Moonlight and Diamonds & The Vampire's Fall (5 page)

The sexy siren stood with one arm raised, her hand grasping high on the door frame, while her sinuous body slinked and seduced in red velvet. The dress hugged her from breasts to curvy hips. A party this early in the day? Stryke decided that every day—all day—was a party for this glamour girl.

“Blyss?”

She winked and strode across the threshold, handing him a filmy black scarf. He fumbled with it, not sure whether to scrunch it up and toss it aside or press it to his nose to inhale her scent. He compromised and brushed it over his face as he tossed it aside to land on the kitchen table littered with toast crumbs from a hasty breakfast.

Following the click of her high heels into the living room, which was bare of furnishings, save for a baroque couch and chair set that looked as if it hailed from the eighteenth century, Stryke waited for her to announce her reason for the visit.

Did he need a reason? Hell no.

The woman he'd thought to never see again stood not six feet away from him, looking like a sex goddess wrapped in red. Her dark hair was pinned up again, with a few wispy tendrils drawing his eye directly to her elegant neck. Right there. That was where he really wanted to kiss her.

She turned and crooked her finger at him and he almost lost it right there. But he was cool. Mostly. He got an instant hard-on, though. No fancy suit today, just a T-shirt and loose blue jeans that had gotten remarkably tighter.

“How'd you find where I'm staying?” he asked as he padded up to her and didn't dare touch her. Yet. She smelled like flowers. And again he got lost in a meadow of blossoms.

“You told me you live above the candy shop. Only one on the island.”

“I didn't think I'd see you again after that hasty send-off last night.”

“
Excuse moi.
I sometimes slip out of hostess mode, and then when I realize my guests are untended, I refocus with a vengeance. It's a thing with me.”

“You often slip out of hostess mode at such gatherings?” Meaning, did she screw strange men in the office much?

Blyss tilted her head and fluttered her lashes.

Did he care what she did with other men? She was here now. She smelled like flowers. Looked like sin. And it was obvious she hadn't come for a chat.

Stryke pulled her to him in a swift move that married their bodies at hips and chest. He felt her nipples harden beneath the velvet and his hand glided to one breast to squeeze. There was something about a woman intent upon getting exactly what she wanted. And he sensed this flawless piece of female was here on a seek-and-have-sex mission.

He dipped his head to her breasts. The dress was cut low, and he dashed his tongue under the velvet. She gasped and leaned into him, asking for more with her body.

“I hope you're not busy,” she whispered. “I don't normally stop by without first calling, but I didn't have your mobile number.”

Mobile
was what the French called the cell phone. He lashed his tongue over her firm breast. “Was only planning on sightseeing. Mmm, Blyss, you are incredible.”

Her hand slid up under his T-shirt, fingernails gently clawing his abs. “And you are
très
fantastique
, Stryke.”

He slid the thin red strap off her shoulder and pulled down the dress to expose her breast. Kissing and suckling her erect nipple, he moaned at the pleasure of the surprise. And his inner wolf stirred, sensing the connection to—hmm...to what?

Something about her called to his feral instincts in ways that no woman ever had. It puzzled him, but then again, he couldn't question it too much. Maybe later.

Her leg hooked about his and she gripped him at the back of his neck, pulling him hard against her breast. When he nipped her skin she gasped. She liked that. A little rough? He'd always thought himself a gentle lover, but he could amp up the intensity if that was what she wanted.

Squeezing her other breast while he sucked in her nipple, he gripped her ass and lifted her so she wrapped her legs about his. The bedroom door was five steps away. Moving blindly, he managed to miss the door completely and crush her up against the wall. He knew she liked this position.

“Sorry, was aiming for the door.”

“Your bedroom is through there? Yes, let's try it on a bed this time,
mon amour
.”

My love?
Oh yeah. She was here for more than a social call.

This time he made it through the doorway and they tumbled onto the king-size bed made with simple white linens and a scatter of fluffy pillows. He didn't let her go, though. Instead he pulled down the other dress strap and the dress fell to her waist. Burying his face against her breasts, he breathed in what was surely expensive perfume. He'd fallen into a rose garden.

