Stalking the Dark Read online

  “Talk to me, Alina. Tell me what you want. Remember, sweetheart, I can’t read your mind.”

  “I want you. Only you. I’m wet for you . . . so wet.” She slid her hands down her body, deliberately enticing him, enjoying the power of her own surrender when she hooked her fingers into lace bikini panties, lowering them slowly, baring herself completely to his appreciative gaze. “Take me, please.”

  “I’ll take you, don’t doubt that. In my own time, though.” Sam grinned, a feral expression on his handsome face. “Sit on the edge of the bed and spread yourself for me.”

  As used as she was to being the one giving orders, Alina didn’t think twice about complying with his request. His power was as potent as his sex, his command as sure as that of the most venerable vampire of her acquaintance.

  “Look at me.” She couldn’t stop trembling, but she managed to meet her lover’s fiery gaze. “I like the way you weep for me. How you glisten with invitation.” He bent, his hot breath scorching her mound when he tongued her sensitive nub.

  For as long as she could, she stayed still, savoring the sensation of him licking her, nibbling her there. But she wanted more. Her centuries-old history of ruling males overcame her need to submit, and she threaded her fingers through his crisp curls to draw him closer, urge him to tongue her harder, give her the release her body craved.

  He pulled away, his fingers surrounding her wrists in a steely grip and drawing her arms above her head, his action as clear an indication as anything he might have said to command her obedience. “Though you rule your people, I rule your body for now. It appears you need reminding. Don’t move.” Standing, his muscles rippling, he strode to a Louis XIV chest and snatched open a drawer.

  Her inner muscles clenched. Her skin tingled. She clamped down on her lips to hold back the plea that threatened to pour from her, a plea for him to make love to her now, take over her body the way he’d conquered her mind and soul.

  Neckties. A fistful of them dangled from his hand, their jewel tones a brilliant beacon to her gaze as he crossed the room, his sensual lips glistening with her own juices. Almost as though he’d just fed . . .

  But no. His body heat and the ragged sound of his breathing as he secured her wrists in silk and bound them to opposite bedposts reminded Alina of his mortality. Of the temporary nature of their liaison.

  It may have been temporary, but it felt so very real. The almost painful roughness of his fingers against her tender skin, the soft bonds that secured her for his pleasure brought her back to the here and now—and the anticipation of surrender . . . and fulfillment.

  • • •

  Alina. Her name echoed softly in the corners of Sam’s mind. Otherworldly beauty, ageless and timeless, lay before him in a pose of total submission. Surrender. Her eyes, cool and regal to the world, flashed emerald fire—for him. Fire that fueled his own raging lust and more.

  Oh, yeah. His lover might rule over a powerful vampire clan, but tonight he’d rule over her. He grasped her hips, brought her closer to the edge of the bed until her arms lay at perfect ninety degree angles to her lush body. Then he lifted her legs, bent them at the knees and secured her ankles to her wrists with more of the ties.

  Seeing her there on his bed, her hands bound to opposite bedposts, her slender legs spread wide, had him desperate to claim her. Her hairless labia glistened, the rigid button of her clit beckoned him . . . and her puckered, pink anus reminded him he wanted to sample that hole too. Soon. He bent, unable to resist tasting her, rimming her there with his tongue.

  God but he loved her complete nakedness. The satiny smoothness he was certain didn’t come from shaving. No razor or wax job could leave her entire body so soft and kissable.

  He stood, holding her gaze as he stripped off his clothes, revealing a body that wasn’t perfect but thankfully hadn’t been unduly ravaged by the inevitable ticking off of time. His balls tightened when her tongue darted out and she moistened her soft pink lips, the dainty flash of her fangs no longer alarming him.

  “I command you not to feast on me,” he said before taking her lips and running his tongue along the front of her teeth.

  She laughed, but when he slid his lips along her satiny skin, nibbling his way to one tight pink nipple, that tinkling sound morphed into a soft moan. It was the neediest sound he’d ever heard. He flailed the rigid nub with his tongue before moving lower, across the flat expanse of her belly to her satin-smooth mound. The impudent nub of her clit protruded, seeming to beg silently for the rasp of his teeth, the stimulation of his tongue.

