Rafe's Rules Page 3

  ‘Feeling a little woozy.’

  He watched me in silence for a few moments, and I wondered how the dance was going to play out. Was it going to be may I give you a ride home, or was he going to offer to call me a cab, putting the job of seduction onto my shoulders? But he murmured, ‘There’s a hotel a block away.’

  The implication was he’d used it before, in similar circumstances. It should have sounded impossibly sleazy, but for some reason it didn’t. It sounded exciting. And dangerous. And just right.

  Without a word I stood up. He rose with me.

  The hotel wasn’t actually too bad, a rather nondescript building with dull but new carpeting and a fresh coat of paint on the walls. The man behind the reception desk said, ‘Uh-huh,’ when Oscar booked us in as Mr and Mrs DeVane, not even bothering to smirk knowingly at me.

  Up in the room, which was clean and had a bed that felt only a little lumpy when I tested it with my hand, Oscar lightly touched my elbow.

  ‘Excuse me for a minute,’ he said, and disappeared into the bathroom.

  Quickly I familiarized myself with the layout of the room. Outside the French windows in the far wall there was the briefest of balconies, no more than a man’s height across. I stepped out and peered down. We were three floors up; below, a railing fenced off the hotel’s swimming pool, which looked dark and murky.

  I came back through the French windows just as Oscar was emerging from the bathroom.

  ‘I was feeling a little hot,’ I murmured. He smiled drily. I left the French windows slightly open behind the floor-length drapes and stepped toward him. He’d taken his jacket off and washed his face. In his shirtsleeves I could appreciate the breath of his shoulders, the expanse of his chest.

  He reached out his hand and laid his fingertips on my lips. I parted them a little and touched my tongue against his fingers, lightly, keeping my eyes steady on his.

  He stepped closer. I reached up with my own hand, grabbed the collar of his shirt and ripped the front open, sending buttons popping and flying. Beneath the cotton his pecs were smooth, sculpted, the result of substantial gym time. I put my hand against his chest and dragged the nails down, not hard enough to hurt.

  Oscar moved in, arms sliding round my waist, his hands splaying across my back. Our bodies pressed together and I could feel the hard sinewy maleness of his torso.His mouth came down on mine and our tongues met and twined, probing frantically.

  It’s funny, I’ve kissed vampires before, and every time I’ve found myself marveling where the hell they actually hide those fangs of theirs. Your lips, your tongue, don’t detect anything different than a normal human mouth.

  He lifted his mouth from mine and began to run his lips down the side of my neck. I thrilled to the sensation and at the same time felt a sharp stab of apprehension, as his teeth pressed against the soft warm pulse of my carotid. It was a gamble I was taking, that was for sure. If he decided to bite me now I’d have no defense. But somehow I thought he had other, more urgent impulses he wanted to satisfy rather than bloodlust. Vampires do have some similarities with real people, as I’m sure is becoming obvious.

  I pushed my pelvis forward and he responded in kind. Through the cotton of his suit and the tight leather of my own trousers I could feel the hard rock of his arousal. A rush of lust flooded through me and I wound my arms around his neck and hoisted my thighs up around his waist. His hands shifted down to grab my ass and pull my groin even harder against his.

  We staggered toward the bed and he flung me down on my back, standing between my parted legs and wrenching the rest of his torn shirt off. His belly was ridged, the shadows between the ab muscles like score marks in granite. Now we were apart I could see the rampant bulge in his trousers. He kicked off his shoes and socks and as I arched my back to wriggle out of my lace top and unclasp my bra, he dropped his trousers and shorts.

  I froze for a second as his erection sprang free. The fact that he was a vampire – assuming he was one; don’t forget I hadn’t established that yet – had no bearing on whether or not he was well endowed. Oscar DeVane was simply naturally hung. It quivered, flicking up with each pulse.

  I flung aside my bra and he knelt between my legs, his hands roving over my breasts, massaging them, my nipples springing up like bullets against his palms. He lowered his head and kissed and suckled at them in turn, nipping lightly. Down between us his hands were groping awkwardly at the tight waistband of my leather pants.

