The Bite of Silence

Chapter Three

“Vampires?” Nixie laughed. It sounded slightly off to my ears, but I wasn’t sure. A musician would have known-they can hear cues in the voice the rest of us miss totally. In this case, though, the musician I’d ask was the one doing the laughing. She said, “Why would you think I’d have the 411 on vampires?”

When talking with Nixie, I find it useful to shade toward her own brand of punk speak. “Girl, we don’t have time for a dodge. My cousin the madman is planning to out a whole bunch of bloodsuckers in Times Square tonight. Control their thoughts with hypnosis or something. So I’m asking you-is that possible? Do you or Hottie Hubby know anything that might make vampires go all fangy and drink people to death?”

There was a deep murmur from the background. “It’s Twyla.” Nixie was apparently speaking to said hottie hubby. Lips smacked, faithfully reproduced by my phone. “The vampires in the Big Apple-” smack, “-are in deep shit.”

The smacks told me they were in bed, doing it again. Near as I could tell they were always doing it. It was one of the things that clued me that Nixie’s hottie wasn’t entirely human. I thought of Nikos and shivered.

More murmuring. But if anyone could help it was hubby Julian, who was seriously smart.

“Twyla?” Nixie cleared her throat. Even a non-musician could tell she was uncomfortable. “There was some crap that went down at Christmas. If v-guys did exist-I’m not saying they do-but if they did one of them might’ve hatched a compulsion thing. A hypnotizer that works by sound waves. If it was real-’course it can’t be-it was supposed to be destroyed. But if there’s any chance it wasn’t-fuck me with a side order of damn. That would be bad.”

“I sort of figured that out myself,” I said dryly.

“Huh, Julian? Oh, yeah. Look, Twyla. You have to give Nikos a 911. That’s why we sent him with you.”

“You what? He said he was here on business but…aw, crap.” His business was to watch over me. He didn’t really care.

“If there were v-guys-not saying, but if-this would definitely be v-guy business. Twyla, just call Nikos. Here’s his number.”

If there were vampires-not that Nixie said there were, but if-their underground coffins still had cell phone reception. Nikos answered on the first ring. “What’s wrong?”

Damn, that sexy growl shot shivers straight down my spine to my sweet poo-say. Business, I reminded myself. “ Aylmer is planning something awful. I called Nixie but she said I should talk to you-and she said you were sent to keep an eye on me. That was your business? Me? Were your kisses business too?” I made a raspberry. “I would have been better off with the prostitute.”

A breath of air came over the phone, his version of a sigh. “It’s complicated.”

“It always is.” I jammed the phone under my jaw and started doing dishes-loudly.

Another sigh. “We’ll need to talk. Expect Bruce in half an hour.”

“Bruce? For real? Kato’s name is Bruce, like Bruce Lee?”

“Meiers Corners,” he said by way of explanation. When God fished in the Coincidence Pool, he used Meiers Corners as bait.

On the way out I caught an edge of movement in the deep shadows between the buildings, a skulking figure with light hair and lush lips. Like Modelboy, but what would he be doing here?

Apprehension nearly sent me back inside but the limo showed up and I hopped right in. Bruce sped away, whisking me to an unmarked boutique hotel in Midtown.

Nikos opened the door to a luxury suite. The first thing I saw was the fireplace. The second was the massive four-poster bed. The covers were rumpled.

It gave me ideas. Maybe it was leftover frustration from not joining the mile-high club, although Nikos had taken care of me later, most satisfactorily.

Or maybe it was because he’d taken care of me that I sauntered over to the bed and slid one hand along its brass post. “Ever play games?” Turning, I gave him my most brilliant smile.

His eyes flared the hungry scarlet of a burning African veldt. He came closer. “What kind?”

“Naughty games.” I ran my wrist along the post, suggestively.

“I thought you wanted to talk.” He came closer still.

“Talk will wait. Got any extra of these?” I grabbed the end of his tie, yanked it to pull him even closer. He came, but under his own steam. My smile faltered.

“Plenty.” He cuffed my wrists, shackled them in one hand behind my back. Yeah, I’d forgotten he could do that.

It pressed my breasts into his abs. He reached down and fondled one. I was immediately seared by his heat. He pinched a nipple and heat blazed into passion.

He released my wrists to thread his hand through my hair. Holding me immobile he kissed me hard. Completely overwhelmed me with teeth and tongue.

My game suddenly didn’t seem such a hot idea, not with Mr. Play-to-Win out to conquer the board. “Talk first.” Polysyllabic words were impossible with his mouth devouring me.

