Devil at Midnight (23 page)

Nim Wei had observed too much of human predilections to believe the chance of that was anything but slim. Many mortals were flexible in their desires, but she did not think Philippe was among them. Since it served her purpose to let him fool himself, she stood up and smiled gently, briefly, into each of the lifted faces in her audience.

“I can see some of you are tired,” she said, her words sufficient to provoke yawns. “Perhaps I have played enough music for one night.”

The mutters of protest were halfhearted. Nim Wei held her lute by the neck and bowed. “Gentlemen, you have my thanks.”

She slipped silently away from the fire, an ability inherent to the most powerful
upyr
. Her feet did not crackle among the weeds, nor her infrequent breath fog the chilly air. To her ears, the footfalls that followed her were as loud as arquebuses firing iron balls. They were not, however, as dangerous.

Philippe was coming after her to her tent. She did not need to turn to be sure. The turbulence of his and the others’ thoughts made it obvious.

W
ith his garments scattered around his feet on her sea of colorful silk pillows, Nim Wei’s partner for the evening was becomingly vulnerable. His arms hung by his naked sides, where she had ordered them to stay. Periodically, his fingers curled into his palms, struggling against the urge to fist the throb and ache of his hugely erect member.

From his mind, she read how often his situation with his secret lover had forced him to resort to that method for relief.

Not tonight, though. Tonight she had forbidden him to touch himself. As a result, his unruly soldier was deeply pink and frustrated. He must have had occasion to work outdoors in his underclothes. His shaft rose from a strip of paleness where his braies had protected him. By contrast, the sun had kissed the rest of him golden brown—a phenomena she never failed to find exotic. Her kind did not bake themselves. At best, the poisonous effects of sunshine inebriated them. At worst, the result was incineration.

Nim Wei was seeking a different sort of fire tonight.

Although Philippe’s coloring entertained her, she was pleased to see few scars marred his mortal beauty: a puckered knife wound on his left thigh, a whip stripe on his right buttock—the latter probably thanks to Gregori’s discipline. More marks would have been a shame, as would an overplus of hairiness. Nim Wei liked to see the morsels she had chosen. Philippe’s muscles could have been sculpted by an artist’s chisel, their strength and conformation marvelously pronounced.

She circled her unexpected treasure, enjoying the visual feast but also aware of how little of the night remained. She had more resilience than most
upyr
. She did not positively have to slumber when dawn broke, but the urge to do so was very strong.

Best not to waste the darkness eating him with her eyes.

Perhaps Philippe thought so, too.

“What do you wish of me?” he asked huskily. He wet his lips—part lust, part anxiety. Though his prick stood high enough to shudder with eagerness, he truly did not know what to do with her. When it came to women, he was virginal.

She touched his thickly muscled arm, delighted to inspire a shiver of pleasure. She waited to answer until he opened his eyes again. Then she stared into his smoke-colored irises.

“I want you to desire me. I want you to take me swiftly and with great force. I will show you what to do, and you will adore it. Once you have come, if I tell you I wish it, you will want to start over just as much as before. I will warn you when the last time must be. No matter how much pleasure you have experienced, you will crave that climax the most. Achieving it will feel like reaching paradise. It will satisfy you as nothing has in your life.”

Philippe took to her thrall like a duck to water. His eyes were starry, his pupils huge. A sound of pain came from his throat when he tried to speak. Each word she uttered had impelled his arousal a measure higher, until clear drops of excitement squeezed from his tip to roll over his corona. He swallowed and tried again.

“I want that,” he said in a ragged voice. “I want to take you like that, but—”

“But?” she prompted, her eyebrows flicking up in surprise.

“Please do not ask me to kiss you.”

She could have forced him to want that, too, but it seemed childish. Let him save that intimacy for his lover, if it soothed his sense of loyalty. She drew the back of her left hand’s fingers up the brown column of his throat. She knew her skin was cooler than he was used to. Her normal temperature was lower than a human’s, at least until her arousal was at full sail. Philippe’s jugular throbbed hard and quick at the place she stopped.

How it had amused her to hear Christian pondering why his friends stroked their necks! An
upyr
’s bite was indeed a sexual act, strongly—and irresistibly—orgasmic for both parties. Had Philippe known this, he would not have worried about his performance, even in the face of her worldliness.

She could have reassured him, but she enjoyed the way he watched her like a sparrow stalked by a cat. Since his nervousness did not lessen his arousal, she could not repent causing it. She was a predator, after all.

Why wouldn’t she like having prey who both dreaded and desired her pounce?

“I will only kiss you here,” she said, her knuckles caressing his racing pulse. “Not on your mouth. And I swear to you, my kiss will be the sweetest you ever felt.”

He groaned at the unfulfilled promise of her words. “Must I stand frozen here forever?”

“You will not try to touch yourself if I let you move? You will allow my body to be the sole source of your release?”

“Yes,” he moaned. “Please.”

“Very well,” she said. “I give you permission to begin our congress now.”

Her words snapped the chain that held him. He fell on her like a Viking, his weight dragging her ungracefully to the floor. The cushions that broke their plummet were firm and rectangular, ideal for copulating on. She doubted Philippe noticed. He was too busy yanking her hose down her legs. They were made in the newer fashion, sewn together at front and back. Beneath them, per her current preference, her pubis was as bare as a young maiden’s.

No arcane unguent had done this, only her upyr power. Exquisite though her body naturally was, she could play with its characteristics in subtle ways.

“So smooth,” he said, palming her mound in fascination. “So white.”

