Seduced By Darkness Read online

  “He’s not mine.”

  A humming started deep inside her pussy and Chessa choked, delivering Nicolas a deadly glare.

  Nicolas shrugged, a smile curling one corner of his sexy mouth. He walked nonchalantly toward the door, buttoning his shirt. “Coming Chessa?”

  A garbled curse was all she could manage as she stood on wobbling legs, squeezing her inner muscles around the metal egg. Lord, wouldn’t everyone be surprised if she just let the thing slide down her leg and drop on the floor.

  Only the thought of Nicolas’s punishment kept her putting one foot in front of the other as she followed him down the hallway.

  “Is he always so quiet?” Alex asked, once they’d stepped onto the sidewalk.

  “Only when I’m hunting,” Nicolas called over his shoulder.

  “Great hearing,” Alex muttered.

  Nicolas paused beside a low-slung convertible parked beside the curb. “Your car?”

  “Yeah. How’d you know?”

  Nicolas grinned and pulled open the back door, sliding onto the leather seat.

  Chessa climbed in front, doing her best to ignore Nicolas and earning a jolt of pleasure edged another notch higher on the Richter scale. “I’m gonna kill you,” she said softly, aiming a scowl behind her.

  “Of course, you’re not.” He leaned forward to whisper in her ear. “You’re dying for me to hit fifth gear.”

  “Only get as high as four in the city limit,” Alex said, starting up the car.

  Nicolas laughed softly while Chessa sank into her seat, gritting her teeth against the surging vibrations that elicited a steady dribble of desire. Her jeans would be soaked through before they’d reached their first stop. How would she explain that? She’d forgotten her Depends?

  The little shop was just off of Bourbon Street in a long row of tiny, dingy establishments, sharing a single roof. Yellow tape already striped the door. Above it, a neon light proclaimed, “Tarot/Palms” in bright blue.

  Chessa ducked beneath the tape, entered the shop and glanced around. On the shelves was the usual New Orleans kitsch—voodoo dolls, stuffed alligators, and black T-shirts with skeletal jazz bands.

  At the rear of the shop was a doorway protected only by strings of glass beads and tiny bells that tinkled as the breeze from the street sifted through them.

  Chessa swept them away and stepped into the dark little room that smelled of incense, cigarette smoke, and a decaying corpse. A small table, covered in dark felt cloth and scattered tarot cards stood in the center. A chair sat undisturbed on one side. On the other, a chair rested on the floor lying on its side.

  Beside it, left undisturbed by the uniforms outside, laid the body of Madame Fortun if the name was to be believed. In the center of her chest gaped a large bloody hole where her heart should have beat.

  “She’s a bokor.”

  Chessa spun toward the voice coming from a dark corner. Damn, she hadn’t caught a whiff of his scent above the sour smell of drying blood.

  Simon Jameson stepped closer, his expression grim.

  “This is a crime scene. Should you be here?” Alex asked, from behind her.

  Chessa snorted. “He’s—”

  “Family?”

  “Definitely not!”

  Simon’s lips curved in a mirthless grin. “I’m a friend of the family.”

  “Does that mean I have to be polite when I kick his ass out the door?” Alex said, his voice low and lethal.

  Chessa gritted her teeth. “He stays.”

  Simon gave Alex a narrowed, searching glance. “New partner, Chessa?”

  Nicolas coughed behind her, a hint of laughter rumbling from his chest.

  Alex’s posture stiffened. “So, what’s a bokor?”

  Simon’s gaze swept from Alex to Nicolas. “A practitioner of dark voodoo arts.”

  “This just gets better and better,” Alex murmured.

  “What are you doing here?” Chessa bit out.

  “Looking for clues as to why our friend was here.”

  “Find anything?” Nicolas asked.

  “Unfortunately, yes.” Simon waved a hand to the sink in the corner. Beside it stretched a counter with bottles filled with desiccated bugs, dried plants, and powders.

  A bottle lay on its side, spilling yellow-brown powder over the counter to the floor below.

  Chessa stepped closer, but Simon stuck his arm out to keep her from drawing near. “Don’t touch it.”

