, her breath raising those lovely breasts on a trembling sigh. She liked his touch, then. That was good. Because he intended to touch her a lot, for as long as she’d put up with him.

She shifted, placed the other foot high on his thigh again, earning a hungry lunge from his cock contained only by the tough fabric of his moleskins.

Once he slid that boot and sock off, she straightened and opened the clasp on her jodhpurs. One teasing wriggle and they slid down her flesh like a waterfall, no resistance from her silky skin. As if she were one of those Roman goddesses, it was like she was meant to stand like this, in an elegant, nearly naked pose. He was all for it.

More lace, more transparent fabric that hiked high on her legs and the delectable arse. He’d bet it was round and soft-looking as a pillow. He was a sucker for a fine arse. He liked all the parts, but that one . . . He couldn’t get enough of ogling, squeezing, smacking . . . even buggering. Tina’d always laughed and said she had to keep her back to a wall—

He pulled back, startled by the thought. Lady Daniela glanced up at him. “Something bite you?” That seemed to amuse her for some reason, but there was a serious question in her gaze.

Nothing but memories.
But as he well knew, memories did more than bite. They tore, ripped, mutilated . . . refused to leave you alone—or dead. He wouldn’t care which they did, as long as they’d stop their tormenting.

As if she knew that, she crossed the room, putting that distance between them again. He’d never seen a woman walk like that. Not the exaggerated saunter of a whore, or the self-conscious movements of a modest woman deprived of her clothes. It was the way he imagined a goddess to walk, fully aware of her sexual power, willing to be generous with it if the man was worthy. He wasn’t, but at this point he was willing to beg, as soon as he could find his tongue. She was giving him a hell of an eyeful, driving coherence away.

High, firm tits, arse shifting along just right, smooth, pale legs. She was a vat of cream, for sure, and he was the hungry tom who wanted to lick it all up.

“So here’s your chance, bushman.” She posed there, a hand on her hip, cocked provocatively, and tossed her hair back. “Touch me with that whip from the farthest reach possible, without leaving so much as a mark, and I’ll give you everything you want. If you hurt me . . . I’ll get what I want.” She smiled, unexpectedly. “Of course, it’s all the same really, isn’t it?”

It broke some of the tension, making him chuckle. But as he measured off the pacing he needed, he felt a moment’s uneasiness.