V Is for Vampire Page 3

  This far along, she’d police her own consumption. The neg wouldn’t know, this far into the rush, when he offered more than he should. But that didn’t stop her hand. Didn’t keep her from jerking him, slow, but her enthusiasm rose with the way his spine arched.

  “Fffuck. Yeah.”

  Leo was well along for the ride now, and November worked to keep up with the growing pace of his heart. With the sweet pulses filling her mouth. His quiet grunts and profanities, all involuntary, made her more aware still of her own thighs parted around his lower back. Of the way she slipped against his skin, and her breasts flattened into his bunching shoulders.

  She jacked him. Up and over the top. Thumb and fingers sliding and teasing all those sensitive places. Down to the base, squeezing, pulling. It was too many things to pay attention to at once. She lifted her face from the bite to breathe open-mouthed, chin soaked, to focus on Leo.

  Palm releasing him to go flat like a blade, November sluiced a path from his groin up, collecting the scarlet runoff. Drenched again, she took him in hand and pushed on with a sloppy zeal.

  Happy male noises came louder now. Grunts and chuffs. Audible breaths. Her other arm draped over his clean shoulder, palm splaying in the red mess of his bunching abs. His own hands had fallen to press at the shower wall now, and at the glass enclosure on the other side. In the flex of his lower back, the vampire felt the subtle pump of his hips, working. Straining.

  “You like this, Leo?” Her words bounced with the rhythm of her wrist. Steamed along the side of his neck. “Gonna come all over my hand?”

  “November, ffffuuuck.”

  So he had paid attention to her id info. The vampire curled a smile he couldn’t see and treated him to more lavish strokes. He righted his head again to look down and watch, jaw slack. To see his cock, blood-smeared and heavy, slicking in and out of her fist. His left hand dropped into the fray, massaging and tugging his balls.

  “Oooh, yeah.” She dipped her hand down to meet his, painting his knuckles in a squeeze before rising again to jerk his dick. November had heard a rumor. Some donors, once they were well past the rush …

  “Want a little push, neg?” She hummed and buried her face in the bite. Latched on, hard, fangs deep, and drew from the tap.

  “Fuck!”

  His reaction was instant. November bit down, her goal pain over feeding this time, and narrowed the work of her hand. He writhed while she worried the sensitive head, her wrist and palm feverish while she locked him in searing place by the throat.

  “Oh shit. Shit!”

  Her gate partner came, the first shot impressive. The second and third splattering her knuckles, more lube to smear up and down his cock. Milk and claret marbling together, decadent and obscene. His mouth was wide open, and November wouldn’t let him quit until he was done.

  She took the last she dared from his throat, milking the length of him for the final, oozing drops. The growl and clench of him, fighting through a finish that could have been nothing like his GateSec training, had November all but purring satisfaction at the crook of his neck.

  While he caught his breath, and her strokes got lazy, the vampire extracted her teeth. Lapped up the spillage around her marks. The bleeding was minimal now, and she turned to her messy fingers, raising them up, cleaning them one by one, like a fork from an empty plate of dessert. Metallic tang and male bitters, like nothing she’d ever tasted. Perfect.

  “God damn.” Leo dropped the words, one after the other like heavy boots, and November hummed, pleased.

  “Can you …” He tried to speak, and she felt his throat move, swallowing at the side of her face, where she still curved over him to suck clean a thumb. “You think you can stand?” he said.

  “Yeah.” She left him with a rude lick below his ear and shoved herself to her feet. Didn’t blame him for wanting her off, now that the rush would be fading. November leaned her shoulders against the shower wall, her own chest and belly striped red with more that had leaked down his back.

  But Leo was turning. Pivoting on a knee and not rising to push open the enclosure. He came to her that way, kneeling, and brought hands up to splay on the wall, on either side of her hips. Hazel eyes met hers, intense. He made a filthy display, and November would have the picture in her head until the day she gave up immortality.

  His focus shifted below her navel, and his knees bent, bringing him lower.

  “November,” he said, “let me.”