  “Why?”

  “Walk away with any of it on your boots and you’ll have zombie cockroaches crawling all over the floor. Touch that bitch’s corpse with even a speck of this, and you’ll have Madame Fortun gnawing on your shins.”

  Chessa wrinkled her nose. “Oh, come on! Zombies?”

  Simon leveled his solemn gaze on the group. “I promise I’m not joking. Dark arts, remember?”

  “You’re not one for demon-hunting. What brought you here, Simon?” Nicolas asked.

  “Not what. Who.”

  Chessa’s gaze shifted from Simon to Nicolas and back again. “All right. Y’all gonna clue me in?”

  “Inanna,” Nicolas said, his jaw flexing tight.

  “Give the man a cigar,” Simon muttered.

  Chessa’s chest tightened. “She’s here? In New Orleans?”

  “At my place.”

  “With your kestrel?”

  “Wreaking havoc with my love life. It is a full moon.”

  Chessa’s lips twitched, imagining the regal Inanna being waited on by the mage’s familiar. “Sorry about that.”

  “Sorry enough to take her home with you?”

  “My place is too small to hold her ego.”

  “A little too crowded already, is it?” Simon said softly, his glance landing on Nicolas.

  “We are not a twosome.” Irritation sharpened her tone. She glared at Nicolas. “You give him that idea?”

  “I kinda got that idea all on my own,” Alex murmured. When she glowered at him, he raised his hands in mock surrender. “All right, I’ll butt out.”

  Chessa huffed, letting her cheeks puff out. “Goddamn, I need a drink.”

  “That should be interesting,” Nicolas whispered into her ear.

  “Just keep your pointy little finger off that remote.”

  “Not a chance.”

  “I don’t suppose I can talk you both into waiting out here?”

  When both men gave her toothy grins, Chessa wondered whether Nicolas had let his dirty little secret out. Which was precisely what she planned to do if they’d let her at a bathroom for just a minute, but both stuck to her back like flypaper as they turned to enter the seedy little bar.

  Choices of blood bars were narrowing, so many remained boarded up and more were closing with owners afraid to keep open due to rampant vandalism and a sordid blend of customers filing through the doors.

  From the outside looking in, this place looked perfect. A generator hummed in the distance. Dark, music blared from a jukebox in the corner. The restroom stretched just beyond the dance floor down a dark hallway.

  Perfect place to feed—after she got rid of the damn egg.

  Nicolas was having a grand old time, selecting slow then fast on the drive there. Her jeans were soaked through, her legs quivering, her breaths rasping and moans slipping between her lips at the most inopportune moments. Dropping Simon at his door, she’d groaned a good-bye. He probably thought she’d miss him—as if!

  She was feeling bitchy, hungry, and horny as hell.

  Just as they entered, the phone bleated.

  Alex answered quietly then handed it to Nicolas. “It’s for you. They patched through a call.”

  Nicolas took it, his expression wiped clean of emotion.

  Inanna.

  Chessa pushed through the glass door into blessedly air-conditioned cool, tamping down a twinge of jealousy. What kind of hold did the ancient bitch have over him anyway?

  “See you later,” she called over her shoulder. It was now or never. />
  Alex fell into step behind her.

  “I can find a meal on my own,” she muttered over her shoulder.

  “Not as much fun though.” His voice rumbled with sensual promise.

  “Nic will kill you,” she whispered.

  “Like I just said—”

  “Suit yourself.” She passed the long takeout counter and eyed the customers one by one.

  “Hungry?” A waitress with bright red lipstick that gleamed bright against her cocoa-colored skin gave her a wink.

  Chessa took in her muted excitement—the heightening thrum of her beating heart. “You know what my tastes are?”

  “Rare, right?”

  “Sure. Bleeding.”

  The woman’s oversized white teeth bit into her full bottom lip. “I’ll meet you in the back,” she said, nodding toward the restrooms.

  Chessa sighed. The waitress had made her as a vampire at first glance. She didn’t recognize her, but maybe she’d seen Chessa in another blood bar. There had been so many.

  Maybe she’d telegraphed her desperate hunger. She must be slipping.

