The Reluctant Miss Van Helsing (31 page)

“Curses!” She had definitely jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire. She wanted to crow to the heavens. This was just not her night.

The Earl held out his arms, carefully inspecting the feathered female who had run into him while hastily exiting the smoking parlor. Shaking her head, Jane deduced there was nothing to do but brazen it out, to pretend that she was what she was supposed to be and not what she really was. Maybe Asher wouldn’t recognize her—if she could find a thimbleful of luck tonight.

Disguising her voice, Jane remarked, “I’ve got to go, me lord. I’ve got a protector awaitin’ me.”

Stunned, Neil Asher looked down at the woman in his arms.

He couldn’t believe it.

He wouldn’t believe it.

The Countess of Wolverton was in the Birds of Paradise Club, dressed as a feathered doxy. He ruled the roost at home, and yet here was his wife in a brothel. What else did he not know about his domestic matters? The question chilled him.

His wife!

“If you wouldn’t mind letting me go, luv,” Jane said, her words slurring slightly.

Dropping his hands from her shoulders before he wrung her lovely neck, Asher stepped back, getting his first full look at the total costume of this golden cherry lovebird. He narrowed his eyes in anger, yet his mouth watered. His wife was a kaleidoscope of many things:

Delicious.

Delectable.

Desirable. Utterly, maddeningly desirable.

He would feast tonight. He would dip his quill into her brightly colored ink pot, he decided lustily, his fierce desire tamping down his anger, and he would write his name on her forever.

Jane grinned giddily. She was having a bit of luck after all. Her husband didn’t recognize her!

Asher
knew his wife didn’t think that he recognized her, but he knew exactly who the scantily dressed female in front of him was. It was his very own calamity Jane, his impossible wife. He didn’t know if he wanted to pluck her, stuff her or eat her raw. But he did know that he needed to get her someplace alone, and quickly before anyone else recognized her. Although who would ever believe that his countess would be dressed up in a bird costume in the most infamous brothel in London? Certainly not anyone sane.

Glaring at her overly exposed breasts, Asher growled, “Your bedchamber. Now!” He was going to give her more than a piece of his mind. Did she not know the dignity required of their station in life? Did she not recognize the proud lineage she was now a part of? How could his wife have ended up in a brothel?

This was monstrous, even for a Van Helsing. And if he wasn’t mistaken, his wife was inebriated again.

“You maddening little minx!” he growled.

Jane flinched. She could feel the old coffin lid slamming shut. She’d been wrong; her husband knew exactly who she was. Master vampires lived a long time, mainly because they weren’t short on intelligence. “Would you believe I got lost on my way to the museum?” she asked.

He glowered at her.

“You’ll never believe it, but a funny thing happened on the way to the bird-watching forum,” Jane tried, throwing another flimsy excuse into the arena as she backed her way toward the bedchamber where she’d begun this whole escapade. But at his glowering look and growling grunts, Jane decided she would save the last of her excuses for a rainy day.

Scrunching her eyes closed, which had seemed to see double in the last few moments, she decided the truth was probably the best of all answers. She pointed to the bedchamber door, which Asher slammed open in exasperation and he shoved her inside.

Before Jane could open her mouth, Asher slammed the door shut and backed her against it. This bird-bedecked spouse was a burden he wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy, no matter how seductively charming she was. He was going to give her what she deserved. He would tell her exactly what he thought of her constant folly.

But as he opened his mouth to yell, Asher took a deep breath. She looked so delicious, what with her pink mouth and feathered costume, that instead he lowered his head and kissed her. But he made the kiss hard and punishing. His hand rose to tear off her blond wig, scattering the hairpins that held it in place, letting her real hair fall loose and straight down her back, the way he liked it best.

“I don’t want you, Jane,” he snarled, kissing her again with a hunger so intense and greedy that it stunned him. He was supposed to be questioning her, berating her or perhaps spanking her pert fanny covered in those soft feathers. Hmm. That last part had distinct possibilities.

As her lord and master vampire, he was supposed to be raging at her. He was supposed to be making her crawl to him on her hands and knees to plead for forgiveness. The idea nearly sent him to his own knees, imagining Jane sunken down before him, his cock in her soft, pink mouth. He groaned.

“No, Jane. I don’t want you one tiny bit, you wayward little witch.” And with those words, he tenderly clasped her breast, palming the nipple. Too many intense emotions had been building between them; he had to let them out.

