Knight in Transition Page 7

  His lips pursed around a smile. “I’ll melt into a puddle of goo.”

  Lily suppressed a smile at his teasing and licked her lips. “I can so relate to that.”

  “Take off your robe,” he purred.

  She shook her head and clutched the collar of her robe. “You first.”

  His gaze narrowed, but he reached for the hem of his T-shirt and drew it over his head. Then he reached for the button at the waist of his jeans.

  Lily’s gaze ate up every inch of flesh revealed. Despite the angry wound on his shoulder, his broad frame gleamed with masculine power. His happy trail of black hair drew her gaze downward. Her mouth watered.

  Joe shucked off his jeans, and his sex sprang from its dark nest, alert and potent.

  Instant, intense arousal pulsed deep within her pussy. She shrugged out of her robe and lay down, opening her arms.

  Before his body covered hers, his fingers went straight for her moist cleft, sliding between her pouty lips, his thumbnail flicking the hood covering her clitoris.

  Lily moaned and widened her legs, making room for him to settle between them. She drew his shoulders down, scratching his back, urging him to take her with her sighs and eager caresses.

  Joe’s breaths, already shorter, fell hot upon her cheeks, and then his mouth closed over hers, and she was lost. Their tongues warred, their chests met, his fingers rubbed moisture around her opening, and then he was pressing his cock inside, crowding the tender tissues, groaning into her mouth.

  Lily slid her calves around his thighs and higher, and pressed her hips closer, pleading with her body for him to tunnel deeper.

  Joe’s thrusts were shallow, just deep enough to excite her inner walls into releasing more cream to coat his thick cock. He rocked inside the cradle of her thighs, ending each thrust with a little jerk.

  With her legs closing around his buttocks, she lifted her hips off the mattress, squeezing, forcing him to drive deeper. Then she shattered, climaxing so strongly, she moaned and writhed beneath him.

  His mouth ate at hers, sucking on her tongue, biting her lips, nuzzling under her chin—drinking her moans and giving back his own deep, rumbling sounds.

  Then he planted his hands on the bed and pushed up. His eyes glittered in the dim light, the skin tautening over his flushed cheeks. Beneath her heels she felt the flex of muscles in his buttocks as he rocked forward, gliding his cock inside her so deep he touched her cervix. Another flex and he pulled out, then in, and out…

  Lily’s fingernails dug into his back, as she strained upward, trying to meet each thrust—but he was too fast, too hard.

  And his face was changing. She watched in fascinated horror as the bones of his forehead pushed outward, stretching his skin into a frightening mask. His lips curled up to bare his teeth, which slid downward. They gleamed white and menacing in the dark.

  Impossibly, she felt a second dark wave wash over her, and she held up her wrist to his mouth. “Drink. I want it all.”

  He bit into her wrist, and she hissed on an indrawn breath. He mouthed her flesh and sucked, his buttocks turning to steel, his body and cock thickening. His powerful thrusts pushed her up the bed until her head banged against the headboard. She reached with her free hand to brace herself against it, and then all thought stopped.

  Only sensation registered in her brain—flames licked at her loins, curling inside her belly, drawing breath and blood to her core like a cold-hot ball of tension that curved her toes, pulled her legs higher, and arched her back off the bed.

  As if from a distance, she heard a long, thready scream and colors burst like a fireball behind her closed lids.

  She came back to herself slowly, hearing her jagged breaths loud inside her ears. Sweat cooled on her face beneath the strokes of the fan blades above her, and a large weight pressed her body deep into the mattress.

  Lily raised a shaking hand to stroke the short, wet curls at the back of Joe’s head. He nuzzled her breast, and his hot mouth latched onto her nipple. Lily’s heart squeezed. In the most elemental way, he sought comfort from her body.

  He stirred, but she held him within the circle of her thighs, reluctant to let him leave her. He plied her breast with glides of his tongue, and then kissed the crest of her nipple and raised his head. “You make me forget why I came here in the first place.”

