Blood Red (14 page)

He smiled down at her as she reached him, a coy, teasing expression now on her face, as though she hadn’t sprinted across a soaked field to get to him. She let the hood drop back, exposing chestnut curls bobbing around her white throat. A village girl, sparkling with country vitality. Large brown eyes met his for a saucy instant.

“Well, where’s me greeting for all the trouble I’ve put myself too?”

With a shrug, he crooked his finger.

Her sharp chin jutted forward and she tossed her curls, but she sashayed to him, wide hips swaying. She tugged the tapes of her cloak so the neckline widened and the brown wool parted to reveal a tight white gown, bodice cut low to display her ripe, creamy mounds.

His fangs pulsed. His cock went stiff.

Blood Red by Sharon Page ©2006 Advance Reader Copy www.SharonPage.com 67

“Ye like them, do you?” she purred.

He tossed away his smoke.

The girl gasped as he gripped her back and drew her tight to him. Those plump tits crushed against his chest. He shoved back her cloak and grabbed two handfuls of arse through her muslin skirts.

“’Ere now,” she protested but she wriggled hips and breasts against him and her breath came in harsh little pants.

Clutching her generous rump, he lifted her until his straining cock wedged in the valley between her thighs. He thrust against her, leaving no doubt as to what he planned.

And the silly fool, who should have slapped his face and run a mile, responded to his harsh motions. She squealed and acted indignant but the scent of her honey surrounded him. The arteries along her neck pulsed.

He wasn’t even going to bother to fuck her.

He lifted her and shook her, like a ragdoll, so her head lolled back with the sudden shock.

“Now that’s a bit rough,” she exclaimed, but he ignored her and sliced his fangs into her neck.

Her scream pierced the night. The little hellion fought him, shoving with desperate hands, kicking with wild feet. He held fast, fangs buried deep. The blood burst into him, rich and thick.

Coppery, tangy, yet sweet.

Her struggles faded. She whimpered, the sound almost lost in the rain.

Ah,
bella
, you taste so good.

After so many centuries, pleasure still surged as he claimed her. Took her.

Her hands fell limply on his biceps now, clinging as she clung to life. Her legs no longer held her up and he shifted one hand up to her back to keep her throat to his mouth.

“No…”

Ignoring her, he drew back and let some of her pumping blood spill down her slim neck. It pooled into the hollow of her throat, then poured free. Thin red rivers soaked into her neckline, trickled in the dark valley between her breasts.

The smell of her blood would bring him.

“I hurt.”

Yannick couldn’t help but smile at Althea’s simple statement.
It’s the agony of being
aroused and unsatisfied, angel. The hurting is part of the pleasure.

Beneath him, she frowned. “Is it? Must there be pain to be pleasure?” Her hands stilled on her buttons of her nightdress.

He was lying almost half over her now, levered up on his arm. “What’s Bastien been telling you, angel?”

“About whippings.” Althea tugged at her buttons.

“No, let me,” Yannick murmured and gently eased her hands away. “What did Bastien say about whippings?” He tried to keep his tone neutral as he unfastened the rest. Most likely Blood Red by Sharon Page ©2006 Advance Reader Copy www.SharonPage.com 68

Bastien had discussed erotic whippings, not sadistic ones.

“He asked if I thought I would enjoy the flick of a whip against my bottom.”

The image scorched him. Damnation, what in blazes with wrong with Bastien? What was wrong with him that the idea excited him?

“And he told me about how two women make love,” she continued, wrapped in virginal white muslin and dripping innocence. “And how two men would do it.”

She might hurt, but he was in agony. Pure agony. Ten years of imprisonment had not improved Bastien’s morals. The first thing his twin did? Described sodomy to a sweet angel.

Her small white teeth sank into her lip. “The way he explained it…”

“It excited you?”

Her pretty pink flush answered him.

“Have you ever made love to another man?”

Goddamn, this conversation was killing him. His loins tightened so sharply it felt like he’d been run through with a sword.

“No, sweet, in that arena, Bastien has far more experience.”

“Do you mean to imply you have some?” But she didn’t appear shocked, merely curious, as she tugged at her skirts, lifting her hips to draw them up. “I want it off.”

