Possession-Blood Ties 2 (19 page)

“Klimt.”

The rough voice startled me. I turned toward the source of it, a short, generously curved woman with long, springy gray curls cascading over her shoulders.

“Yes, I know,” I said, recovering quickly from my fright. “It’s not the original, is it?”

“You’re damn straight it is.” I couldn’t tell if she was upset by my question or enthusiastic about her property.

Smiling, I sought to correct my faux pas. “My old sire owned a lot of art, but it was all fake, so I find pretty much anything suspect.”

“Oh, shit, honey, I don’t care.” The woman came to stand beside me, pulling a pack of cigarettes from the sleeve of her flowing caftan. “If it was fake, I’d tell you.”

“I didn’t want to offend.” Though my apology probably did offend her. Something in her body language suggested she lived within a “no bullshit” zone. The woman’s eyes lit up with a spark of amusement. “Did I hear you right? Did you say,

‘old sire’?”

That was a stupid mistake. “I didn’t catch your name.”

A knowing smile crinkled the corners of her eyes. “Because I didn’t give it. I’m March. I’m what you’d call the ‘pimp’ around here, but we say ‘madam’ because it’s more genteel sounding. Don’t worry about your little slip. I like secrets, so long as they don’t drag trouble onto my property.”

I cleared my throat and glanced at the high, arched ceiling. “Your house is beautiful.”

“Thank you. But you didn’t come here to look at the house.” She crooked her finger as she backed to the doors. “Are we on liquid lunch today, or just here for some fun?”

“I need blood.” I spread my hands helplessly. “Whatever you’d call that.”

“I’d call it your lucky day.” With a goofy flourish, March pushed open the doors to my left.

I might have envisioned the decor wrong, but I’d been right on the money about the prostitutes. Everywhere I looked, gorgeous men draped themselves over ultramasculine leather furniture. My eyes boggled at the variety. Dark, fair, long-haired or neatly trimmed, some with androgynous bodies, some overly muscled.

“Take your pick,” March said proudly. “These are the feeders.”

“Um…” I gestured to the foyer, where the butler stood with my bag. One of Nathan’s many, stringent rules was “always be prepared.” In my bag I had all the necessities for harvesting blood from a willing donor. I don’t know how I’d planned to find one in case I needed to, but I was definitely prepared.

“I’m not what you would call…traditional,” I told March. Chewing my lip, I scanned each of the men.

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The madam laughed. “There’s nothing you can do to shock them.”

“No, I mean, I don’t bite.” I stepped forward and cleared my throat. Many pairs of curious male eyes turned to me. “I’m looking for someone who’s not afraid of needles.”

There was a noticeable shift in the energy of the room. Some of the men looked away, as if they’d become suddenly interested in the walls. The rest looked worried or amused, or a combination of both.

“Nothing kinky,” I assured them. “I just need blood.”

“Why not bite us?” a tall, thin man with model looks asked.

“Excuse me?” March placed her hands on her hips and raked an angry glare over the men.

“Do I pay you to question my customers?”

A few of them offered a grudging, “No.”

“I can’t hear you,” March insisted, raising her hand to her ear. One voice rose above the chorus of resulting answers. “I’ll do it.”

When I found the source of the voice, my stomach leaped into my throat. When I’d said,

“Nothing kinky,” I may have lied. The guy was gorgeous, with long blond hair and a tan that would make Icarus weep with jealousy. He was shirtless, and his faded jeans rode low on his hips.

My mouth suddenly dry, I gestured for him to come closer. “What’s your blood type?”

He laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No. I’ve been doing some research,” I explained, feeling like a hopeless dork. Then I wondered why I cared if some random male prostitute thought I was a nerd. Wiping my suddenly damp palms on my jeans, I continued. “Vampires are able to metabolize the blood they drink more efficiently if the donor’s type matches their own, prevampire type. By metabolize, I mean—”

“I know what metabolize means,” he said with a kneecap-melting smile. “I’m O positive. Universal donor.”

