Seduce (Vampire Erotic Theatre Romance Series #3) (5 page)

“I can perform,” Sera said, mustering her confidence so he didn’t hear the nerves in her voice. She smiled and tilted her head to one side, running her gaze over him. The hard bulge in his trousers hadn’t gone anywhere. That was a start. “Just give me a second chance.”

Antoine frowned, his cold eyes turning dark, as though he didn’t like the thought of her having a second chance with Victor. She had to be imagining that.

“But I want to be able to select my partner.” Those words leaving her lips caused his frown to harden.

“An unusual request. I may be inclined to allow it providing you will actually perform.”

Boy would she.

Her smile widened. “I promise I will if I can choose who I perform with.”

The darkness in his eyes deepened and red ringed his irises at the same time as a wave of anger rolled over her. Her smile held. Did he know how jealous he looked? She wanted to ask him but didn’t want him to kick her out. He had no reason to be jealous but the sight of him feeling such an emotion sent her confidence up another notch and gave her the strength to continue.

“Has someone here caught your eye?” he said, little more than a thick growl, and she nodded. “Name them and I will see if the vampire or human is available.”

Something in his eyes said the chosen performer would probably never even reach the stage. He would deal with them savagely for catching her eye. Her confidence skyrocketed and she bravely faced him, nude and still shaking from the climax he had given her. She ran her hand down his chest, feeling the hardness of it through his tailored silver-grey shirt and looked deep into his blue eyes.

“I name you.”

A
ntoine wasn’t sure that he had heard Sera correctly. He stood on the stage, frowning down into her eyes that he now realised were the deepest most alluring shade of green he had ever seen, and tried to comprehend what was happening. Sera wanted to perform with him, on his own stage, as her audition?

The voice deep in his heart said that this wasn’t an audition. This was a game of seduction.

Sera had been watching him for months now. At first, he hadn’t known it was Sera. Many people looked at him during the course of a performance, but none stared with the intensity that she did. When he had grown tired of being watched, he had located her out of the corner of his eye, surreptitious enough that she would never have noticed it. An elite. He had ignored her after that.

It was only in the course of the past few minutes that he had realised she was his voyeur, and how ironic that he had been the one watching her touching herself when that revelation had come over him.

“I do not perform.” The hard ache in his trousers said to go along with it this one time but his heart warned to end this now, before history repeated.

The theatre was a business, and it was his life now. He had no room for romantic entanglements and no desire to get involved with a beautiful, attractive young elite vampire who’d had him on his feet and gasping to plunge something other than his fingers into her so he could feel her climax.

Antoine shook that desire away.

“No,” he said again but it was weaker this time and he knew she had noticed when the look of disappointment in her forest green eyes briefly lifted.

She was targeting him for some infernal reason.

She had watched him and then devised some scheme to get into his theatre and meet him. Had she even arranged for Callum to be away tonight, or was that fate intervening to bring them together sooner than she had anticipated? He cursed under his breath. He would send Sera home to Elizabeth with a harsh warning ringing in her ears and a note for her sire telling her to stay the hell away from the theatre.

His jaw ticked as he clamped his molars together.

“No.” Antoine backed off a step, angry now that he’d had time to realise the lengths she had gone to in order to ensnare him. He should never have sent Victor away. It was clearly the chance that she had been hoping for. With Victor performing with her, Antoine would have been able to maintain his distance and view her with a critical eye as a performer. He had made a terrible mistake. Letting her perform alone, for his eyes only, had brought it onto a more intimate level. She had reeled him in and he had fallen for her ploy. It wasn’t going to happen again. He would end this farce and send her home right now. “I do not touch elite.”

Her face fell, hurt emanating from her in tangible waves that awakened an emotion in him that was all too familiar. Guilt.

“Where was that rule a few minutes ago when you were touching an elite vampire rather intimately?” she countered and he commended her on having the courage to stand up to him.

“A momentary lapse in good sense.” His words drew a dark glare from her.

