Sex and the Single Vampire (18 page)

“An excellent choice,” Christian said as I kissed his neck, his hands sliding up around my hips. I stepped back.

“No.”

Both eyebrows went up at that. “No?”

“No. No hands. I get to undress you without you touching me.”

One side of his mouth quirked up in question.

“If you start touching me again, I won’t be able to concentrate on driving you wild, and I very much want to do that. So no hands.”

He dropped his hands, his eyes turning the heat up a notch. I fanned myself. “It’s getting a bit hot in here, isn’t it? Okay, so I was at your tie. Um … right, one tie, blue.” I set the tie on the chair, then stepped back to consider him, ignoring the obvious bulge in his pants where men are wont to get a bit bulgy. “That’s a very handsome jacket, but I think it’ll have to go as well.”

“I am perfectly agreeable with your decision.”

I slipped his jacket off, tugging it down over his arms and laying it carefully across the back of the chair. I turned to eye him. “Shoes next, I think.”

I knelt down and untied his shoelaces, pulling off first one shoe, then the other. I refused to look up. I knew what was at eye level. “Well, while I’m down here, we might as well do the socks, too.”

He obligingly held up his foot while I pulled his sock off. I let my fingers trail down the long length of his feet, then repeated the action with his second foot.

“You have nice feet.”

“Thank you. I have few complaints of them.”

“Some men have hairy toes and ugly bits, but yours are nice.” I gave both feet a little pat, then without looking at his midsection, stood up. “Vest next.”

“Most assuredly so.”

I slipped the vest off his arms, making sure to touch as
much of him as I could. I looked at him and tipped my head to the side. “Are you wild with excitement yet?”

He shook his head. “Not yet. You will have to try harder.”

Ah, a challenge. I loved a challenge. I smiled to myself. “Shirt, I think.”

He saw the smile and answered it with one of his own. “I look forward to that with the utmost expectations of enjoyment.”

“Button one. Why, look, there’s skin behind it!” I kissed the exposed hollow of his throat. He sucked in a big wad of air. “Button two. Oooh, chest hair. Nice.” I kissed the bit of chest I’d uncovered, and moved down the line. “Button three. More chest hair, imagine that.”

“I’m imagining, I’m imagining.” He groaned as I licked a trail down the vee of flesh I’d bared. His hands were clenching and unclenching at his sides. I grinned up at him. “You’re being so good, I don’t think it’s fair of me to tease you anymore.”

“If you stop, I’ll die,” he said, his velvet voice rough with emotion.

“Oh, well, I wouldn’t want that,” I mumbled against his chest as I unbuttoned the next four buttons in quick succession. I crouched before him, holding on to his hips as I laved his belly button, watching with delight as his stomach muscles contracted under my touch. I stood up and tugged his shirt out of his pants, trailing my fingers across his chest.

“Hand,” I ordered, holding out my own. He put his hand in mine. I looked at it. It was a large hand, long-fingered and sensitive. “Cuff link one.” I switched hands. “Cuff link two. And now …”

I slid my hands up his belly, over the planes of his chest, over his shoulders, then down his arms, pushing the shirt off as I did so, pressing little kisses along a line to
his collarbone. It was so much fun, I spent a little time doing that, but there was still more package to unwrap. I picked the shirt up and tossed it onto the chair, turning back to face that part of him that I’d been avoiding looking at.

“I’ll say one thing, you look a lot better without the cuts. Will you tell me what you were doing there that night?”

“Later,” he said, his beautiful voice thick with unspoken emotion.

My stomach wadded itself up into a little ball, feeling not at all like a stomach should feel. I stood looking at him, wondering if I were going to throw up, or if it was just a level of arousal that I’d never felt.

“Allegra, if you do not wish to do this …”

He really was going to give me an out; I could see it in his eyes.

“No, I want to. I guess your belt is next.”

He said nothing, but his eyes spoke volumes.

I stepped forward and bit my lip as I unbuckled his belt, pulling it free from his pants and setting it on the chair with the rest of his clothes.

“That leaves just your pants. Are you … um … wearing underwear?”

His eyes darkened. “I shall let you determine the answer to that question.”

