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How he’d used it. How he’d profited from it.
How he’d hurt with it, ruining marriages and reputations. Pitting man against man. Friend against friend. Making money.
And that was even before he’d turned Dracule.
If there was a strong person in the room, it was not him.
Was that why Luce had chosen him?
“Strong?” She laughed bitterly and surprised him. “No one thinks of me as strong. Maia is strong. She’s smart and beautiful and she knows just what she wants, and she has managed to get all of it. And soon, a handsome husband who loves her. And she’s still a lady. Everyone likes her even though she’s bossy. And me… Well, I am the silly one, the one who cannot be serious. The one who must be told everything to do for I cannot determine it myself. Sonia is sweet and kind and pretty. She’s the youngest. But I…I’m nothing but a jest. ”
“I suspect,” Voss said, groping for words, “that if Maia had lived through what you’ve seen and done in the last day, she would not have fared nearly as well. Did you think I hadn’t noticed the wooden stick in your hand earlier today? You meant to defend yourself instead of crying and hiding in the corner. ”
Angelica smiled, swaying a little, and her lashes swept down over her eyes. For a moment he thought she was going to slump into unconsciousness, but she straightened and gave him such a heavy look that heat exploded in his chest.
“Thank you,” she said and rose to her feet. Her movements were slow and deliberate, heavy with whiskey. His blood surged. His mouth dried.
Now.
She looked at Voss suddenly, directly, and drew in her breath. Then she spoke in a rush. “It’s odd, being here with you. Alone. ”
With those innocent, emotional words, full awareness burst over him. Searing pain blasted anew inside his shoulder, radiating down his back and leg and along his arm in stunning agony.
Do it.
He must have gasped, for she moved toward him. “What is it?”
“No. ” He reacted without thought, turning away to hide the flame in his eyes and the swelling in his mouth. His cock shifted, filling. He imagined her naked, filling his hands with her. Tasting her.
It blazed on him, taking his breath and his voice. Pounded. Squeezed.
“Vo—my lord,” her voice was panicked. “What is it?”
“It’s nothing,” he said, forcing the lie from between clenched teeth with lungs that wouldn’t move.
He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. There was nothing but white-hot, searing agony blazing through his body, seizing his mind. Take, take, take.
It wasn’t the need to feed, to drink. It was her. All of her.
He felt her hand on his back, through the two layers of clothing against his Mark. Spinning away, he stumbled into the chair and table. He heard it fall and the clink of glasses and bottle. The smell of whiskey and wine, of Angelica and the layers of men before them in this room filled his nose, suffocating him.
Now, now, now.
She had her hands on him, she was half sobbing and shaking him, trying to get him to look at her and he knew, somehow, that if she saw his face, his eyes…
Her image filled his mind as his hands grasped the wooden planks of the floor. The pain. The pain was…impossible. Nothing like it.
Have to stop it.
His fangs thrust long and sharp. His cock hard and throbbing. His eyes hot and burning.
He knew. How to stop it.
He knew how to turn the agony into red pleasure.
His lungs worked again, deep and harsh. The floor was there beneath his knees, so close he could see the mouse dung, the dirt filling the cracks, a button, a thread caught on the splinter beneath his palm.
“My lord,” she cried again, penetrating his concentration. “Voss. ”
She tugged at his shoulders, and he nearly snarled in response. His arms trembled with effort.
He had to stop it.
Angelica pulled at his shoulder, feeling the ripple of muscle beneath. “Voss,” she said again, using his Christian name in an effort to get through to him. What was wrong? “Where’s the pain?”
What sort of fit was this? The whiskey had dulled her senses, slowed her mind, but she pushed through it, sliding her hands over his shoulders, trying to tug him up.
At last, he moved, rolling aside, a forearm covering his face as he staggered to his feet, still half turned. She couldn’t see his face, couldn’t tell if he was still in pain—
“Angelica,” he muttered, and turned, reaching for her.
She went into his arms and they closed around her. Tight, strong, comforting. His coat smelled like him, and she could feel his heart racing beneath the shirt under her cheek. His body overwhelmed her with its height and power, his face pressed into the top of her head. She felt him vibrating beneath her touch, his foot moving between hers, then his leg pushing into her skirts. His chest rising and falling as if he’d been running. His warmth.
Too warm. He felt feverish, and she tried to pull back to look up into his face, but he wouldn’t release her, his hands moving to grip the back of her head.
