Follow The Night (Bewitch The Dark) (16 page)

With a snap of his head, he bent double. Staring at his bare feet, he grimaced as a streak of pain ripped through his gut and shot up his spine. He tumbled forward, landing on his hands and knees. Huffing to dispel the sudden shriek of rage that danced upon his spine, he gasped against the dryness in his mouth. Crawling on all fours he gripped the edge of the bed and pulled himself up.

Was this it? Had he stupidly succumbed?

The silver water pitcher on the bedside table was empty. He slashed a hand over the table, upsetting the crystal goblet so it landed on the floor with a spectacular crash.

Crawling forward, he scented the minion’s blood still locked within the floor boards and anticipated the taste of—of what? Darkness, sin and passion.

Just a little kiss
…

Another wave of pain doubled him. Something inside of him shouted, clamoring to rise and float upon the surface of these sudden dark desires.

Resist.

Dragging himself up by the bedpost, he staggered to the door. He needed something to drink, something to quell the hunger that dried his throat and made his heart pound.

Take the blood.

Guttered candles oozed over the silver sconces. Eerie shapes of light moved across the mirrors. Toussaint slept below next to the kitchen in a cozy room far too small for the man. As much as Gabriel insisted he take a room on the upper level, the valet refused.

Running his hands across the smooth, cool mirrors, he navigated the darkness.

It was madness that he so needed a drink.

Needed
to
drink…

He straightened and pressed his bare back to the mirrored wall. Perspiration ran in zigzagging rivulets down his stomach.

What did he want? What did he need?

Blood
.

Twisting his head to fight the inner cries, he banged his skull against the mirror. Refocus the pain. Don’t think of the visceral desires grasping for relief. It was not the madness!

The door across the hall swung open and out popped Roxane’s head. Illuminated from behind by a beam of moonlight she appeared a goddess, all
fraises et al crème
and palest skin. The darkness would not allow colors but he could verily taste the icy forest in her eyes.

“Gabriel?” She stepped into the hallway. One of his long damask night robes swaddled her shoulders and lithe body. With each step her white chemise slipped in and out of the opening. “What is it?”

When she touched his face he flinched. Seizing her wrist, he pulled her to his body. “Kiss me,” he growled. “Quench my thirst.”

She didn’t twist from his grip, but instead answered his demand for her taste, her mouth, her tongue. So she desired as well. Wicked libertine disguised in virginal white, so demanding corruption.

He drew aside the robe openings and slid a hand over the crisp Holland chemise. Sliding his mouth down her jaw and to her neck, he found the thick vein pulsed madly. Another tease, always a tease.

“Let me feel you. Smell you.” A deep inhale coated his senses with rosemary. “The hunger demands satisfaction. I crave sensation, the sensual, your scent—
mon Dieu
—it makes me mad.”

“Don’t say that,” she whispered.

“Mad for you,” he reassured. “You’ve the scent of the oranges from the theatre on your flesh. Your hands.” He licked her palm and reveled in her tiny moan. Not a sound of fear, but of want. “Your throat pulses in salty waves.” He slicked his tongue across her throat, over the vein where he forced himself not to pause, to wonder. If he could focus his attention on the woman, the very essence of her, he could overcome the urge to taste darkness on his tongue.

The mirrors amplified their shadowed liaison as he pinned her to the wall outside her open chamber door. He lifted the chemise to her hips and curled his hand toward her mons, which caused her to clamp her thighs to him.

“Gabriel!”

“Don’t tell me no.” The nest of her curls tickled his wrist. Heat seeped from her body. “Please. I need you, Roxane. I want you.”

She gasped as he manipulated a finger into her hot, womanly folds.
Drown here. Bury yourself in her passion, her untapped desire.

“Oh. What are you doing? Gabriel?”

“Giving you pleasure. Taking my own.” He bowed his head and kissed her breasts through the white fabric, all while manipulating that delicious jewel of womanhood that promised maddeningly erotic delights. “Don’t ask me to stop.”

Take the blood!

“Whatever happens, remember that, Gabriel. You cannot drink my blood. Do you promise me?”

“Promises are passé.”

“Please!” She gripped his shoulder, steadying herself against his machinations. A slide of his finger deep within her stirred an unbidden whimper from her lips. “You must not.”

