Blood Rose. Sharon Page

and he flung them aside as he stalked toward her, his ridged abdomen rippling. He wore no small clothes. His magnificent legs were formed of powerful muscle, lean and hard.

      And his cock. Serena couldn’t look away. It curved toward his navel, thick and erect and surrounded by white-blond curls. She knew it would fill her completely, stretch her impossibly, and she knew it would be perfect inside.

      Mr. Swift reached the bed first. He smiled, his teeth a white gleam in the darkened room. His hand reached—she followed the arc of his fingers with breath held—and he touched her bare leg. Oh!

      “Miss Lark.” He dropped to one knee. “Let us dispense with the pleasantries and begin with the delights.” And with that he parted her thighs and dove to her wet cunny.

      Candlelight played over his broad, tanned shoulders and the large muscles of his arms. His tongue snaked out, slicked over her, and Serena arched her head back to scream to the ceiling.

      So good!

      Boot soles sharply rapped on the floor. Leather-clad knuckles gently brushed her cheek. Lord Sommersby. She flicked her eyelids open as Mr. Swift splayed his hands over her bottom, lifted her to his face, and slid his tongue as he tasted her intimate honey.

      Lord Sommersby looked so serious, but he never smiled. He required encouragement so she held out her hand to him, but her smile vanished in a cry of shock and delight as Mr. Swift nudged her thighs wider, until her muscles tugged, and feasted on her. His lips touched her clit, the lightest brush, and pleasure arced through her. She tore the sheets with her fisted hands, heard silken seams rip.

      Then squealed in frustration as Lord Sommersby lay his strong hand on his partner’s shoulder and wrenched Drake Swift from his work.

      “She is a woman beyond your ken, Swift. A woman to be both pleasured and treasured.”

      Pleasured and treasured. Serena could not believe she’d heard those words from the cool, autocratic Earl of Sommersby’s lips. He thoroughly disapproved of everything about her, didn’t he?

      And then the earl was gloriously nude. The hair on his chest was lush and dark, and the curls arrowed down his stomach into a thick, black nest between his thighs. His cock was straight and hard and remarkably fat, and it pointed downward, as though too heavy to stand upright.

      A sweep of his lordship’s arm and his rich purple mask flew aside, revealing dark brown eyes, narrowed with lust, and a predatory determination in his expression that made his fine features harsh. “Out of my way, Swift.”

      “I think the lady wants me to finish, Sommersby.” With an insolent grin, Swift rolled back onto his lean stomach and lowered to her sex once more. She lost all her breath in a whoosh.

      To have two such beautiful, naked men argue over which would lick her to ecstasy…

      It was almost too much to bear.

      Lord Sommersby bent and licked her nipples. Of course this was a dream, for she lifted her breasts saucily to the earl and spread her legs wider for Mr. Swift. His lordship sucked her nipple at the exact instant devilish Mr. Swift slid fingers in her cunny and—dear heaven—her rump.

      Her heart pounded; her nerves were as taut as a harp’s strings. “I will let you bed me,” she gasped, “if you let me hunt with you.”

      Drake Swift laughed, and thrust two fingers in her quim and ass. “You were made for this, lass. For naughty fucking. Not for hunting vampires.”

      How illicit and wonderful it was to be filled, to feel invaded with each thrust of his fingers. Serena looked to Lord Sommersby.

      “I would never risk your life,” he said.

      “But you know it is what I want most of all,” she whispered.

      “Is it?” Drake gave a roguish wink that set her heart spiraling in her chest.

      In the blink of her dreaming imagination, both men were kneeling on the bed at her sides, looking down on her, their smiles hot and wild.

      Mr. Swift’s cock approached her mouth from the right, his lordship’s from the left. The two huge, engorged heads met in the middle, touching right over her mouth.

      Serena had never seen anything so erotic—so wildly arousing that she forgot about decorum, about bargaining, about hunting vampires.

      What would if feel like to run her tongue around and between the two heads?

      Their fluid was leaking together, making them deliciously wet and shiny—

      What on earth was she doing? This was scandalous!

      Her mouth opened to protest.

      They moved to push their cocks in, parrying for position. Serena lost herself to the moment, shut her eyes, and stuck out her tongue—

      Something sharp pricked her tongue. She pulled back, shocked by the pain, as thick liquid spilled into her mouth. Hot, with a strange yet impossibly familiar metallic taste.

      Blood.

      Icy horror snaked through her veins, and she forced her eyes open.

      The men were gone. They’d vanished and a young girl sat on the bed in front of her. A child dressed in a fragile white nightdress with loose, tangled, golden hair.

      Anne Bridgewater. Little Anne, who had died young—she remembered holding Anne’s cold hand, laying her face to the girl’s quiet chest…

      As though floating over the scene, she saw herself twine the blond hair around her wrist to expose Anne’s slim neck. Anne cocked her head, and her sweet scent of youthful skin flooded Serena’s senses. Pain lanced her jaw and fangs shot out.

      She was a vampire! Serena tried to resist, tried to fight, but she saw herself press her pointed canines to the girl’s fresh, clean skin. The pulse thrummed beneath, fervent and strong, and the rushing blood sang in her ears.

      Against her will, she bent to the young girl’s neck…but everything tilted and a sudden light poured into her room. Havershire Manor. She was in her old bedchamber, and Mrs. Thornton was tossing her half-packed case out the window while Mr. Thornton paced in front of the fire. Neither seemed to care that she wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing, and she desperately tried to cover her body with her long black hair.

      “You are in love with her!” Mrs. Thornton screamed at her husband.

      Serena fought to protest, but she could not force the words out. She had done nothing wrong…nothing but read poetry with Mr. Thornton, and walk with him, and fall in love with him…and let him kiss her once—but nothing more.

      Mr. Thornton raked his hands through his hair. “The wretched girl bewitched me.”

      His wife wheeled around and pointed at Serena. Her triumphant laugh rang out around her. “You’ll starve in a week, you little fool.”

      She woke on a scream. Serena found herself bolt upright, sheets tangled around her legs, sweat pouring between her breasts. She pressed the flannel to her skin to soak up the rivulets as she gulped down air.

      Not again! So much for dosing herself with laudanum—it hadn’t helped at all. Foolishly, she ran her tongue over her teeth. No sharp points, of course. No fangs. And she had never, ever hurt Anne Bridgewater.

      Serena kicked back the covers and jumped down from her bed. She rubbed at her eyes, scratchy with sleep. She hadn’t slept properly for two months. Not since coming to London, meeting Althea—Lady Brookshire—and joining the Royal Society.

      She flung open the velvet drapes. Her bedroom in Brookshire House overlooked Hyde Park. Beyond the line of trees, pink touched the sky, promising dawn. How could she look upon the rising sun if she were a vampire? How could she stand in the sunlight?

      But the erotic dreams of the magnificent Lord Sommersby and that enticing rogue Drake Swift—didn’t they prove she was not a normal, proper Englishwoman?

      She