  Lily smiled, feeling tired and a little sad. She didn’t need reminding he was here only because he sought a “cure” for his condition.

  “You’ll call your voodoo priestess?”

  She nodded.

  “Now, we have two questions for her.”

  Lily was suddenly too sleepy to ask him what the second question was.

  “Lily?”

  “Yes?” she murmured sleepily.

  “Don’t go out alone today.”

  Chapter Six

  ‡

  Lily woke with a start. Sunlight winked from the edges of the blanket covering the door on her balcony. She reached out and felt along the surface of her nightstand for her alarm clock and held it in front of her face, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the bright readout. It was mid-afternoon.

  Turning on her side she found Joe, lying on his back, his chest barely moving. Alarmed, she leaned over him and pressed her ear to his chest. His heart beat—albeit slowly. He hadn’t been kidding when he said he slept like the dead.

  Lily brushed his chest with a kiss and cuddled close to his side, her arm stretched over his belly. It had been such a long time since she’d woken up with a man in her bed. She drew in a deep breath and closed her eyes to savor his man-smell—the tangy fragrance of sweat, a trace of spicy aftershave, the lingering aroma of sex.

  His face, softened by sleep, was beautiful. Something she hadn’t really noticed when his dark, sensual gaze burned away all other observations. His eyelashes, thick and curly, were dark crescents, his nose a sharp blade, his mouth a wicked curve, even in his sleep.

  Her gaze drifted across his latte-colored chest and belly. A light furring of black hair led her gaze downward to the edge of the sheet. It dipped between his legs and molded the hummock of his sex.

  Lily wondered whether he dreamed—and whether she figured in his dreams.

  She idly caressed his chest, letting her fingers trace the quickly healing wounds on his shoulder, and then drift downward to circle his taut belly. She had maybe one or two more nights with her vampire—not nearly enough time to pump him for information she needed to feed her research. Not nearly enough time for all the loving she wanted.

  Her fingers nudged the sheet draping his hips.

  Stick to the research! She wondered how vulnerable this deep sleep left a vampire and whether he would respond to external stimuli. She rose up on her knees. “Joe,” she whispered.

  No response. Not a flutter of an eyelash. No change to his breathing pattern.

  Lily extended a finger and tickled his ribs.

  Again, no response.

  Feeling bolder, she poked him hard with her finger. Still, he didn’t move.

  “Hmmm…” Lily slowly peeled down the sheet to expose his penis. It lay curved along his thigh. Sleeping, it hardly appeared the fearsome sword he’d wielded the night before.

  She bit her lip and pondered the ethics of examining a man’s private parts while he slept. She traced his length with her fingernail and glanced up guiltily to see whether he’d moved.

  Nothing.

  She reached for her glasses in the top drawer of her nightstand and slid them over her nose.

  Then she reached for his cock and straightened it along his thigh to measure it with her palm and fingertips. It was one hand long plus the length of just her fingertips when relaxed. She laid it gently on his belly and cupped his balls. They were heavy, about the size and weight of a couple of small tangelos. Quite large, she mused, but in proportion with his also large cock.

  She gently squeezed and tugged his sac noting his cock expanded and lengthened. Could he be fully aroused in his pres
ent hibernating state? She wanted to know, although she didn’t have a clue where she could publish such a finding.

  Stripping the sheet away to bare his legs and toes, she came to a quick decision. She had a duty to explore every attribute of her subject—in the name of science, of course. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

  On her knees, she stepped over his leg and gently pushed his thighs wider to make room for herself. She knelt between them and bent to take his balls into her mouth.

  Joe fought his way through layers of dreams where monsters with golden eyes and savage fangs chased him through damp, dark, cobblestone streets. He ran on, the sound of his heart beating and the searing breaths squeezing from his lungs, louder than the impact of his booted heels.

  His limbs grew more leaden the farther he ran. He’d been here before, knew what the outcome of this encounter would be, and knew he was powerless to change his course. The sounds from his pursuers were closer now. He didn’t dare take his gaze from the uneven road in front of him to look over his shoulder, but he could hear the scrape of their claws just behind his heels and smell their foul breath as they closed in on him.