  Who was going to argue with that?

  She hooked an ankle around his lower back and raked newly-clean fingers through the short texture of his hair. It was all he needed.

  The guard ducked with open-mouthed kisses to her left hipbone. He smeared them across her belly, down to the line of fur cresting her mound, lapping, cleaning his own blood from her skin as he went.

  Damn, not squeamish at all.

  When he found her lips, his tongue squirmed out, parting her. Tasting.

  “Nnnffuck.” She slurred her words but kept watching. One of his supporting hands moved to curl around below her raised thigh and grip the muscle. He held her open. He ate.

  Leonide Croix was face-deep in her pussy. Twenty-four hours ago, a man she’d never heard of. Now she was drunk from his veins, fresh from jerking a load from his dick. Now he knelt and worshiped her cunt like it was the only point to existence.

  “Mmm, yeah. Yeah.” It was going to be the quickest climax of her life. Her wounds had healed. Her skin and eyes felt no more burn, only the flush of arousal. November was full of pure, sweet, blood, hot from the source, and this eager neg was sucking her clit like if he kept doing it, he was going to win something.

  He’s fucking about to. Shit!

  Her eyes rolled back. Lids fluttered.

  “Leo, yeah.”

  His other palm left the wall. There was a thumb, stroking slick tissues at her entrance.

  “Nnn, like that!”

  He latched on and the draw on her clit sent her eyes wide. No need for his fingers to penetrate, November wailed over the edge, raining profanities and encouragement down on the enthusiastic head between her legs.

  Leo kept at it. Took her high and low and high again until her supporting knee began to wobble. November had to drag her other foot out from behind his back and graze his temple with a shaky hand to get him to stop.

  “Okay,” she said, panting against the wall. “Fuck. I can’t take it.”

  The guard sat back on his heels, looking as wrung-out and sated as she felt. He stood, bracing a palm on the wall at his side. Looked her over in frank disbelief. How long had she been conscious? An hour? Two? November started to smile.

  Leo blinked and shook his head. “We should”—he gestured between them—“probably clean up.”

  He didn’t wait for her to agree, and she admired the shape of his ass when he turned to start the water. The muscles in his back. His thighs. For the disaster of being on the surface, her gate partner was one hell of a consolation prize.

  They scrubbed back down, brisk and, oddly enough, not handsy. It was as if the whole scenario was too impossible for him, and he wanted to respect her space, now. November could agree with the ‘impossible’ part. She might want to get her hands—and teeth—on him again, at some point, though.

  There was a dull clunk from outside the bathroom. Leo’s head snapped around and he cut the water.

  November’s heart leapt, and her ears, too, zeroed in on the noise.

  More small sounds from the main room of the apartment, not confined to one location. She whipped her attention to Leo and hissed at him with wide eyes, “The fuck is that?”

  The guard made a grim face and slid the enclosure open. “My roommate,” he said, stepping out into the bathroom. “Get dressed.”

  Torn and bloodied clothing was less than ideal to yank on after a good meal and a shower, but there weren’t options. Or time.

  Leo was out the door, and November stood there, raking an indecisive hand through wet hair. Of
all the times to be unarmed. Though her uv-80 would be worthless up here. For a heartbeat, she entertained the idea of just keeping silent and hiding out. But if the noises from outside were his roommate, her gate partner would have a hard time convincing anyone the bathroom was off-limits.

  She growled to herself and left relative safety for who-the-fuck-knew-what.

  The lights were on now in the living area: bright wall panels on every side. In the modest space, the sofa where she’d come awake, a bed against a wall, and the tiny dining table competing for room, Leo squared off with another man. There was a darkened, open door on the wall opposite the bathroom, and November could only assume it was a separate bedroom. The way these two were bristling, she couldn’t imagine them sharing the single bed.

  The other man looked from November to Leo, narrowed eyes cataloging their ruined clothes. “The fuck is going on, Croix?”

  When he spoke, November’s eyebrows threatened to climb off her forehead. Twin points disrupted the straight line of his upper teeth. Leo appeared to take no notice.

