The Ultimate Bite Read online

  Kim recognized the body. She’d dreamed about it so many times that she had it memorized.

  A strand of hair had escaped from Stephen’s low ponytail. It brushed her cheek as he leaned closer to her ear. She gasped for air, paralyzed with mounting excitement and terror.

  “We have unfinished business, luv,” he said softly, tickling her ear with a moist cool.

  No spellbinding words from him this time. Nope, just a voice cut with anger.

  Kim tried to swallow, but her mouth was too dry. Still, she managed to keep her composure, even though the rest of her was simmering.

  “Are you here to finish it, then?” she asked, her words a brave whisper. “Did you get me alone out here by somehow manipulating my phone into ringing?”

  Even while she said it, her logical side was thinking, vampires could do things like that? Damn.

  Ignoring the question, he pressed more forcefully against her, his body hard and unforgiving. She could feel almost every contour—almost. She burned to reach back and explore him, touch him, see if he could get as turned on as she was.

  Or maybe she needed therapy.

  As if he could feel what she wanted, he backed off slightly, keeping his arm around her. He was still close enough that his cool presence seared her, even through her clothing.

  “I would very much like to know why you and your friends are hunting me. Perhaps you’ll enlighten me since I’ve made this special trip to your home.”

  “This isn’t my place, Sherlock.” She was starting to pant. “I told you. We’re harmless.”

  “And I recall telling you that your group is not. Now, luv, stand and deliver for me.”

  The phrase hit a pleasure button. It was demanding, like a bandit intent on stealing valuables.

  With a shock, Kim realized that she wanted him to order her around like this; no other man had ever dared with her. Why? Well, before The Bite, she’d dated polite guys and rarely had sex with them. Afterward, she probably came off as too self-assured for her more aggressive dates to even try. Didn’t any of them think she’d react well to commands?

  Maybe she scared regular men now. Was that her problem?

  As she listened to him breathing softly behind her, she thought that it didn’t matter, because Stephen wasn’t any man. Not by any stretch of the imagination….

  Her legs went rubbery, but he stabilized her, effortlessly maneuvering her over to the car’s hood so she could keep herself standing. Even now his arm was wrapped around her, squashing her sensitized breasts. Maybe he thought she was going to run.

  If only he knew.

  “Stand and deliver?” she asked, daring to continue the ragged thread of their conversation. “What are you going to take from me besides information, Stephen? What do you want?”

  For emphasis, she shifted, skimming her breasts against the inside of his forearm, almost groaning with the friction.

  He paused as if struck. She wasn’t sure if vampires cared as much about sex as blood, but she was going to do everything and anything to get what she wanted.

  Slowly, Kim moved so that one of her breasts smoothed into Stephen’s palm. Oh. At the same time, she pushed backward in a sly taunt, pressing her ass against his lower thighs. She rubbed, catlike, luxuriously and confidently.

  “Tell me what you want,” she repeated, hoping for the right response.

  Breath quickening, he sheared his fingers over her breast, shaping her hardening nipple. Kim winced, lowering her head and biting her lip to keep from making a big noise. He slipped his fingers under the fullness of her, exploring, then cupping her in his palm, a sinuous action that sent a whisk of electricity into her clit.

  Maybe he can’t help himself, Kim thought. Just like me.

  Dazzled, she rubbed her derriere against him again, encouraging him.

  With a tight groan, he slid his other hand over her ass, mapping her cheeks and seeming to forget about his original request for information.

  Oh, good. Kim rested over the car’s hood because her legs just couldn’t hold her up anymore. “Take what you want. I dare you, Stephen. Just take it.”

  “I see,” he said, tone rough yet somehow controlled. “You’re one of those women who loves The Bite. I’ve heard about your kind. You’ve experienced it once and it wasn’t enough.”

  A burst of desire lit her up, making her throb and ache with wet yearning.