She tugged at his shirt and he slipped it over his head. Cooing, Blyss ran her hands over his chest, setting his nerve endings ultrareceptive to all things good.

“So ripped,” she murmured. “American men are so much more than the French man.”

When he was about to foolishly say it was the wolf in him, she pressed a finger to his lips. “Let's not talk. Let's taste.” She lashed her tongue under his jaw. “And touch.” Her fingers slid over his crotch and curled about his erection. “And devour.”

“Devouring sounds good to me.”

Stryke made quick work of his fly, unzipping and shrugging out of his jeans. Boxer briefs hugged his erection, but they didn't stay up for long. Blyss shoved them down his hips and grasped his aching hard-on. The contact felt like fire singeing him in the sweetest way. He hissed.

She coiled her fingers about him and squeezed. Oh, yeah, that was twenty kinds of all right.

Stryke was about to kiss her mouth, but the red lipstick stayed him. She was so pretty, so perfect. She deserved mussing, but he'd do it in another way. Planting the kiss on her neck, he nuzzled there and gently bit down along her shoulder. Her hands busied themselves with his cock and he would come too fast if she kept it up.

He grabbed her wrists and pinned them up by her shoulders. This time, he intended to orchestrate their liaison. No coming for him until she did first. He owed her one. She cooed, her tongue dashing out to lick those teasing red lips. He'd caught her. Now what would he do with her?

Indeed, what to do with this gorgeous bit of glamour that surprised him at every turn and whom he wanted to figure out. And yet, he did not. The surprises were what made her so exciting.

Rocking his hips against hers, he teased at her hot, sticky wetness with his cock. She moaned and murmured, “Yes,” but he was inclined to tease a bit longer.

The dress hugged around her waist. Her thigh-high stockings glided like silk against his legs. She still wore the shoes, and thinking about those spiked heels hardened his cock even more. He wanted to feel her softness and her dangerous sharpness all over his skin.

So when she struggled against his hold on her wrists, he relaxed his grip and allowed her to push at him. He rolled to his back, pulling her on top of him in a smooth movement. Straddling him, she pulled off the dress and tossed it to the floor.

Afternoon sunlight beamed across the bed and her body glowed as if she were a sun goddess. Stryke glided his hands up her stomach. When he cupped her breasts, she tilted her head back, offering her succulent fullness to him. She wiggled, her moistness heating his cock. And with a shift of her hips she managed to take him inside her.

“I don't have any—” Stryke never had unprotected sex. Werewolves could get mortal women pregnant.

She tutted him. “You didn't last night either, no?”

Right. She'd said she was on the pill.

“Lover, you are steel between my legs. Mmm...”

He closed his eyes and fell into the exquisite rhythm of her rocking above him, feeding off him, milking him, pairing with him. Bonding—no.

When two werewolves had sex together in werewolf form they bonded for life. It was a serious deal. And while he hoped to someday bond with a werewolf and make a family together, this woman was merely human and he just wanted to have fun with the glamour goddess.

Blyss cupped his hands, still wrapped about her breasts, and squeezed. Murmuring an approving sound, she quickened her pace, up and down, bringing him to climax with expert skill. Stryke's hips bucked up against her, and when she pressed her hands to his chest and watched him ride out the pleasure, he thought surely she was looking inside him for some secret.

The secret was that he was stymied by her interest in him. But then again, maybe he should stop thinking like a Northwoods hick and accept the Parisian ideal. Whatever that was.

Slipping his fingers between her legs, he found her swollen apex and stroked her until she gripped at his shoulders and tossed back her head. The scent of flowers and salty sweetness and...something so familiar filled his senses as she cried out in pleasure.

Stryke inhaled deeply, testing the scent she gave off and wondering... It was too familiar not to recognize. Was she really? There was no mistaking her feral scent. He knew it from long runs in the woods with his brothers while they were in wolf form and from the rush of adrenaline the wolves got when chasing prey.

As Blyss's body softened above him, Stryke gripped her by the shoulders. “You're a werewolf?”

