Love Bites (27 page)

Breathless, Verica stared up at the trio of hard, hungry faces above her, the strong, muscled bodies and rigid cocks. The eyes of all three men were locked unblinking on her virgin ass. Looking up between her legs at Julian’s sculpted torso and jutting prick, she swallowed hard as her own excitement rose. Being sodomized by that menacing organ would hurt like hell. What she didn’t understand was why she hungered for it.

Julian met her eyes and smiled slowly. Verica scanned his handsome warrior’s features and felt another jolt of excitement. There was a smear of her blood on the corner of his mouth. He licked it away with a flick of his tongue. “Ready to have your ass stuffed?”

She made herself sneer, hoping he couldn’t read her desire and feminine terror. “Get it over with, you son-of-a-bitch.”

Dominic laughed. “You have no sense of self-preservation, girl. Most women are more deferential to Julian—particularly when he’s in the mood for a slow, sadistic butt-fuck.”

Julian leaned over her to brace one hand on the bed as he used the other to aim his cock. “I just wonder how long she can maintain all that magnificent defiance.”

The thick rounded crown touched her opening. Licking her lips, Verica hoped she didn’t look as nervous as she felt.

The captain smiled mockingly into her eyes. “They usually start begging right about now.”

She snarled. “I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction, you . . . AH!” Verica managed to bite off the rest of the cry as the massive shaft began to slowly enter. Pain seared up her spine as her anus struggled to stretch around his thick, smooth width.

As she fought her whimpers, the three men observed her anal impalement with glittering eyes.

“You know, as many times as I’ve watched you do that, I never get tired of seeing it,” André said to Julian. “It’s hotter than hell, seeing you stuff a woman’s ass like that.”

But he wasn’t done yet. Still he came, working more and more of his cock into her channel. Verica writhed helplessly, but she couldn’t get away from the deep, brutal sensation.

“Give her your mouth, André,” Julian growled, watching her expression. “She needs to relax.”

Dominic pulled her feet further back to give the dark vampire room, and he moved over her until he stretched his head down along her body.

Then André began to lick. The luscious pleasure of his long tongue dancing over her clit provided a sweet counterpoint to the massive pain of Julian’s invasion.

At last the captain stopped. Buried inside her to the balls, he waited as André stroked and nibbled and sucked at her sex. Despite the pain radiating from her violated ass, the dark vampire’s mouth spun such pleasure over her cunt Verica couldn’t help squirming.

Helplessly, she looked up into Julian’s black eyes. They glittered with masculine satisfaction at possessing her so utterly.

As André’s tongue flicked her clit, she realized Julian’s cock in her ass made the pleasure even more exciting. The combination of pain and delight burned her senses. She sucked in a deep breath.

Slowly, Julian began to withdraw. The feeling of his shaft sliding out of her carried a dark, wicked enticement. She whimpered. He smiled into her eyes and pushed in again. “That’s right, relax. Open. It’s starting to feel good, isn’t it? I knew you’d like it once you got past the worst.”

Julian eased out again, then in, riding her slowly in long, careful strokes that twisted and teased her most delicate inner flesh as André’s clever mouth drew hot runes of delight around her clit.

Later she was never able to pinpoint the moment when Julian’s use of her anus became searing pleasure instead of searing pain. All she knew was that suddenly she was thrusting up against him, taking the big rod deeper, fucking it with her ass. Focused on the sensation of his cock, on the way it teased and pleasured her, she barely noticed that André had left her pussy or that Dominic had released her ankles so that her thighs now lay over Julian’s massive shoulders.

André’s dark hand slipped under her chin, tilting her head back. His lips touched one side of her throat as Dominic licked the skin on the other.

Julian drove his cock in hard in a single, brutal stroke. She convulsed, screaming, kicked over the edge of climax. Simultaneously, she felt a double-pronged stab of pain on either side of her throat as André and Dominic bit deep.

Verica’s wide eyes met Julian’s as he came down fully on top of her, ramming her ass as his shipmates drank her blood. The conqueror’s enjoyment in his eyes sent her orgasm cresting even higher, a white-hot wall of sensation that slammed over her mind in a wave.