His other hand began to caress her stomach in tiny circles, and a slow heat began to build as his fingers danced across her skin. He dipped that hand lower, finding the patch of hair over her nether lips. The action caused Jane to tense in his arms, her thighs locking against his hand. He caressed her until she relaxed.

Startled, surprised, bemused and still a bit dazed from the wine, Jane felt heat shooting through her as her husband’s fingers gently stroked her. She gasped, her body arching tightly against his, making them both groan. What he was doing felt so marvelously wonderful, causing a sweet ache she’d never known. She felt like warbling to the heavens. “Oh, Asher. Don’t stop.”

She heard a low, needy sound. Intrigued, Jane opened her eyes, looking at her husband. He was staring at her breasts with a hunger that made her blood sing. The sky was falling, but she was no Chicken Little.

She would follow wherever her husband led.

“You are such a handsome vampire,” she said. And for once, Neil Asher’s arrogant composure looked broken. His blue eyes, which were normally so glacial, appeared to be warming. It was amazing. Asher was melting, and there hadn’t been any holy water, only her silky underplumage.

“And you are driving me to bedlam, my feathery temptress,” he replied.

Jane snuggled closer, pressing her bosoms further into his hand, rubbing her leg up and down his. He shivered, and Jane exalted in her womanly power.

Contact with his muscular body was all she craved at the moment; she violently searched for something she couldn’t name but knew with an instinct as old as time was just beyond reach. With Asher she could not only make the journey, but could reach the shining destination as well. She compulsively kissed his neck and ran her hands over his shoulders in feathery touches. He reacted by sliding his hands over her buttocks, pulling her closer to his hard, throbbing erection.

Jane gasped, and he picked her up and in three steps reached the bed. Dropping her onto it, Asher leaned over and gripped her gown. In one powerful tug, he tore the garment in two, exposing her voluptuous body to his view. Feathers flew.

This time, Asher gasped. His wife was all round and pale perfection, with nipples the hue of rosy coral. Warning chimes sounded in the back of his head. Dimly he realized that he shouldn’t be doing this. Jane was his unwanted, unlikeable, undesirable wife. But he did want her, with a fierceness he found frightening. He desperately needed to sink his oar into her pink, wet sea and row to the moon.

“Bloody hell, Jane, you’re perfect!” he growled, lowering himself onto his wife’s delectable body, his lips brushing the column of her neck. He nibbled and nipped, and she squirmed beneath him, clearly wanting something she had no name for. Her lower body was likely in an agony of pleasure and suspense. She was on fire. “Marvelously perfect.”

“Well, cock-a-doodle-do,” Jane gasped.

Asher laughed, and continued his seductive assault. Jane was amazing. What other female could make him laugh when he was so aroused that he thought he’d explode?

Her husband’s hot breath made Jane feel as if she were soaring high and free, entangled with soft, puffy clouds. His questing hands pebbling her nipples made her want to cry out. Suddenly he latched onto her right breast, sucking the nipple into his mouth, laving it with his tongue. Her arms tightened around his broad shoulders, and her heart began pounding in her chest.

Her breathing became short and raspy, for his fingers had inserted themselves into her damp, hot core. She arched back, her long white neck tilted, her hair a satin waterfall on the pillow beside her. She screamed in pleasure as she flew proud and free, soaring to heaven like an eagle in flight.

“No, my dear wife, I don’t want you,” Asher lied, his eyes ablaze with passion’s hot flame. Positioning himself between her soft, plump thighs, he undid the buttons of his pants and his sex sprang free, hardened and huge. Staring at his wife, Asher noted how becoming was the flush of desire on her skin.

In a rush of tenderness, he realized quite unexpectedly that his wife was beautiful in a way no other woman was. He couldn’t describe it, but knew it to be true. Never had he seen such delicious surrender, or passion; and she was his. She was beyond ordinary—perhaps even far beyond ordinary.

“How I crave you,” he gasped. The thought disturbed him at the same time it pleased him. She was his, this venal Van Helsing whom he had found in this brothel. He should be yelling at her right now.

Yelling, he took her, breaking through her virginity in one hard thrust.

“You’re mine, Jane. Mine!”

