Hunger Revealed (6 page)

His hands stroked over her breasts,
pinching the tight tips of her nipples. She cried out softly,
encouragement for his actions. His mouth met hers, capturing the
sound. When his pelvis brushed over her swollen clit, rocking
against it as his thrusts grew more forceful, her small moans
lifted into the air. His teeth nicked the skin of her shoulder, and
it was all Jasmine needed to be shoved to a place where starbursts
exploded inside of her.

She trembled as orgasm swept her
under, her body bowing and no longer beneath her command. Dimly,
she heard Corin’s groan of utter satisfaction as he spilled inside
her. Her arms remained wrapped around his back, holding him close,
feeling the kick of his heartbeat against her own stuttering
beat.

Jasmine kissed his neck. His chin. His
lips. “I love you, Corin.”

“And I you.”

Above Corin, stars twinkled in the
early night, the large moon watching over them in the field of
grass. She swung her gaze back to his face, his dark eyes
expressive in their tenderness. Jasmine memorized his features all
over again, pride swelling inside of her to know she’d committed
the rest of her life with this man. “Will you still love me a
hundred years from now?” she asked, already anticipating his
reply.

“And a hundred years after that. I
will love you until my body is no more than a memory.”

“Even after I’ve born you children and
am tired and cranky?”

He chuckled. “Even then.”

“Good,” Jasmine said with a smile.
“Because I’m pregnant.”

The smile faltered, his
eyes widening. For a split second, there was a moment of doubt that
perhaps this wasn’t something he’d wanted. That maybe he wanted her
to himself for another year or two before starting a family. But
then that smile began to grow, widening until it was all she could
see through swimming vision. His cock, still semihard inside of
her, stirred, and after a glacially slow thrust forward, Corin
swept his lips across hers. “
Mellita
,” he whispered before
beginning to make love to her again. The word one spoke a thousand,
declaring his love, pride and wonder.

And all Jasmine’s doubt
vanished.

The
End…for now

Author Bio

Dee Carney is an
award-winning, best-selling author of paranormal and contemporary
romances. She lives at home in Florida, surrounded by four-legged
writing partners. To learn more about all of Dee’s books, please
visit her on the web at
http://www.deecarney.com
,
http://www.twitter.com/dee_carney
,
or
http://www.facebook.com/deecarneywrites.com
.

Hunger Awakened
(March 2013)

For more sexy vampires in dire
situations, keep reading for an excerpt from Hunger Awakened by Dee
Carney.

Prologue

“He’ll know of you sooner
or later. He might come looking for you.”

“Who?”

“What happened to the
left-for-dead? He wouldn’t have allowed himself to be
taken.”

“Who? Oh, him.” John Doe.
She shrugged. “Taken away in an ambulance not too long after the
incident. What do you mean he’ll know of me?”

“You’re his kindred now.
You carry something like a genetic marker that will make him aware
of you.”

What did it matter?
“So?”

Corin walked to the accent
chair by her vanity and sat. “We live a very, very long time. Not a
life of immortality as fiction would have you believe, but long
enough to grow bored and restless. If he’s mature, he might not
care. Maybe he’ll come after you just to satisfy some curiosity and
merely watch from afar.

“Or he’ll come after you
because he’s angry. Intentional or not, he’s broken a law and there
will be consequences for that. He might take that anger out on
you.”

Hunger Aroused

Chapter One

The only reason he noticed her was
because of the depth of despair shining from deep-set blue eyes.
Hunched against the side of a red brick wall, she looked a little
too thin. Hungry in a way that didn’t remind him of food. The poor
woman might have been attractive in her day, but her pale skin
seemed to have lost a little of its luster. Just like those
horribly sad eyes.

Something about her intrigued him
though. Almost enough to make him forget about going inside, where
already the scent of the nightlife called to him. The smell of
densely packed bodies. Lust. Sin. As he waffled, those enticements
made up his mind for him.

He’d come to the nightclub to get
laid. Period.

Bast Kent strode inside without
bothering to look back, the woman and her haunted eyes forgotten
within seconds.

Ignoring the seductive looks a few
women gave him on the way in, he went straight to the bar, twisting
in between bodies that bumped and gyrated. Touched and fondled.
Danced, so they called it.

Laying a crisp hundred on the
spit-shined wooden surface drew the attention of a bartender
without having to open his mouth to back it up. Benjamin was always
a good friend to have in a place like this. A place he didn’t
frequent often. There were better venues for finding willing booty.
But he had his pick of slurries in a club. And slurries were so
much easier to bleed… “Armadale. Neat.”

The blonde woman tilted her chin and
filled the drink order without saying a word to him. At the same
time she stopped pouring with her right hand, she used her left to
palm the c-note.

He slammed down the vodka, savoring
the smooth burn of alcohol sliding down his throat and heating his
belly. If he needed another, he’d return, but with as much
adrenaline pulsing through him tonight, he wanted to get sexed up
sooner rather than later. No pretending he was interested in buying
anyone a drink of any kind, especially not a Goddamned
cosmopolitan. Definitely no small talk about what she did for a
living or what she liked to do for fun. Just one good, long fuck.
In the club’s restroom, in her car, her place. Whatever.

Bast searched through the writhing
bodies of people on the dance floor, looking for just the right
woman to bed that night. A human, preferably.

His teeth pulsed with a familiar ache,
and his favorite appendage thickened at the impatient prospect of a
long night of sweaty sex and decadent feeding. For whatever reason,
his libido had kicked into high gear over the past couple of weeks
and in this past week particularly. No matter how many times he
alleviated the problem himself, he never felt relieved. So, if his
own hand wasn’t going to solve the problem, he might as well let a
woman with legs from here to eternity solve it for him.