  Chessa headed to the restroom, intent on removing the bullet. She pushed through the swinging door, but turned when it whooshed behind her.

  Alex leaned back against the wall. “Same deal as before?”

  Her incisors were already descending when the door whipped open again and the waitress stepped inside, her expression alight with excitement. She tugged the T-shirt with the restaurant logo over her head. “Don’t want to get it stained. Have to finish my shift, you know. Name’s Maria.”

  “Sure,” Chessa murmured, noting the vein pulsing at the side of the woman’s dark throat.

  “Is he hungry, too?” Maria said lifting her chin toward Alex.

  “He’s not…into ‘rare.’”

  “That’s all right if he wants to watch. Want it standing? I’m not too tall for you.”

  “Fine.” Could anything be easier? If the woman whipped a straw from her pocket, she wouldn’t have been surprised.

  With her meal leaning close, Chessa licked Maria’s neck, following the long artery, then tilted her head and sank her teeth just deep enough to puncture skin and the carotid. She sealed her lips around the wound to keep the blood from dripping down to the top of the woman’s lacy bra.

  Blood seeped around the wounds and slid down her throat, bubbling a little like fizzy champagne.

  The woman moaned, and her breaths shortened. Her body pressed against Chessa’s, her heavy breasts rubbing deliciously, exciting the tips of her own into aroused points.

  Chessa rubbed against her, drinking deeply, letting her arms close around the woman’s well-padded frame. The thought slipped through her blood-drugged mind that sharing an embrace with a host was pleasant, arousing—so unlike the dominating stance she usually took. She tightened her thighs, the egg seeming to swell in size inside her drenched pussy.

  Strong arms encircled her from behind and a hand rucked up the hem of her shirt. When Alex’s warm palm slid between them, cupping her breast, Chessa eased back her hips to grind against his heavy cock.

  Heaven, after an evening of sheer, sensual hell.

  With his free hand, he unbuckled her belt and pushed down her jeans. Then his hand was slipping between her legs, sliding between her slick folds. His thumb flicked her clit, and she trembled, drinking deeply while his fingers slipped inside her.

  A muffled laugh gusted against her hair and he drew out the egg. “I wondered what the hell he was doing to you. Thought he had some kind of mind-fuck going on. Damn, you’re wet!”

  His fingers slid back inside a moment later, twisting into her, and she pulsed on them, encouraging him to delve deeper.

  He obliged, stroking, swirling into her, drawing her moisture to paint her swollen labia.

  “Want more?” he whispered.

  “Mmmm-mmm,” she murmured, around the woman’s throat.

  The woman’s breath caught and she cried out, shivering hard as her orgasm crashed over her.

  Chessa didn’t stop drawing her blood into her mouth. Alex’s fingers, all of them, tucked slowly into her cunt, curving and twisting—so thick she nearly blew then and there. She curved her back, lifting her ass to let him stroke deeper.

  When his hand twisted and the thickness increased, she knew he’d crammed his thumb inside, too. So full her cunt burned, she pulsed on it, whimpering when cream seeped from her inner walls to ease him deeper.

  Then she was riding his whole fist, her hot, dripping cunt sliding around him, pressing back to cram him deeper.

  The door flew open, and Chessa’s eyes widened. Her pussy clenched around Alex’s fist. She retracted her teeth, lapping quickly to close the tiny punctures, reading the rage in the spots of burning color high on Nicolas’s cheekbones.

  “I better get back to my tables,” Maria said, her eyes widening on Nicolas.

  When she’d edged around him to flee out the door, Nicolas gave Chessa a look that held a simmering rage. “Interrupting anything?” he asked, acid etching his voice in harsh tones.

  “I have her well in hand,” Alex murmured, his breath still gusting against her neck.

  “Alex,” she warned, her teeth starting to chatter as Nicolas let the door close behind him. But she couldn’t ease off Alex’s fist, he was so high and tight inside her.

  “Only filling in for you,” Alex said, challenge in his words and the tightness of his voice.

  Chessa closed her eyes, wondering if she’d be looking for a new partner after Nicolas had torn Alex limb for limb.

