Black Desire (2 page)

"Alright, Greg,
who is that man?"

Her cousin, Greg
Hammond, was owner of the Rusty Anchor Pub in the small village of Bennington
Bay, Nova Scotia.

"If you'd come
over, I could've introduced you. His name is Tristan Black. His family has been
here for hundreds of years."

Katrina let go of his
arm and sat in the seat Tristan had just vacated. The leather was surprisingly
cool. Greg set another glass of white wine in front of her.

"If you come
back tomorrow night, he'll be here again I'm sure. I'll introduce you. Though
it may be a waste of time seeing you are only here visiting for the summer and
Tristan, well, is Tristan."

Greg ran his hand
through his short blond hair, turned and left her to wait on another customer.
Katrina took a sip of the wine, which tasted crisp and sweet.

She looked around.
The woman this Tristan had danced with was still wandering around in a sexual
haze. Dear God.
Meet him?
Oh yes, she
would be back here tomorrow night. Never had she been so intrigued.

After finishing her
wine, Katrina made her exit. She returned to Greg's sprawling Cape Cod style
home and entered the guest room. She looked down at her hands. They were
trembling. Too much to drink? Hardly. Never had she had such a reaction to a
strange man before. She shook her head dismissively.

Her third floor guest
room was a good size and done in muted shades of green. A large queen size bed
with an ornate oak headboard was the centerpiece of the room. A large matching
wardrobe sat against the far wall and on the one opposite from her bed was a forty-six
inch LED television. She opened the double French doors that led onto a large
balcony to let a breeze flow through the room.
 
Katrina sat down at the nearby matching oak desk and flipped open her
laptop. Maybe some writing would help her forget the lust oozing from her every
pore. From Ontario and visiting her cousin Greg for the summer, all she wanted
to do was write, relax and sit on the beach. She had a deadline to meet, a
Regency romance on her publisher's desk in exactly five months so there was no
time to waste. Katrina reached for the tan leather scrunchie on the desk and
tied her long hair back from her face. Snapping open her glasses case next to
her laptop, she put on her frameless spectacles. Now to get seriously to work.
Research, she had to do research. However, tonight she mused
, I think I met my hero for the book.
Katrina cracked her knuckles noisily and typed.

"His metallic gray eyes were
large and deeply set, expressive in their guarded coolness. His hair was long,
a copper brown mahogany and thick, hanging far below his shoulders, giving him
a mysterious curtain to frame his sharply handsome features."

Tristan Black, all
the way. She had to meet him and sooner rather than later.

****

Tristan slammed his
foot on the accelerator of his black Mercedes SL Roadster convertible and drove
through the small village faster than he should have. The early summer breeze
caught his long hair and it rippled behind him. Tristan punched his music choices
into his Bose music system. Metallica's “The Memory Remains” blared over his
speakers, how appropriate. Where should he go now?
 
He took a deep intake of air through his
nostrils. Her scent was still there, the woman who sat in the darkened corner
of the pub, the woman who watched his every move since he walked in. Never had
he been so attuned to a woman's emotions. He’d sensed her intense observation
and reactions.
 
 
The sensual dance on the pub's marble floor?
He did it for her and her only. Not the nameless woman he danced with. Knowing
the woman in the dark corner was aroused stoked his lust even more. Even now
his cock was hard as stone. He needed sex and blood.
Tonight.

Tristan glanced at
the exit sign. Twenty-five kilometers and he would be in Halifax, the big city.
There he would find lots of action and plenty of opportunity to slake both his
urgent needs. Tristan was the rarest of the rare. He was a Dhampyre. His father
was a Vampire and his late mother was human.
 
Tristan was the first Dhampyre born since the 1500's.
 
His mother was descended from an ancient
bloodline that can procreate with Vampires, or so it was assumed. What other
explanation could there be? The proof, as they say, is in the tasting of the
pudding. Raynor Nightwood, another Vampire in the Blackthorne Clan, married
into Tristan's mother's bloodline and he also had children.
 