  This is a dream! No more. And yet he knew he’d lived these minutes. Every detail was too clear, the scents and sights too crisp for imagination.

  With dread weighing down his shoulders, he waited for them to pounce and tear at his flesh. He almost wished they’d go ahead and end it. For then he’d awaken—as he always did.

  Instead this time, the sounds of the wolves grew faint and the damp, dark street faded. His sluggish heart beat faster. He was waking this time before they killed him.

  Joe felt the pleasant tug of something warm and lusciously wet on his balls. His eyes opened only a slit to peer down at the woman mouthing his sac. Lily! She’d chased his nightmare away.

  A shaft of light reflecting off the mirror above her bureau struck her hair, igniting the golden strands in her hair like a halo and glinting off the wire surrounding her glasses. The odd sight of her naked body bobbing above his groin and her glasses slowly fogging had him suppressing a smile.

  She tugged again, her tongue swirling over first one ball then the other, and he noted that one hand rested lightly on the end of his dick. He wished for a stronger grip, but guessed she was gauging his growth by the way her hand squeezed first one side, then the other, and then her finger measured the distance from the tip of his dick to his belly button.

  His professor certainly took her research seriously.

  So did his cock. He felt the blood rushing to his loins, filling his staff with steely ardor.

  Regrettably, she released his balls. “Oh my!” Lily slid her glasses down her nose to peer at him above her misty lenses.

  Joe carefully regulated the rise and fall of his chest and kept his eyes slitted to see what she’d do next.

  Lily measured him from root to tip, using both hands, palm to fingertip, palm to fingertip. When she finished, her lips pursed around a silent whistle.

  “I suppose you’ll want to slip a scale beneath it next,” he murmured.

  Lily screeched and rested her hand on her heaving chest. Color flooded her stricken cheeks. “You could have told me you were awake.”

  “And cut short the investigation? I did promise to answer your questions.”

  She scowled at him above her glasses. “Shouldn’t you be asleep?”

  “Shouldn’t you be up and about?”

  “I-I will be. I have plenty to keep me busy today—notes to take, measurements to document.”

  Joe’s eyes narrowed. “You aren’t really thinking of measuring more vampires’ cocks, are you?”

  “A single measurement does not a finding make,” she said with a haughty tilt of her chin.

  “You know the only way you’ll get more statistics will be by bringing them here, to your bedroom. Would you really take that kind of risk?”

  “I did with you.”

  Joe shook his head, fighting fatigue. They needed to get a few points straight. Lily was heading down a road for disaster. “What if they want to take more than a bite from you? What if they kill you?”

  She shrugged. “Then I’d be resurrected as a vampire and continue my research.”

  “You don’t really want that, Lily. Besides, your vamp may not be interested in turning you. He could just leave you looking like hamburger.”

  Lily grimaced, but her chin tilted higher. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

  “You woke me up—how do you expect me to go back to sleep with this hard-on?”

  Lily licked her lips. “Since I’m responsible, I should take care of it.” Her nonchalant tone didn’t fool him for a minute. A vein at the base of her throat pulsed. “What would you like?” she asked as casually as she might ask him how he liked his steak.

  Every red corpuscle roared toward his cock. He lifted his hand toward her, palm up. “Climb aboard.”

  A shiver shook her breasts, and her face tightened. Lily laid her hand inside his and crawled over his hips, her slick cleft leaving a trail of moisture along his rigid shaft.

  “Are you sore?” he murmured.

  She blushed a fiery red. “I wish you’d quit asking me that.”

  He ignored her embarrassment and reached down to slip a finger inside her, noting the heat of her swollen lips and inner tissues—and the liquid that drenched her channel. Lily had worked herself into a state of high arousal as she’d conducted her investigation.

  He swirled his finger around, watching her face for signs of pain, but Lily closed her eyes and sighed. Her areolas dimpled, her nipples constricted and elongated. Joe’s mouth watered. “I think you can take me,” he whispered.