“Angelica,” he said against her temple. His lips moved there, kissing her hair. His hands tightened, fingers curling up into her loose curls. He drew in a deep breath that she felt shudder throughout his body, as if he were preparing himself for some great feat.
“Are you all right?” she whispered. “What was it?”
He muttered something unintelligible, something like Stop. … The next thing she knew, he was kissing her. His full, warm mouth moved along her temple to her cheek, and then suddenly covered her lips. Not gentle, not tentative, but as strong and certain as he was. The world circled and she clung to him, meeting his mouth and feeling the give of her lips against his, the intimate movement as they fit together and shifted and crushed. Hot and slick, his tongue slipped into her mouth and she allowed it, the rush of heat and sensation surprising her.
This…yes. Yes.
This was what she’d felt, she’d wanted. This was what his hot eyes had promised, this sort of deep, tingling pleasure that shot into her belly and tightened her nipples and spiraled lower. Lower, to where his leg pressed, hard and strong beneath her skirts. The pressure, the shift there in that most private of places. She swelled and filled and a soft little gasp escaped, just against his mouth.
Angelica closed her eyes and flattened her hands against his chest, her fingers just over the tops of his shoulders, sliding beneath his coat. The chair bumped behind her legs. She half stumbled, half fell into it, lost in the whirl of sensation. The whiskey and Voss were a potent combination, but she knew what she wanted.
He moved away, surprising her, leaving her in the chair and she sat up, dizzy and confused, and then felt his hands on her. He was standing behind the chair now, his palms sliding down the sides of her face…warm, strong, deliberate.
She tipped her head onto the back of the chair, and found that she looked up at him and the smoke-blackened ceiling. She saw the underside of his chin, long and curving and just becoming dark gold with stubble. A hint of his nose, and the tips of his thick hair, gilded by the low lamplight. He stood behind her, his hands easing to her shoulders, his fingers curving under her chin, his thumbs on the sides of her neck, his face, too, turned to the ceiling.
“Voss,” she murmured, wondering why he’d moved away. The kissing had been delicious…but she wanted more. She was cold and bereft and curious about what lay beneath his shirt.
His fingers tightened over her skin and she felt each one of them imprinting on her throat, then they slid down…down over her collarbones and the hollow of her throat…into the bodice of her gown. Angelica gasped and tensed, but she found herself arching her shoulders back, the base of her skull resting on the top of the chair as she pushed up into his elegant hands.
He gave a soft, surprised laugh and bent to h
er temple, his lips warm and moist, intermingling with her hair as his fingers slipped down inside her corset and shift. They curved around her breasts, the corset tightening around her from behind, a gust of cooler air slipping over her encased flesh. Angelica closed her eyes against the revolving room and let herself feel.
One thumb shifted, brushing over a tight nipple and she gasped and her eyes flew open, but his other hand moved and he gently squeezed her breasts. His fingers, long and sure, slid and caressed, and his thumbs…they moved around and over the very tops of her nipples. Her body tightened beneath his touch, tightened so hard it was nearly painful…yet she couldn’t deny the ripples of pleasure that streaked down to her belly, over and over again until she realized she was moaning and sighing there in the chair.
“Voss,” she muttered, reaching up to close her hands around his wrists, pressing them against her breasts, wanting something else…something more. …
His mouth was hot against her cheek and she felt him change, something shift. He muttered something she couldn’t understand, something like a curse.
Then, a soft groan, his fingers tightening too much over her flesh, and then swiftly he moved again, yanking free. Suddenly he loomed in front of the chair, over her, dark and wild, his knee shoving into the seat next to her hip.
She looked up at him, saw his beautiful face dark and taut with pain. His hair, rich golden-brown, falling in his face, his lips parted, his eyes…burning.
Glowing.
Angelica gasped, but he surged down, gathering her close, burying his face in her neck, pulling her up by the shoulders with desperate hands. His mouth was hot and insistent, his lips hard, drawing on her flesh in that sensitive spot that made her shift and shudder as waves and ripples of sensation flooded her limbs. She clutched at him, feeling the strength of his leg next to hers, crowding her into the chair, let herself spiral into the lull of intense pleasure and then suddenly…pain.
She froze, tightening and bowing beneath him, her hands landing futilely on his powerful shoulders as she tried to twist away.
Like a prick, a smooth slide, and then the burst of heat. … Hot liquid surged from her skin, exploded from her vein. She felt him sigh and settle against her even as she froze, unable to move as he drank from her. A scream strangled in the back of her throat.