I looked deeply into his eyes and told myself it was up to me. I didn’t have to do anything I didn’t want to do. I placed my hand on his zipper and felt him jump. The part behind the zipper, that is. “I would say no on the underwear question.”

His eyebrows rose. It took both hands, but at last I managed to unbutton the waistband and grab the little zipper tab, pulling it down as I stared into his eyes.

He boinged into my hands.

“Oh,” I said as I looked down, thinking that when I’d seen him before, he must have been really cold. “My. Um. Okay. I’ll just … um … hoo!” I tore my eyes from his genitals and gently pushed his pants down his hips, carefully avoiding hitting my face on his erection as I tugged the material off each leg.

“Well, I guess that’s it,” I said a bit breathlessly as I tossed his pants onto the chair, unable to tear my gaze from his rampant parts. A thought suddenly intruded on my visual examination. I wetted my lips. “You’re not going to want me to … um …”

Christian tipped my chin up. “I don’t want you to do anything you don’t desire.”

Instantly I felt better. “Good. Because I’ve never really liked … well, good. Can I … would you mind if I just touched you?”

“I would very much enjoy that,” he said gravely. I glanced quickly at his face to see if he was laughing at me, but there wasn’t anything there but desire and want and approval.

He was hot and silky and hard.

“Um. You’re not … er … circumcised.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Oh. I noticed, because that bit just there isn’t anything I’ve seen before. What am I supposed to do with the extra bit?”

“What would you like to do with it?”

I contemplated the extra bit. “Well … does this do anything for you?”

The veins stood out on his neck. “Yes, yes, it does. You may do that anytime you are struck with the desire.”

I smiled, rather proud of myself. I can honestly say it’s not often I’ve made a man’s eyes cross with just two fingers. I let my fingers do a little more walking, even daring to investigate the surrounding scenery. It was all very
enjoyable, much more than I had ever imagined. Christian was just … right. It felt right to touch him.

“Are you finished?” Christian inquired politely as I gave his penis a fond pat. I looked up, concerned. His lovely, rich voice suddenly sounded as if he were gargling marbles.

“For now, unless you don’t want me to do that again.”

He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, then opened them back up. “I can honestly say that the possibility of you repeating your actions will remain at the top of the list of events I fervently pray will occur. Frequently. Daily, if not hourly.”

“Oh,” I smiled, pleased with myself. “Good.”

“And now,” he said, taking another deep breath and making an effort to smooth out the marbles to his usual silky smoothness, “I believe it is my turn. Would you enjoy it more if you undressed yourself, or would you prefer for me to do it?”

My breath caught and held as my mind squirreled around and around with the question. I reminded myself that I’d done things with Christian that I’d never enjoyed before, and that remaining in control did not mean one had to be a coward and take the easy path. “I think I’d like you to undress me. If you’d like to, that is. I don’t want to force you.”

He swooped down on me with a noise deep in his chest that made something in my belly respond. His hands were everywhere, touching me, teasing me, plucking and pulling and unzipping and sliding my clothing off with such heated touches and whispered words of pleasure and little love nibbles that before I could catch my breath, I stood naked before him.

All of me.

Including my bad leg.

“Eeek,” I said, hunching over and trying to cover up the length of scarred flesh.

“I did not eek when you stared at me—stared for at least an eternity—thus you are not allowed to hide yourself from me.”

“You’re telling me what to do,” I told my kneecap, my arms around my leg.

“I’m simply pointing out that what was fair for you is fair for me, Allegra.”

I looked up as the teasing tone faded from his voice. He held his hand out for me. “Let me see you.”

“My leg is ugly.”

“Only if you believe it to be. Let me see you.”

Oh, how I wanted to believe he wouldn’t look at all the ugly white, twisted tissue and not flinch.
If anyone can do it, Christian can
, an optimistic part of my mind said.

“Okay. I’m going to straighten up. But if you stare at anything below my waist for more than two seconds, I’m leaving. Deal?”

“As you like.”

I put my hand in his and let him haul me upright. His eyes burned into mine as he pulled me up against his body, never once looking down at the rest of me.
There is no part of you that I will not worship as is your due. You are beauty and grace and everything a man can desire.