  It was happening, and she could barely take it. Her belly clenched so violently she thought she might climax before anything really started. But Stephen was the one responsible for bringing this frantic need out in her; he’d been the one who’d coaxed the primal cat that clawed and scratched, that hunted on her own terms until she’d found what she desired. This was all his doing.

  When he guided a hand under her tank top to her stomach, the coolness of his touch made her muscles leap. As he skimmed her belly ring, she heard him laugh softly. He traced patterns lower, fingers like brands.

  Shaking, Kim laid her cheek on the car’s hood, skin slick against the paintjob. Weak, she was so weak she could barely move.

  He eased his palm upward, over her bra and higher, until he inserted his fingers into the cup of it to tease her nipple. In a strangled whisper, he asked, “Tell me your impression of the first bite, Kimberly.”

  It was as if he’d poured syrup over her—melting, warm, sticky. She felt composed of it.

  “I…Oh…” She bit her lip as he rolled her nipple between his thumb and index finger. “I can’t really remember.”

  He laughed again, low and soft. “That hardly sounds delightful.”

  “Oh, it was.” She moved her hips, inching back until she found his thighs again. Hard. Was the rest of him the same way? “It was the best thing that ever happened to me, even if most of it was a fog. But I know it—”

  He’d stroked his other hand between her legs, his long fingers massaging through her jeans. “You know it was what, luv?”

  She moaned, losing herself. “I know it was amazing. I wanted it to happen again and again.”

  “Would you like me to bite you? Is that what you’re asking for?”

  She reached down to his hand, pressing it against her sex with wanton greed and moving her hips in time to their rhythm. Heavy, she was so heavy there, like a thick layer of expandable matter holding in a flood of liquid.

  “Yes,” she breathed, “bite.”

  Grinding against his hand, she closed her eyes, hurtling toward a mental bank of bright bulbs. Her brain had almost completely shut down, a slave to the rest of her body.

  He lifted her to the hood, gently yet firmly flipping her over until she faced the night. He did it with such easy strength that it sent a spatter of tightness through her. But she wasn’t ready to finish yet.

  She started to unzip her jeans, needing the freedom.

  Her gaze focused on him—dark, hovering, demanding Stephen—and everything locked into place for a buzzing moment. His eyes were blazing, as if undressing her with the heat. She felt her body drain, not of blood, but of something else, as if he were feeding just the same.

  His intensity washed flame over every inch of her skin, and she fumbled with her fly. He helped her, his hands cool and assured as he slipped her jeans down her hips. Then, almost casually, he stroked between her legs, every movement whisking her slick lace panties against her sex.

  He watched, a sense of wonder on his otherwise still face. “Your pulse. I can feel it everywhere. Here…” He pressed against her clit, making her legs spread wider as she groaned. “And—” he raised his chin, as if sensing the air around them “—everywhere.”

  Then, he halted all movement, as if tuning in to some unheard sound. Kim protested but, seconds later, she caught the faint putter of a car’s engine fading into nowhere. Her skin flushed as she realized that she was splayed over her car’s hood in front of sky and country with a vampire strumming her to a finale. What if Powder came back out? What if…

  Ah, so what?

&nbs
p; With the car gone, she wiggled her hips, inviting him to continue. He did, resuming his erotic petting by tracing the folds of her sex with his thumb, making her flesh plump with more blood and sensitive need.

  “When?” she asked, not knowing how much longer she could stand it.

  A rakish smile lit by moonlight made him look both trustworthy and deadly at the same time. A peak of emerged fang did a lot to accomplish that last part.

  Her heart stuttered. This was real. This was happening.

  “Aren’t you bold,” he whispered. “Usually, when I hunger, I don’t trouble myself with such difficult donors.”

  “But you’re hungry now, aren’t you? You’re—”

  Before she could finish, he divested her of boots, jeans and panties. It happened in a heartbeat. The next thing she knew, he’d parted her legs even wider.

  The night air breathed against her, and she pulsated at the vulnerable state she was in. And, when he spread her lips open with his fingers, her clit was suddenly painful, begging for him.