Dhampyres. So the bloodline it most certainly
was.

Tristan glanced up.
The exit for the 103 was ahead, the highway that headed straight into Halifax.
He smiled slyly. He could have stayed in the pub and eventually made his way to
her protective, dark corner and introduced himself.
 
Let her squirm and let her wonder. There was
always tomorrow night. All his senses screamed for was blood and sex. Now.

He wrenched the
steering wheel hard right and just made the exit ramp, leaving a trail of
rubber on the pavement. Gunning the accelerator, he headed into the city.

Chapter Two

The next night,
Tristan returned to the Rusty Anchor Pub. He usually did not visit the same
place two nights in a row but Greg was a friend. Plus, he was hopeful the
enticing woman who sat in the dark corner would be back tonight.
 

The Rusty Anchor was
formerly a ship chandlery back in the 1800's. Tristan smiled knowingly, as he
remembered when it was. The memories of the sharp tang of creosote, the pungent
odor of tar, the subtle smell of linseed oil, all overwhelmed by turpentine,
filled his mind. He closed his eyes. Ghostly voices surrounded him, men long
dead haggling over the prices of oakum, nails and tools. The sounds of steel
scrapers shaping wood, hand planes smoothing planking and the crunch of wood
chips under the workman's feet. How many times did he come here with his
father? He opened his eyes and looked to the ceiling. The original heavy timber
beams were still in place. Greg had tacked cardboard coasters from beer brands
from all over the world on the well-worn wood.

Outside of his own
clan Tristan had ties to one family, the Hammonds. Once close friends with
Sidney Hammond, he now was close friends with his great-grandson, Greg, who was
well aware of Tristan's life-state. The closely guarded secret was almost a
family badge of honor passed down through the Hammond generations.

The Hammonds owed
their personal wealth and prosperity to Tristan and his “family,” as did a lot
of people in Bennington Bay. Hence the reason most looked the other way.
The Blackthorne Clan's unspoken covenant with the village was they did not feed
off the locals. Greg's talent as an expert forger, passed down through the
generations, certainly came in handy. The clan often turned to the Hammonds
over the decades for much needed forged birth and death certificates.

Tristan inspected the
darkened recesses of the pub, ignoring the admiring and frank gazes from the
female patrons. He leaned his head back slightly and flared his nostrils. She
was not here. Her unique scent had stayed with him all last night and well into
today. It never left for a second, even as he took a woman against the wall
outside the service entrance of the techno dance club on Barrington Street.
Even while his cock and fangs were thrust into the nameless woman, he smelled
her
and thought only of
her
. She was not difficult to conjure up
in his mind even though it had been dark in her little corner.

He wanted her. She
stoked his senses as no other woman—in decades. He absently tapped the
cardboard coaster on the bar. Surely when he had her the fever and need would
pass.
 
Music began to play. Greg had
“decade's themes” and last night was the ‘80's. Tonight it was the ‘60's. Mick
Jagger began to warble, “Playing with Fire.” Was he playing with fire? His
heart had not been engaged at all with anyone, not since 1939. He glanced at
the door. She would be here and soon, he would bet money on it.

He heard the door
swing open—
she was here.
His head
whipped around to look at the front entrance. She had not seen him yet. Tristan
reached for his drink, stood and sank back into the shadows. He watched as she
walked toward Greg. He was having the reaction again. His insides roiled and
lurched madly. He closed his eyes and his long lashes feathered his cheekbones.
His nostrils flared and he breathed in her essence. God's mercy, she was
luscious, exotic and glorious. This was certainly a revelation. He had not been
ruffled like this in recent memory. Oh, he indulged in meaningless sex over the
years, unfamiliar women too numerous to count. But none touched him nor
elicited a reaction out of him beyond the physical—until now.

She laughed and talked
with Greg. How did she know him?
 
