Devil's Gate

“That’s fine.” Seremela staggered as Vetta threw her arms around her, hugging her fiercely. They stood for a moment in intense silence. Whatever they said to each other was telepathic, meant for each other alone, which Duncan thought was fitting.

 

After Camilla and Vetta left, a valet brought his car around while Seremela turned awkward and tried to explain how she could take a taxi home. Duncan listened patiently then said, “Don’t be silly. Of course I will see you home.”

 

She gave him a deer-in-the-headlights look. He was so amused and intrigued by it, he strode two steps forward until his chest brushed the tips of her delicious breasts and he growled into her upturned face, “We have unfinished business.”

 

Her tremulous mouth formed two silent words. “We do?”

 

Falling in love was a beautiful feeling, as long as he fell with her. He grinned and bent his head until their lips touched. Then he said silently into her parted lips, “We do.”

 

The drive to her home was completed in fiery silence. She couldn’t sit still and fidgeted, and her snakes roamed restlessly around her.

 

He didn’t want her to sit still. He wanted her to fidget and flutter about, while he stalked his prey to capture her finally, finally—against a door, cabinet, couch, wherever the hell, it didn’t matter, any of the images his heated imagination supplied him were just fine, because he would capture her, it was just a matter of time. The red darkness took him over, and he held himself under savage control as he drove with immaculate care through the heavy Friday Miami traffic.

 

Fear and violence always touched a Vampyre’s life somehow. He had never realized how he had grown used to it, until he faced that goddamn pariah Djinn and grew shocked at Seremela facing danger and violence. She was too good, too fine; she loved opera and classic movies, and she lived in a civilized, lawful world, and she should never, ever have to face such violence again.

 

Dimly he realized he was allowing himself to react to what had happened, and by letting go, he was no longer in control.

 

The atmosphere in the car had grown excruciatingly charged by the time he drove into the underground garage at her apartment building. He pulled into a parking space. The quiet purr of the car engine faded. Seremela started to say something, her words stumbling and awkward.

 

Staring straight ahead, he interrupted her. “Invite me in.”

 

She took in a quick breath. It shook a little, and his cock hardened at the small telltale sign. He turned to her and discovered her staring at him with that wide eyed, wondering look. Three of her snakes peered sideways from behind her head, staring at him too.

 

Laughter spilled out of him as the sight broke his tension. He reached out to one of the snakes. It touched the tip of his finger with a light flicker of its tongue. He repeated unsteadily, “Invite me in, Seremela. Please.”

 

“I would love for you to come in,” she whispered all in a rush.

 

With that, he lost all capacity for words or coherent thought. Somehow they got out of the car and into the elevator, where he backed her into a corner. He planted one hand on the wall on either side of her head and stared into her eyes as he breathed in the scent of her arousal. Her breathing grew choppy, and he watched the muscles in her slender throat move as she swallowed, the iridescent pattern that marked her skin shimmering in the overhead light.

 

Her lovely, slender throat.

 

His fangs descended. His face twisted as he fought himself. This was too far out of control. He was a stranger to himself.

 

Her warm, trembling hands smoothed the material of his T-shirt across his chest. “It’s all right,” she whispered. “I want you to bite me.”

 

He hadn’t even been aware that he’d taken a useless breath of air until it rushed out of him. The force of his own reaction nearly sent him to his knees.

 

“Duncan,” she said. She sounded and looked dazed.

 

He lowered his head slowly, and ran his mouth along the leaping pulse at her neck, tonguing the delectable delicate flesh.

 

She pushed him, startling him out of his preoccupation. With a husky, drunken laugh, she pointed behind him. He looked over his shoulder. The elevator doors stood open. Ah, right.

 

The length of the hallway to her front door was all but unendurable. He said hoarsely, “After we go to the opera, what are we doing next?”

 

“I don’t know,” she moaned. She dropped her keys and bent over to retrieve them. “How about a weekend in bed?”

 

He blurred, snatched the keys out from underneath her hand and unlocked and opened her door before she could fully react. “Get inside.”

 

He glared as she exploded with laughter. Then he laughed too. This was crazy, ludicrous. He could say he hadn’t felt this way since he was a teenager, except he was certain he hadn’t felt this way then either.

 

Then finally they were inside, alone in her shadowed apartment. She tossed her purse onto the couch—he realized they had forgotten her case, in the trunk of his car—and then he lost that thought too as she leaped at him. He snatched her up as she wrapped her arms and legs around him, and he strode for the bedroom.