Jane screamed too, causing him to halt. Using all his self-discipline, Asher forced himself to hold still inside her. He wasn’t certain he could do it, since his tiny wife was so tight and hot; he felt like he was going up in flames. Staring down at her upturned face, Asher tried not to move, but his every instinct cried out for continued plundering. Jane was so tight, so wet, and for the first time in an age, everything felt… right. To be inside her now was like coming home to a sunlit meadow after a winter of icy despair.

“Shh. It will be fine in a few moments,” he consoled, kissing her tenderly. She kissed him back, her tongue dancing with his in the most carnal experience he’d ever encountered.

The kiss grew, became hungrier as he caught the scent of her virgin’s blood. His fangs extended, Asher began kissing her magnificent neck, admiring its slender beauty, its sweet, spicy taste. The pulse beating rapidly there almost drove him mad.

Jane felt a small prick, and she pushed her husband away from her neck. In spite of the torrid heat inside her, and despite the voice crying in her head for total surrender, her breeding had come to the fore.

“No biting,” she managed to say, her voice coming out in a soft pant.

Asher grinned wickedly. “Come now, Jane, my bark is much worse than my bite.”

Again, she shook her head. “No biting allowed.” Then she moaned as Asher thrust inside her. Slowly at first—then his long, hard strokes robbed her of breath.

Suddenly he stopped. In a lightning-quick move, he went from lying atop Jane to kneeling between her legs. There he lowered his head and partook, laving and tonguing Jane until she screamed for mercy. Tiny pinpricks of white light flashed through her head, erupting into a starburst of purple. She was flying high and free like a winged bird, higher and higher than was even possible. She was soaring amongst the stars, floating there, going where eagles dared. She suddenly felt a great wetness between her legs, and a lethargy that felt quite wonderful.

Before his wife could catch her breath, Asher rose and pushed himself inside her, her muscles still clenching from her climax. How he wanted to crow to all the world! He growled instead, overtaken by lust.

Thrusting harder and harder, he made her body come alive. Straining and kissing her, he pushed deep, loving the way she fit around him. He heard her scream, and he smiled. She had screamed loud enough to wake the dead this time, and her third earthshaking climax had her bucking and pitching beneath him.

Thrusting violently, he felt the headboard move as he came. His back arched, his head thrown back, his eyelids closed tight in the throes of ecstasy, and he cried out her name. Then he collapsed at Jane’s side, one arm thrown over his head, his entire body sluggish.

Glancing over at him, Jane decided her husband looked like the cat who ate the canary. He was quite beautiful, this husband of hers. “I’m so glad you don’t want me,” she teased impishly.

Feeling her eyes upon him, Asher opened his own. He knew he should say something. They had just made glorious bed-burning love. And her blood tasted of… je ne sais quoi—an undefinable something that he had never tasted before. It was almost frightening to think that his wife tasted so good. To think that a Van Helsing could make his body sing was insane.

Asher grimaced. The Fates had dealt him a cruel, cruel blow. His sparrow of a wife was really an exotic bird in disguise.

Narrowing his eyes again, he rose from the bed, turning his back on her. She deserved a scolding, not praise. “I want you to tell me the truth this time. What in the bloody hell are you doing here?”

With the aftereffects of the drugs and the lovemaking, Jane had been feeling happy, sated, befuddled and bemused. She wanted poetic words and sweet kisses; yet her bad luck of the night had resumed. Her husband was scolding her. The cheek of the man! Yet, what nice cheeks they were, she thought as she stared at the firm contours of his buttocks outlined by his skintight black breeches. “Wh-what?” she finally managed to stammer.

Throwing her his cloak, he stated coldly, “Put that on. Now, what are you doing here?”

Ignoring the cloak and her nudity, Jane stood and shoved her finger into his chest. Asher’s words were stripping away her love-induced, drug-induced haze, and sobriety came hard upon her. A kaleidoscope of images flowed through her mind: Asher and feathers and cockatoos and cocks.

“You question me? After…” Jane fell short, her quiet well of content poisoned by anger. She tried again: “You come here to this den of sin after ignoring me on our wedding night and all the nights after. You question me, when I find that you frequent this…” She hesitated, enraged, glancing around at the hideous decor of the bedchamber. “This place! Really, Asher, Madame Saunders has such abysmal taste. How can you even come here when the colors are so garish? You, who are such a stickler for refinement!” Jane finished hotly, staring at him scornfully.