I shifted as my nipples hardened against the soft brush of his chest hair. I caught an echo in my mind, a thought that I suspected he did not intend for me to hear.

And you are mine.

I decided to let it go. He had kept his word, was making me feel desirable and excited and wanting more from him than I’d ever wanted from a man, and all without feeling as if I were directed, controlled, just a bystander in the event. I made a seductive little purring sound I didn’t know
I could make, and rubbed up against him. “You’re poking me.”

His hands stroked up my behind to wrap around my waist, pulling me tighter against his arousal. His breath was hot on my ear as he kissed a hot path up my neck. “I wish to make love to you; I wish to join our bodies and minds in the manner of Moravians. If you tell me to stop, I will, but understand that I will likely die in the process.”

I slid my fingers through his hair and licked his lips. I had no need to hesitate over the decision. I knew then that I could trust Christian to hold to his word no matter how intense things became. “Yes, please.”

He kissed me, his mouth taking possession in a way I had no objection to, scooping me up and carrying me to the mammoth bed, laying me down on cool satin sheets that rubbed erotically against my skin. He moaned as he followed me down on the bed, his hands and mouth stroking my breasts and belly until I was squirming with need.

“I’m sure foreplay is a very good thing, and I will be sure to appreciate it another time, but you know, I think right this moment I want something a little more substantial,” I said, all without breathing. Christian was nibbling my belly, his hair trailing down my skin, leaving rivulets of fire behind. I squirmed against him as he looked down at the really personal part of me, then up to my face.

“Command me.”

I blinked and squirmed a bit more. “What?”

“Tell me what you want me to do.”

I made an exasperated noise. “This is your revenge, right? You want me to command you to make love to me? You want to hear the actual words?”

“I would know exactly what you want me to do, yes. I am yours. Tell me what you want of me.”

I sighed. “Okay, fine, whatever. I command you to make love to me. There, are you happy now?”

“Make love to you how?”

I stopped stroking his arm and poked him in the shoulder. “Do I have to draw you a picture?”

He shook his head, causing his hair to feather out over my belly. I shivered and tried to will him up my body. “Just tell me what you want.”

I rubbed my legs up alongside his legs, uncaring for the moment that the scars were plainly visible. “I want to feel you, all of you.”

“Yes? Where?” he asked as he slid forward along my body until his mouth was level with my breasts. He paused to pay tribute to them. I arched my back and parted my legs wider, sliding them up his thighs.

“I want to feel you pressed against me.”

He moved up until his mouth was on my collarbone. “And?”

I want to feel you inside of me.

His hands cupped my hips as he moved up higher, the hard length of him parting those delicate parts of me that I’d previously considered purely functional.

There was a delicious sort of stretching as my body accommodated his, and then he opened his mind to me, flooding me with the feelings of heat and tightness and overwhelming pleasure that he felt. I wrapped my legs around his hips as he started to move within me, kissing his neck and clutching at his back as every tiny little atom of my body joined with his in absolute ecstasy. I drowned in his pleasure and fed him my own, pushing us both higher as our bodies danced in a rhythm that left us both straining, moving to please ourselves, moving to please each other, pushing our bodies together harder and faster until I felt us bursting into a white blaze of rapture.
I heard Christian sing my name just before his teeth pierced the flesh beneath my ear. I arched against him, still locked in our shared orgasm, driven past that point by the exultation he felt as he feasted on my blood. What should have been a forbidden, repulsive act was instead erotic, wild, carnal, and built within me a need I hardly dared put a name to.

His tongue was hot on my neck, pulling me back from the euphoria our joining had brought.

I lay trembling with wonderful little aftershocks, holding tightly to him, reveling in his ragged breath and heaving chest, warm and safe and for the first time in my life, truly at peace.

What have you done?
I asked, a languid hand lazily stroking the hard curves of his behind.
What have you done to me?

He lifted his head and looked down at me, his lips brushing a gentle salute on mine, his eyes burning red and gold and brown, more variations of color than I’d thought existed. Slowly, ever so slowly, his lips curled up in an extremely smug, thoroughly male smile.
The expression is, I believe, “rocked your world.”