Her lips compressed into a thin line and her jaw tensed. Hurt became anger, flowing over him, whispering of her desire to strike him. His guard went up automatically, fingers curling into fists in readiness to stop her should she attempt an attack. He doubted that she would.

He had only stated a fact. He had lost control for a brief moment and suddenly he had been on stage, staring down at her backside and his fingers as they plunged deep into her heat. Beautifully deep. His focus switched to his right hand, to the fingers that had plundered her. She had felt so good around him, warm and wet, body milking him. His cock twitched and hardened again.

It was not going to happen. The quicker his body got that message the better. His eyes shifted downwards and the reminder that she was stark naked and stood only a few feet from him was an unwelcome one. He was back to square one. So hard in his trousers that it hurt and he knew she would notice the way his cock tented the black material. Denying his desire for her seemed pointless when she could see the evidence of it for herself.

He could perform with her. It would be so easy, and so damn sweet. Who was he fooling? If she bent over right now, he would have a difficult time convincing himself not to pull out his erection and thrust it deep into her welcoming body. He wanted to be inside her, sheathed to the hilt as his fingers had been. Pumping. Pounding. Finding release with her and hearing her scream his name as he brought her to climax again.

He couldn’t do this. He didn’t want it. It had hurt too much last time and he had learned his lesson. Love was a fickle bitch and, to avoid the suffering he had endured, he had vowed to avoid all interaction with women. That vow of celibacy had lasted close to three centuries. His rigid control over his desires and needs had held firm. It had stood up to countless advances from aristocrat females. Why had it failed him now?

Sera blinked slowly, the fire in her green eyes still burning brightly, telling him that she wasn’t going to give up. She was going to get her way whether he liked it or not. He had to admire her spirit. Most women gave up on him quickly, as soon as he spoke and said something that they didn’t like to hear. Sera had taken several verbal blows and was still standing, still holding her ground and refusing to surrender. She was beautiful. Like a goddess of war as she stood there unashamed of her nude state, her golden wavy hair curled around her tipped-back shoulders and her gaze defiant in the way it held his, silently challenging him to try to make her leave. All she needed was a golden chariot and a spear and she would be a vision worthy of a painting. He would definitely hang such a canvas in his office and would likely spend the entire night just staring at it, fascinated and mesmerised by her.

She stalked towards him, so confident now, the glint in her eyes telling him that she had seen his desire, his attraction, in his gaze and that she knew he couldn’t hold out against her. His defences were weak where she was concerned. Her green gaze dropped to his trousers and then she smiled into his eyes, her silent thoughts coming through loud and clear, as though she had projected them into his mind. She had noticed the hard-on that he was sporting and she was willing to make it go away, to satisfy his every whim and need. Devil, he wanted that. He wanted it with a ferocity that startled him.

Antoine backed off.

“I am not interested,” he said but it sounded feeble even to him.

Victory flashed in his goddess’s eyes.

“Is there room in your show for real seduction, Antoine?” she husked and the way she spoke his name rent the barricade that had kept the flames of his passion banked for so many centuries.

Sparks broke through, igniting his blood and threatening to turn his control to ash. She bit the tip of her index finger, revealing the barest hint of fang, and his heart smashed against his chest. Fire consumed him then, the thought of her biting him and of biting her fanning it into an inferno that incinerated everything in its path. Blood. Fangs. Two very bad things. His claws extended and pressed into his palms, spilling the scent of his own blood. He wanted to taste it. His hands shook. He wanted to taste her.

No.

That he couldn’t allow. Never. It was too dangerous.

“Is there room for a woman who could take a man and change his no to a yes?” Sera ran her hand down his chest, her eyes on his. She had to see the danger in them, the red obliterating the blue, the warning to keep away from him or risk the consequences of his terrible hunger. It ran in his blood, tainting it, whispering words of sweet release to him, of feeding until he had quenched his thirst and then continuing.