  Knowing that with her vampire powers she could break the loose bonds that held her any time, but that she chose to lie here under his command, got Sam even harder, hotter. More determined to take her higher, show her more than the faceless vampires and mortals in her ageless past. He stroked along the curves of her body, warming her cool flesh.

  “Beautiful.” He bent his head, rubbed his beard-roughened cheek against her mound, inhaled her musk. The lift of her hips brought him closer to her prize. Hell, he was only a man. Resistance wasn’t an option.

  When he sucked her clit between his teeth it swelled and hardened. He spread her outer labia, found her warm and wet and waiting when he slid a finger within the silken folds. God, how he wanted to plunge inside her now, feel all that slick, tight warmth around his aching flesh. He sucked her harder, eliciting little moans of pleasure that spurred him on.

  “Yes, oh, yes, please don’t stop.” The plaintive tone in her voice fed Sam’s growing arousal. Hearing her beg him to give her pleasure made him feel powerful—practically omnipotent.

  In her passion she sounded not like the vampire queen but more like a woman loving his mastery, her own submission. He wet a finger with her juices and used it to tease and circle the entryway to her rear passage. “Oh.”

  That single breathlessly uttered word held a world of surprise. He gave her clit one last nibble. Then he blew on it, watching her pale flesh tremble when he drew away. “We will do that too, love—later. Right now I must have you.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  Sam knelt between Alina’s legs and rubbed his shaft along her labia before plunging into her warm, wet sheath. “Squeeze me,” he rasped, nearly overcome by her quick, unquestioning cooperation as well as by the pressure of tightening flesh around him. She lifted her hips, wanting . . .

  She wanted him. The knowledge enflamed him. He wasn’t going to last long. Bending over her, he took a nipple in his mouth and suckled. Slow. He had to go slowly, make her come as she’d never come before. Give her what she so obviously needed. His muscles tensed with the need to pound into her, claim her. Still, he withdrew almost completely and sank back into her slowly, deliberately. He had to fuel her flames.

  She raised her hips to meet his thrusts, each time with more force, more demand. She grew hotter, wetter. He was so hard now he was about to burst. Stretching out above her, he took her lips, nudged them to part for his seeking tongue. He felt the rasp of her fangs when they grazed his lip. Her tongue darted out to taste the salty drop of blood that flowed.

  For a moment he pulled back, stilled his hips. “I told you I don’t want to provide your next meal. Don’t make me stop and get out my belt.” He made the admonishment as stern as he could, because admitting the streak of fear that had momentarily paralyzed him wasn’t an option.

  Nor was letting her know his first reaction, not when he didn’t understand it himself. He understood the fear, that was easy. No mortal could fail to worry that his vampire lover might unleash the predatory side of her nature and feed on his body. His blood. Oddly, the thought of feeding her, providing her sustenance, called to the sexual dominant in him. His arousal intensified as he imagined tangling his fingers in her silky hair while holding her head to his throat as they made love. Had he lost his mind?

  She misread his hesitation. “Do not fear, love. I can control my need for sustenance, but not my carnal need for you.”

  He gripped her
face, his thumbs brushing her fangs. He watched her eyes darken in response. “Maybe it’s you who needs to worry about me, vampire.”

  “Oh, yes,” she hissed when he slammed into her again—hard this time. He moved harder. Faster. The slapping sound of flesh on wet flesh when he went in, of her inner muscles massaging him when he withdrew, had him crazy. He had to come.

  “Come now. Come for me.” Whether an order or a plea, he wasn’t sure. If she didn’t obey though, it would be too late.

  Her flesh tightened around him. Her mouth went slack. He stared into her striking green eyes and saw fire there. Her scream of pleasure stole the last of his control, and he let go, his cock jerking as each hot spurt shot out into her convulsing sheath.

  • • •

  “Thank you, my love.” Alina stretched when Sam loosened her bonds and pulled her to her feet. The rough texture of his big hands on her and the knowledge he had claimed her surged through her body, made her want to throw her arms around him as though she were a young girl with no worries other than how best to please her lover.

