Blood Curse

Softly, Lady Ophelia explored the skin at his neck. Damn, he’d forgotten how sensitive the skin of his throat could be.

How erotic it was to feel a woman’s gentle fingers stroking the muscles of his neck.

His heart started to pump faster.

Her hands skimmed along his shirt at his shoulders. Up behind his ears, which made his breath hitch.

As a vampire, his skin felt more alive. When she touched him, with her power, it was like having lightning crackle over him.

Painful, but hot.

But where did she think he’d hidden the keys? In his hair?

Her hands went down his back. At least she was getting closer. Raven smothered a grin as he kept kissing her. He wanted to go for her neck, kiss her there, but that would be—

Too much temptation.

He would bite her if he tried it.

She moaned. He knew she was faking every fluttering sigh and soft groan. But she had a lovely, throaty voice, and her moans were so sensual . . .

His cock was so filled with his blood it was getting harder to keep control.

He had to.

He couldn’t do what he wanted, which was to rip off her dress, and kiss, lick, and suck her all over. What he had to do was let her go.

At least, let her run a certain distance, far enough to get into trouble. Then he would fly to the rescue.

And his seduction could begin.

Raven’s lips and his skin burned with heat and pain—it was the pain from her power. If he wasn’t a vampire, with superhuman strength, the burning of his lips would be agony.

Lady Ophelia’s hands went lower. Down his back to below his waist. His cock pulsed with a shot of arousal and bucked against his belly. His prick had shifted shape from limp to rock-hard faster than he could grow his wings.

She groped his back. He would have to help her as the key was not trapped within the linen folds of his shirt. It was somewhere quite different.

Raven pulled off his cravat, opened the throat of his shirt, and yanked it off as quickly as he could.

Strange. Normally his naked chest was a bluish-white, as though he’d been frozen in ice. Even when he fed, he didn’t gain a more normal color. He looked more like a marble statue than other vampires did. Many of them easily passed for mortal.

But right now his skin was lightly flushed. It looked almost human.

He gazed down at her beneath his lashes. Ophelia was the most fetching human he’d ever seen. Pink glowed on her cheeks. She possessed the dewy skin of a lady who protected her face with bonnets and parasols. Amber lashes swept over eyes that glittered and sparkled.

She was so human, so alive; it was like taking a blow to the chest.

Stupidly, he broke their kiss and put his lips to her throat. It lured him like iron to a magnet. Pulled him there as if he were a dumb chunk of metal.

Her skin tasted of warmth, lightly of salt, possessed a lovely, unique flavor.

Her heartbeat pulsed under his lips.

Drinking from her would be the most pleasurable experience he’d ever known. So Jade had said. His instincts were screaming that it would be.

All he had to do was plunge in his fangs—

No. If he did, he would sacrifice his sister.

But, hell, he was going to kill pretty Ophelia, wasn’t he, when he took her power?

Remember, idiot, she has to escape. He had to move this along. Before he bit her. Or fucked her.

Raven gripped her wrists. He moved her hands so they were on his trousers. On his arse.

Ack. Ophelia jerked her hands back up. She’d wanted to search for pockets, but she was not ready to cup his . . . his derriere.

Her palms touched smooth skin. The skin of his bare back.

He shifted his position, lowering his leg, pulling her hard against him.

Against her tummy, there was a bulge in his trousers. Ravenhunt believed she desired him. Just as she’d wanted him to.

But now she felt awful. It stung her pride, churned up fear, made her want to be sick. She didn’t want to think she was embracing, kissing, exploring a man who was half-unclothed and whom she hated.

At least the fact he was naked above the waist meant she had fewer places to search for the key.

What if the key was in one of his boots? How would she explain sticking her hand down in one of those skintight leather things?

Worse, what if it was down inside his trousers?

He must have a pocket of some sort. And if she couldn’t find it there, she would make up some reason for him to take off his boots. She could say she was afraid he would step on her toes while kissing her.

She had gotten good at lying since she’d had to keep her power secret.

Wait? What was he doing?

His hand was sliding between their stomachs. Ophelia took a quick look down.

He opened the placket of his trousers. He was pushing them down.

She could not let this continue.

Even for the key.

Ophelia tried to pull her hands away but he grasped her wrists and drew her arms around him. Behind his back, he planted her hands on the edge of some soft material. His linen drawers.

He had put her hands on his underclothing.

This wasn’t what she wanted. Panicked, she started to move her hands away—

Her fingers brushed a rigid lump.

Shutting her eyes, tense as a drawn bow, she explored. The shape in his drawers was long, slender, and hard. A shape very like a key.

In his arousal, he must have forgotten he had put her hands right beside the key.

She gathered her courage. Then she thrust her tongue into his mouth to play with his, kissing him with desperate abandon.

To distract him while she eased her hand down the back of his drawers.

Firm, hard contours met her fingertips. It was the warm skin of—gah!—the globes of his bottom. Then she brushed cool metal.

She was breathing hard into his mouth, half-paralyzed with fear. She was terrified he would feel what she was doing.

Sliding her other hand down, Ophelia cupped the curve of his derriere on the outside of his underclothes. Her fingers felt stiff. But she managed to squeeze his rump. He jumped, apparently startled by her boldness. In that moment, with him distracted, she slid out the key. It was cold and hard against her palm, and she curled her fingers around it.

With her object hidden in her hand, she didn’t need to endure the kiss any longer. What she needed was to get away from him.

She tore her lips away from his. “Stop! I don’t want this.”

His lips curved up. “This is sudden. You seemed to be enjoying it up to now.”

“I was not!”

“You liked it and that bothered you. I understand, Ophelia. I’ll leave you alone.” He took a step back.

She couldn’t believe he would surrender so easily. But her heart soared with relief. She had the key squeezed so tight against her palm it was cutting her skin.

Shrugging, he picked up his shirt, then buttoned his trousers. “Until next time.” With that and a quick bow, he strolled away from her, still half-naked. Humming, for heaven’s sake.