He lifted her in his arms and strode into her bedchamber, laying her across the bed. She stretched out across the striped counterpane. Tresses spilled across her décolletage. Illuminated by the moonlight, the white chemise barely covered her mons. Wickedly, she pulled it high to her stomach. He slid a finger into her, working an alchemist’s move that promised transformation. Her body reacted by surging up toward him. Her slender legs spread and her knees bent.

“I think we’ll dispense with the virginity dilemma this night. What say you?” He flicked out his tongue and touched the pinnacle of her moist folds.

Wakened by the brightness of morning, Gabriel rolled over and slid his hand to cup the heavy sphere of Roxane’s breast. Her nipple hardened as he teased the ruched raspberry morsel. He sucked it into his mouth. Tender ridges hardened against his tongue. The female breast was an exquisite thing, soft, full and tempting, so changing and always touchable. It was a nice thing to place in one’s mouth, to lick, to suckle, to nip. He could play with it endlessly and never become bored.

He blew a hot breath across her breasts and admired the fullness, the beauty of her—
mon Dieu
, but there was a mark between the curves of her breasts. He touched the design. Barely raised, the flesh, like a bruise but not so angry.

Her eyes still closed, Roxane was unaware of his observations as she stretched out a leg and wrapped it across his thighs. “Make love to me again, Gabriel.”

This discovery made him uneasy. Should he question? Surely she was not averse to explaining when she lay so exposed before him?

“Lover?”

Perhaps later he would ask. For his thickening cock did not plead for conversation. “I’ll have you know that morning usually brings my quick escape from a woman’s bed. I find myself in a quandary. How to escape my own house?”

Roxane strolled her fingers down his back, igniting his every sensory reaction. “When I am naked and you are lying next to me I wish only your worship.”

“Indeed, she has become a wanton. Your wish is my command, mistress. Do you like this?” He lashed his tongue between her legs.

She moaned with delight, and he returned to feeding his appetite. But this morn was very different than last night. Then he had been trying to quench a different kind of ache. This day, he hungered only for more, more, and more of Roxane Desrues.

Good things so often must end. When Gabriel finally rolled from bed and excused himself to tend a business meeting—creditors to attend—Roxane lingered, trailing her fingers across the cooling sheets where moments earlier he had lain. Turning her head aside she breathed in the aroma of their coupling.

She had made love to the vicomte Gabriel Renan.

Drawing a finger along her thigh she realized the ache between her legs was not simple exhaustion. He had pushed inside of her and claimed her as his own. They had been one. Memory of him above her revisited the heady thrill of orgasm. Her nipples hardened and she spread a hand up her stomach and between her breasts—

After dressing and combing her hair into soft waves, Roxane strolled in to the music room where Toussaint worked on an assortment of items spread out on the floor. He pointed out a porcelain cup on the table, likely placed there in anticipation of her arrival.

Roxane settled in the arm chair and sipped. The warm chocolate was pleasant but a dull comparison to the taste of her lover’s kisses. Despite her realization that Gabriel could very well have seen her fire-forged mark, she couldn’t get too upset because memory of him, deep inside her body, chased away worry. The image of their embrace throughout the night tingled at her core, and reignited a tiny hum in her mons.

Brazen
, she admonished inwardly.
Do not let the valet wonder about your thoughts.

She observed Toussaint sort through various items he’d lain on the floor before the curvy red velvet divan that sat opposite the piano at the edge of a vast rug. Amorous thoughts of last night fizzled at sight of the inventory.

A massive net, which she could only imagine was used for netting fish—did they throw nets on the Seine? A small iron cross impressed with a fleur de lys, a white linen, which Toussaint sniffed, then with an approving nod folded neatly. The braid of dried garlic gave away his plans.

Did he actually think to repel the vampire? Or to fight him off?

Setting down the cup of chocolate, she knelt on the carpet over Toussaint’s cache. No one must interfere. It was imperative that
she
capture Anjou. Alive. “I thought I was the one hunting the vampire?”

She had heard of the charlatan. What could a man who claimed to cure people with magnetism know about vampires? She glanced over Toussaint’s array. Apparently, quite a bit.