Her pussy sizzled, ecstasy imminent, rolling toward her as his palm ground against her clit and she rode his hand.
She was breathing erratically, hard through her nostrils, her heart beating a staccato as he drove her to orgasm. It exploded inside her, vibrating through every nerve ending with shattering precision. Her pussy clenched on his fingers as he continued to thrust into her, mimicking the drive of his cock.
Maggie whimpered, burying her face against his shoulder, biting him to keep from crying out.
Slowly, as her climax faded away, he withdrew his hand and zipped her pants up.
He brought his hand to his face, tasting one finger. The movement of his lips and tongue on that one digit had her cleft clenching with want again.
'I love the scent and taste of you, chere. When we are aboard the ship, I plan to taste every inch of your body.'
Maggie shivered pleasurably and snuggled close, enjoying the feel of his arm wrapped around her shoulder. The tension she'd had was gone for now though her thoughts still lay in torment.
They had to make it. She didn't think she could bear losing him now. For once, it seemed like she truly had something to live for.
Without any need for a watch, or any sign in the sky above them, Maggie knew as they got of the plane at last in New York, that it was nearing dawn. She wasn't certain if it was her vampire senses kicking in, or the urgency she sensed in Danior, but she knew they had little time to get from the airport to the docks.
Danior had arranged for a rental car and directed her toward the door that led out to the parking lot in swift strides. They carried nothing. Except for the clothing Danior had bought for her, Maggie had nothing in any case, but Danior had checked the luggage they did have when they went into the airport. He'd told her arrangements had been made to transfer it to the ship once they reached New York, but he seemed singularly uninterested in whether or not their luggage actually made the trip with them.
Unspoken was the far more urgent need to be free of any sort of encumbrance if they should meet up with the hunters.
Pushing the door open, Danior held it, catching her when she would have gone through and lifting his head to listen, almost seeming to sniff the air. After a moment, his grip relaxed fractionally. “Hurry,” he said in an under voice, placing his hand on her back, along her waist. “Slot 652.'
Nodding, Maggie proceeded him, scanning the numbers on the pavement nearest her and trying to determine what direction to take. Danior strode past her, grasping her hand and leading the way once more.
Unnerved by the tension she sensed in him, Maggie focused on searching for the car.
Suddenly, Danior stopped, going stiff. His tense wariness caught her attention, and she looked up, shocked to see a woman standing not twenty feet away from them. Petite and blonde, she was everything that Maggie was not.
'Danior,” she said, and in her beautiful voice was a threat. Death emanated from her lips.
'What are you doing here, Tatiana?” Danior demanded, clenching his hands into fists.
'I had to see if it was true.” She laughed coldly. “How far the mighty fall.'
Danior's lips curled in a chilling smile. “You were ever one for theatrics, Tatiana, but I'm afraid we'll have to miss the rest of the play. We've an urgent need to breathe more healthful air.'
She chuckled. “I know, but I'm afraid that won't be possible.'
To her left and right, two men cloaked in black stepped out, almost indistinguishable from the dark save for their pale, skin and glowing eyes.
'You led them to me.'
Maggie glanced at him sharply at the tone of his voice, or rather the lack of any tone at all, as if he were being excruciatingly careful of his words. She could read nothing in his expression, but she knew, quite suddenly, that this woman had once been Danior's woman. She turned to look at the woman again, fighting the sickness that welled inside her, the jealousy.
She smiled at the look on Maggie's face. “They needed someone who had a blood bond with you. How could I refuse?'
A sense of unreality washed over her. Time seemed to slow, the moments stretching into minutes. She blinked, turning her head to look at Danior once more and seeing nothing but a blur of motion as he launched himself at the nearest man. They collided mid-air, struggling, slashing at each other with their teeth. Cold washed over Maggie as she watched helplessly, trying to fight the shock off, trying to think if there was anything she could do to help.
Would her efforts only distract Danior and hamper him instead of helping?
Cringing away from the fight, she moved her head to see where the others were.
The second man stood where he had been, awaiting a chance to strike. The blond woman, Tatiana was watching the two men who struggled with a smile on her face.
Rage filled Maggie. This woman had meant something to Danior. She knew just from the way he'd behaved that he had been stunned that Tatiana had betrayed him. What had that cost him? Had it divided his heart and mind? Distracted him from the strength and purpose he needed to defeat the hunters who'd come to kill him?
She couldn't seem to will herself to move, however. It was like a nightmare. Every smallest movement required the utmost concentration.
It was almost as if she'd been enthralled.
She knew with sudden enlightenment that she had been. One of the vampires had her. Which one, she wasn't certain. Danior, in an effort to protect her? Or one of the others?
She didn't know, but as she watched Danior slay the man he'd been fighting and struggle to his feet to face his other foe, she began trying to break free of the mind control that held her rooted to the spot, helpless, unable to help Danior.
He was weakened from his battle with the first vampire, bleeding from wounds on his face and neck and hands, bleeding, she saw to her horror, even from slashes that had cut through his leather clothing and into his chest, his shoulder.
She dragged her gaze back to the vampiress, realizing abruptly that it was Tatiana that held her. She allowed her hate to swell inside of her, allowed it to consume her mind. Little by little she felt the control over her slip, like the faint loosening of a binding rope.
Grinding her teeth now with the effort, she focused on the pain this woman's betrayal had caused Danior.
She focused on the fact that the woman was the epitome of those women who'd tormented her her entire life.
With an effort that made her break a sweat, she took a step forward, and then another.
Tatiana's attention shifted and Maggie's followed, almost as if she were a puppet.
Relief filled her when she saw that Danior had slain the second man ... until she saw that he was too weak from the battle to rise. Even as she stared at him, struggling to break the mind hold so that she could run to him, Tatiana fell upon him, tearing a gash alone his shoulder and neck with her teeth.
She meant to kill him, to finish him off now that he was too weak to fight her.
Without any conscious effort whatsoever, Maggie broke the hold on her and surged forward. Mindless, beast-like, she fell upon her prey. Grasping her by her hair, she tore Tatiana from Danior and slung her away with a strength she'd never known she possessed.
Tatiana struck one of the concrete supports of the garage, wrapping halfway around it. It would have snapped the back of a human. The vampiress landed in a crouch and launched herself at Maggie, her teeth bared in a snarl. Maggie's heart seemed to leap into her throat as she watched the woman flying at her. Ignoring it, she waited until the woman was almost upon her and slung her fist directly toward the oncoming teeth. Pain slid up her fist, her arm, and into her shoulder. It shook her terror from her, however, and, before the woman could recover and scramble to her feet, Maggie fell upon her, pummeling her and tearing at the vampiress with her own teeth until she realized the woman wasn't moving any more.
Gasping for breath, she sat back on her heels, staring in horror at the bloody corpse that she'd made. As abruptly as the animalistic madness had descended upon her, it vanished. She scurried away from the woman's body, crab like, unable to tear her gaze away.