Chapter 4

B
lyss pushed out of Stryke's demanding grasp and shuffled off the bed. She clasped her hands across her breasts, the urge to protect herself heightened by his out-of-the-blue question. And his strangely accusatory tone. Inhaling, she fought to not mentally return to that moment in high school—the moment life had turned against her.

How could he have known?

In all the years she had been taking a pill to suppress her werewolf, never had anyone guessed her truth. Sure, she tended to live and socialize only with humans. Not too often a human was going to make the jump to ask “Could you be a werewolf?” But on occasion she sensed a vampire or other in the crowd—vamps could be so obvious at times. None had ever guessed at her beastly origins.

Yet Stryke knew. In the moment when she had cried out as an orgasm had swept through her, and then he too had come—

Was it possible another werewolf could scent her during an aroused state?

Apparently it was. But not simple arousal, rather climax. It was the first time she had come when with him.

“Blyss? Are you...?”

A frightening truth assaulted Blyss like a blow to the gut. The only way Stryke could possibly guess such a thing about her was if he was also a wolf.

She had just slept with a werewolf.

Oh, mercy, what terrible thing had she done?

“It's okay.” He moved to the edge of the bed, his hands up to placate. His eyes softened, as did his voice. “I didn't realize you were my breed. I'm werewolf,” he offered, obviously sensing her distress. “I didn't realize what you were last night in your office. Usually I can scent another of my kind. Maybe your perfume overwhelmed my senses.”

“I can't talk about this right now.”

The innate instinct to flee when cornered moved Blyss's limbs. She excused herself to go to the bathroom and rushed across the hardwood floor. With the door closed behind her, and the cool bathroom tiles beneath her bare feet, she turned on the faucet and splashed her face with tepid water. Her reflection could not overlook that twitch at the corner of her heart that manifested in a frown. Her hair was tousled, her lipstick worn away. Her eye shadow still looked perfect, but...

Nothing was perfect. He knew.

And while she should have laughed off his guess and made a grand and confident exit as stunning as her entrance, she couldn't simply leave. She had come here for a reason. Her very life depended on securing the black diamond she had planted in Stryke's suit pocket.

Merde.
Stryke Saint-Pierre was a werewolf.

Her heartbeats dropped to her stomach. Blyss pressed her palms to the cool vanity sink, bowing her head. He hadn't scented her because the pills she took to suppress her werewolf made her virtually human.

“How did he know?” she begged her reflection.

It had to have been the sex. When she had climaxed and her body had released...something had clued him to her heritage. Pheromones or something like that. No man had noticed before because she'd never had sex with a werewolf.

What luck—the one man she had picked out from the crowd to help her should be the very man she needed to stay away from. Wanted to stay away from. But now could not.

Not until she found what she'd come for.

She straightened and nodded firmly at the mirror. She would go out there, dress, and she had to check the closet for the suit he'd worn last night. How to do that without raising suspicion? And how to avoid the werewolf questions?

She wanted to run away from it all. As she had so many years ago when her fellow classmates had stared at her with horror.

“You can do this. You
have
to do this.” She winced. Could Stryke possibly help her? No. She had a plan. She would stick to it. “He must never know what kind of trouble I'm in.”

With a few adjustments to her hair and a pat of a towel to dry her face, Blyss wandered back into the bedroom. Her lover stood by the window, naked, with an erection. The sun beamed across his face and shadowed his body, silhouetting that proud jut of manhood before the glass. Gorgeous. Something she would miss. She already missed him. The whole man. His kisses. His firm yet loving touch. His sexy smile...

Hell, what was she thinking?
Get your head on course.

Blyss sat on the end of the bed. She picked up the red velvet dress from the floor. Where was her purse? Must have left it in the kitchen when she'd entered. “Your water is nice and hot here.”

“Is that a good thing? I mean, isn't it all over the city?” He strode over to her and stroked his fingers over her hair. A shiver trickled down her neck and tightened her nipples. He smelled like fire and strength and sex. It was annoyingly distracting.