“You’re mine now, Verica,” he growled at her, fucking hard, his sweat splattering her face. “I own you, whether you know it or not.”

The pleasure spiraled higher, blinding, until she keened, André and Dominic still feeding, Julian possessing her. Light flared in her skull and it seemed she touched him, touched his mind, felt his immortality and his power and his predatory intentions. And a surprising yearning, as if she was something he’d been looking for and had finally found. Somehow he drew her mind to him, closer and closer, until she felt she knew him as she’d never known another human. Wonder worked its way through the pleasure . . .

Just as everything went black.

*   *   *

J
ulian studied Verica as she lay sleeping under the regenerator in the
Nosferatu
’s
small sickbay. Her color was better, improved since the unit had forced her depleted blood cells to regenerate over the past half hour. He let his eyes roam over her tender nudity, admiring the long, strong legs, the sweet creamy mounds of her breasts, the tumble of dark gold curls around her head. In sleep, her face lost its hard, stubborn lines, taking on a tempting sweetness that made his protective instincts rear.

When André and Dominic wandered in from tending the ship, he curled his lip in a snarl at them. “Her blood volume is back to normal—not that either of you will be getting any of it any time soon.”

André ducked one shoulder guiltily. “Sorry, Captain. It had just been a little too long.”

Dominic glowered. “I don’t see what the problem is. Ten minutes in regen, and she’s fine.”

Julian let the blond feel the full weight of his disapproval. “The problem is that I told you how much I wanted you to take, and you did not muster the self-control to obey my orders.”

He kept his voice soft, controlled, but Dominic flinched and bowed. “You are, of course, correct. Forgive my greed, milord.”

That last “milord” was not mockery. A thousand years ago, Dominic had been his vassal—until a beautiful vampire had made Julian something more than mortal. And he, in turn, had changed his loyal knight.

Dominic straightened his shoulders. “So. When will she be out of regen?”

“She already is.”

André blinked. “But I thought you were going to put her through the procedure.”

“Not yet.”

“Aren’t we going to keep her?” Dominic frowned.” From what you said to her . . .”

Julian made a dismissive gesture. “Regardless of my comments in the heat of the moment, the final choice is hers.”

“But you fully intend to help her make up her mind,” André guessed shrewdly.

Julian looked down at their sleeping captive. “Oh, yes.”

“Good. I like her.” André studied Verica, his gaze lingering on her breasts. “She’s got guts and heart. Not to mention a truly outstanding mouth.”

“And her ass isn’t bad either, huh, Julian?” Dominic grinned wickedly. “I can’t wait to try it myself.”

Julian frowned, surprised at his sudden urge to flip a sheet over that sweetly naked body; he had never felt possessive about a woman before. “If she does agree, I don’t want you getting rough with her.”

The blond’s eyebrows flew up. It was obvious what he was thinking; Julian himself had gotten pretty rough. But Dominic said nothing; they’d been together so many centuries, he knew when his commander was in no mood for an argument.

“Which reminds me,” Julian said to André, “if I didn’t know better, I’d think you were beginning to believe that sadistic Jamaican mistress scam yourself.”

André’s grin was unrepentant. “Well, it’s such a good story—and the ladies love it so. Even the ones who have no idea what I’m talking about.” He’d been a twentieth-century American college professor when Julian met him and realized he was one of the few that could survive the process of becoming a vampire. Slavery had never been part of the equation at all.

Dominic braced his hands on the foot of the regen bed as he looked at Verica. “You know, Julian, despite that delicious submissive streak, she’s going to object to this, if only on general principles.”

“Oh, yes.” Julian’s eyes flicked to the soft blonde bush between her thighs. “But I’ve got a couple of ideas about that.”

*   *   *

V
erica woke with that familiar sense of energy and well-being that meant she’d just spent time in a regenerator. She suspected she’d otherwise be rather sore. Not to mention weak from blood loss.

She stretched lazily and almost purred at the sensation of neosilk sheets against her skin. Opening her eyes, she found herself back in the quarters the vampires had first taken her to. She’d decided earlier it was the captain’s stateroom, judging from its size and the huge bed she sprawled across. Rank, she knew, had its privileges.