  “Of course, I can.” She rose on her knees and grasped his cock in her fist.

  With his thumbs pressing her lips apart, Joe did his part to ensure her comfort, reducing the friction between his cock and her plump labia.

  Lily centered her entrance over his fleshy head. Then she sank, taking him inches inside her. Her indrawn breath expanded her chest, and his gaze zeroed in on her luscious, pouting nipples. She rose and sank deeper.

  Her breaths quickened, and Lily leaned forward to brace her hands against his chest. With a determined cant of her chin, she lowered herself, taking nearly half his length inside.

  His jaw hard as granite, he bit out, “Faster.” He released the folds of her cunt and glided his hands up to her breasts, squeezing them in his palms. “Faster, baby.”

  Lily’s face was mottled red, her lips trembling—inches from her orgasm. She snuggled her knees closer to his hips and bounced tentatively on his cock, a moan breaking from her throat.

  The lenses of her glasses misted over, and he pulled them from her nose, setting them on the nightstand. He leaned up to kiss her shoulder, and her back arched, bringing her breast to his lips. He latched onto one tight nipple and sucked hard.

  She cried out, gliding her hot cunt all the way down his cock. Joe’s head nearly exploded. His hands circled her back and reached for her buttocks, gripping her hard, shoving her hips down, then sliding them forward and back to grind his short hairs against her clit.

  “Joe! I can’t move. Can’t—” Her voice broke on a groan.

  He bit her nipple gently, sucking the tender tip between his teeth then swirling his rough tongue to increase the pleasure.

  Lily’s hips jerked, and her thighs shuddered over his hips. He could sense her orgasm building sweet tension in her body. With his hands gripping her round bottom he raised her, then slammed her down as he thrust his hips upward, stabbing deep into her core.

  She screamed. Her fingernails dug crescents into his shoulders. Her eyes closed and a wash of fiery color spread over her breasts and cheeks.

  Joe felt his own climax rising from his thighs, slamming though his balls and dick to shoot a geyser of cum inside her body.

  He held her hips flush to his for several long moments, circling her body on his cock, prolonging her orgasm until the co
nvulsions milking his sex grew fainter. Finally, Lily collapsed over his chest, nuzzling her face into the corner of his shoulder.

  Joe caressed her back, soothing her while her jagged breaths grew even and her racing heart calmed. Finally, his own heart slowed, and he receded below the layers of his dreams. This time he watched through misted glass as a girl with whiskey-colored hair pleasured herself.

  Lily sang while she showered, confident the vamp wouldn’t wake again to hear her off-key warbling. Her fingers itched to start putting some of what she’d learned into her computer, but first things first.

  She had to make an appointment with Madame Leveque and shop for a dinner suitable for a vampire. He’d asked her not to go out alone, but it was still daylight. Weren’t werewolves nocturnal creatures as well?

  As she stood before her mirror, she suffered long moments of indecision. Hair, up or down? Makeup—her usual careless swipe of pale peach lipstick—or a full face?

  She wrinkled her nose at her reflection and decided not to take special pains with her appearance. Who was she kidding? Femme fatale, she wasn’t. She quickly wound her hair into a knot and secured it with pins, but she glazed her lips with a deep rose.

  Hurrying to the kitchen counter, she found her planner and flipped to the address section. She punched the numbers into her cordless handset and tucked it between her shoulder and ear while she gathered her planner and keys and dropped them in her purse. She was quickly running out of daylight.

  “Madame Leveque’s.”

  “Cissy? This is Lily Carlson.”

  “Professor, you manage to slip past that weirdo last night?” Cissy asked, wry humor in her tone.

  Lily felt a blush rise all the way from her toes. “Not exactly.”

  “He give you any trouble?”

  “Ah no.” She quickly steered the conversation back. “Look, I’m calling because I need to see your grandmother tonight.”

  “Oooh, I don’t know. Grandmere’s been here since early this mornin’. She may be too tired. Can you come this afternoon?”