  If only the specter of Reynard weren’t hanging over her . . . reminding her she commanded the clansmen she had dispatched to destroy him, that if it weren’t for her none of them would have been at risk. The men of her clan had made it clear such feelings were nonsense. Stefan had bluntly told her that she wasn’t responsible for the evil of Reynard—that only Reynard could answer for that. But when she thought of the possibility of losing more of her clansmen . . . Stefan, Alex . . . Claude . . . those who’d already fallen prey to the Fox . . .

  “My pleasure. Come, I want to see you in moonlight, feast on every inch of your beauty.” Sam hesitated, as if he sensed her concern. “No mortal would dare bother us in the courtyard.”

  “I know. And Philippe and Jacques are never far away.” Not that the eight-foot, jasmine-draped brick walls would stop a determined killer vampire, but . . . When she saw his jaw flex, she put her hand up, not needing her ability to read minds in order to understand his reaction. “Just think. Having them out there means you can focus entirely on commanding me to serve your pleasure.”

  “Do they . . . watch?”

  She lifted a shoulder, her expression deliberately teasing. “I’m sure they do, sometimes. Does that bother you?”

  “Of course not. Does it please you to imagine your kinsmen watching while a mortal pleasures their queen?” Sam answered quickly. Too quickly.

  Like most mortals she’d met, Alina imagined he might balk at joining one of the vampire orgies her clansmen enjoyed from time to time. “Do you not take part in group scenes at your club, my darling?”

  “I have.” He had a shamefaced look when she gazed up at him. “But I prefer my ménages not to be quite as spontaneous as the other guys just dropping in and watching me take my lover.”

  His answer made Alina smile. “All right. Philippe and Jacques are more interested in each other than in taking voyeurs’ pleasure from our love play.” The two would certainly enjoy watching Sam. They’d fantasize about having him join them, but somehow Alina didn’t think knowing that would reassure her gorgeous, very masculine lover. “Besides, I would feel another vampire’s presence. And my clansmen would tell me immediately if Louis Reynard should venture from his lair. Please. For now, I am yours. Yours alone.” Alina squeezed Sam’s hand and forced back more serious concerns. Tonight was for him. And for her. For pleasure uninterrupted by duty or responsibility.

  “That’s what I wanted to hear.” Firmly yet gently, Sam led her through the French doors. Warm, moist air kept her from shivering, and feeling his body heat behind her lent a sense of safety. A crescent moon hung in the deep blue night sky dappled with ageless stars.

  Alina dug her toes into the moss growing between stones of a pathway made smooth by time and the elements. Sighing, she leaned against Sam’s broad chest, inhaled the fragrance of gardenias and the jasmine that climbed the courtyard walls, its tendrils tumbling over the top as if overburdened by an abundance of sweet white flowers.

  “You have a beautiful home, Sam.”

  “It’s more house than I need, but I’m glad I’ve resisted selling it. Julie would have been heartbroken if we couldn’t have celebrated her wedding here.” He sat on a wrought iron bench and pulled her onto his lap. “And I wouldn’t have had the chance to be with you this way.”

  Alina laid her head on his shoulder while she ran her fingers through the soft hair on his chest, finding a nipple and circling it with the tip of one fingernail. “You love it here, just as I love Paris.”

  “I can’t deny that. I was born and raised in New Orleans. Got married, had Julie, made a success of my business.” His breathing slowed, and he tunneled a hand into her hair, holding her closer. “You know, love, no woman has attracted me the way you do, not since Julie’s mother died.”

  Twenty-five years. Forever for a mortal, yet a mere drop in time for a vampire. For her. Still, his words rang with sincerity, made Alina wish for more than this short interlude with Sam. “I am glad.” His heart beat strongly beneath her ear, its rhythmic pattern underscoring the differences between them. He stroked her arm, his work-hardened fingers abrading her skin, heating her passion and raising her curiosity.

  “How is it that a man who works with his mind has calluses on his hands?”

  “I work out with weights to keep in shape. Have for years. I don’t usually bother with putting on gloves before I start lifting.”