  Fangs, she thought too late as he lowered his head to her. What if he…

  He licked upward, coating her slit with his tongue. She slid her body up the car’s hood, crying under her breath while moving with him.

  Pausing, he watched from between her legs, his eyes a devilish green. “Are you afraid?” His murmur was hot, ruffling the thatch of hair covering her mons.

  Kim swallowed past the lump in her throat. “Yes.”

  “Do you think I’ll hurt you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Something foreign seemed to dim his gaze for a fleeting second. But then, he lowered his head again, using his tongue to tease her. Kim arched up, crazed, her hands clutching windshield wipers, snapping one of them clean off.

  Clearly stoked by her response, he buried his face in her, lapping, kissing, thoroughly working her until she was gyrating and grinding her teeth.

  Fangs. The thought resurfaced. What about his fangs?

  Then, she felt a scratch.

  Horrified, electrified, she yelped. But then he thrust his tongue inside of her, mining her with the deepest kiss possible, swirling and sucking and turning her into a vortex.

  “Damn you,” she said, jamming the loose windshield wiper against the car. “Damn you for doing this to me.”

  The words seemed to tear into him. Like a pouncing thing, he disengaged from her sex and slid his body up hers, stripping her tank top off and over her head at the same time with otherworldly, fluid movements. Then, his eyes that same bright green, he pushed off her bra, tossing it away. Below them, the car bounced, moaning in protest.

  Naked. She was naked under him, exposed and willing, stimulated and drenched with an approaching orgasm.

  As if to second that, a more intense tightness coiled in her belly, ready to spring at the right provocation.

  He laved his tongue around one bare breast, drawing on it as she buried her hands in his long hair, tugging off the leather band that held it back. The soft strands went spilling down over her forearms, flirting with her own skin. In her heightened state of arousal, she caught the scent of honey, of foliage that shielded bright eyes in the night.

  Again, he scraped her flesh, and she hitched in a startled breath.

  “Kimberly,” he said—or maybe he didn’t say it. Maybe it was in her mind, in her every thought.

  Sucking her breast, he sought her other with his hand, then smoothed his palm upward, over her collarbone, to her throat. With his thumb, he circled the center of it—the tender column between her veins.

  His other hand eased under her, over the curve of her ass. He squeezed, his fingers lowering between her cheeks to brush her swollen sex.

  How much longer?

  Little by little, the tightness in her belly stretched, ready to break. It was like waiting for a snake to strike, and Kim knew she should get out of its way, but she didn’t want to. She wanted the pain, the delight, the poison.

  Stephen finally nuzzled his way up to her neck, where he rubbed his lips against a jugular vein. It throbbed in demented time, her blood speeding through her body.

  “Do it,” she urged. “Give it.”

  He tilted his head until he was looking at Kim, and what she saw frightened her, delivered her.

  The need in his gaze…She knew, at this moment, that if she were to change her mind, it would all but kill him. Kim had become his everything, just like the first time. She recalled it clearly now—how could she have forgotten?

  High on that realization, she led his mouth back to her neck, brazenly offering it.

  His body went rigid, and he raised his head, then came into her.

  Kim groaned, stunned by the pop of fang into skin. It was agonizing, but only for a second. After that, as he entered her completely, she felt full of him, engorged while she fed off his passion for her. Then came the vein-heavy feeling that it would all be okay in the end, that she shouldn’t fear dancing this close to death.

  They moved together, body to body, as he sucked. She felt energy draining from her. Dizzy, so dizzy. Yet, simultaneously, she was getting stronger, a flash force building within her with such power that she was swept away in its embrace.

  Wave…upon wave…Higher…

  As she reached the sky’s night ceiling, the point of a star pierced her skin. Then another. Another. They entered her until she was full of holes yet charged by their light. She flared, the buzz pressing outward, against the shell of her body—

  Then she burst, a supernova sparking blood. She rode the crimson wave down, floating, weakening, until she was back in her body, cradling Stephen, who shuddered, then panted against the skin of her throat. He was caressing the side of her neck, her bruised and sticky wound, as if wanting to heal her.