So did he. He sat up and lifted her too, and pulled her nightgown over her head. Her breasts bobbed as the cloth lifted and released. Just as sweet and delectable as in the dreams. Last night he’d felt them, watched her grope them, but hadn’t got the chance to savor. Now he did. They pointed toward him, firm and round, tipped with excited pink nipples.

The gown sailed to the corner of the room where he’d thrown it, leaving Althea naked. Her hands went to her breasts, half-cupping and half-hiding. She was creamy, satiny perfection.

Graceful shoulders. Full breasts spilling out of small hands. Feminine belly and hips. Her legs were together, tilted to the side, hiding her auburn curls from his view.

Control stretched thin, Yannick moved over her and eased her down onto her back.

Supporting his weight on his elbows, he pressed his body over hers. Skin to naked skin.

She slapped his hip. “No, tell me. Have you done something with another man?”

“Not deliberately, love.” He grinned down at her. “In orgies, in the tangle of bodies, I might have bumped a cock or two, or grabbed the wrong arse. But women have always been my preference. And you, angel, are the most delightful woman I’ve met.”

She cocked a dubious brow. “So you weren’t Zayan’s lover?”

“Zayan?”

“He didn’t kill you. He imprisoned you and I want to know why.”

Naked and beneath him, she was boldly making demands. His grin grew larger. “I’ll explain, sweet. Just not right now.”

She reached up and slid her hands along his shoulders, awe and pleasure in her eyes as she stroked. For an inexperienced woman, she knew how to touch, knew how to make a man melt.

“But it is true that you always share your women with Bastien?”

Her husky voice rippled through him. How in hell did he answer that question? “Some women, yes.”

Blood Red by Sharon Page ©2006 Advance Reader Copy www.SharonPage.com 69

“But not always.”

Yannick shrugged. No, hell, he had shared every woman. Even the one he once believed was to be his alone. “Yes,” he admitted, looking down into her shining emerald eyes, “I suppose Bastien is correct.”

His story came spilling out and he couldn’t believe he was telling her. She’d somehow seduced it from him without saying a word. Just by beneath him and gazing up at him with that curious, accepting, concerned gaze.

He was a vampire. A demon. The horrifying undead. And he couldn’t resist falling under Althea’s exquisite spell. Her nether curls were a warm, damp nest for his hard cock, and her breasts pushed against his chest. Lying over her, he bent, suddenly shy, and whispered against her ear, unable to see her eyes. Her hands slid around his back, and her touch spoke to him.

“We’d shared women since we first began stealing away to the haymows with country lasses. But when we reached fourteen, our father took us to a brothel. He thought we should learn our technique from an experienced courtesan, not enthusiastic dairymaids. The madam chose to tutor us herself, and brought us into her bedchamber together. As the eldest, I…had the first turn. In front of Bastien.”

“At fourteen?” she gasped. Her lips grazed his neck and she brushed a kiss there. Her hands tightened on his back.

“In my father’s world this wasn’t so strange. He took part in orgies often and had fornicated in front of most of his friends. I was aroused but nervous and determined not to make a poor showing. I tried to last as long as I could. And she was a lovely woman, with large breasts and long shapely legs.”

Her hands slid off his neck, where they’d been stroking. “Oh, I see.”

Mistake. Damn, he knew better than that.

“Not anywhere near as lovely as you, sweet. But, to a boy…well, alas, I came in a half dozen strokes. Being younger—by a quarter hour—Bastien always competed with me. So he rode her harder and longer than I did, hanging on to his climax for dear life. Watching my brother reach orgasm…knowing what he was feeling…listening to her grunt and moan beneath him…I was excited again and did my damnedest to outdo his performance. And of course he had another try. By the end of the night, the poor woman had been battered senseless. Though she seemed delighted by us. And then she drew us both down to her breasts by the scruffs of our necks. Together we licked and sucked her nipples. I was the first to slide my fingers into her.

Bastien was furious I’d beaten him to it, so he played with her bottom, which made her squeal in ecstasy. And then we made love to her together, both buried inside her. After that night, all the courtesans wanted to have the both of us together in their beds. Which led to our nickname.”

“The Demon Twins,” she said hollowly.