“No. Sex first.” He kissed me with tongue everywhere, deep in my mouth, licking my lips, flicking fire along my teeth.

“We don’t have time.” I pressed palms to his hard pecs, which didn’t give an inch. “My cousin-”

“Twyla, shh.” His voice was half-growl, half-purr. He buried his face in my neck. Sharp teeth scored my sensitive skin. His tongue rasped after, chafing, arousing.

My hands slid up his chest with each hot nip until my arms were wrapped around his shoulders and I was arching hard against him. “Nikos, wait. I have to tell you-uhhh.”

His fangs had come out to play. Points of pleasure pricked my neck. My pulse leaped to meet them. I thrust myself closer as his fangs played across my vulnerable throat. Pressing his advantage he backed me into one of the bedposts, his head-cupping hand hitting it with a clang. He released me gently against the post and drove both his hands down the back of my pants.

Two big palms slid over my butt and pulled. He forced me into an arousal so big I nearly swooned. When he ground himself against me and grew bigger, my vision blackened around the edges.

Okay. Hours until midnight. Nikos was here now, and he was hot for me. Talk could wait. Time to push my limits. I rubbed my hips against his expanding bulge, rippled against it, teasing.

With a growl he swept me off my feet. He threw me under the saffron bed canopy and jumped in next to me, crowding me with his huge, naked body.

Sexual haze disintegrated. He was naked? When had that happened?

“Mist.”

It was an answer but I couldn’t think how. And then I couldn’t care less as he ate me up with his hungry gaze, his pupils open circles of fire. “Your body is so lush.” He tore my shirt and bra up, growling with satisfaction when my breasts bounced free. He palmed one, his thumb brushing the nipple. “So full and creamy.”

He fondled me, strong bronze fingers sinking into the globe. Tendons rippled in his arm. Answering passion stirred between my thighs. I tightened them against the first flush of moisture.

He breathed deep. “You smell divine.” His head bent and he fastened onto my nipple.

I arched. My hand found his back, ran over acres of sheer strength. I wanted to feel all that power on top of me. I wrapped one leg over his hips and tugged. “Kiss me.”

He responded instantly-but not the direction I wanted. He vaulted to the end of the bed to yank my jeans off. Pushing my bare legs apart he climbed between them-and pressed a hard kiss to my sex.

The suddenness of it, his hot breath on my vulva, made every hair stand straight up. “Nikos!”

“Hush.” He kissed my pussy like my mouth-sucking, driving, tongue plunging. My heels dug into the bed. He caught my hips in both hands and used his enormous strength to grind me like a millstone.

I fell back onto the coverlet. My breath came in short, sharp rasps. Overhead the saffron darkened to old gold as my vision narrowed.

“Moan for me.” His thumbs spread my pussy so he could attack my clit. His tongue rasped the nub. “Moan.”

How could I not when his tongue ran over me like hot oil, flicked me like a flint wheel? I moaned. He licked and flicked, then reached up with one hand and plucked my exposed nipple until my bottom clenched.

“Ride me, Twyla.” Without looking he reached forward, unerringly found and cuffed my wrists, brought my hands to his head. “Grab my ears and ride my face.”

“What?” Adventure, excitement, yes. But he couldn’t mean…he was just talking dirty, right?

“Ride me.” He bore down on my pubic bone with his mouth. “Fuck my face.”

“I don’t-”

He clamped his mouth over my entire pussy and sucked.

I shrieked. My hips undulated frantically, recklessly. Sweet Mona Lisa, his sucking mouth felt incredible. I rubbed against him, heat rising deep in my abdomen. My fingers shot straight out, scrubbing against the short silk of his hair.

His hands tightened on my wrists. Surfacing from between my legs he looked like a sea monster, his face glistening and his fangs half a foot long. He tore my fingers off his scalp, slapped them over his ears. “I said ride.”

With a snarl, he sank those sharp, gleaming fangs into my mons.

I screamed. Grabbed his ears, the only thing I could hang onto in the exploding storm, and ground myself against him. His tongue slapped against my slit, skidding on my cream. My hips moved, tentatively, riding his chiseled jaw. He bit down again. I jerked. Huge shivers wracked me. I rubbed harder against the granite of his face, his bites goading me faster and faster until I was finally pounding myself against him.

Climax overtook me, not like a surf or even tsunami but like a truck. Like a semi tractor-trailer hitting me square in the sex. I cried out as darkness washed over me.

