Addicted. Lydia Parks

hips.

      “Go away,” Jake said.

      “Why do you insist on doing it this way?” Skidmore waved dramatically with one arm, his style mimicking the British theater of years gone by. “I’ve never known anyone who felt they had to get permission. You are strange, dear boy.”

      Jake returned his attention to Candy, rocking against her in time with her growing need. She hadn’t noticed the intrusion.

      “Just hurry. We have places to go.” Skidmore closed the door behind him as he left.

      “Oh, God,” she said, louder now. “Don’t stop. Fuck me. Harder.”

      Jake turned his head to speak softly into her ear. “I need more than your cunt, sweet thing. I need your blood.”

      He felt her tense as fear crept into her fevered excitement.

      “I won’t hurt you,” he said. “We’ll come together.”

      After a moment of hesitation, she turned her head, offering her neck to him as she writhed in anticipation, her hands fisted against his back.

      Jake pressed his lips to her neck, thrilling to the pulse rising and falling beneath the surface. He let loose of the reins then, thrusting into her sizzling cunt as his cock hardened to steel, pushing deeper, needing release nearly as much as he needed to feed.

      His fangs lengthened, and he opened his mouth. Trying to hold back, savoring the anticipation, he smelled her approaching climax. Yes, she was ready.

      Jake pressed his fangs into her neck and she screamed. He closed his eyes as her orgasm flooded him, first biting down on his pulsing cock, then flowing through his veins and exploding in his brain. He drew hard as he pumped his seed into her, letting her fill him with need, fulfillment, dreams, wants, desires.

      He knew her arousal as she danced for hungry eyes, her smug disgust as sweaty men humped her for money, her euphoria as she lay alone at night with a vibrating orgasm rolling through her narcotic haze. And he felt her ecstasy as his own. She came again as he thrust harder, longer, until he’d taken all he could, and given all he had.

      Jake held his mouth to her neck for a moment to stop the flow, then moved it away and slowed his thrusts to nice, easy strokes.

      Her grip changed to a shaky hold on his shoulders, and her cries softened to weak groans.

      He stilled, then withdrew and rolled onto his back to enjoy the sensations of nerves popping and firing through his entire system, waking from a long sleep. After more than a century and a half, he still loved the vibration, especially when sweetened with orgasms.

      “You win.”

      Jake turned his head to find Candy lying with her eyes closed and her arms at her sides, her body glistening with a fine sheen of sweat. Already, the small wounds on her neck were nearly healed, and her heart rate had begun to slow.

      He grinned.

      If not for Skidmore waiting impatiently outside somewhere, Jake might have spent a few more hours with his little morsel. But the old man was right; they had places to go.

      After getting dressed, he dropped the bill onto Candy’s bare stomach, then leaned over and kissed her soundly.

      She hadn’t moved much, and smiled up at him. “You come back anytime, Jake.”

      He winked at her, then tossed the room key onto the bed beside her before leaving his dinner guest and the air conditioner’s buzz behind.

      Downstairs, he found the tall, thin vampire in an out-of-place purple velvet suit, standing in the shadows near the door, and Jake made his way through the maze of tables, young strippers, and horny old men.

      “It’s about time,” Skidmore said, wrinkling his nose with disapproval.

      “Some things shouldn’t be rushed.” Jake picked up his black felt Stetson from a hook by the door and slipped it on as he stepped into the New Mexico night. Warm, clean air swept over him as if he were no more than another jackrabbit making his way across the desert, and a star-filled sky opened above as Jake strolled across the parking lot to the convertible parked near the exit.

      “Will you please get a move on?” Skidmore hurried ahead, hopping effortlessly into the passenger’s seat. “I refuse to spend another day trapped in the boot of this wretched beast. It’ll take at least four hours to get to the mine, and that’s thirty minutes more than we have.”

      “Don’t sweat it,” Jake said, trying not to get annoyed with his fellow traveler. Skidmore tended to get on his nerves after a month or two of whining. “We’ll be there in three.”

      Jake started the Impala and pulled out onto the narrow highway, turning north. With no one else around, he easily pushed the car to ninety and they roared through the darkness.

      “Oh, I nearly forgot to tell you what I heard,” Skidmore said.

      It was a lie; the older vampire never forgot anything. Jake waited, but Skidmore just smiled.

      “What?”

      “A very special friend of yours will be at the meeting. If we get there early enough, perhaps you’ll have time to get reacquainted.”

      “Katie?” Jake glanced over at his companion, whose face seemed to glow in the starlight.

      Skidmore grinned and ignored his question.

      2

      Jake felt her presence long before they arrived. Excited by the prospect of seeing Katie again, in spite of his best efforts not to be, he’d left the abandoned mine shaft where he and Skidmore had spent the day, early enough to give off smoke.

      Holding a blanket over his head like some kind of television criminal, Skidmore had trotted along behind him, muttering, “Bloody hell, I don’t know why I travel with such a fucking lunatic.”

      They’d driven with the top up until well after dark.

      Now, a mere fifty miles from their destination, he felt her. After decades of sharing blood, they were one in many ways. Not spouses in the human sense, but much more, although they’d only lived together for fifteen years. Even that was unusual in vampire circles with the exception of a few rare couples, most of which had come to the Night together. As a rule, vampires tended to be loners—partly by necessity, and partly because eternity made it hard to put up with others for too long.

      Jake slowed the car as they wound into the Sangre de Cristo mountains, and enjoyed the scent of evergreens in the cool night air. An owl screeched overhead, soaring above ponderosa pines, and he suddenly recalled a night long ago he’d spent chasing Lucky Bill Wainright across the state. He’d lost a damn good buckskin gelding to a prairie dog hole on that ride, and he’d taken his wrath out on the outlaw when he’d caught him. Lucky Bill hadn’t looked so lucky riding back into Lubbock with two black eyes, lips so swollen he couldn’t speak, and a nasty gash across his cheek. But it had been a fair fight—Jake wouldn’t have given the man such a beating otherwise.

      He shivered at the vibration running down his spine. Even thinking about the past didn’t help as he closed the distance between himself and Katie. How long had it been? Ten years? No, more like twelve. Maybe more.

      Jake swerved off the road at a wide spot, cut the engine, and jumped out, grabbing his hat from the backseat. He started across a field, headed for the trees, forgetting about his travel partner.

      “Dammit, man, slow down,” Skidmore said.

      Jake glanced back. “I thought you were in a hurry.”

      “Not quite so much as you.” Skidmore waved him off, obviously annoyed. “Go on, then. We’ll rendezvous at the cabin.”

      In the cover of trees, he moved faster, picking up scents and noises of night creatures, soundlessly passing coyotes, rodents, bats, and owls.

      Halfway to the cabin, he stopped.