  She couldn’t say anything. He didn’t speak, either. But when the fire finally began to slip out of her and into the air, leaving her calmer, she tested her voice.

  “This,” she said, croaking with emotion, “was maybe even better than the first time.”

  He lifted his head to look at her, and what she saw by moonlight on his face gave her a jolt. But not a good one. Not a good one at all.

  Something like confusion was dimming his gaze.

  Then it hit her.

  “Crap,” she said, her heart taking a dive. “You don’t remember biting me the first time, do you?”

  3

  HE HAD BITTEN her before?

  As the woman, Kimberly, fixed a brutally bewildered gaze on Stephen, he instinctively shut out the flood of unidentifiable fulfillment still thrashing through him and glanced away. He came to stare at the car’s windshield, where the moon was reflected in wan apathy. Stephen’s own image was nowhere to be seen in the glass because, unlike the moon, nothing cared to reflect him. He was vampyr.

  Truly, he had bitten her before?

  Stephen searched his memory, but there had been so many women throughout the ages. Perhaps, when he was a younger creature, he might have recalled a feeding from only a year ago. But now his days faded together, indistinguishable, just as many of the world’s cities were becoming. Homogenized, McDonald’s-ized, a progressive blur.

  Yet, to his knowledge, he had never bitten anyone twice, though, he was not surprised it had happened. His existence was so rote that he did not pay attention to the details of victims anymore. All the same, his apathy was required. Long ago, he had decided that allowing someone to move him was destructive: the world around Stephen was fleeting, speeding past in the blink of an eye. More than 130 years ago, he had learned the hard way how foolish attachment was, with a woman who had ultimately found him repulsive. She had gone on to fall in love with a mortal, marry, to be happy and had succumbed to a peaceful death.

  However, unlike humans, a vampire’s pain never died.

  Despite this, Stephen occasionally found himself yearning to look forward to something…Anything…Anyone.

  Now, his predatory vision allowed a peripheral scan of this woman he
had chosen tonight in his blinding hunger. He had been so consumed with family matters lately that he had delayed feeding; hence, tonight, it had been all too simple to lose control and succumb to his ravenous urges.

  Kimberly. Hair like blood rain, eyes clear and tempting, a smile that shined with confident invitation; A hunter who had gotten the best of him earlier. At first, he had found it charming that she had called herself a “hunter,” yet he had found the situation less so when she had mentioned the drainings that the rogue had been performing.

  Out of extreme concern, he had tracked her to this house, determined to secure more information about who she was, what she knew and why she wanted to record his voice and image. These hunters could present infinite danger to Stephen and his vampire family, perhaps even compounding the crimes of this rogue creature he had been assigned to hunt—an unknown criminal who was draining women and threatening to expose the vampire kind with all his mindless bloodletting.

  Yes, investigating her as much as he was investigating him was important. After Stephen discovered what this Kimberly and her hunter group already knew about the rogue and about vampires in general, he could stop the Van Helsings from spreading the truth about their existence. He could stop them from destroying a vampire’s best means of survival—secrecy.

  As well, it might even be possible that these hunters knew something about the rogue that could help Stephen in his quest.

  As his family’s enforcer, it was his duty to keep his brethren safe. It was necessary and right. He would do anything to succeed.

  He had merely been distracted tonight.

  Even now, he could still taste her on his tongue, and a quiver spiraled through him. Her blood was not the only sustenance that had filled him tonight, there was something else, as well, a force he had drawn from her frank sexuality. A disturbing new aphrodisiac that was upsetting his normally calm balance.

  Stephen fought off the urge to look at her again, but he could not put her out of his mind. Twice bitten? How?

  Was it because of her scent, her blood? A puzzling concoction: Primitive, yet clean and innocent. An opiate he should have recalled imbibing before.