Campbell Manor
“That was a useless night,” Christophe said as they walked up the stairs from the garage.
“No, it wasn’t. We learned what is not true, so we can start to deduce what is true. The shifters don’t have the sword, or they wouldn’t have reacted like that. Telios terrifies even the vampires he might recruit to be on his side. There are even rumors, although I think it’s ridiculous, that he might be the real Jack the Ripper.”
“Aha!” Christophe shouted.
Fiona shushed him. “Aha, what? Also, be quieter, please.”
“Nothing. Just a hunch I had. Anyway, Telios may have the sword. A powerful enough vampire could get past the security in the Jewel House easily enough,” Christophe mused. “He doesn’t seem to be the type who would share the news, either. So we can’t rule him out.”
“So tomorrow we go after Telios?”
Christophe shook his head. “Tomorrow I go after Telios. Alone. A very old, very powerful master vampire is my domain, not yours, won’t you agree, partner?”
She narrowed her eyes, and he tensed for another battle, but then she sighed and smiled. “Yes, I do agree. There’s not much I can do other than get in the way. But I’m going to be working on a plan for how to clear the Scarlet Ninja’s name.”
“Agreed.”
A sound in the hallway alerted them to Hopkins’s presence. “Glad to see you home safely, Lady Fiona. I’ll say good night.”
“You didn’t need to wait up for me, Hopkins,” she said, smiling at him.
“Of course not, my lady.” He bowed and retired to his quarters, leaving Fiona staring after him with a mixture of fondness and exasperation.
Christophe knew how she felt. “Annoying, isn’t it, when nobody does what you say?”
She stuck her tongue out at him and ran down the hall to her room. He gave her exactly three seconds’ head start, and then he gave chase.
He burst through her door and she was nowhere to be seen. Maybe she’d headed to the bathroom to freshen up. He slowed to a walk, trying not to look like a love-struck fool, and someone pushed him from behind, and then laughed.
Fiona’s laughter. She was shadowing.
He removed his daggers and then grinned and ripped his shirt off over his head, not bothering with the buttons. “I’m happy to play, Princess.”
She laughed again and smacked his ass. He jumped a little. Hadn’t been expecting that.
“You know turnabout is fair play, right? Just warning you that now I get to spank that luscious ass of yours,” he growled, unfastening his pants and sliding them down. He stepped out and, totally nude, turned around. He couldn’t find her at first, though. That unique pattern of swirling light and shadow he’d learned was Fiona didn’t appear.
“I’m learning to mask any trace of myself, even from you,” she said, from the opposite corner of the room. “Did you know you have a lovely body?”
Seemingly from thin air, her shirt flew through the air and hit him in the chest, followed shortly thereafter by the wisp of lace that was her bra. His breathing sped up, and his cock, already hard, swelled even more.
“You want to put your hands on my lovely body?” he asked, stalking toward her. Or where he’d thought she was. He realized he was wrong when another scrap of lace hit him in the back. He whirled around and caught her underwear before it fell.
“A trophy?” He held it up and grinned. “A keepsake?”
“If you like spanking,” she purred, this time from near the bathroom door, “that can be arranged.”
He caught his breath. His prim, proper Fiona was turning a little kinky for him. He liked it. His entire body tightened, and he thought he might go insane if he didn’t get her under him in the next few seconds.
“Go lie on the bed,” she commanded. “On your back, arms out.”
“If you—”
“Now,” she said sternly. “Don’t make me punish you.”
“Oh, by all the gods, I’m going to make you pay for this,” he warned. “I’m going to make you come so hard and so long that you’re screaming for a week.”
He heard her quick, indrawn breath, but she quickly masked it.
“Big talk, big man,” she taunted from near the bed. “Are you afraid of little old me?”
A silk scarlet ribbon waved in the air and then floated to the bed. Another quickly followed it.
“Tie your left hand to the bedpost, then lie back and I’ll tie your right hand,” she ordered. “If you move, you lose points. If you touch me first, you lose points.”
“And what do these points gain me?”
She laughed a sultry, sexy laugh that shivered its way from his head to his toes by way of his cock. “Silly man. They gain you me.”
He flew to the bed and did what she’d asked, although it took every ounce of determination to lie still when he felt her delicate fingers tying his wrist with the ribbon and tightening it.
“Can you be good or do I need to tie your feet, too?” she teased.
“I’ll be good,” he gritted out the words through clenched teeth, hoping that he wouldn’t spurt out of control and come all over himself at her first touch. He’d never been as aroused as he was with this woman. Never, in all the centuries of his existence.
“Have your wicked way with me,” he invited. “Please.”
Silence. For a moment, the thought crossed his mind that it had been an elaborate trick and now she’d gone off to shower and laugh at his foolishness. But then her mouth closed around the head of his cock and his entire body arched off the bed.
“How’s that?” She gave him a long, slow lick.
He moaned and his hips bucked involuntarily. He still couldn’t see her, though now he could once again distinguish the shadows that bent to hide her. It was like making love in a dream, almost unbearably erotic but still not enough.
“I need to see you. I need to know it’s you touching me,” he said roughly. “Nobody else but you, ever again. Let me see you.”
Slowly she appeared before him, curled around his hips. First she released the shadows, so she seemed to be made of pure light. Then she released the light and she was back. Fiona. Just Fiona. A miracle made into a woman, created especially for him.
“I need you. Now. Please.”
Fiona’s teasing response faded on her lips, as the intensity in Christophe’s face and voice captured her. She nodded.
“Yes. I need you, too.” She rose above him and lowered herself on his erection, then slowly slid down its length until she rested against his body. “I need you now.”
She leaned forward and released the silk ties so he could hold her. He pulled her down into a desperate kiss, devouring her mouth as if kissing her was the only thing keeping him sane. Her hands were trapped between them, resting on his powerful chest, and then he flipped her over and yanked her legs up.
“Need you now,” he said roughly, thrusting into her over and over and over. “Now. Always.”
She couldn’t talk, speech was impossible, nothing was left to her but pure sensation. She was the flame to his candle, and together they were incandescent. She climbed so high she knew the fall might kill her, but she didn’t care, she only knew she wanted him. Now and forever. Just like this, inside her body and inside her heart.
He cried out and she came apart around him, and together they fell off the side of the world and into each other’s soul.
Christophe knew exactly what was happening to him, and the terror he’d expected was nowhere to be found. It was the soul-meld, and he’d told himself he’d never, ever allow it to happen to him.
Now he welcomed it.
Her soul was warmth and light and color, it was a landscape painted by a true master. He saw her childhood and the dark grays and shades of black for the terror and sadness she’d experienced with her grandfather and father. He swam through the blues and greens as she grew older, began to move on, cared for and loved her
