Shadows in Savannah (3 page)

“Do you fear you wouldn’t be able to stop? That you’d end up taking it to the next step and turning them?”

There was hesitation and Jorge knew the answer before Dane offered it. “Yes. I’m afraid I’d take it too far. No one deserves to be the sport of a vampire, an inhuman monster who preys then vanishes. No one deserves to be taken and turned against their will.”

Jorge felt the pain and regret in Dane’s words and in the brittleness of his voice. Despair floated off him in waves as he spoke about being turned without consent. “You want to die, don’t you?” He murmured the question into the relative silence of an alleyway they’d turned down. They were between theaters and even in the shadows of the buildings, Jorge could see the war in Dane’s eyes.

“Yes.” Dane stepped closer and Jorge saw something else in the blue depths. Desire. “And no.”

“I see.”

“Are you coming with me?”

“To be with you? Alone? Do you trust me, Dane?”

“Yes.”

Jorge smiled. “Then take me wherever you’re going.”

Dane smiled in return, though it was heartbreaking, beautiful. He took hold of Jorge’s lapel in one hand and in seconds they were no longer in a London alleyway, but in an apartment back in Savannah. It was mid-afternoon and the sun was streaming in from the open curtains and glinting off the water from the river below.

“You can put the books down on the table behind you and I’ll take them to the shop tomorrow,” he said, moving around Jorge and doing exactly that with the shopping bags he carried. Jorge followed suit.

“You do love your books.”

Dane grinned. “I do. Very much. They are my escape, my daydreams.”

“But they are erotica. The majority of them, yes?”

“They are.”

“So you really are a dirty old man.” Jorge grinned back. “Give or take a hundred years or so.” Dane laughed and Jorge loved the free flowing sound. He had the sudden urge to kiss Dane, but that would wait. If he attempted it now, there would be no stopping for the next few hours. Or days. “You don’t feed on humans, but you do need to feed.” He commented, changing the subject to something less sexy than Dane’s passions for rare dirty books.

“I assume you know Roberto? The count?”

“I do.” He shouldn’t have been surprised. Everyone got their supply of blood from Roberto if they didn’t feed off humans.

”Then you know the wine barrels lining the alcoves near his lair don’t only contain wine.”

“I do know. Do you take your blood mixed or pure?” It was said in the same conversational tone as a human might ask another how they take their coffee.

“I usually keep one of each. I like the heady feeling I get from the mixed, but the pure makes me function more clearly, makes it easier for me to be around humans.”

“I understand what you mean. It’s like being drunk, blood and wine together. I know you don’t know what that’s like, but the feeling you allude to is what the humans call being drunk. It’s lightheaded, uninhibited. What do you barter with?” Roberto didn’t need money and he’d live forever because he had no wish to die, but there were things he loved and would trade to have.

“Tapestries. Several of the ones hanging in his alcove hung in his home in Italy. Before it was demolished, I got them out. All of them.”

“I have only seen four.”

“There were nine altogether. I have the other five. I don’t know if he knows, but they keep me in supply of the blood I need. He cherishes the touch of his past as most vampires do.”

“Clever.”

“I’m a shrewd businessman. A very good one. I have learned from the humans I have known and applied that knowledge to my dealings with them and with my fellow immortals. I also lend Roberto some of the erotica I bring back from Europe. There’s some very good erotic poetry from France which he devours.”

And their conversation had come full circle. “Sex. The way to a man’s heart. Or lack of one.”

“Is it the way to yours?” Dane asked softly from where he stood in front of the windows. He wasn’t looking at the river, but rather at Jorge, who rose from the sofa and took measured steps toward him. That desire he’d seen in Dane’s eyes in the alley was back, if it had ever left. Dane wanted him and the feeling was mutual, but this coming together, this dance, didn’t feel like others. His want of the blond vampire was something he hadn’t encountered before and it left Jorge a little uncertain how to proceed.

He thought he could just capture Dane in his web of sexual hunger and then leave, but that was proving difficult. Spending the afternoon, walking through London, talking, seeing Dane in an element and forging bonds that most vampires would never attempt to do helped Jorge realize that Dane wasn’t just another vessel for his cock or his inhuman desire. Dane was a much more precious life force.