  “I like the roughness. It stirs my senses.” Everything about him stirred her, made her want to keep him. But no. Sam loved his life, his business, the many friends who had come to help him celebrate his daughter’s marriage. She had no business even fantasizing over them making a life together—a life of eternal surrender for her, an unfamiliar, never-ending life in her world for him.

  Chapter Three

  “Have you spoken with Louis, obtained his approval for your scheme?”

  Wim smiled at the clan elder, a timid soul to his way of thinking. “I do not need his approval, only yours.” Gesturing toward all the elders in the room, he included not only the man who’d spoken but all the members of the council. “You do realize, of course, the losses our clan has suffered because of our leader’s obsession with destroying the d’Argent queen. Because of him playing a cat-and-mouse game with her by seeking out and killing her mortal look-alikes as a lead-up to her own destruction.”

  Another old vampire spoke, his voice heavy with the accent of an Eastern European. A crony of Louis’s, Wim imagined. “We could hardly have missed noticing the economic impact. Still, Louis has been the leader of Clan Reynard since long before you were turned . . . before you were born, young one. I believe your ambition overreaches reason.”

  “Ambition? I merely want our clan to prosper. I wish for Louis to recover, once again to be the leader he was before he became fixated with the idea of tormenting and ultimately destroying Alina d’Argent. I propose we see to her destruction now, while Louis recovers from his wounds.” Wim paused, gauging the expressions on the elders’ faces. “That way, we will have accomplished what he sought, and he will have no reason to continue ignoring clan business by further pursuing his vendetta against mortal women—or the remaining ones of the d’Argent clan.”

  The timid elder who had wanted assurance that Wim had Louis’s approval cleared his throat. Then he looked Wim in the eye and spoke. “What makes you think you can succeed where Louis has failed?”

  Yes! At least Wim had planted the seed of possibility in one elder’s mind. Now was not the time to remind him that Louis had never targeted Alina directly. “Timing. As we speak, the d’Argent queen is enjoying a holiday in New Orleans with the father of Stefan d’Argent’s bride. A mortal. Her usual contingent of bodyguards has dwindled to two, and they must watch her surreptitiously, as she has ordered them to keep their distance. The mortal who is fucking her can be no match for even the weakest among us.”

  “What about Stefan d’Argent? And
the other two who came very close to destroying our leader?” The Reynard elder with the eastern European accent rubbed his chin, as though considering the feasibility of what Wim had just proposed. “Are they not always within shouting distance of their queen?”

  Wim stood and strode over to the flattened globe where Louis had marked each of his kills. He gestured toward a point on the Normandy coast. “Stefan and his bride are honeymooning here, in his ancestral castle. Alexandre is sampling Paris nightlife, as is his habit when not on assignment. According to my spies, Claude is honeymooning with his own bride in Paris while he recovers from his wounds.

  “My friends, the time is ripe. I have seen with my own eyes how Alina’s attentions are focused on the mortal, Sam Quill. She must believe herself safe for the moment, since Louis is temporarily incapacitated. If she had doubts, she would not have ordered her bodyguards to give her space. Give me your leave and I will rid the earth of the d’Argent queen. Handed her destruction as a fait accompli, Louis will have no choice but to cease this blood feud and get back to the business of making Clan Reynard profitable once more.”

  Wim sat back and watched the elders counsel among themselves. The longer they discussed his plan, the more confident he felt that they’d approve it. After all, they were all businessmen of sorts, and Louis had been neglecting clan business for too long while pursuing his senseless quest. When the eldest of the elders cleared his throat, Wim straightened and listened.

  “We will not stop you from destroying the d’Argent queen. However, we will not give permission, either. This deed will be on your shoulders.”

  So, cowards that they were, they would not stop him—but they would not stand behind him, either. Wim didn’t care. Clan Reynard was long overdue for new leadership. Not only Louis but the elders as well. “Have it as you will. There is no need for us to discuss this further. I will apprise you all when the job is done.” Wim stood, nodded to the elders around the table, and left the room. He’d do what needed doing, but first . . .