  ‘Wait,’ I breathed, and raised first one leg and then the other, prizing off the thigh-length boot from each and dropping them beside the bed. I lifted my butt, pulling down the zipper in the front of my pants and bumping and grinding so as to free the clingy material from my hips. When they were down around my calves Oscar pulled them the rest of the way.

  ‘Quickly,’ I hissed, as his fingers grabbed at the sheer red silk of my thong and fumbled the wisp of a garment down and past my knees. I kicked it off my foot to send it sailing across the room. He stared between my widespread legs and then lowered himself, but instead of leaning forward to penetrate me he bent his face to the inside of one of my thighs.

  The sensation of his lips nuzzling and probing the soft, sensitive flesh of my inner thigh produced almost an electric shock up towards the center of me. I grabbed handfuls of his hair to try to pull his head upward but he stayed put, moving at his own unhurried pace, his flicking lips and tongue tracing a path up and inward.

  I stared down the length of my body, past my breasts and pubic mound to where his forehead was visible between my thighs. For an instant Oscar raised his head a fraction and he caught my eye, his pupil swollen to its maximum diameter, something unreadable and somehow frighteningly ancient in the expression it conveyed. Then he bent to his task once again and I felt a sweet, almost unbearable shock of delight as his tonguetip reached my waxed groin, where it paused.

  Slowly, the pressure of his teeth increased against the taut, thin skein of skin over my femoral artery and vein.

  Lust and terror intertwined in my belly. This was it. He was going to tap my femorals, gorge himself on one of the richest sources of blood in the human body. All he had to do to incapacitate me immediately was to tear open the artery. In thirty seconds I’d have lost so much blood I’d be too weak to move. The room would resemble an abattoir.

  The adrenalin spiked through me and I was at the point of making a move when the moment was over and a new sensation, one of unutterable deliciousness, thrilled through me as he buried his face between my thighs.

  My wet muskiness opened to receive him and my hips bucked involuntarily against the lapping of his tongue. Through his probings I felt folds and creases I’d incredibly never explored before, alone or with a lover. I clamped my thighs around his head, pinning his face against my crotch, greedy for him to prolong his attentions there. Rapidly I felt myself beginning to climb the curve toward orgasm.

  But it wasn’t to be. Despite the lock of my legs round his head, despite the clawlike grip of my hands, he pushed himself away roughly and rose above me, bracing his muscle-ridged arms on either side of my torso. Without further ado, he thrust forward and penetrated me, plunging the full length of his cock deep into me in a single movement. I was slick and dilated from his recent ministrations and I engulfed him without discomfort, reveling in the sudden sensation of being completely filled by a man’s organ.

  (A man’s? I wondered.)

  Oscar withdrew almost to the tip and drove in again, snarling through gritted teeth, his gaze roving between my face and my breasts and the point of entry between us. Each thrust jolted me hard so that I felt the pressure of the mattress beneath me. I began to move my hips to match his rhythm, stropping him as I used my internal muscles to squeeze and release his cock. He dropped closer to kiss and lick at my neck and I spread my hands across the broad expanse of his back, hooking my nails into the hard flesh and feeling wetness against my fingers.

  No, in case you’re wondering, this wasn’t a tell-tale s
ign that Oscar was human after all. Vampires do bleed, contrary to popular myth. They don’t seem to need blood of their own, but they possess it nonetheless. I have a theory that they’ve evolved it rapidly for cosmetic reasons, to help them further blend in among the human race.

  I felt my climax rising again and this time there’d be no going back, I was determined. Pressing my heels against the mattress I arched my back, grinding my pelvis against his. Oscar drew his legs up so that he was kneeling between my thighs, rearing over me. His hands gripped my hip to hold me in place and his thrusts became ever more frantic, his guttural gasps rising in pitch and providing a counterpoint to my own.

  ‘Yeah,’ he moaned.

  ‘Are you coming, baby?’ I breathed.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Me too. Oh God…’

  ‘Yeah.’