“I think you two will get along just fine,” March announced, stepping forward to loop an arm around the man’s broad shoulders, despite the fact there was a good foot difference in their heights. “Unfortunately, we need to discuss the vagaries of payment and restrictions. Shall we do that in private?”

“Why not?” I followed March and the demigod into the foyer, where I stopped. “I just need my bag.”

The butler was disinclined to release it. “After I search it, madam. Then I will bring it to your room posthaste.”

March winked at me. “It’s a technicality. We’ve had some interesting guests here, haven’t we, Evan?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Evan? He looked more like a…Tarzan, to me.

I followed them up the stairs. March took her time, filling me in on the history of the place. “This house was left to me by my late husband, Edgar, God rest his soul. I lived in it from the time we were married until I moved it here in 1973.”

At the top of the landing, she touched the wall lovingly. “I had it shipped from Massachusetts in bricks and reassembled here, then did some updating and remodeling. Of course, Edgar would roll in his grave if he knew what I was doing with it. Bless him, he never did have much enthusiasm for heterosexual sex.” She sighed and indicated a hallway

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to the right. “I’ll put you down here.”

Even Cyrus’s mansion, grand as it had been, didn’t rival the sprawling splendor of this house. We stopped at the seventh door on the left—at least I thought it was seven, I might have lost count—and March pulled a tiny gold key from her sleeve.

“There are twenty-nine legal, licensed brothels in Nevada, and we’re the only one that caters to vampires. There are automatic steel shutters in every room, and I do mean every room, of this house, to keep the sun out. There’s also an on-duty physician, in case your session gets a little out of hand.”

“I am a physician,” I said, feeling the familiar sting to my pride as an inner voice taunted, You mean you used to be.

March seemed impressed with this declaration, and I felt we were somehow kindred spirits. We were both professional women, struggling to get by in a man’s world. Then again, prostitution was pretty much a girls’ club. The spark of admiration left her eyes and she waved her hand. “In any case, I don’t want it to go that far. You seem like a nice girl. I don’t want to have to put you on my shit list, you hear?”

“Don’t worry about it.” I gave Evan a once-over. Vampires might be stronger than humans, but I was betting Evan had a good fifty pounds of rock-hard muscle on me. He looked as though he could easily snap my neck, and she was concerned for his safety?

“What about money? You said we needed to cover payment.”

“I can get it from you at dusk. The standard room rate is two hundred dollars a day. You have to work out the service prices with Evan.” March pushed open the door, revealing a room so stunning it could have been on the cover of a furniture catalog. In the center, on a raised dais, sat an ultramodern four-poster bed enameled in sleek black. The bedding matched the spotless white of the carpet, which was broken at intervals by black leather armchairs and gleaming ebony end tables. The only color in the room was supplied by a vase of bright pink tulips on the nightstand.

Good thing I’ve got some wiggle room in my budget.

“And one last thing,” she said as Evan and I stepped across the threshold. “You might be immortal, but they’re not. All my guys have to use protection, no if, ands or buts. Got it?”

“Oh, we won’t be having—” The gentle, yet oddly pointed closing of the door cut me off.

“We won’t?” The demigod—Evan—actually sounded disappointed. His body heat crept into me as he stepped forward, his hard chest brushing against my back. I turned to face him. “Don’t you ever want a night off?”

A deliciously wicked smile crossed his face. “Not usually, no.”

In that heart-stopping moment, he reminded me so much of Cyrus, I couldn’t breathe. Oh, he was much more powerfully built than my former sire had been, and definitely more tan. Cyrus had been lean and pale, his hair lighter than Evan’s, nearly white. But the vibe from him was identical: dangerous sensuality coupled with desperation so keen it struck pain in my own heart.

I’d have to have been blind to miss that part: like my first sire, Evan obviously smothered his loneliness in the surety of physical gratification. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t wield as much power over my libido as he thought he did.

A soft knock at the door brought me out of my silent reverie. My face flamed at the realization I’d been staring intently at the man before me, and he’d clearly misinterpreted

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quiet contemplation for dumbstruck passion. I was relieved to have a reason to turn away from him.

“Your bag, madam,” the butler intoned with a dry note of disapproval as he opened the door.