  Vampire. On the surface.

  Why did her partner act like this was normal?

  “Rado, this is”—Leo turned to look at her, and she could tell he decided what to say—“this is November. My gate partner.”

  “Your ‘gate partner?’ ” The vampire eyed her, skeptical. He wore black waves of hair, slicked back from his face to fall below his ears. Skin a darker olive than hers. And a trace of an accent. Eastern Europe, maybe.

  “Rado?” November folded her arms, equally suspicious and not waiting for Leo.

  “Radoslav,” the roommate said. Dark eyes looked down at her. Challenging. He knew that she knew.

  And Leo doesn’t.

  The drugs were supposed to prevent the use of hypnotics. If her gate partner was on mandatory Fortizan, why wasn’t he seeing what she did? Was this Radoslav maintaining illusion some other way?

  November squinted and flicked the tip of her tongue over a fang, well out of Leo’s periphery. The vampires would address this. But not now.

  “What is she doing here, Croix?” Radoslav addressed his roommate but left his eyes on November. “Why are you both a wreck?”

  Leo explained, minus the mutual orgasm part.

  The other vampire gave a disapproving humph when Leo finished. “You should have left her.”

  “I told him that,” said November, right on top of her partner saying, “That’s what she said.”

  “And she was right,” said Rado, who then stepped forward, neck craning to see something. “You let her feed?” He was pushing sleeves up his forearms, as though he expected a confrontation.

  November dropped her hands and let her feet stand slightly apart.

  Leo’s fingers went to the exposed marks at his throat. “Yeah.” He looked Radoslav up and down, defensive.

  “Did she force you?” The vampire’s voice had lowered to nearly a growl.

  “I’m right here,” said November.

  “No.” Leo stepped sideways to intercede. “I offered. Take it easy. I didn’t know what else to do, okay? She was cut up pretty bad, and it wasn’t healing. I told you, they got her with sunshine.”

  Radoslav inhaled at this, and exhaled slowly, eyes swinging between one of them and the other. Judging, no doubt.

  “Look,” said Leo, “I know she can’t stay here. I get it.” He cast November a distressed glance. “I just have to figure out … how to smuggle her back down there. I guess.”

  “You guess,” Radoslav repeated with a drawl. “We can’t have a vampire in our apartment.”

  Leo pushed a hand back over the top of his head. “Telling me stuff I know.” His eyes scanned the room, distracted. “Listen, I have to go change. I have to get back there and do damage control. And not looking like this.” He gestured at himself.

  “You’re just going to leave me here?” said November.

  Her partner had stepped back into the room and was rummaging through storage drawers in the wall alongside the bed. Pulling parts of a clean uniform out and draping them in the crook of his elbow.

  “You’re gonna have to sit tight,” he said, shutting the last drawer. “I don’t know what I’m gonna find when I get back there.” Leo moved to the bathroom door but paused on the threshold. “And if I don’t come back in a few hours?” He had looks for both of them, Radoslav last. “You need to help her.”

  The other vampire lifted his chin. “Don’t drag me into your problems, Croix.”

  “It’s gonna be your problem if I don’t come back and she’s stuck here.” The door to the bath slid shut behind him.

  November turned to the roommate and opened her mouth to throw down, but Radoslav shook his head. Jerked a nod at the closed door.

  Who the fuck did this asshole think he was? Showing up, asking too many questions. Assuming he could dictate the actions of everyone in the room. And not even bloodline—a vampire from birth. He had a set of stones on him, for sure. Only women were born V-positive. Men had to be turned. They had to beg, borrow, or dumbass their way into her reality, and then transfer underground and give up seeing the sky ever again. It was legal within only the narrowest set of approved and regulated criteria. And they’d never be bloodline. Neither would the women who’d been turned instead of born into it.

  How old was he?

  She ground her teeth and glared at him. Water ran behind the closed door for a few seconds, and then Leo emerged, fresh uniform in place. The collar of the dark blue shirt covered her bite where his undershirt hadn’t; probably the best if he was headed back to the scene of the crime.