And oddly enough, that didn’t scare Jorge in the least. He lifted a hand and pushed a lock of hair from Dane’s forehead and watched with a smile as it drifted back into place against his skin. “If I had a heart,” he commented, going back to Dane’s questions. “Yes, sex would be one of the ways to my heart. I was randy even when I was young and human.”

“Did you prefer men then, too?”

“No. I didn’t develop a taste for men until I was turned and, even after, it took some time to understand that it was something I could not deny. I no longer seek the company of female vampires.”

“Have you tried to be with a human since you were turned?”

“Not in many years. I did at first because the calling of their blood was too much to resist, but in time, I found other sources for blood like Roberto, and turned from beating hearts for feeding. My strength now would crush them. My lust would incinerate them. Only another vampire can handle me. Have you been with any? You meld into their world as though you were still one of them.”

“I have not. I wanted to be human again so badly that I didn’t trust myself not to take my anger out on them.”

“And what vampire is your preference, Dane? Male or female?”

“Right now?”

“Yes,” Jorge breathed, his lips barely an inch away from Dane’s. “Right now.”

“Decidedly male.”

Nothing else was said. Nothing else needed to be said as Jorge took Dane’s mouth in a kiss. There was no preliminary searching for the right angle. There was no tentative tasting. It was all passion and taking, and hunger and giving. Jorge slid his tongue against Dane’s and drew him into a tangle of teeth and wet sucking lips.

Thoughts of sex and love making and fucking and…and… Cuddling? Oh yes, cuddling filled his brain and body with longing. Jorge pressed himself against Dane and in turn pressed Dane against the window.

He wondered what could be seen from the walkway down below and it heightened his desire to think they could see exactly what was going on.

He gripped Dane’s hands and lifted them above his head, pushing against the see-through wall. Harder and deeper he kissed Dane, thrusting his hips toward the blond vampire, feeling the ridge of his cock brushing against the ridge of Dane’s.

Jorge wrenched himself away, put some space between them and Dane let his arms fall back to his sides. “I could take you where you stand,” Jorge muttered, his clothes falling to the floor without his ever touching a stitch, a button, a zipper. The heat from inside his body melted the seams that held his pants, shirts, even his shoes together.

“No one is stopping you.”

Dane’s gaze traveled over Jorge’s body, slowly, inch by inch. He felt that gaze as though it were a touch, as though it left flames in its wake. Dane focused in on Jorge’s cock and the longer he stared, the harder Jorge became.

“Those below will see.” Not that Jorge cared, but Dane worked among them, lived among them.

“It is a two-way window,” Dane said, his long fingers slowly slipping buttons from within their confines. He stripped off his jacket, his vest, and finally his shirt after pulling the tails from his pants. Those came next and Jorge was riveted to the spot, unable to stop watching the striptease. It wasn’t being done as a tease or an enticement. It was Dane, not wanting his clothes messed up, being meticulous, and unconsciously sexy.

Once naked, he stood proud. The blond hair on his head matched that of his arms and legs, chest, and the curls between his thighs.

His cock was… “Dear God, Dane.”

“I could say the same,” Dane said softly as he reached toward Jorge’s erection. Light pressure from Dane’s fingertips made him shiver. There wasn’t much a vampire felt on their skin, but through their arousal, every physical sensation heightened.

“At least being vampires we are still blessed below the waist.”

Dane laughed in agreement, but soon the laughter faded, replaced by hunger once more when Jorge pressed them both against the glass again.

Groans filled the air and bounced off the window. Humans milled around below, unable to see the passion taking place above them.

Jorge bit into Dane’s bottom lip, his sharpened incisor breaking the skin, leaving a pinprick of blood shared between them. Dane thrust his hips forward and drew his lips back over his teeth, baring his own fangs. Jorge licked them and hardened further when Dane bit down on his tongue.

“You want to play that way, do you?”

“You started it.”

Jorge licked up Dane’s neck, taking his earlobe between his lips. “Yes, I did. I intend to finish it, too. Turn around. Hands braced.”

“Oil is in the bathroom.”

“You want lube?”

“It’s been a while.”

“You’re a vampire.”

“It’ll still hurts without it.”