  But Nicolas stepped closer, sandwiching her between himself and Alex. “This what you want? Both of us?” he asked, his voice raw.

  Frightened and excited, she shook her head.

  “Don’t lie.”

  “It’s too much,” Chessa said, her voice trembling. “You had me so hot.”

  Nicolas knelt in front of her. “Ride his hand, baby.” Then he brushed his thumb over her clitoris, lifting the hood, and leaned close to suck it with his lips.

  Chessa came howling and quivering with Alex sliding in and out of her vagina, filling her to bursting, and Nicolas drawing hard on her clit. At the last, her legs gave way.

  Both men murmured and reached out to hold her up.

  Alex slowly pulled out and stepped to the side to wash his hand in the sink while Nicolas held her until the shivering stopped, and she could stand on her own two feet.

  “Where’s the bullet?” he asked.

  Alex pulled it out of his jeans pocket and passed it to Nicolas. With a nod her way, he quietly left.

  The silence that followed had Chessa feeling shaken and ashamed. “Nic—”

  “Don’t. I don’t want to talk about this. Not yet.” Then his fingers slipped between her legs, and he pushed the metal egg back inside her.

  Groaning, Chessa bit her lip at the first little hum.

  “There’s something about him…”

  She shook her head. “No. Nothing special at all.”

  “No, Chess. What I mean is I don’t think he’s quite…human.”

  “What are you thinking?” she asked, not mentioning the fact she’d had a similar thought.

  “Dieu! I should have killed him. Or at the very least mopped the floor with him. Instead, this happened.” His hand closed around hers and brought it to the front of his pants. His cock was full, heavy. Ready.

  Her eyebrows drew together. “You wanted to screw him, too?”

  Nicolas’s lips thinned. “No, but I wanted him to have you. Wanted to watch.”

  “That’s so strange?”

  “Would you like to watch me fuck another woman?”

  Chessa swallowed hard and shook her head. “No, I’d hate it.”

  Nicolas’s arms closed around her, and he pulled her against his chest. “See what I mean?”

  Chessa snuggled closer, enjoying his almond scent and the hardness of the muscle just beneath her cheek. “What does this all mean? Don’t
you think you’re just wound tight because of all this trouble, and because you’ve been teasing me all night?”

  “Maybe.” But he didn’t sound convinced.

  “You gonna make me keep this thing in the rest of the night?”

  “Are you going to complain?”

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  “All you have to do is say no.”

  “I can’t.” Rolling her forehead on his shoulder, she whispered, “Not to you.”

  His sigh sounded strained, maybe a little sad. “That’s something anyway. Better get your pants up before someone else walks in.”

  Outside the restaurant, Alex lowered the phone.

  “Any news?” she asked, her cheeks heating as his gaze slid down her body. She clenched her thighs together. Nicolas was right. There was something unusually alluring about Alex. “Any more bodies turn up?”

  “It’s quiet. The uniforms have more trouble than they can handle though.”

  “Byron asking us for help?”

  “No. He knows we have our hands full.” His eyebrows waggled wickedly.

  Chessa gave him a frown. The man really liked walking on thin ice. “Shall we canvas the hotels again?” she said, wanting to change the subject.

  “All quiet there, too.”

  “Weird.”

  “A lull before the storm?” Alex mused. He shrugged. “Shall I drop you both home?”

  Chessa didn’t bother reminding him, Nicolas’s home wasn’t hers. She figured he’d only make some smart ass comment anyway. Get himself killed for sure.

  “Join us?” Nicolas asked, his voice a low growling rumble.

  The bullet buzzed inside her, and Chessa’s heart sped faster. What the hell was Nicolas up to now?

  “I could use a cup of coffee.”

  “I’m all out,” she said, her tone curt. Her message unmistakable. “And no electricity.”

  “No, you’re not.” Nicolas gave her a bland stare.

  “I have a camp stove in my trunk,” Alex said, lifting his shoulders at her glare.

  “Do you have a map of the New Orleans area at home?” Nicolas asked.

  Maybe he really was just thinking about work.

  And maybe she was the Queen of Sheba.