  Was it a crime, though? He saved you from those ‘nighters.

  But he’d also smuggled her up to the surface. Which was illegal, for about a hundred safety reasons, rampant uv pollution chief among them. There were gate guards on both sides for a reason. People were stupid, vampire or not, and strict security kept certain chunks of the populace from getting themselves good and dead.

  “Alright,” Leo said, wadding a ball of bloody clothes between his hands, “I’m going back.” He dropped the dirty uniform into a bin at the foot of the bed, and when no one else said a word, went to scoop up his id badge from the table. “Can you two manage to play nice while I’m gone?”

  “I will if your friend will,” said November, making strenuous eye contact with the roommate.

  Radoslav only grunted.

  “Hey.” Leo came to her side. Put a hand on her shoulder, “I’m gonna go, make my excuses, finish my shift if they’re not firing me or worse, and then head right back here. Will you be okay?”

  She raised her eyebrows. “I’m gonna have to.”

  Hazel eyes searched her, and the moment made November shift her weight to the other foot. He’d eaten her in the shower not thirty minutes ago, but they still weren’t in the sort of situation where people kissed goodbye. He gave her shoulder a squeeze and nodded. Stepped away. “If you need to sleep, you can use the bed”—he jerked his head in the direction of the back wall—“I can take the couch.”

  She gave him a brief nod, not liking any of this.

  “Take it easy, eh, Rado?” Leo spoke to the other man as though he expected a temper.

  The vampire kept his eyes on November. “Just do what you have to and get back here.”

  “Right.” Leo had a hand on the door that led out of the apartment. His eyes shifted between vampires. One of which he knew about. “Alright. Bye.”

  And he was out the door. November caught a brief glimpse of a lighted corridor beyond, before the panel slid shut. Only a beat of silence passed before she laid into the roommate.

  “I know what you are, convert.” She eyed him up and down. “Why doesn’t he?”

  The vampire standing beside the dining table made a casual show of neatly cuffing his shirtsleeves back to his elbows, where he had shoved them in a hurry before. Crisp, black fabric showed forearms dusted with dark hair. A wrist id of his own, but generic rather than the GateS
ec bracelet she wore.

  “I’ve been assigned,” Radoslav said, “to keep an eye on Leo. To keep him safe.”

  November snorted. “Wouldn’t he be safer if you were with him, instead of here?”

  Cool eyes assessed her. “He is safer with me here watching you.”

  “Yeah?” She took a step toward the other vampire. “And who assigned you to be here, Radoslav?”

  He didn’t flinch at her approach. “That’s none of your business.”

  “You never answered my question.” November had closed the distance, her tone a mild threat. “He should be on Fortizan. Why doesn’t he know?”

  Radoslav lifted a brow. “He’s on a placebo. I can show him whatever I want. And what I want is for him to continue to think I’m his boring neg roommate. The less he knows, the safer he’ll be.”

  Her jaw went slack. If this vampire was using pheromones on Leo … then she …

  “You’ve been switching his drugs?” November curled her lip. “Why are you on the surface at all? How are you surviving?”

  “That’s also none of your business,” he said, leaning over her.

  “Fucking convenient.”

  “And if you do anything,” he went on, ignoring her assessment, “to cause harm to Leonide Croix—or to expose my V-status—there will be consequences. GateSec will be the least of your problems. Do you understand?”

  November sneered up at him. “And you’re making him safe,” she said. “He’s a gate guard susceptible to hypnosis and he has no idea.”

  “Do you. Understand.”

  With a fierce side-eye, November turned away. “I’m not trying to hurt your boy,” she said, and chose the edge of the offered bed to sit this time. “I never asked to be up here in the first place. And I didn’t ask him to feed.”

  Radoslav gave her a long, narrow look.

  “It’s almost morning,” he said at last. “You should sleep while you can.”

  She watched while he cut the wall panel lighting, darkening the living area again to the way it had been when she’d still been burning from sunshine. It was only a few steps for him to move to the room’s other doorway, and to disappear inside it.