Seducing the Vampire (11 page)

“I—”

“No. I cannot speak with you, let alone be in your presence. You have lied to me.”

“It was not a lie.”

“It was truth hidden.” She slapped her fan shut smartly. “Move aside.”

He stepped between her and the door, not wanting her to leave without explaining… What? How? Right here in his brother's home? Gods, help him.

Rhys moved to the left, offering her an open path to the door, which she took without uttering another word. The breeze of her scent curled about him in her wake, and he muttered, “Sorry,” but she was already too far to hear.

“Damn it!”

Had Constantine won this round? The fact they were brothers should not offend Viviane, unless she truly did have her heart set on being patroned by the tribe leader.

“Have you been completely truthful with me, Viviane?”

T
HE CANDLE GLOW FROM A
six-prong silver candelabra flickered madly in Viviane's periphery. She blinked and turned her head slowly. Portia pinned her hair into one of her usual elaborate concoctions, a vision of twists, curls and springy coils.

“One of these days I shall succeed in convincing you to don a wig,” Portia said. “Then we've not hours to spend preparing your hair when you deem to so quickly let it down.”

Viviane smiled and closed her eyes. “I value your friendship, Portia.”

“You deem me a friend?”

“Yes.”

The maid's mouth dropped open, then clapped shut. “I just never… Thank you. It means a lot you would say it.”

The gentle tug of Portia's fingers through her hair relaxed. Already the hunger pangs tweaked below her rib cage. Or possibly it was the whalebone corset. She wondered sometimes if she might expire from lack of breath, but being immortal wouldn't allow such a dramatic death.

The watered silk gown was the color of rust and shimmered with glints from gold threading shot throughout. It had arrived this morning from the dressmaker, Rose
Bertin, an order Blanche must have placed weeks earlier. Viviane had been dreaming about wearing it all day.

When she was not thinking about Rhys Hawkes.

He and Constantine were brothers. And why such a secret?

She should have asked him last night but she'd been too startled by the information. And he had seemed reluctant to speak of it.

Obviously, the brothers were not on good terms. Constantine's voice had dripped with vitriol when talking with him. Things he'd said, alluding to Rhys being animal, Viviane could not figure.

There was something different about the man she wished to take as a lover. And Viviane was now determined to get to the bottom of it.

Portia toyed with the tiny centers of the roses, hummingbird skulls set with diamonds in the eye sockets. “Where are you off to this evening? The Salon Noir isn't for a few more nights.”

Yes, what would be her excuse? For she knew exactly where she intended to go this evening, only she felt she could not come right out and say “to see Rhys Hawkes.”

Viviane held the rose piece aside her head while Portia pinned it in place. “For a jaunt in the Tuileries.”

“Uh-huh.” No belief in that tone.

Her maid flitted around in front of her, her pink-and-brown-striped skirts swishing Viviane's damask sleeve. “You look spectacular. If I were a man I should desire you. Want me to describe your appearance as if I were a magical mirror?”

“I trust your assessment of spectacular. No, no more powder.”

“As you wish. You certainly do not require cosmetics
on your beautiful skin, but I worry mortals will wonder why your natural skin is so pale.”

“Let them wonder.”

Immortality had proven sweet. She would never age. Her skin would remain soft, pale and unblemished. Her body was not too thin, nor was it too plump. She prided herself on her high breasts and narrow waist. And her small feet fit Blanche's shoes perfectly.

“Oops!” Portia snatched for the ribbon she'd knocked off the vanity, but missed it.

Viviane clasped the talon Constantine had given her. “Wolves.” She sneered. “Filthy animals. One less werewolf in this world won't bother me at all.”

“You wish me to tie the ribbon around your neck?”

The ivory talon felt cool and heavy on her palm. Gauche. “No, leave me.”

Left alone in the quiet boudoir, Viviane stroked a finger across her lips. How she craved contact with another body.

What would Constantine think if he learned his brother was engaged in a liaison with her?

 

T
HE WOLF DODGED A RIGHT FIST
and spat out a boisterous chuckle. He spun around, bending his knee for the kick, but Rhys blocked the high-soaring foot with his elbow. Orlando wobbled off-balance. He jogged around to realign with Rhys in the fisticuffs match they engaged in out in the tiny courtyard behind William's home.