“Wimp.” But there was no heat or rancor in the term as Jorge wandered off through the penthouse in search of oil. When he returned, Dane was still where he’d been left, but in the position Jorge had told him to stand.

What was he thinking?
Jorge could infiltrate Dane’s thoughts as he had since earlier in the day, but this? Sex? This was intimate and personal and he would allow Dane to express himself without Jorge’s interference.

Jorge wanted the sounds Dane would make, the grunts, the whimpers, the begging.

“When’s the last time you had someone inside you?” he asked when he reached his prey. And that’s exactly what Dane had been last night. Prey. Now, as he’d come to know the vampire some, he’d become something infinitely more… A passion. A desire. A must have.

“It has been years. Many.”

Jorge slid an oil slick finger down Dane’s naked back and down between his ass cheeks, to rub against his hole. “Male or female?” As he applied pressure to Dane’s entrance, Jorge was rewarded with a groan.

“Male.”

“Mmm. I do like that. I want to be your only male from now on,” he said, pushing his finger deep, in one stroke. Dane’s knees nearly buckled, but with his other arm wrapped around Dane’s waist, Jorge was able to hold his lover up.

“Please, Jorge. Please.”

“Those are pretty words,
meu amor
. So pretty, in fact…” Jorge left the words hanging between them as he removed his finger and replaced it with the head of his cock.

With gentle pressure this time, and slow, steady movement, he pressed himself into Dane’s body.

Dane’s hands curled against the glass, the nails scraping the window. “Careful. You don’t want to shatter it,” Jorge murmured. “But I’m glad it feels so good for you.”

“Yes,” Dane hissed.

Inch by inch, Jorge seated himself inside Dane, who was already pulsing against him. It was wicked tight, close to choking him off at the base.

He pulled out until just the head rested at Dane’s entrance and was rewarded with a whimper and Dane pushing back, seeking Jorge again.

Jorge wouldn’t deny either of them. “Find a way to hold on. Things are about to get serious.” He slammed in, hearing Dane’s breath catch. In and out, Jorge pounded Dane’s ass. He gripped Dane’s lean hips tightly, holding Dane steady.

Sex between vampires was violent and often painful, a battle for dominance, but this was different. Jorge didn’t want to be dominant over Dane. He wanted their mating to be an equal give and take. He needed it that way. So much had been taken from Dane that Jorge didn’t want to take anything more from him. He wanted everything, every move, every touch to be consensual and freely given.

Jorge’s nature was to take, to seize, and he wanted that. He wanted to seize everything from Dane and then give it back to him, multiplied.

He had forced himself into Dane’s life earlier in the day. He would stay as long as the other vampire allowed it.

And this moment, this pleasure filled moment, he would memorize until the end of time.

He snapped his hips and pummeled Dane’s channel, closing in on his orgasm. As it neared, he pressed the front of his body, tight to Dane’s back, wrapped one hand around Dane’s erection, and stroked, hard and tight and quick.

Dane trembled in Jorge’s hold, pushed against the window, hard enough that it should crack, but it didn’t. He was rarely thankful for anything, but for that? He was immensely thankful.

“The big death by sunlight is not what I desire in this moment,” he teased.

“No,” Dane agreed. “Please, Jorge.”

“Let me have your pleasure.”

“Yes. Oh, yes.” The words left Dane’s mouth mere seconds before wetness flowed over Jorge’s hand. The contentment that grabbed hold of him as Dane’s orgasm took hold of his body brought Jorge his own. Deep in Dane’s body, Jorge’s cock jerked with his release.

Bone deep bliss made him shake as he pulled out long moments later. Jorge held Dane in his arms until they both calmed and caught their breath.

“For a vampire,” Dane said. “I shouldn’t need rest after that, but I’m pretty certain that I do.”

“You are simply out of practice.”

Dane glanced over his shoulder, his golden eyes warm with the afterglow of sex. “And you’re saying you’re not in need of rest? That you are ready to go again?”

“I don’t recall saying that,” Jorge admitted.

“Care to join me, then?”

“Well, if you insist.” Dane laughed and tugged himself out of Jorge’s arms and led him into the bedroom. “We did travel to London. Vampire lag is a real thing, I believe.”

Chapter Five