My eyes slit open to soft yellow above. Oh yeah, bed canopy. Silky comforter and soft mattress below. A buzzing came from around my navel.

Nikos was licking my belly, purring. It brought reality home. A) I’d gotten it twice and he hadn’t gotten any yet and B) my boyfriend was a vampire. Or maybe not boyfriend, maybe it was only a business arrangement. Fine, my gigolo was a vampire. Who cared? I’d gotten some out of it, see A, above.

I watched him lick, not really compos mentis yet. His shoulders, twice as broad as my hips, were exquisite. Chiseled like a smoky quartz sculpture but in motion, muscles sleek under his glistening skin. His hair bristled from his skull, thick and jet black. I really was going to have to work on getting him to grow it long enough to curl.

I wondered what the rest of him looked like. Hadn’t seen it yet, surprisingly. Most men I knew would have tried to stuff their John Henry in some orifice by now. Did vampires even have penises? I’d felt a healthy bulge in his jeans, but guessing wasn’t knowing. “So do you do more than lick? Or can’t you?” I tried to see past shoulders.

His head snapped up. His eyes were ruby red, his fangs were huge. Damn. Not in Kansas any more, Toto-wyla. He stalked up my body until we were face to face.

As he did, something hot and smooth trailed fiery fluid up my belly. Couldn’t be what I thought, since he was at least a foot tall on hands and knees…I glanced between us.

Great Rodin’s chisel-Nikos had a yardstick for a cock.

His eyes were riveted on mine and he must have read my shocked expression because he said, “Want to know?”

Excitement. Push the limits. But not rip the limits. “It won’t fit!”

“Let’s find out.” He grabbed his shaft, pointed it like a cannon between my legs.

“Wait…I have something to tell you first.” I scrabbled back.

He seized me by the scruff of the neck, hauled me under him. I clenched my thighs tightly but he just pushed that monster erection through. My own cream lubed its passage.

I tried to weasel away again but he held me firmly and pushed forward until the head nudged my swollen sex. I clamped my legs tighter. He purred, rotated his hips, and pressed forward again. Despite clamping against him, his glans spread my labia.

“I said wait.” I grabbed his arms, a mistake. His pumped biceps were too big for my hands, and his skin was slick with arousal. My vagina spasmed at the feel of him.

“You want it.” His eyes were intense, almost as if he were reading my every thought, every emotion. “Why wait?” He pushed a little with his hips, but teasing, not threatening.

“I have information-”

“Excuse.” His lids dropped as his focus shifted inside himself. He pressed forward another inch. His cock filled my opening, stretched me.

“No! All right, I’m scared.”

He stilled instantly. “I won’t hurt you, Twyla.” His red eyes shifted back to me.

“I’m afraid because this is just business to you. You don’t really want to do this.”

He blinked. “I want to.”

“You want sex, maybe. But not me. You don’t want me.”

His eyes closed. He shook his head, not once but several times. “How can you think that?”

“If you really wanted me you’d be more passionate. More carried away.”

“Hercules run me through.” Abruptly he pulled out. His eyes flared open, blood red, his fangs shot out halfway down his chin. “If I got carried away, then I’d hurt you.” He grabbed his cock and dropped it on my belly. It hit with a whump. “Stuff that in your tight little channel without a care? Sink my fangs in you as deep and hard as I want? Drink as much of your ambrosia as I want? As I need?” He leaped off the bed, stalked away, spun back. “You are driving me insane with want. And you’re saying I need to be more passionate?”

I blinked. “You never showed it-not unless I provoked you.”

“What should I have done? Talked to you? Twyla, love, I’m a Spartan general made vampire two and a half millennia ago. I now have a cock twice as big as a human man which I want to stuff up your cunt while I drink hot blood from your throat. And, oh yes, I have a bit of a thing for domination.”

He’d said more in the last minute than the whole of our acquaintance. That probably qualified as carried away. “You really were a Spartan?” My throat was tight. “That explains the laconic wit.”

“Out of everything, you picked that?” He barked a short laugh. His erection, jutting out from his hips, shuddered with it. “You’re impossible.”

“Hey, I’m not the mythical creature here.”

His mouth eased, a small but real smile emerging. “No. You’re a beautiful woman. But Twyla, you’ll never hear it enough from me. I was raised a warrior, not a poet. And oh, Zeus, I want you.” He groaned the last.

I want you. That was all it took. “Honey, you may not have a lot of words, but they’re the right ones. Besides, I don’t need words.” I spread my legs. “I need action.”