“Usually takes mine five minutes to warm nicely in the winter,” she provided in an attempt to stick to the plan. “I may live off the Champs-Élysées, but the plumbing doesn't care that it is the ritzy section of town.”

“Is that the street with all the fancy shops on it? The one that leads up to Napoleon's statue?”

Blyss smiled and stood to face him. She trailed a finger down his chest that was dusted with brown hair. His muscles gleamed in the sunlight.

“It's not a statue. It's a monument. The Arc de Triomphe was erected by Napoleon to commemorate his military victories.” She kissed his jaw. Avoided touching his hard-on. Not an easy task. “Wish I had a toothbrush.”

“I might have seen an extra in the drawer. Give me a few minutes to brush my teeth. Then I'll set one out for you. Okay?”

“Perfect.”

He kissed her on the mouth and she pushed away from him. “I just said—”

“Are we going to discuss the werewolf thing?”

Heartbeats rammed against her rib cage. “I don't want to. I... No. Please let it go, Stryke.”

He sighed and nodded. But for a few seconds he studied her. Trying to look inside her? Figure how he had missed that she was a werewolf?

If only she had known the same about him.

Finally, Stryke strolled toward the bathroom.

Tearing her gaze from his sexy backside, Blyss sighed. The life she led was a difficult achievement. And she did strive for it. But it was to be her undoing.

When the bathroom door closed, she slipped the dress over her head as she made a beeline for the closet door. Inside, the walk-in closet was vast and empty. Only the first rack held a few items. Two pairs of men's shoes sat on the floor beside a large empty suitcase.

She touched the hung items. A few T-shirts. Some jeans and a pair of dressier slacks. One white dress shirt. Nothing designer. And one black tie that wasn't silk but rather something like polyester.

Blyss shuddered. The man's wardrobe was hideous. Not a natural fiber in the lot, and yet the suit last night had been Zegna, if she was not mistaken. And she rarely misjudged couture. Though it had been poorly tailored to fit him, it had been expensive. She was sure of it.

Where was the suit?

“Hey.”

Blyss startled. She hadn't heard Stryke's return and now he stood in the doorway, filling the space with an easy confidence, shoulders set back and head tilted. He'd put on a pair of jeans that hung low, revealing the hard cuts of muscle that veered toward his groin like some kind of traffic alert that screamed “Go this way!”

“What are you doing?” He held a boxed toothbrush in his hand.

“Uh, just...looking.” She spread her palm down the front of one of the T-shirts. Shit. What to say? “I'm a bit of a snoop.” Weren't all women? “A girl can learn a lot about a man by standing in his closet.”

Oh, bad save, Blyss. Very bad save.

“Is that so? Tell me what you've learned about me?”

“That you're a terrible traveler. Didn't you say you were in town for a wedding? Where's the suit you wore last night?”

“It was a loaner. I dropped it off at Vail's earlier today. I've been doing a lot of running around for my family, picking up things they need for the wedding.”

“Vail?”

“A vampire. He's the father of the groom. I borrowed the suit for the night. I've been informed by the female faction of all this wedding madness that I'll have a rental for the wedding. Although...I imagine Vail will probably wear the suit for the wedding.”

“Vail,” she muttered. “I don't think I've heard of him.”

“You probably haven't. Vamps tend to stay off the radar.”

“Yes, I suppose.”

He discussed vampires with her so casually. As if it was something she was familiar with and engaged in discussion every day. The paranormal breeds were something she avoided with a passion. And talking about them made her uncomfortable.

“But since you don't want to discuss the werewolf thing, I'll assume vampires are off the table, too?”

She nodded and dropped her hand from the front of the dress shirt.

“So, do you want to go to a wedding?” Stryke offered as he waggled the toothbrush before her.

Blyss accepted the packaged offering and tapped it against her lower lip. A wedding with vampires? Oh, mercy no. But if the suit was going to be there? Had she any other choice?

The last thing she wanted to do was associate with werewolves and vampires.

“Weddings are always fun,” she managed to say brightly. “When is it?”

“Saturday. It's an evening wedding. I'll pick you up around six?”