 
He wanted to inspect the woman who ensnared
his senses.
 
The lights above gave him a
clear contemplation. She stood 5’5”. And—his hooded eyes raked over her form—she
was not skinny or slender exactly but neither was she plump. He hated this
starved look women today seemed to go for, collarbones sticking out and spines
clearly visible. In his age, women were more voluptuous and curvy. He liked
something to grab onto and this woman had an abundant pair of tits. His mouth
watered. He imagined his hands filling themselves with her large breasts. They seemed
real enough but who could tell in this present age?
 
Her long and dark blonde hair had golden
highlights that shimmered under the lights. She had bluish, gray eyes with
flecks of gold, a small pert nose and under it full pink lips the color of a
carnation and he would bet just as soft.
 
She laughed some more.
 
Inhaling,
he smelled Elizabeth Arden “Sunflowers,” citrus soap, willow scented shampoo
and more.

Tristan's eyes burned
and his pulse quickened. Was it the “need”? The Blood Lust? Didn't he take care
of that last night? No, he did not want her blood. Not yet. The feeling was as
foreign as it was frightening. His hollowed cheeks worked feverishly. His eyes
shone with interest. The blood, thick and hot, roared through his arteries.

He listened to the
conversation. Her voice spoke of dark, sultry nights and whiskey and cigarettes
but was still very much feminine in its cadence. She also possessed a
sparkling, deep laugh.
 
She referred to Greg
as her cousin. Ah. Of course, the Hammonds had relatives in Upper Canada,
although no one in this century or the last referred to the Province of Ontario
as Upper Canada anymore.

He took one step out
of the shadow. He had to get closer to the woman who affected him so and awaked
emotions and reactions long buried. Tristan turned and gazed at her and a
red-hot poker was shoved through his heart and groin simultaneously. Blood
rushed to his cock, thickening and lengthening it as it strained behind the
zipper of his black jeans. He shuddered from the reaction.
No, this can't happen, not after all this time
.

He’d managed for the
past seventy years to allow no one to breach the wall he had built around
himself and his battered heart. He intended to keep the wall in place. Firmly.

However, he could not
stop his legs from walking toward Greg and the woman.

"Greg," Tristan's
deep gravel voice rasped. "Please introduce us."

"Tristan Black,
this is my cousin, Katrina Hammond. She is visiting from Scarborough, Ontario.
Katrina, this is my friend, Tristan."

Katrina smiled
pleasantly. "Mr. Black. Pleased to meet you."

Tristan stared at her
intensely, drank in her fresh beauty and savored the open and friendly way she
looked and spoke. She gazed at him frankly and did not flinch from his heated
gaze.

"The pleasure is
all mine, I assure you." Tristan said. "How long are you visiting
with Greg?"

"For the summer,
I think. I've actually come here to work. Or try to." Tristan cocked an
eyebrow quizzically. "I am a writer, Mr. Black. Down here to try and find
fresh inspiration and use the solitude to my advantage," Katrina said.

 
"A writer. Fascinating. Have I read
anything you've written?"

Katrina laughed. The
sound trickled down Tristan's spine straight to his already throbbing cock. He
fought back the reaction to no avail. Damn, her smoky, sexy voice was
astounding. How he wanted to hear that voice screaming his name out in passion
while she writhed under him or in front of him.

 
"I doubt it. I write romance novels. My
nom de plume is Cassie Derring. I have two novels published and I have to
deliver a third by the end of the year. My expertise is Historical Romances. I
have written two Victorians."

"Victorian."
Tristan smiled knowingly. "Yes, quite the interesting era."

Katrina crossed her arms.
Her large breasts moved together in a provocative manner. Tristan almost moaned
aloud.

"You're a lover
of history, Mr. Black?"

Tristan's gaze turned
intense. It would be easy to seduce her but he found he did not want to, not
yet. He was enjoying talking to her.