Not that. Anything but that. He witnessed the perils of such feeding every night when his brother woke screaming and thrashing against his restraints. That same addiction ran in Antoine’s veins, a dark master waiting for the day it would reign over him and do the same terrible things to him as it did to Snow.

He was already past the age at which Snow had exhibited the first signs of bloodlust. If he didn’t keep control, if he didn’t deny his needs, it would be game over for him too. It would only take one little slip.

Who would look after Snow if he lost himself to bloodlust too?

“Antoine?” Sera backed away, a nervous edge to her voice now.

He closed his eyes and lowered his head, turning it away from her. The Devil, he was close to saying yes to her without any need for seduction but he couldn’t.

Antoine rallied, pushing away the chilling thought of succumbing to bloodlust and her seduction, and said, “No.”

He pivoted on his heel and stalked towards the stage door, intent on leaving her and heading for the sanctuary of his office. He would fix himself a glass of blood to quench his hunger and then close his eyes for a while and claw back control.

“Haven’t I already seduced you to a degree?” she called after him and he stopped dead. True. “I got you onto the stage with me... I aroused you until you couldn’t resist participating.”

He couldn’t deny that. His fingers were still moist from touching her and he had been fighting the temptation to lick them clean the whole time he had been talking to her. What was he doing? How had she cracked the armour around his emotions so easily? She didn’t belong with him. He belonged with no one. It was safer that way.

Safer for both of them.

Antoine looked down at his hands. Blood. It covered them, crimson dripping from his fingertips and splattered up the sleeves of his silver-grey shirt. He breathed hard, fighting the panic and the memories. The fear. It swamped him, pushing down and breaking apart his defences, closing his throat and tightening his chest. It prickled over every inch of his skin and blazed in his heart. Antoine shut his eyes and breathed slowly and deeply. In. Out. Inhale. Exhale. Just as he had practiced so many times. Focus on his breathing. Let everything else fade away. No fear. No pain. No death. Just him, living, breathing. Alive not dead.

Not bleeding out.

When he finally opened his eyes again, the blood on his hands was gone and Sera was standing between him and the stage door, looking at him strangely. Concerned? The spark of desire that had enlarged her pupils was gone, erased by her frown and a steady, penetrating look that made him feel as though she was reaching past the barrier right that moment, seeking to seize the truth about his past from his heart.

Antoine closed his eyes, turned away from her, and released one final soothing breath. It would turn out to be yet another mistake, would end with her cleaving open his heart, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave. He wanted to stay. He needed to stay. For the first time in three centuries, he needed to surrender a fraction of control so he could lose himself in this woman.

He needed to be with someone.

With her.

Everything about her said that she could satisfy his needs, that she would be everything that he wanted her to be—gentle, tender and warm. She could even fix his broken heart if he was brave enough to let her try, foolish enough to believe that the feelings she showed him in her eyes at times were real and not an act.

His heart whispered that he could still get out now before it was too late. He didn’t have to put himself through this Hell again.

Antoine dropped down off the stage and sat in the seat he had occupied during Sera’s show for him.

He couldn’t leave. It was already too late. He had touched her, had fallen under her spell, and now he needed more than just a taste of her.

He needed all of her.

Sera stood there on the stage, looking uncertain now. Had she expected him to make this easy on her?

He couldn’t, not when part of his heart was screaming at him to flee, that he was in danger and needed to escape right now. The desire she stirred in him, the attraction he felt towards her, might have made him stay but he still fought those feelings on instinct and his heart would continue to fight her as she tried to seduce him. The self-preservation instinct ran deep after three centuries, impossible to overcome without a little convincing.

Sera still stood there. Was she waiting for him to say or do something?

She blinked, long dark lashes shuttering her beautiful green irises, and when she was looking at him again, her confidence was back. She had said she could seduce a man, could turn his no into a yes. He wasn’t going to prove an easy challenge. The darker part of him said to take all that he could from her, satisfying his every need without becoming attached, and then make her leave. She was willing. She could host his body and his need for blood, and he could continue for another three centuries without physical or emotional contact with a woman.