Rhys flipped back his wet hair and bounced on his bare feet, defying Orlando to again approach.

“You are too strong,” Orlando declared, huffing, yet smiling. “You've the strength of a wolf, and the cunning of a longtooth.”

“You are the only man brave enough to use that slur against me,” Rhys said. “Or do I mean foolish?”

Rhys offered a hand and helped the boy to stand. “The match is over.”

“But I've not yet won.” A bruise spotted the boy's right lower ribs. It would heal within the day.

“We'll pick up where we left off after you've run down the street to procure our meal,” Rhys offered. “I'm a bit peckish myself after the run out to the country earlier.”

“No clues, eh?”

“Nothing. Though, I could scent the wolf.” And should he reveal that scent was so familiar inside the house? Orlando had called William a friend. No sense in speaking his suspicion until he'd solid proof. “There's coin in my purse I left near the bookshelf.”

The boy nodded eagerly, grabbed his shirt from the ground, and disappeared inside the house. He shouted he would return with spoils for the victor.

Rhys bent forward, stretching his arms out behind his back.

William's scent had been all over the crime scene. Where could he be hiding? Had he left the country? Rhys hoped for that and then he did not. Justice must be served. And if William was in such a state to have murdered innocents then he may do it again.

Rhys strode inside, kicking the door shut with a heel, and grabbed his shirt from a hook on the wall, but didn't put it on. He wiped the sweat from his face and abdomen.

A daily exercise session appeased his dark side by flexing his muscles and pushing his abilities. Punching the door with a bare fist, Rhys retracted with a wince.

Think of other things. Things that will make you happy.

“LaMourette,” he murmured.

Lovely, contrary Viviane. The vampiress with a fierce heart and a desperation that would push her to bold action. He'd succumbed to her allure. Falling to his knees like a besotted, lovesick fop. Even going so far as to offer her his blood.

It would do him no harm. Only the vampiress's bite would enrage his werewolf.

When he was not remembering their intimate embrace on the threshold of her home, Rhys was kicking himself for not keeping her in hand last night so he could explain. But what to explain? So he and Constantine were brothers. Nothing earth-shattering about that. Save the reason why.

“I can't tell her,” he muttered, feeling his half-breed blood so painfully. “I must tell her if I wish to win her trust.”

On his way to change, a knock on the front door veered him from the bedchamber. He opened the door to pale twilight dazzling off the building windows opposite William's home. Standing amidst that dazzle, Viviane LaMourette.

She gasped at sight of him, and pressed the delicate curves of her black lace fan to rose-red lips. As if she had not expected him to answer? Kohl-lined eyes took him in from head to bare chest.

Rhys offered her a charming smirk and pressed a hand high on the door frame, which tightened his abdomen and flexed his chest muscles.

She turned toward the street, giving him her back. Hair teased into a confection revealed the bare column of her neck. Rhys curled his fingers into his palm to stop from touching her there.

“Perhaps I should return when you are attired more appropriately, Monsieur Hawkes.”

“Ah?” He leaned over her shoulder, there, where wine spiced her skin and hair, and took pleasure in pronouncing slowly and deeply, “And here I had thought you were one of those inappropriate sorts.”

Lifting her chin, she turned to face him. Twilight played with her azure eyes, dancing devious hell-forged sprites about the iris.

“Won't you invite me in?” she prompted in tones equally as defiant and teasing as his had been.

Perhaps she was not so upset after learning about him and his brother.

“The pleasure is all mine.” Rhys stepped back. “Please do enter, mademoiselle.”

Her satin skirts swept his legs. Lace at her elbow brushed his bare abdomen. Closing his eyes, he sucked in a breath, savoring the tease of it as if it had been her fingertips.

The vampiress strolled the foyer and into the main room cluttered with furniture, scattered blankets, pillows and books. She eyed a painting on the wall, which featured a pack of eight gray wolves hunting a snowy landscape.

“You are without your maid?” he asked.

She turned and granted him a deviously winning smile. “Apparently I
am
one of those inappropriate sorts.”

Her eyes skated from his face, his neck and over his chest and abdomen. A gentleman would have put on the shirt he yet held. Rhys leaned against the wall, shirt hand propped on his hip. “Do you see something you favor, LaMourette?”

She approached with a hip-shifting glide he wanted to contain between his palms while they tangled together in bed. “Perhaps I do.”