  And I reached my peak, wave upon wave of intense pleasure eddying from my pelvis through my entire body, but even as I lost myself in it a part of me stayed detached, observing, because I needed to pay attention now like never before.

  Oscar roared, his eyes squeezed shut, and by the way his hips juddered and trembled and his hands tightened on the flesh of my ass I knew he was coming, too.

  I focussed on what was happening deep inside me.

  He collapsed forward, his knees still between my thighs, his face buried in the pillow next to mine, his warm hair smelling of lemongrass shampoo against my nose.

  I had my answer.

  Carefully I reached for my right boot, which I’d taken pains to stand upright beside the bed as casually as possible.

  Vampires certainly bleed. They spit and pee, too. But there are other bodily fluids they don’t produce.

  Semen is one of them.

  The smart ones, or the ones with more self-control, will use a condom and then dispose of it immediately afterward, so the woman doesn’t notice it’s empty. But in other cases, inflamed by lust as Oscar had been, they plunge straight in.

  And give themselves away at the point of orgasm. It’s Rafe’s Rule Number Three.

  My hand found the smooth leather of my boot and, using touch alone, I worked my fingers round to the narrow slit at the top. I’d customized the boot myself, adding the scabbard down the side with careful stitching.

  I prefer to use the katana, the sword I lug around with me. But in situations like this you need something a little more discreet. The blade was steel, three feet long with an exquisitely honed edge and a nub of leather for a handle. I gave the handle a gentle tug with my fingertips and, slowly, began to slide it free.

  His weight still bearing down on my chest, I felt Oscar stiffen.

  He raised his head.

  Damn.

  In an instant I’d wrenched myself free from under him, taking the only opportunity I had before he realized what was happening. Even then I wasn’t quite quick enough and he grabbed my left wrist. I whipped the small sword free from my boot with my right hand and brought it whickering down at his wrist, but he released my arm at the last minute and pulled away.

  We faced one another, both naked, me at a crouch and brandishing the sword in front of me, Oscar kneeling upright on the bed, his head lowered, his eyes glowering.

  ‘Come on,’ I said, mockingly, beckoning him with the fingers of my other hand. ‘Let’s see what you’ve got, Nosferatu.’

  They hate that, do vampires. Being called Drac or Nosferatu or Bela. It pisses them off no end.

  Oscar was no exception. Under his lowered brows his eyes blazed orange, the sudden change startling. His pupils had become cats’ slits. His lips peeled back and there were the fangs (where do they store them?), hook-like and glistening.

  He snarled something in some ancient tongue, and sprang forward.

  Their speed never fails to astonish me, and in my early days in this job I nearly came a cropper more than once, underestimating how fast they could move. But I was prepared. As he launched himself off the bed I sidestepped and swung the blade horizontally at neck height. He hit the floor and rolled, ducking the sword, and before he could get to his feet again I swiped downward in a backhand blow.

  The blade embedded itself in his shoulder, the jarring shock vibrating so hard up my arm I thought I was going to drop the sword. He made no sound, didn’t give any sign he’d felt pain – he hadn’t; vampires don’t – but rose upright, the movement dragging my sword arm with it. With both hands I tore the weapon free from his shoulder before I was forced to let go.

  We circled each other on the carpet. Each slash of my blade he met with a parry and a lunge of his own, ducking and weaving to get in close. I fought to keep the distance between us. The sword was a slashing, not a stabbing weapon, and I needed a critical amount of room to swing it or it would be useless.

  I noticed despite myself that he had an erection again. Not just any erection, but a flagpole of a boner. So this was turning him on. Or I was. I might be able to use that to my advantage.

  Still crouching, I arched my back a fraction and swayed, so that my breasts swung a little. And yes, his glance dropped for a moment. If you’re a woman, you’ll no doubt have discovered the remarkable, inexplicable power boobs have to hypnotize a guy. If you’re a man, you’ve probably discovered the same. Vampires aren’t any different.

