Angel at Dawn (7 page)

Read Angel at Dawn Online

Authors: Emma Holly

Tags: #Ghost stories, #Vampires, #Horror, #Paranormal, #Fiction, #Romance, #Paranormal romance stories, #Motion picture producers and directors, #Occult fiction, #Ghosts, #Occult & Supernatural, #Love stories

“
Christian
.”
He could smell how wet she was, could hear how his name was almost a moan. Her heat beat up at him in tantalizing pulses. Fighting impatience, he twisted his hand under dampened silk and into her creamy folds. Her clit was his goal, ripe and swollen, perfect for rolling and rubbing between dexterous fingers. Her lips tore away from his to catch her breath. Her timing was better than she knew. She missed his fangs sliding down by seconds.
He didn’t think he could have stopped them. How badly he wanted to bite her had him panting, though he did manage to keep his fingers hard at their work.
“Oh, God,” she moaned, her throat and hips both arching. Her eyes were screwed shut, her hands curling into fists at the small of his back where the muscles of his ass began. The pressure she exerted stirred sensations deep inside him, making him want to drive her up the wall as far as she could go. Maybe he’d succeeded quicker than he expected. When he teased one finger into the first drenched inch of her vagina, her groan was tormented.
She reacted as if she’d never been touched like this before, as if how good it felt came as a surprise to her. He buried his fangy mouth in her beautiful outspread hair, shifting to the side to straddle one of her sprawled thighs. He couldn’t
not
push himself against her, though he tried to prevent his strength from doing injury.
The hand that wasn’t squeezing her pussy cradled the back of her head.
“Go over for me,” he whispered into her ear. “I want to feel you spill in my hand.”
He remembered what she liked, even after all this time. How she loved when he pinched the soft skin of her clitoris and pumped it over the little rod. How the sound of his hastened breathing could make her tighten on his finger. How she’d come all the harder if he kept her waiting. Each rediscovery dragged him closer to losing his own control, but he was damned if he’d go before her. He could do the things she liked better than he had as a man. He was quicker, stronger, and more precise. He could sense the slightest increase in her excitement and immediately build on it.
Though his balls throbbed with a painful pressure, he backed off strategically.
“Christian,” she gasped. Her left knee was up, bracketing his hip as her body bucked against his. She was strong for a human, and her writhing felt incredibly good. Her curves were the ideal combination of firm and soft. Pleasure drew a helpless cry from his throat.
Soon,
he began to promise, hoping to slow her down. Before he could, she captured his mouth again.
She cut herself on his fangs the moment she kissed him.
She didn’t seem to notice, but Christian couldn’t hold back a moan. If her fear was an aphrodisiac, this was worse. When his kind took blood, it was always orgasmic. He only had to suck the little cuts she’d made, and she’d come.
He worked a second finger into her instead. To his surprise, he encountered more of a barrier than tightness. Realizing what it meant, his cock went as hard as stone.
Upyr
lungs weren’t supposed to heave like his were.
“Oh, God,” she repeated, lurching up to him. The squelching sound her pussy made sent fire blazing through his nerves. As if to issue a warning, pre-ejaculate trickled from his cock.
“Do it, Chris,” she urged. “Push me over the edge.”
No one had ever called him that. The nickname shocked him, aroused him—though he had no idea why that was. With a grunt, he shoved his groin closer to her thigh, strafing against her as fast and rough as he dared. Unable to wait for her to do it, he took her mouth himself. The longing noises he was making should have scared him. Way past caring, he brought her to the precipice with his fingers, then pulled hard on her bleeding mouth.
Her climactic cry was hoarse, but no more than his was. Her copper-cherry taste exploded on his tongue, almost overwhelming him. Fearing the reaction might make him drink too deep, he wrenched his head back, shooting hard inside the clasp of his jeans. For all his powers, he couldn’t delay his ejaculation or cut it short once it had begun. The floodgates had been broken, and the pent-up tide was spuming.
He came longer than she did, collapsing atop her to find her hands hesitantly stroking him through his Western shirt. After a moment, she squirmed underneath his weight. That was all it took for his cock to swell hopefully, though it seemed her intent wasn’t to kick-start a second lap.
“Mr. Durand,” she said. “Do you think you could . . . remove your fingers from where they are?”
He removed them, maybe not graciously. He hadn’t forgotten what he’d found when he put them there.
“You’re a virgin,” he accused, poised above her on his elbows. Grace’s cheeks went pink, but he still forced his fangs back into his gums.
“You say that like there’s something wrong with it.”
It wasn’t wrong, precisely; it just seemed illogical. He remembered taking her virginity. Admittedly, that Grace had been different from this one—a past life or whatever. All he knew for sure was that trying to figure it out had his brain aching.
“You’re twenty-four,” he said stubbornly. “And Nim Wei’s protégée.”
Grace sucked an angry breath, her voluptuous breasts rising to his chest. “Miss Wei’s hobbies are her concern.”
Christian snorted. “I suppose that’s one term for them.” Calming slightly, though he wasn’t certain he wanted to, he peered into Grace’s eyes. “You really don’t remember doing this before.”
“If I’d done it before, I wouldn’t be saying no to you now. Or maybe I would. Maybe if I were experienced, this would be old hat.”
“Sex will
never
be old hat with me.”
“Well, I’ll have to take your word on that, won’t I?” She huffed as she shoved ineffectually at his chest. “Please get off me, Mr. Durand. I want to go back to the motel.”
He knew he ought to move, but he couldn’t. Determined to get through to her, he took her face in his hands. “I want you to remember, Grace. I want you to remember us.”
He knew he meant it, even if he wasn’t clear on his motives. His will pushed from him in a concentrated thrust.
“I’m not likely to forget,” Grace snapped. “What you did just now was pretty dramatic.”
His mouth fell open. He’d pushed his full thrall at her, and it had no effect at all. To his dismay, he couldn’t read her thoughts, either, though he tried hard enough for beads of sweat to pop on his brow.
“What did she do to you?” he burst out.
“What did who do?”
“Nim . . . Naomi. Your precious boss. She locked me out of your head.”
Grace seemed to lose all patience with him at once. She squirmed out from under his slackened muscles to stand and glare down at him from beside the couch. “I think
you’re
out of your head, Mr. Durand. You probably shouldn’t drink before you have guests.”
“Christian,” he retorted as he sat up. “And I promise you, I’m not drunk!”
Sadly, he was impaired in another way. The heat in his eyes warned him they were close to glowing, and that his glamour wasn’t up to concealing it.
He pushed to his feet and turned away from her, muttering imprecations under his breath. Vampire emissions tended to evaporate quickly, but his had been so copious the front of his Levi’s were dark with it. He looked like the youth she thought him, overexcited by a grope session in a car. Though he couldn’t hear Grace’s thoughts, he sensed her indecision. Should she stay? Should she go? Was this crazy person worth humoring to accomplish her boss’s goal?
When she laid her hand lightly on his back, he knew which side she’d come down on.
“Christian,” she said. “I hope what happened between us doesn’t change your mind about starring in our film.”
“You really are a professional.”
The air shifted as she stiffened. “I refuse to take that as an insult.”
He wasn’t sure he’d meant it as one. He’d been known to be pragmatic. “I gave my word,” he said gruffly. “It’s not
my
way to be forsworn.”
Her brow was furrowed when he turned to her. She didn’t realize it was
her
honor he’d impugned.
“That’s good to know,” she said unsurely. “Someone from Miss Wei’s staff will be in touch about the contracts. You should hire an agent if you want to be sure they’re fair.”
He could only sigh when she shut the front door behind her. The fire crackled in the silence, tiny creaks issuing from the couch as its springs recovered from their combined weight. Gloom settled over him. Vampire or not, Christian suspected he’d bitten off more than he could chew with this job.
 
