hard, I gasped.
My hips rolled, beginning a rhythm that slowed the beats of my racing heart, and my hands fell to the pillow beside my head as I let him lead me—no, lead us—toward completion.
“I need you naked…please…inside me…” I whimpered. Already the walls of my vagina clenched and rippled, readying for his penetration.
He murmured, nuzzling my neck until I turned my head to the side to allow him to trail a wet kiss along my skin. His teeth scraped, eliciting a moan, his lips drew on my skin, suckling hard for a moment, and then I felt a sharp, piercing pain—
A scream ripped the air. Mine? Hers? My eyes slammed open in the darkness, the thread unraveling as I jackknifed upward to sit at the edge of my bed.
What the hell had just happened?
A shadow passed in front of the French doors that led to the balcony outside my bedroom. Had a cloud passed in front of the moon? My French Quarter apartment was three stories up; my fire escape ladder secured.
Invite me in!
Ice-cold terror doused the heat coursing through my body. The words hadn’t been spoken aloud. This time I could be sure neither my ears nor hers had heard them. His voice echoed inside my mind—harsh and angry. The doors were glass and slender slats of wood—if he chose, he could force his way inside.
If not tonight, I’ll be back tomorrow night, and the next…. You will open to me.
I sat stunned, aware of my nudity, aware of the sensual snare he’d laid on her bed…for me. But wasn’t this what I’d secretly hoped for? A chance to experience his brand of dangerous passion for myself?
After all, I’d filtered my neighbor’s activities over the months, allowing in just what I needed to fill my muse. Only with this man had I been tempted to linger and fill my well with my own lust.
He waited, as though sensing my internal battle. And what had he done? At the last moment when I’d felt him pierce her skin, I’d also felt the bloom of an orgasm, so intense it had frightened me more than the thought he might have somehow wounded her.
I reached for my thin silky robe and shrugged my arms inside, cinched the belt around my waist, and approached the doors. My stomach clenched, my body trembled—I was afraid, but also filled with a sense that this was inevitable.
As I stepped closer, I straightened my shoulders—I wasn’t exactly without weapons of my own. The closer to the doors I drew, the more I gave myself over to the remnants of the simmering sensuality he’d fed me. My hips loosened and swayed, my breasts tightened, my thighs slid together and apart, building a frictional heat only one thing could assuage.
His shadow loomed, tall with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. I already knew how soft the skin was that stretched over his lean, muscled frame.
Closing my eyes for a brief moment, I turned the lock and opened the doors.
His hot, surly gaze swept over me, then locked with mine. “May I come in?” he whispered roughly.
He’d gotten me to comply with his demand, and yet he hesitated—he needed my permission to enter my room.
A soft rain fell, dampening his dark shirt and misting my face and the vee of skin exposed above the neckline of my robe.
I canted my head and stared at the hard edges of his face—the sharp, high cheekbones and square, stubbled jaw. His brows were furrowed, drawn in a fearsome frown as dark as the midnight hair brushing the shoulders of his cotton shirt.
Empowered by his need for me to obey, I was oddly unafraid. Staying just inside the door frame, I leaned against the edge of the door, pretending a nonchalance I was far from feeling.
“How did you get here? Fly?” I asked, turning my gaze to the five-foot span between her balcony and mine.
The corners of his lips curved upward, slight and mocking.
A frisson of alarm made me shiver. Had he? I was something other—was he as well?
“Stop thinking,” he murmured, his hands reaching up to grip the top of the door frame. “You brought me here.”
I lifted my chin. I realized that was a mistake when his gaze dropped to my lips. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
As the moments stretched, my mouth grew dry, my nipples pebbled against the thin fabric sticking to my skin.
“You were with us,” he said softly. “Both times. You’re the only reason I returned.”
I didn’t pretend not to understand. “Are you angry because I peeked?”
“No…intrigued.” He leaned back his head and drew a deep breath, which lifted his well-defined chest.
I’d felt the weight of all that masculine mass crushing my breasts. I licked my lips and imagined how much more powerful the sensations would be without the filter of another’s body between us.
His lips twisted. “Are we going to do it out here?”
I cleared my throat. “Do what?” I asked after I’d pried my tongue loose from the roof of my dry mouth.
One dark, elegant eyebrow rose. His gaze kept its steady glare.
I straightened from the door. “Are you punishing me for intruding?”
“That’s an odd way to describe the kind of pleasure I bring. Perhaps you only get off sucking someone else’s pleasure.”
Christ! He knew what I was. “Better that than taking their blood.”
“We all do what we must to survive.” His expression grew impossibly darker. “Invite me in.”
My heart pounded harder, faster. Oh, he frightened me all right—but I was more frightened of myself. I’d learned to harness my curse, use it, control it. I lived a solitary life for a reason.
Maybe this was recompense for stubbornly distancing myself from others, letting in only what I needed, when I needed it—on my own terms.
I took a deep breath and stepped back.“Come in,” I whispered.
To give him credit, he didn’t immediately pounce. He let go of the door frame, shot me another all-encompassing glance and stepped past me, into my bedroom.
Once inside, he seemed to grow larger, darker. His movements, at once fluid and purposeful, drew my attention and robbed me of breath. Soon, I’d know his touch, his kisses, firsthand.
I moved to close the doors, but he glanced back and shook his head. “Let the storm inside.”
I already had. His eyes, so dark and fathomless, pulled me deeper into the room. “Stop it!” I said. “No tricks. You’re here—you have what you want.”
A harsh, rasping laugh lifted the hairs on the back of my neck. Then before I could make up my mind whether to step closer or flee, he moved—so quickly his movements were a blur. His hands slid around my waist and he lifted me off my feet, stepping forward until the wall behind me halted his progress.
He held me up, my body inches from his, but close enough to feel the heat of his skin and his sweet breath as it washed over my face. “Decide now, succubus. Will you feed me?”
“You have the advantage. Why even ask?”
“Because I’m going to ravage you, and I want you ready—committed. I want everything you’ve taken.”
Not just my blood? Would he take my strength as well? I trembled and leaned back against the wall, watching his mouth as it tightened.
I licked my lips, considering. I’d never shared the power of the passions I drew from others. I’d kept them, using them to fuel the stories I wove. What would it be like to release them, share them with another?
I