His sudden intake of breath was sharp. He jumped on the bed so fast he was a blur, practically mist. Or maybe, remembering his comment on losing his clothes, he was mist. He came out of warp space positioned on hands and knees above me.

He stared at me. “Are you sure?”

I almost smiled. “Now you’re giving me a choice?”

“No. Yes.” His eyes were intent on mine. “I want you. I can’t think. What do you want me to say?”

Apparently want, for a vampire, was pretty intense. “I don’t want you to say anything.” I grabbed him by the ears and kissed him.

His big mouth covered mine. His tongue pushed inside me at the same moment his glans spread my labia. He groaned deep, went to his elbows to kiss me to my tonsils, his hands shaping my hair. His cock sank in another inch. I wriggled, felt my vagina open a little, swallowing another inch of shaft. A little thrill burst in my belly.

He was kissing me like he meant it, but he’d always done that. Should have listened to my mouth.

But this time he was also loving me like he meant it, trembling with his restraint, holding back when he obviously wanted to slam himself in to the hilt. I had no doubt his huge body could generate quite enough power to ram that monster cock past my cervix. I was ready, wetter than I’d been my whole life, but even fully aroused he filled me, stretched me. I wrapped my ankles around his hips and snaked a hand between us, around the root of his cock to keep him from hitting too deep. I couldn’t quite close my fingers.

He sank in another half inch, sweating now. “Heracles’ teeth, Twyla. You’re like an oven.” He was practically panting. “When you’re stretched, I’m going to take you like a bull. Like a locomotive.” Another half inch. “Fuck.” He stopped, swelling inside me, stretching me until I gasped. “You’re so hot…so tight…I’m coming.” He sucked in a couple breaths. “Damn me, I’m coming now.”

He arched back until all I could see were the sinews standing out on his arms and the muscles of his chest, clenched so tightly they were almost white. Hot fluid filled me in a rush. I felt each hard spurt from his tight balls, several inches back on my buttocks. He still hadn’t fully sheathed himself. It went on and on, until the fluid splashed out onto my thighs. He groaned and purred the entire time.

When it was over he relaxed onto me, weight heavy but not crushing, and kissed me tenderly, almost lovingly. As he kissed me he stroked my hair. He eventually rolled off, continuing to stroke me, to lie raised on one elbow at my side.

Even tender, he assumed the superior position. Like a Spartan general. If this relation went long term, I’d eventually have to deal with that natural machismo.

Long term? I’d thought that Nikos might be Mr. Long-term Affair but that was when I just guessed, didn’t know. Now…now I was in New York for some excitement. For pushing boundaries, testing limits. Not for anything domestic. I’d sort out LTA later.

His hand stopped. “What?”

“Nothing.” Or nothing I wanted to deal with now. “Can we talk about my crazy cousin? We only have until midnight.”

He frowned down at me. “Why midnight?”

“ Aylmer said vampires are going to be brainwashed into attacking humans in Times Square tonight.”

He sat up, eyes cool and clear. “Tell me everything.”

The taciturn general was back. I should have seen it before. Probably part of why I wasn’t totally freaking out at the two-and-a-half-millennia thing. A Spartan vampire. Incredible, unbelievable. But it fit beautifully with the Nikos I’d experienced. And it sure beat the scenarios I had been dreaming up.

He let me talk without interruption. As I finished he arrowed off the bed for the dresser. The mattress got several inches higher. “I want to meet your cousin.” He dressed quickly, efficiently. Oh yeah, definitely military.

Bruce drove us back to the brownstone. In the lobby of Aylmer ’s building I sorted through the keys he’d given me, but none of them got us in. That giant key ring and we were reduced to flathanding again. I guess with guys it wasn’t size but how they used it. Aylmer ’s huge ring got us nothing.

Nikos’s huge palms got us half a dozen buzzes.

Aylmer ’s apartment looked the same as when I’d left it, a disaster. Smelled the same too, unfortunately. Nikos’s nostrils flared.

I said, “It’s just month-old garbage.”

“No. Blood. Fresh.” His eyes narrowed and he prowled into the apartment, unnervingly like a beast of prey.

I ran after. Fresh blood could mean anything from a paper cut to a bad wound to…dead bodies. “How much blood?”

“Enough.” He caught sight of my face, which must have been pale beneath my perpetual tan, and hooked my chin with gentle fingers. “Not that much.” He kissed me.

“Oh. Good. Where?”

“Bathroom.”

“Probably just bandaging a scrape then, right? Probably…oh, no.” The bathroom was a door off the kitchen.

Through it I saw blood.

A lot of it.