 
G
race’s hands were shaking too badly to slide the key into the ignition. She’d parked by the barn where she’d first met Christian, and now she was glad for it. She didn’t want him seeing her like this from his front windows.
“Shoot,” she said as the key dropped from her trembling fingers and hit the floor. She picked it up and then sat blankly.
She wished she were certain her tremors were caused by fear, but everything Christian did had been exciting, from that first soft kiss to the final grind of his hips when he had his orgasm. Though she wasn’t an authority, she sensed he was very practiced. She’d loved the sure way he touched her, the building intensity of pleasures. Her embarrassment hadn’t mattered, or her inexperience.
She’d wanted him, as she never had any man before.
With the sense that she was in trouble, she dropped her brow to the steering wheel. Even his aggression had excited her. She knew if he’d pushed just a bit more insistently, she’d have let him make love to her.
“Stupid,” she muttered, feeling her traitorous body twitch hard at that idea.
She wanted him inside her, that thick, warm length he’d rubbed so urgently against her. It seemed to her that she knew exactly how he would feel. How far he’d reach. How hard he’d thrust. The way his beautiful face would twist and darken as his arousal rose. His grunts had sounded so familiar, as if she’d heard them countless times in her dreams. She just
knew
the skin of his penis would be silky.
“Jeepers,” Grace swore to herself. The nerves between her legs were actually on the verge of spasming again.
Rather than let them, she shoved the key where it belonged and started up the Fury. She was leaving, no arguments. Christian was too young and pretty to have outgrown acting like a Lothario. He’d break her heart without even trying. However stupid Grace might be, she wasn’t stupid enough for that. She was going important places. No Tom, Dick,
or
Christian could stand in the way of that.
She drove with her molars grinding, willfully ignoring how each rotation of the tires tightened her ribs more. She felt like an elephant was sitting on her chest, like her heart was bleeding already.
Turn around,
it was urging.
Go back to him.
The tears began as she hit the two-lane, two long trickles that cooled in the breeze from the cracked window. She swiped them angrily from her cheeks. There was absolutely no point in missing something she’d never had, something she suspected didn’t exist.
True love was for the movies. In real life, people had to count on themselves.
Three
C
hristian’s plane had taxied to a stop by the time Grace drove Miss Wei’s Fury onto the oil-stained tarmac. The private airstrip was in Pasadena, a drive from their house in the Palisades—not that it mattered. LA’s infamous traffic had been thin enough not to slow her down. Grace glanced at her bracelet watch, a gift from her employer. Clever charms hung from its links: a clapper board, a megaphone, and a film camera. Each year on the anniversary of her hiring, Miss Wei gave her a new one. Grace jingled it out of habit. She was actually a little early. It was ten till midnight: the witching hour.
Four years of working for Miss Wei had inured Grace to nocturnal assignments. Nonetheless, she pulled her sweater closer against a shiver as two men in navy jumpsuits rolled a set of steps up to the small chartered jet. They must have been strong as well as used to the task, because they pushed the ramp into place like it was nothing. The windows of the plane glowed gold into the darkness, and she saw two shadows moving inside, probably Christian and his man Roy. Her breathing quickened. Feeling more comfortable not staring, she shifted her gaze away. The logo on the tail fin was unfamiliar, a leaping wolf with toothy jaws agape. “FC Air” she thought the lettering said.

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