Covet (13 page)

It would be a lie though.

He had seen several vampires, both male and female, at the nightclubs he had been moving between for the past three weeks. All of them would work well in the theatre and draw the crowds. They were exhibitionists who had been more than comfortable performing private acts in front of the gathered dancers. There had been males who had groped and grinded with their human female prey, and female vampires who had engaged in acts just a whisper away from screwing in the open booths where anyone could see them. All of them had been worthy of him approaching them and giving them the hard sell. Not many of their type refused to audition when they gained an all expenses paid trip to London and the chance to try out for a place in a famous theatre.

There was one female who had stood out amongst the usual crowd last week. She was perfect for the new show that Antoine had in mind, could easily be the star performer, but Callum couldn’t bring himself to approach her and whenever he thought about mentioning her to Antoine, a knot formed deep in his gut.

Callum had ignored the feeling and just satisfied himself with watching her in the club. He had first seen her with another female, one that he had approached during a lull towards the end of the evening. She had eagerly accepted his offer of an audition, even though she knew the sort of place his theatre was and that it didn’t normally look for performers from her species.

Werewolf.

When Antoine had first told him that he would be departing for Paris in search of new talent, and that it wouldn’t just be the usual scouting mission this time but would include seeking werewolves for a special performance, Callum had almost choked on his glass of blood.

Vampirerotique had never hired werewolves before. In fact, he was certain that in the hundred years they had been running the theatre, there had never been a werewolf on stage. Their kind rarely interacted with each other, unless you counted the occasional war. Werewolves didn’t like vampires. The feeling was more than mutual.

Callum had sent three werewolves to audition so far, all female as requested.

This female would be perfect for the show too. She would steal it and make it hers, just as she stole the attention of the entire club as she moved through it with sensual grace that had the eyes of every male and some females on her, and made Callum think about some therianthropes he had met in the past. She had the moves of a feline shifter rather than a werewolf.

Callum could easily imagine her moving on the stage, how she would sidle over to the large vampire males and bring them to their knees with only a seductive sway of her hips and flash of a sultry smile.

Hell, she had Callum on his knees. He had been following her for a week now, shunning his duty in favour of tracking her down each night and watching her from a distance. His new private pleasure. The club she had chosen tonight catered to a mixed crowd, although the humans didn’t know that. One of the male bartenders was a shifter, one was human, and one was a vampire. That surprised Callum. He had never thought he would live to see a vampire working alongside a shifter, but the two young males seemed to get along. He couldn’t sense any bad feelings between them so it wasn’t an act put on for the sake of the patrons and the human bartender.

Callum’s gaze tracked the female through the club, studying how she slid between the dancers, occasionally stopping to work her body against a male. She smiled wickedly at a young human man as he caught her wrist and pulled her against him, twisting her so her back pressed against his front. She wriggled her hips and raised her hands above her head as she slid down the length of her partner and then back up again, almost as tall as he was in her heeled black boots. Her tight dark jeans emphasised lean long legs that Callum had rather disturbingly dreamed about since first seeing her, imagining their slender strong lengths wrapped around his backside as he fucked her. He had dreamed about pushing the loose flowing material of her empire-line top up to reveal the toned plane of her stomach and then kissing it, feeling her body shift beneath him, before continuing and peeling the high waist tucked under her breasts over their full firm globes. He had dipped his head and captured each sweet dusky bud in turn, swirling his tongue around and sucking them until she moaned low in appreciation.

The brunette female werewolf moved on, thanking her temporary partner with a brief brush of her rosy lips across his cheek and a saucy stroke of her palm over his crotch that had Callum ready to speed onto the dance floor and rip the human to shreds.

She was his.

He drew a long slow breath to calm himself, focusing on it and not her, waiting for the need to pass. If he looked at her now, he would be on the dance floor before he realised what he was doing and would be tugging her into his arms, using all of his strength to make it clear to her that she belonged to him now.