I wondered how such a stuffy old guy ended up working in a brothel. “Thanks. Just set it down.”

When I was once again alone with my hulking he-man of a donor, I took a deep, fortifying breath.

“Sit in that chair and…” I paused, taking in his shirtless state. “Well, I was going to say

‘roll up your sleeve’ out of habit, but I guess it won’t be necessary.”

“I could take off something else,” he offered, flashing his predatory grin.

“No, that’s fine. You’re about as naked as I can handle right now.” I reached into my bag and pulled out a coiled length of tubing and a collection bag, as well as a butterfly-shaped needle and some antiseptic swabs. I laid my supplies out like a torture chamber cache, expecting his cocky demeanor to waver.

It never did. He leaned against the back of the chair and aligned his arm perfectly with the armrest to display the crease of his elbow. “This is my good arm.”

I eyed the fat, blue vein there with clinical interest, but my rumbling stomach betrayed my intent. “Have your blood drawn a lot?”

“Have to, in my line of work.” He reached for one of the antiseptic pads and tore the wrapper. Sponging a wide circle of alcohol over his arm, he shrugged. “We have to get tested for STDs often, or we lose our licenses.”

“So, what’s up with your friends that they’re so afraid? I mean, they’d rather be bitten by a vampire than get poked by a tiny little needle?” I busied myself connecting the tube to the collection bag.

“That’s probably not it.” He stretched his legs out, and I couldn’t help but notice how long they were. “We get a lot of customers here, and they’re not all pillars of the vampire community. Or maybe they are, and that’s their problem. But after a while, we’ve all learned our respective lessons, and we don’t generally trust vamps who bring props.”

I made a noise of understanding as I stretched a strip of latex around his biceps. I didn’t want to think about what kind of depraved torture these guys had been exposed to. “So, why did you trust me?”

Evan chuckled, a rich, velvety sound that reverberated down my spine. “Because you look harmless. And damn good.”

“Right.” I could barely contain my exhausted laughter. “I’m driving cross-country without a shower, rationing my clean underwear. I’ve been sleeping in a van for the past couple days now. You’re going to have to do a damn sight better than that before I shell out my hard-earned cash on your compliments.”

“I’m not lying,” he said with an earnestness that didn’t sound quite rehearsed enough to not seem genuine. “You’re not caked in weird makeup or wearing all black like the rest of our customers. I’d let you bite me for free.”

It was certainly a tantalizing prospect, at least to my monster side. A brief, vivid image of being crushed beneath his hard body as I sank my teeth into his neck flashed through my mind, and I closed my eyes, shaking my head to get rid of the picture.

“So, how much do you charge?” I asked, turning my mind from impure thoughts.

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“For what? The sex or the blood?”

“There will be no sex,” I insisted, a little to myself, a little to him.

“Come on,” he pressed, sliding his hand up my arm. “You can’t tell me you’re not bored, day after day in the back of a van.”

There was a note of neediness in his voice. This man wanted something from me. And there was only one thing humans wanted from vampires. To be turned.

“No,” I said quietly. “I haven’t been bored.”

I’d been kept awake all day by nightmares. As soon as the sun came up, my head filled with Nathan’s screams. Cyrus was out in the desert somewhere and I had to find him before his father got his hands on him. No way was I bored. With an exasperated sigh, I stabbed the needle into Evan’s vein while he was still planning his next tactic. “And no amount of pretty talk will get you turned tonight.”

My head throbbed. Physical and mental fatigue overwhelmed me. “Is there a bathroom? I really need to get the road dirt off of me.”

Evan pointed the way.

I stepped into the spacious, marble bathroom and turned the taps to fill the tub. I’d collect what I needed from Evan, then pay him and kick him the hell out and take a nice, hot bath. I leaned my forehead against the cool glass of the mirror above the sink and took a deep breath, preparing to let my guard down and open the blood tie. As soon as I did, Nathan was there, angry and screaming as he had been for the last few days. But there was another presence, too, one I hadn’t felt since the night Nathan had poured his blood down my throat while I was unconscious.