Bleeding Dusk

not lift her face that last bit to meet his.

“I seem to recall,” he murmured, now brushing his lips ever so lightly along her jaw in a quick swipe, “having to stifle your cries of pleasure in that small parlor of your villa.”

“But…that wasn’t…” He’d moved back so that when she talked her lips brushed against his when they moved.

“It was enough for me.”

His mouth, just as coaxing as she remembered, covered hers with a deliberate firmness that told her he wasn’t going to let her change her mind. She kissed him back, assuring him she didn’t intend to, and then she gave way and let herself enjoy the moment—and all of the lovely sensations that came with it.

He released her hands and moved her closer, driving his tongue in deep as it swept and swirled around hers. The slick movements tugged down through her belly, sending pleasant little pangs between her legs.

“I want to see your vis bulla,” she whispered against him.

Rolling partly away and up against the wall, he smiled with such pleasure that her stomach dipped again. He pulled off his shirt, and for the first time she saw his golden chest bare—lightly haired and muscled and square- shouldered, tapering into lean hips. The dark blond hair grew down around his navel, where the small silver cross nestled, and a slender line led down into his breeches. The rest of his torso was as bare and firm as Michelangelo’s statue of David.

Victoria’s mouth dried, then moistened as she skimmed her hands up and over his shoulders. Pleasure indeed.

Clearly enjoying her touch, Sebastian pulled her down so that she lay on top of him, her breasts smashed against his bare skin, their legs mingling with her skirts, her left arm scraping against the rough stone wall. He kissed along the side of her jaw to her ear as his clever fingers flipped open the two fabric-covered buttons at the back of her bodice.

The neckline gaped away, and she lifted up from Sebastian’s mouth as he tugged at the edges of her gown, pulling it down over her shoulders. The subterranean air was cool on her bare skin, raising little prickles there in the hollow of her collarbones. With two quick motions he yanked down her corset and her breasts tipped free, hovering and trembling above his face.

Hands sliding to hold her at the hips, pressing the juncture of her thighs into the bulge between his, Sebastian lifted his head to take her breast into his mouth. His tongue slid over the tip of her nipple, sending a renewed rush of pleasure down to where their hips ground together. She was breathing faster now, feeling the sweet build as he tugged and sucked and licked. Her arms trembled as they held her upright, and at last Victoria pulled away from his demanding mouth, sitting back on his thighs to look down at him.

His face was flushed with pleasure and his lips swollen, and when their eyes met a most mischievous grin quirked his lips. “Well, now,” was all he said as he groped under the mess of cotton and lace and muslin to slide his hands up her bare thighs. She lifted so he could pull the skirts up, placing her hands on the center of his chest for leverage and rustling her nails through the hair covering it…but when he slipped his fingers in and around the moistness between her legs, Victoria bent forward to kiss him with a ferociousness that spoke of her impatience.

They breathed together, gasping for air between kisses that moved from mouth to mouth, and then along jaws and cheeks and with teeth and delving tongues…and then he moved his hand, and they were both fumbling at the fastening of his breeches, the string of his drawers. She rolled to the side as he shrugged out of them, his legs solid and muscular, just as tanned as the rest of his skin.

“Shall we?” he murmured, standing over her, for the first time completely undressed, looking lean and toned and all shades of gold and bronze. Her legs hung off the edge of the bed, and with a half smile he lifted her skirts again, parted her thighs, and, his hands on her shoulders, fitted himself into her in one smooth slide.

Victoria caught her breath, sighed, and closed her eyes as the sweetness blazed through her. She met his rhythm, rose and fell, greedy and demanding—if she were going to take pleasure, she would take it all—until the wave finally rolled over, undulating through her core to her belly and out to every limb.

Sebastian arched into her with one last stroke, his hands leaving her shoulders to curl into the blanket, tangling painfully into her hair as he matched her.

And then there was nothing but their bodies collapsed together, breathing heavily, hot and damp and sated.

After a while Sebastian moved, lifting his face to look at her and using one finger to trace along her jaw. “Feel better?” he asked, his voice low and full of amusement.

Victoria shifted, and he let his weight slide onto the bed next to her. She smiled over at him and saw the way his eyes darkened from gold to brown when she did. “What is it?”

“Your smile is quite entrancing—all those tiny dimples—yet you don’t show it often enough.”

She sat up, working her chemise and corset up to cover her breasts again, and shrugged. “Perhaps I find little to smile about as of late.”

“At least you’re smiling about this. I thought perhaps you might hold my little secret against me, and deny both of us this pleasure.”

She looked at his vis bulla, the only cold, silvery relief on his bronze and gold figure, and some of her pleasure slid away. “You deny your fate and your duty. I can’t understand that any more than I can understand your leaving your grandfather—and other undead—to exist. You have a responsibility to take them out of this world.”

“And send them to Hell? For eternity? No, Victoria, I told you…I won’t have that on me. They were once mortals, fathers, sisters, lovers. I can’t damn them for something they cannot control.”

“But you have…you’ve done it, Sebastian, or you wouldn’t have this.” She brushed her fingers over the warm silver cross. “You had to have killed at least one vampire to get this.”

“Two. I’d killed two before…before last autumn, when the obelisk was destroyed. Exactly two vampires. And then…I killed another the night your aunt died. I told you, but you didn’t believe me.” He reached for his breeches, no longer looking at her, but at them.

It took her a moment to realize what he was talking about. “You said you saved Max’s life. That night? You killed a vampire to save him?” She paused in the action of reaching around to button her dress. Impossible to do alone. “Why? You and Max…”

“Despise each other? Hmmm…that word might be a bit strong…. No, no, it isn’t. Yes, there is quite a history between us. I didn’t do it to save him, Victoria.”

“Then why? Why shatter your own moral code, nonsensical as it might be, for a man you dislike?”

He pulled the trousers up over his hips, busied himself tying them. She waited until he looked up. And then she saw the answer in his eyes.

“For me?”

He reached over to pull on his boots.

“Sebastian.”

“He can be what I cannot. You need him.”

She stared at him, felt her face warming and stupefaction letting her jaw drop, just a little. “Need Max?”

“If you’re going to persist in this battle against the undead, you need someone like him. It pains me greatly to admit it, but he’s the best Venator alive. He can be what I cannot.”

“Will not, you mean to say. You will not.”

Suddenly the door rattled, sending Victoria leaping guiltily off the bed, her loose bodice flopping. She’d locked it, and a good thing, too, for they could have been interrupted at a much more compromising moment.

Dear God, she hoped it wasn’t Max on the other side, she thought as Sebastian quickly buttoned her.

But when she opened the door, it was to find Ilias there. “The sun is up,” he said. To his credit, he barely glanced at Sebastian and his dishabille. “You are needed, Illa Gardella.”

“I must go,” Sebastian said, standing and swiftly pulling his shirt back on.

“Wait,” she said, noticing the mark on the back of his shoulder. “What is that?” It was a small black mark, intricate and circular. It looked like the tattoo Max wore, signifying his membership in the Tutela. But the symbol on Sebastian’s golden skin was much different, and smaller.

“Beauregard’s mark.”