Callum shook his head to rid it of the desire to dance with her and feel her body pressing into his, hot and supple under his questing hands. He wouldn’t let her go as easily as the male human had.

He watched her move through the dancers again, twirling and smiling, her wavy soft brown hair dancing with her, tumbling over her shoulders and breasts. Each time she lifted her bare arms in the air, the hem of her top rose, revealing a tantalising flash of her stomach or back. Her jeans rode low on her hips, barely covering her backside and crotch.

She was a vixen, a real predator as she glanced over every man, even those with partners, looking for tonight’s fun. He had seen her leave with a new man every night. A strange urge to follow her and see what she did with them had built inside him until he had no longer been able to resist the need to know. It wasn’t what he had thought it would be and an even stranger feeling had swept through him on realising that she was luring males away to feed on them. Like his kind, werewolves enjoyed the taste of blood and needed it to survive, although they could supplement their need with nourishment from food.

Unlike his kind, werewolves couldn’t turn a human. Her bite wouldn’t change the human into a werewolf. Once she had finished with the man, she had wiped his memory and left him in the alley.

Callum had almost followed her home but had forced himself to return to his hotel instead. The sight of her feeding had given him some seriously erotic dreams and he had woken tonight with a raging erection that hadn’t gone down until he had tended to it.

It was coming back as he watched her, his thoughts diving down routes they shouldn’t be taking. A vampire had no place desiring a werewolf.

Desiring?

Hell, this hunger went beyond desire and ran deeper in his veins than lust.

He craved her.

Callum turned and flagged down the vampire bartender. The blond man smiled knowingly, nodded, and took down a martini glass. He filled it to the brim with dark liquid that was black in the flashing purple and blue lights of the club and stuck a cherry on a stick in it. Callum held out a twenty euro note at the same time as the vampire placed the glass down on an elegant white napkin and slid it across the bar to him.

“I’ll take one of those,” a female voice said right beside him, “and tall, dark and sexy here is paying.”

He was?

Callum frowned and turned to say that he damn well wasn’t paying for her drink and froze as his eyes fell on the female werewolf. He felt the vampire bartender’s gaze on him, sensed him waiting to see what Callum’s reply would be. Callum glanced at him and nodded. The vampire made up another glass of blood, stuck a cherry in it, and slid it over to her before moving away.

The werewolf raised her glass in a salute to Callum, sipped the blood, and set it back down on the napkin. Her bloodstained lips curved into a wicked sultry smile.

Callum was smitten.

She leaned closer, her bare left elbow resting on the bar, and ran her fingertips down his dark purple silk tie. Her smile widened when she curled her fingers around it, drew it away from his black tailored shirt, and tugged him towards her.

“You’ve been watching me like I’m a bitch in heat and you’re an alpha. What gives?” She wasn’t French as he had expected. Her accent was as British as his own.

Callum calmly removed her hand from his tie, straightened it out and smoothed it down. “I’m just here on business, and I’m definitely not an alpha. I’m a vampire.”

She smiled and tilted her head to one side, causing the long waves of her brown hair to shift across her breasts and cover the tempting display of cleavage the tight section of her black sleeveless top created.

“A vampire with a definite hard-on for a species most of his kind would see as disgusting and forbidden,” she said over the rapid beat of the music, lifted the cocktail stick and cherry from her drink, and popped it into her mouth.

Callum’s gaze narrowed on her mouth, transfixed by the sight of her sucking the cherry. She parted her lips and withdrew the glossy red fruit, dipped it back into her blood and swirled it around before raising it back to her mouth and teasing him by licking the crimson liquid off it again. His chest tightened and he struggled to breathe as the tip of her tongue flicked over the cherry, swirling around it. She slowly slid the fruit into her mouth, lips puckering as she sucked, her eyes closing in what looked like pleasure to him. The sight of her ratcheted his hunger up another notch, flooding him with a deep throbbing ache to feel her tongue brushing his in the way it had the cherry, to have her mouth on his flesh and to run his lips over every inch of her bare skin and drive her wild until she was sobbing his name and begging for more.