“You are the only one I truly haven’t wanted to share.” That was the truth. He hadn’t been exactly heartbroken over losing the woman he had planned to marry. He’d been enraged out of embarrassment, and fed up to discover that once again a woman wanted him for his title, but had fallen in love with Bastien.

“Why not?”

He lifted his head to gaze into Althea’s questioning eyes. “I don’t know.”

She touched his lips and a fetching smile played on hers. “Thank you.”

Blood Red by Sharon Page ©2006 Advance Reader Copy www.SharonPage.com 70

She was a mystery, this lovely woman. How could an admission that he didn’t know please her? He went to kiss her curved lips but she suddenly squirmed down beneath him. “What are you doing?”

She gripped his waist to wriggle lower.

“Sweetheart—”

Her tongue touched his stomach, skimming down the hollow there that followed the shape of his muscles. The tip dipped into his navel. At her hot wet touch, all his blood rushed down to his loins.

“Roll over,” she commanded. “I can’t reach you like this.”

“As you wish, angel.” Obediently, Yannick fell over onto his back, only to discover he was on the very edge of the pitiful mattress. His foot shot out to catch him, striking the bare board floor. His right shoulder wasn’t even on the bed but before he could move Althea rolled up beside him. Candlelight sculpted her into a goddess as she moved up onto her knees. All that tumbling hair shrouded shoulders and bare breasts. Corkscrew curls bounced over heavy-lidded, sultry green eyes.

For all his experience, he caught his breath like a callow adolescent as she leaned over him and her breasts swayed. He felt like an innocent himself as she brushed her long hair back from her mouth and held it clasped in her hand.

As her wet, parted lips neared the head of his cock, his heart hammered and raced like a mortal’s. Need and raw hunger burned through him.

“Are you certain, love?” Lord, he wanted it but she was an innocent, not the usual experienced lady proud to demonstrate her skill, hoping to capture his interest with a talented mouth.

“I want to give you a French kiss.” Her amber lashes lowered. “I loved it so when you did it to me.”

Her answer stole his breath. She wanted to show him the pleasure he’d given her. She wasn’t thinking of seducing him for gain—she just wanted him to know delight.

She was a treasure. Unique.

Her lips were almost upon him. Even the whisper of her warm breath over the head shot lust through his cock, his ballocks, up his spine.

Did she no longer despise him for what he was?

Hell, he did. With brutal clarity, Yannick realized he couldn’t let her give this to him. It meant too much to her. She cared about him, and he was a goddamned vampire destined to die.

“No, sweetheart, don’t.”

“Don’t?” Her eyes were all innocence.

He groaned as she licked her lips.

“Don’t…” The last of his moral fiber dissolved. She was too tempting. Too beautiful. An angel he didn’t deserve.

“Don’t try to take it all in, sweeting. It’s most sensitive around the head and you needn’t take me in any farther than that.”

“Indeed.” Althea brushed back her wild hair again, like dark red velvet in the soft light. Her fingers brushed his pubic curls as her hand wrapped tight around the base. “But wouldn’t you Blood Red by Sharon Page ©2006 Advance Reader Copy www.SharonPage.com 71

like me to try?”

Blood Red by Sharon Page ©2006 Advance Reader Copy www.SharonPage.com 72

Zayan heard the rhythm of wings and grinned in triumph. Anger and jealousy, the easiest emotions to evoke and the most potent, crackled in the night. Small stars gathered around the swooping bat. The blue lights darted and spun about, playful and ecstatic. His angels, drawn to the demon who had returned, whom they had long missed.

Zayan bent to the swooning girl in his arms and drew his tongue through the blood on her throat for one last taste.

Wings beat over his head, pausing over his offering.

For Bastien, would blood be more persuasive than sex?

The blue lights converged and shaped into sparkling females—demonesses made of stars like constellations in the heavenly skies.

Giggles and squeals surrounded Zayan as the demonesses took on human form. Long curling hair of every shade bounced in the night air, bewitching hips swayed, bare breasts jiggled.

“Bastien had returned,” one squealed. Esmee, the youngest, with pale blonde hair. Another clapped her hands. Several joined hands and began to dance in a small circle.