Boldly, without apology, she traced a forefinger down his chest. Rhys tossed back his head and tightened his jaw to keep from gasping with pleasure. The connection was dangerous. His mind, all wolf now, craved touch, yet his body, vampire, resisted.

“I have thought about you all day,” she offered.

Rhys straightened. “Really?”

“And Constantine.”

“Ah.”

“I had thought to conclude why it should be such a secret you two are brothers. There must be a vicious hatred between the two of you that you choose not to claim the other as family.”

“You figured that one.”

“What did you do to him?”

“Me? To him?” Rhys's jaw dropped. He slapped his chest. “You think I…?”

She shrugged, pacing before him in a sashay that belied any anger she may feel. “Did he do something to you?”

“We are brothers because we claim the same mother,” he said. “But not the same father. I was born a decade after Constantine. We've never been close.” Which was putting it very lightly.

Considering his explanation, her eyes traveled the floor along the wall, and back to the painting. She fixed on the pack of wolves.

Now or never, Rhys. You've the opportunity to tell her all. To put your dark secret out there for her to know, and pray she accepts you
.

The vampiress twisted abruptly. Curiosity twinkled in her eyes. “You know Constantine wishes to patron me.”

“I do.”

“Would he be quite angered should I consider a liaison with his brother?”

“You would…” She was stealing the very words from his brain and twisting his tongue tonight. “You are interested in—in me?”

The vixen smirked and fluttered her lashes. “I cannot say I've seen a man in such fine form before.”

That bolstered his forgotten vanity.

Her attention strayed downward as her finger glided over his ridged abdomen, marking each rise of muscle. “Aristocrats and men of letters do not put themselves in situations that require strenuous exercise. And while vampires are virile and quite well fashioned, they do not often have so much muscle. Why are you like this?”

He inhaled as her finger trailed along the waist of his breeches, tickling over the dark hair tufting above the brown chamois.

“I am not a man to languish in excess. I find taxing my muscles daily keeps me strong.” And his werewolf demanded the vampire maintain his shape. “Viviane, your touch…”

“My touch?” Soft, teasing wonder. A tilt of her head dared him to trace his fingers along her dark lashes. He would not, for he preferred it be his lips when first he touched those dark frills. “Does it disturb you?” Her skirts hugged his legs and the sensual aroma of her skin permeated his senses, dizzying him, loosening his well-reined discretion. And making him forget…what was it? “Do you want me to stop?”

Letting the shirt fall, he pressed his hands flat to the wall behind him. “Touch all you like. You are a woman who is not pleased until she has satisfied her curiosity. Be it blood, or—”

“Flesh. Your body is so hard,” she purred, eyes beaming at him. Red lips parted, inviting so many fantasies. “Is it hard all over?”

A flick of her fingers released one of four buttons dotting the left side of his breeches. Would she?

The urge to shove his fingers through her silken hair and pull her in for a hard and brutal kiss flexed Rhys's fingers—yet he did not move. Allowing her the control proved more titillating. Those damned lips; they were the same color as the roses tucked in her hair, but promised less macabre pleasure than did the skulls.

Or would she be so deadly as the skulls nestled within the petals?

Please, kill me sweetly with your mouth.

Viviane cooed, licking her lips. Her eyes dared him to grant her this wicked exploration. It was a dare he silently accepted.

The second button popped free, followed by the third.

She would!

His cock, heavy and hard, landed in her palm with a slap of flesh to flesh.

Exhaling tightly, Rhys's entire musculature tensed. “Hard enough for you?” he managed to ask.

“It is exquisite,” she whispered against his mouth. “So…thick. You say I can learn a man by tasting his blood? I disagree. A woman can learn a man by more intimate means.”

So much spoken with a flutter of lash. And then… A kiss.

Soft and lush, she claimed his mouth. She tasted sweet, decadent. Forbidden. Apparently she was not at all worried should Constantine learn about them.

Rhys slipped his fingers into the soft hair at the back of her head as she began to trail kisses down his neck and to the center of his chest. He could feel each finger about
his staff, tightening, and then, sliding up and down as if taking his measure.

Each kiss tightened yet another muscle he wasn't aware he had, and increased his anticipation tenfold. No rousing sparring session could excite him so thoroughly.