“I don’t have a hard-on for your species... just you.” Callum moved faster than she could evade, catching the wrist of the hand she held the cocktail stick in, pulling it away from her lips and claiming them for his own.

She responded instantly, her tongue thrusting past his lips and teeth to slide along his. He slanted his head, slipped his other arm around her slim waist and dragged the full length of her body against his as he seized control of the kiss. She melted against him, as supple and hot as he had dreamed she would be, her breasts pressing into his hard chest, the heat of her driving him to the edge. He tangled his tongue with hers, swallowing her breathy gasps as he dominated her, crushing each attempt she made to reclaim control. Her fight only made him burn hotter for her, made him use his strength on her and tighten his grip on her wrist and side. Her gasps became low rumbling moans. The firmer he was with her, the more of his strength he used, the lower they became and the more she struggled, as though she wanted to feel how much more powerful he was than her.

She liked it.

The female werewolf snapped out of his grasp and slapped him so hard across his cheek that he couldn’t fail to realise where he had gone wrong. His fangs cut into his lower lip. He hadn’t noticed them extending. Before he could explain to her that it was just the heat of the moment that had brought them out and that he hadn’t intended to bite her, she was striding away from him, heading back towards the busy dance floor.

Callum growled, swiftly drank his martini glass of blood to take the edge off his hunger and followed her, intent on explaining and tasting her again. The crowd kept closing behind her, blocking his way and frustrating him. He pushed through them, his senses tracking her so he didn’t lose her again. She wasn’t heading out of the club at least. The expansive dark club only had one exit and that was the other way, beyond the bar. She was either heading towards the booths that lined the edges of the room or the dance floor itself. Was she planning on losing him in the throng of people? It would be difficult to track her in amongst so many signatures. There were several other werewolves in the club tonight. Their presence would help mask hers even though he knew her scent now, had instinctively put it to memory when kissing her. Devil, she had tasted so wicked and delicious.

Callum licked the faint trace of blood off his lips and finally broke through the crowd around the bar, coming out near the edge of the dance floor. The heavy beat of the music pounded through his body, thrumming in his veins, pushing the tension mounting inside him, the need to find her and have her in his arms again.

The need to taste her lips.

He scoured the dancers and spotted her heading closer to the DJ. The lights flashed brightest there, hurting his eyes, and the volume of the music would be unbearable that close to the speakers. She knew vampires well. Her species could move around during the day so they weren’t as sensitive to light and her hearing wasn’t as acute when she was in her human form. She stopped there and danced with a male. He couldn’t tell whether her partner was human or werewolf, but he was immense, taller and broader than Callum was. She had intentionally chosen a place that would hurt him and had now selected a partner who could easily protect her. Her wiliness told Callum that the male would be a werewolf.

He only wondered why she no longer looked confident. Her gaze constantly darted about as she danced with the man, her body held at a distance from his, as though she was afraid to get any closer. Why would she fear her own kind?

That question and the challenge she had issued by choosing to dance with an immense werewolf in an area that was uncomfortable for Callum drove him onto the dance floor. He moved through the crowd, his gaze constantly on her, studying her face and the flicker of fear that was gradually surfacing in her eyes. The usual confident shine in them was gone by the time he was within a few metres of her.

The male werewolf caught her shoulders, turned her around and dragged her back against his bulky body, caging her there with a thick forearm across her stomach. His black t-shirt stretched over an obscene amount of muscle and Callum considered the insanity of approaching such a male. Although he was likely older than the werewolf, and vampires were inherently more powerful, his build was almost slender compared to him and he was a good few inches shorter too. That could be an advantage though. A lower centre of gravity gave him a more solid footing than his monolithic rival and his slimmer build gave him the advantage of speed. He could probably incapacitate the werewolf with only minimal injury to himself.