Realizing she was naked, Verica wondered if she was one of them. She really wished she could be more outraged at the thought. Yet there was something about Julian Bender that got to her in a way the others hadn’t. Remembering the look in his eyes when he’d entered her, she shivered.
“You’re mine now, Verica. I own you, whether you know it or not.”

Had he meant that?

Not that it mattered, she told herself staunchly. She belonged to nobody but herself, and she’d tell him so the next chance she got.

The question was, what was she going to do after they released her?

With her T’tcha Ker family dead, she had no home and no money. She supposed she could try to get on with a merc unit, but the fact that everyone in her old unit was dead hardly constituted a sterling reference.

That, of course, assumed the vampires didn’t kill her now that they were through with her.
If
they were through with her.

Verica examined the thought and realized she wasn’t really worried about it. Somehow she didn’t think Julian would hurt her. There’d been a moment when she’d come that he’d . . . touched her mind somehow. She had a sense of him now, of what and who he was. Immensely old, yes, so old and so powerful she’d known a moment’s raw fear.

But he was also vulnerable. Lonely, despite the shipmates whose friendship he’d shared for all these centuries. And most astonishing of all, he actually needed what she could give. Sex, yes, but something more than that, something she sensed he’d been seeking for a very long time.

She’d been a responsibility to her father and considered one of the T’tcha Ker’s immense family, but none of them had ever
needed
her with that kind of raw intensity.

Verica frowned. Such need was seductive, but that didn’t mean she should let it make a difference to her. True, the pleasure the vampires had given her was so intense she doubted she’d ever find the like again. But they also hadn’t given her a choice—they’d simply taken her, though she hadn’t been willing. Not completely unwilling, either, but still, it had been damned high-handed of them.

“I can be a lot more high-handed than that.”

Verica jumped, startled. Julian stood leaning against the doorway; he’d entered so quietly she hadn’t heard him. He was dressed in black trousers and boots, but his broad chest was magnificently bare.

Internal female sensors began jangling in her brain at the sight of him as he strolled toward the foot of the bed. She instantly suspected the effect was intentional. Forcing herself to assume a dry, amused tone, she said, “Yeah, I noticed that when you shoved your dick up my ass.”

He grinned, his teeth flashing white. “And a very nice ass it is, too.” The smile faded. “We don’t plan to release you, Verica.”

She went still. “You can’t keep me.”

“Can’t we?”

Her mouth went cotton-dry. “You’re pretty formidable, but I’m not bad myself. I’ll find a way to escape.”

He lifted a dark eyebrow. “I don’t doubt it. But it won’t be easy, and by the time you do, are you sure you’ll want to leave?”

She lifted her chin. “As you may have noticed, I’m stubborn.”

“So am I.” He braced both arms against the bed’s footboard and leaned his weight on them. The pose made the muscle ripple and flex. She knew good and damn well that was intentional too. “Have you noticed that your options at the moment aren’t exactly overwhelming, even if we do let you leave? You have no money and no place to go.”

She wanted to pace, but somehow she didn’t want to do it naked. “A mercenary can always get work.”

“An experienced one, yes. Trouble is, all your experience has been with an alien unit that has been rather thoroughly wiped out. Any merc captain is going to wonder just what role you did—or didn’t—play in your comrades’ demise.” She wondered whether he’d read her mind yet again. “I, on the other hand, am willing to make you a member of the crew and pay you accordingly. How about . . .” He named a figure that made her eyes widen. “I doubt you’ll get a better offer.”

“But would I be shipping out as crew or provisions?”

He laughed, but heat sparked in his eyes. “Both.”

Verica lifted her chin at him. “That’s very kind, but my career aspirations don’t include becoming a human buffet for a trio of vampires.”

“You’re more than blood to me, Verica.” His voice made her heart skip—low, intimate, sensual. She cursed herself, knowing her utter lack of adult experience with men was working against her.

She shook off his spell. “I’m not the first woman you’ve captured and fucked. Did you make this offer to them, and if so, where the hell are they now?”

He straightened, the muscle in his chest shifting temptingly. She wished he’d stop doing that. “No, you’re not our first captive, but I’ve never made this offer before. We always drop them off at a spaceport with enough money to get wherever they’re going.”