She nodded. “It's a date.”

Step three of the plan had failed miserably. On to step four. Emergency procedures.

“I'll need your address.”

Blyss strolled out into the bedroom, stepped into her heels and spied his mobile phone on the nightstand beside the bed.

“I'll enter it for you.”

She typed in her address on the contacts app, but she didn't enter her number. She never gave any man her number.

When Stryke took the phone he leaned in to kiss her, but she performed a twist and managed to avoid the contact as his lips brushed her cheek. She clicked toward the bedroom door, abandoning the toothbrush with a toss toward the bed.

“I'm so sorry to rush off, but I have to get back to the gallery!”

She didn't listen for his reply, but suspected he was probably kicking himself for inviting her to the wedding after that cold brush-off. Of course, now the man would have another day to think and wonder over her. Not a good thing.

Grabbing her scarf and purse as she breezed through the kitchen, she hastened through the front door and skipped toward the elevator.

A vampire wedding would prove a challenge. But if she did not find the suit, she would not be able to pay off Edamite Thrash. And life as she knew it would never again be the same.

* * *

“It freaked me out,” Stryke said to his brother Kelyn as they strolled down a narrow cobbled street somewhere in the 5th arrondissement. Trouble walked ahead of them. “I had no idea she was werewolf.”

“Something must be wrong with her,” Kelyn offered in his usual quiet tone.

Of the four Saint-Pierre boys, Kelyn had no wolf in him and was 100 percent faery, thanks to their mother's genes. Physically he looked like no one in the family—save their mother—and was tall, lithe and pale. He usually covered the faint white markings that traced his arms, chest and back of his neck. Faery markings even he wasn't sure about. His violet eyes had a tendency to make women swoon. And Stryke had heard more than a few whispers about Kelyn's prowess between the sheets that made the ladies collapse in delighted exhaustion.

His
sidhe
brother seemed to navigate Paris as if he knew the city, yet used the ley-line excuse when Stryke asked about it. Faeries were inexplicably connected to the ley lines that crissed and crossed across the planet.

Trouble, who strode in front of them, his shoulders swaying with each sure stride, eyed a pair of women in stilettos and brandishing patent leather purses as they sat sipping café au lait before a chic café. The dark-haired Trouble winked and nodded to them. The women ignored his blatant flirtations with a chill Stryke was all too recently familiar with. Blyss's quick escape earlier had made him want to check if icicles had formed on the doorknob.

There was something up with her. Beyond the weird aversion to discussing the fact they were both wolves. That was why he'd asked her to the wedding. He needed to know more. And—to have one huge question answered.

“The city girls are snobs,” Trouble said as he slowed and parted Stryke and Kelyn to walk between them. “I can't get a rise out of any of them. I'm ready to go home.”

“I like Paris,” Kelyn commented. “It feels familiar. And Stryke found himself a werewolf without even trying.”

“Dude, really? How'd you score that?” Trouble wrapped an arm about Stryke's neck and gave him a noogie. “Thought you were at some fancy-schmancy gallery last night with Blade? Did you hear about Blade?”

“What?” Kelyn asked.

“Scored twins,” Stryke confirmed.

“That man is a master,” Trouble said in awe. “But a werewolf, eh? 'Bout time my little bro hooked up with his own kind. Dad will be happy to hear you are serious about starting a pack. Where'd you find her? Vail hook you up?”

“I met her at the gallery. I think she's the owner, but we didn't talk about much. Mostly I pushed her up against the wall and had a quickie.” Because brothers shared everything. And he had to tell someone about the insane but amazing encounter.

“Nice.” Trouble wasn't the most discerning when it came to women. He liked them fast, sexy and amiable. And they couldn't be too fancy or prissy. Trouble was a man's man, and he liked a woman who did all the kinds of things he liked to do.

Same with Stryke. If she couldn't handle a fishing rod or ride behind him on the four-wheeler while careening through a muddy field, well then, that was it.

Blyss was none of the above. But hell, she was his Paris fling. And what happened in Paris stayed in Paris. Right?