No, this place wasn’t his scene, but
it would serve the purpose. Undulating bodies moved like liquid to
the beat of the blaring music. He scented their perspiration and a
heady mix of alcohol and sex on the dance floor. A subtle haze of
fresh blood drifted to him from time to time and he knew he wasn’t
the only vampire on the hunt here. A lot of the humans were already
so high or inebriated with alcohol, they were ripe for picking.
Low-lying fruit on a tree.

And Bast was so hungry.

Yeah, he should give a fuck about
using them, but it’s why their kind existed. To keep him and his
kind fed and sated. In exchange, they were kept very unaware of the
turmoil that raged on around them. Bast and warriors like him kept
the danger of other creatures of the night far away from their
doors.

He signaled to the bartender.
“Another.”

The vampire nodded and went to work
pouring the next one. Had to be another vampire simply because the
place was too noisy for people to hear themselves think above the
din, much less a few feet away.

“Hey, sweetheart. You
buying?”

Bast turned to the exotic woman at his
elbow. She pressed a finger into one ear and leaned close enough
that he was afforded a healthy blast of her warm breath when she
shouted. Some Asian ancestry ran through her genes. Bone-straight
hair and distinctive eyes declared it for her. The makeup around
her eyes had been plastered on, the lipstick she wore too bright,
but she was pretty. And based on the way she ogled him, about to
become the next notch in his bed post.

“Just out playin’ the game,” Bast
replied. No sense in getting her hopes up for anything more. She’d
either stick around or head for deeper pockets. He swallowed down
the vodka chaser, already scanning the crowd for another woman in
case this one didn’t pan out.

“Yeah?” She edged closer, allowing her
breasts to brush his torso. “What are you packing?”

Bast’s lips twitched with amusement.
“Enough. You interested?”

She peered past him, and her moment’s
inattention gave him the opportunity to notice too-large pupils.
The chick was high and whatever she floated on was taking her for a
nice ride. When he fed from her later, it should give him a nice
momentary buzz too. The prospect of fucking her became that much
sweeter.

A few weeks ago he might have felt
like a shit for taking advantage of her state, but lately, he
couldn’t stop the craving. It had become almost unbearable. He
needed to feed, and she’d do nicely.

“Today’s my birthday,” she said with a
smile. “Why the hell not? What’s your name?”

The polite thing to do would have been
to at least offer a “happy birthday.” At the very least, toss her a
fake name to call him by. Instead, Bast took her by the hand and
wound them through the throng of bodies and into the back. His gift
to her would be allowing her some dignity by staying out of the
restrooms, but against the wall in a dark corner proved an
appealing idea.

“Always had a thing for the strong,
silent type,” she muttered. Sensitive hearing picked up every
syllable over the rhythmic beat of music. Bast grinned to himself.
He didn’t have the abilities of full-born vampires, but his lineage
offered him enough bennies.

The smugness faltered for a moment
when he thought of what he was doing—what he was about to
do.

He was going to feed, yes. But while
he drank from her, another need, some primal call, demanded to be
sated. The urge taunted him, and he felt an addiction to something
he’d not yet partaken of. Something in the back of his mind tugged
at him, whispered of caution. Ravenous Bast ignored it.

By the time they’d crossed
the room, he couldn’t get them away from the crowd fast enough. He
swore he felt the blood race through every vein. Inside of him
swelled with life, as if something within was trying like hell to
get out. The urge, the gnawing in his belly, the
craving
became almost
unbearable. He staggered as a wave crashed into him. Heat flared
like summer in the air-conditioned room.

“Hey, you okay?”

Bast nodded, hiding a grimace behind
tightened lips. “Fine. One shot too many.”

Vampires didn’t get inebriated off two
shots of booze, and they sure as shittin’ didn’t get sick. Whatever
this was almost had the ability to frighten him. Almost.

The woman’s grip on his hand
tightened, but she kept pace with his long stride, winding with him
through bodies and toward their ultimate destination. He knew once
he got them there, he would feel better. He would feed, and the
sensation would die away.

He’d been training too hard. Ignoring
his basic needs for too long. That his body finally retaliated made
sense.

“Are you sure?” His companion might
have been tipping toward oblivion a few minutes ago, but a new edge
to her voice at once made her seem sober. “You’re kind of
warm.”

“Warm?”

She tugged on his hand, forcing him to
slow. He caught the concern on her face when he glanced at her over
his shoulder. “You might be coming down with something, sweetie.
Maybe tonight’s not your night for this.”

Bast’s eyelids felt heavy, his body
sluggish. “I’m…fine,” he mumbled.

Vampires don’t get
sick
, he tried to tell himself. Then his
stomach lurched, an immediate reminder that as often as he passed
himself off as a full-born vampire, he was anything but.

Putting one foot in front of the other
took all of his strength, but somehow he managed to stagger
forward. To the dark corner. To a door. Through it.

The cool night air blasted his face,
and he almost moaned in pleasure. It felt so good against his skin.
He’d begun to burn up, and the night kissed away some of the
hurt.

The scent of a nearby garbage bin made
his stomach roll again, and this time when his stomach heaved,
everything he’d consumed lately spewed forth, covering the ground
until it shone crimson. All that blood, gone to waste.

The woman screamed—he still held her
hand, needing it like a lifeline—before blazing heat swallowed him
whole.