  I leaped forward with a warrior’s yell and was close, so close this time, the blade arcing across toward his neck, but at the last minute he seized my wrist so that the steel stopped an inch from his throat. With a bellow of fury he hurled me with one hand across the room. I crashed against the wall and slid down to the floor, winded.

  Somebody in the next room thumped irritably on the wall.

  Oscar came charging at me but instead of rising to meet him I flung myself across the floor under his feet and scurried toward the drapes in front of the French windows. I pulled them apart just as he came hurtling back across the room at me. His handsome face was barely recognizable now, contorted as it was into an animal rictus of hate.

  He cannoned into me before I had a chance to bring the sword across and we flew across the tiny stretch of balcony. The railing was a little above waist height and the next minute we were across it and airborne, sailing out into the warm night air.

  Using every last reserve of my strength, I twisted in midair by swinging my sword arm so that we were side by side. A moment later we hit the railing around the swimming pool.

  It was made of cast iron, the poles spiked to deter intruders. Oscar landed with a jolt but I dropped past. I kept a hold of his arm and probably pulled his shoulder out of its socket, but it broke my fall and I landed hard but undamaged beside the pool.

  I picked myself up and looked at Oscar. A spike had been driven through one side of his ribcage to emerge on the other side of his chest. Blood bubbled in sheets down the railings, though there was no spurting. (There never is.) His arms and legs writhed like a beetle’s, his face still a mask of fury, his eyes rolling and his mouth working soundlessly.

  It was a staking. A messy one, but a staking nonetheless.

  I raised the sword and, with a clean blow, lopped off his head. There was the customary piercing scream, like the air being let out of a balloon. On the ground, the eyes of the severed head glared balefully at me.

  Then both body and head decomposed rapidly in a soupy excrescence which faded to smoke and dust.

  I took a deep breath, glanced around. There was nobody in the hotel garden at this hour.

  Except one guy, a kid of around eighteen who looked like a junior member of staff and who’d just come round the corner.

  He gaped.

  ‘Nothing to see here,’ I said.

  He gaped some more.

  I walked over to the fire escape and began to shimmy up. I needed to get my clothes and get the hell out of there.

  Below me the kid was staring up, stupefied.

  I wasn’t worried. I didn’t think he’d once looked at my face.

  *

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ she said, pi
nching the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger. ‘He really is… one of those?’

  ‘He was,’ I corrected. ‘He’s gone now.’

  ‘You… killed him?’

  ‘Can’t kill the undead. I sent him back where he came from, if you like.’

  Letitia DeVane took out a pretty lace hankie and dabbed the corner of her eye.

  ‘You okay?’ I said.

  ‘Yes… yes. It’s just that – I loved him, you know? Once.’

  I had the bottle already out on the table. ‘You look like you could use a drink.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She made a half-assed stab at a smile.

  I poured, handed a shot glass to her. Georgia’s finest tequila, boosted with Rafe Creed’s special secret ingredient.

  Letitia sipped, then knocked the whole thing back.

  She dropped the glass on the floor before she could put it down. Her hands flew to her throat. Steam seemed to be pouring from her mouth, and her tone flickered out.

  She opened her eyes. They were a vivid yellow, with those cat slits for pupils.

  ‘Bitch,’ she hissed.

  Garlic would spoil any tequila. But it doesn’t provoke this sort of reaction. Not in human beings, anyhow.

  ‘You should learn to cover your tracks more effectively,’ I said. ‘Taking out a four-million-dollar insurance policy on your husband a month before you shop him as a vampire isn’t exactly subtle.’

  I’m a naturally suspicious person, and I’d noticed a distinct mismatch between Letitia DeVane’s costly clothes, jewelry and makeup and the relatively modest home she lived in. It suggested her tastes were more expensive than her current lifestyle allowed. I didn’t know she was a vampire too, like her husband, but the thought had occurred to me when I was sitting on the john that morning. So she’d probably inflicted the wounds on her arm herself, then come to me knowing I’d get rid of hubby for her. His remains would never be found, of course – there weren’t any – but after a suitable length of time he’d be declared dead and Letitia would cash in.