She surmised that her flesh was glowing; her glamour had a tendency to fray when she was aroused. Not that its marble glister mattered now. Philippe was firmly under her spell, and she could thrall any inappropriate memories from him later—just as she could order him not to resent her coupling with other men. She did not care that he was uninterested in stripping her further. His knees worked between hers, wedging hers apart eagerly. Her body heat increased at the evidence of his excitement, however involuntary it might be. That excitement was no less potent for being artificially induced. Supported on one elbow, Philippe gripped his stiffened prick and steered it, bumping her but not going in.

He gasped with pleasure at even that awkward touch.

“Here,” she said, reaching down for him. “Allow me.”

The instant she had him placed, he plunged in.

“Christ’s blood,” he swore at the relief of finally having heat and tightness around his cock. “Lord help me, I must do that again.”

If the Lord was going to help him, Nim Wei would attend church.

True to her instruction, Philippe took her swiftly and with great force. Nothing lacked in the fervency of his thrusts. Sensation was sensation and, stripped of his personal inhibitions, he could not help but enjoy her snug clasp on him. Her strength intensified the friction, her control of muscles mortal women barely knew they had. His desperate grunts as he shoved through her internal grip were music, his speed impressive for a human. The only skill he fell short on was knowing how far back he could pull. He was bucking in and out so wildly, Nim Wei had to hold his hips to keep him secure.

His wildness took another toll. They had not been driving at each other long before he lost his hold on his lust. A sudden pressure in his balls filled him with alarm. His peak was rising sooner than he expected and much more powerfully. He feared he was going to make a fool of himself.

“Christ,” he cried, unable to stop it. “Oh, sweet Lord...”

He gasped for air and stiffened, his hips locked deep as his body clenched with his orgasm. His hot human energy flooded into her along with his seed, triggering an echo of his ecstasy in her. All signs indicated his climax was ferocious. Nim Wei noticed his eyes were actually rolling back.

He must have been longing for this sort of total abandonment. It took some time for his spine to go slack again.

“Saints above,” he panted, sagging down on her. “That was wondrous.”

She stroked his laudably muscled back while he regained his strength. Thanks to the backwash of his pleasure, her fangs were fully extended within her mouth, her hunger not intolerable but rising. Fortunately, she did not think he would keep her waiting long for another round. After a bit of heavy breathing, his hands found her hips and squeezed. His cock twitched inside her, beginning to thicken as his fingers pushed a little shyly beneath the smooth, taut muscles of her bottom.

Nim Wei was not about to discourage his initiative. She could tell he especially admired this part of her. He was thinking that her skin was velvet, that her buttocks were deliciously small and firm. Guessing exactly why he might like this, she laughed silently to herself.

Even when one’s partner was bewitched, one could benefit from being built like a boy.

“Would you like to take me from behind?” she asked.

The twitch inside her passage became a thump, as if his member were kicking her.

“Yes,” she said, plucking the hope from his thoughts. “I
do
mean from behind in the ass.”

“Could I?” he breathed, an innocent being offered his heart’s desire. “Would you order me to do that?”

“I might want to hold your arm while you did it. I might want to ... kiss you there.”

“Whatever you wish,” he said without hesitation. “Anything to experience those heights again.”

The queen in her could not let him have his way at once. She ran her tongue around her sharp eyeteeth. “I want you to yearn for this intensely.”

“I do. I swear.”

“Enough to do it just as hard as before?”

“Harder,” he promised roughly, his face abashed. “My balls are aching. I want to stuff myself in you there.”

“You could not hurt me,” she told him, divining at least one source of his shame. “No matter how hard you went. I am stronger than you can imagine.”

He had pulled himself from her queinte in preparation, his erection pulsing thick and hot and wet on her inner thigh. His heart beat so hard to pump blood to this lower organ that the entire surface of his body shook. His prick had been large before, but now it looked positively bloated. The shaft was much broader than the glans, as if his member had been designed to facilitate this precise entry. Nim Wei curled her hand over the uppermost portion of his penis, enclosing those tapering inches in her slim white fingers.

Philippe closed his eyes in erotic pain, the delicate folds around his lids puckering. He liked the clasp of her slender hand, mute reminder of the girl he had once desired. This, however, was not the only complicated thrill pushing him.

“I would like to use all my strength on you,” he confessed. “To fuck you so hard that both of us long to scream.” His voice sank low with embarrassment. “I have never dared to truly let loose before.”

Oh, he was enchanting, his admission more than she had compelled from him.

“I would allow it,” she conceded, gracious ruler that she was. Her lover jerked, ready to commence then and there. She held his chest off with the flat of her palm. Afraid he had miscalculated, his pretty eyes locked onto hers anxiously. He had no idea how easy he was making it to thrall him. “I would allow your dearest wish more than once, Philippe. In fact, if you like, I would allow you to pretend I am someone else.”

Her permission let a tiger out of its cage. His face flushed red an instant before he hauled her up and maneuvered her onto all fours.

Here was the confidence he had been missing. Here was the dominance. All she could do was ride out his frenzy; he was beyond controlling as he took her in the place of his male lover. His groan of entry did not have time to fade before it turned into grunts of force. She was fortunate she enjoyed this act, and that he was built for it, because he went at it wholeheartedly. Though he did not regard the sensitive places a mortal female would wish him to, he was skilled, each surging thrust finding other, highly pleasurable tingling spots.
Upyr
bodies were designed to make the most of any stimulation. Nim Wei’s fangs soon throbbed in their sockets, and she could not help but think Matthaus a lucky man. When Philippe’s breath began to whine from him in warning of another impending peak, she knew she wanted to go with him.