Читать книгу Devour Me - Lydia Parks - Страница 10

Star stood frozen in place as if she’d stepped in Super Glue. She couldn’t have moved if the house had been burning down around her.

Fighting a suddenly dry mouth, she managed to get out, “I, uh, didn’t mean any harm.”

He took a step toward her, filling more space than he should. The top of his head seemed less than an inch from the ceiling. “You were told to stay on the first floor, were you not?”

Anger swelled inside her, bursting her bubble of terror. She dropped one fist to a hip and purposely slid her gaze around the room. “Yeah, I was told.”

“And do you always have difficulty following orders?”

She shrugged and cut her gaze up to his. “Most of the time.”

He stared at her for several long minutes, but didn’t make a move forward.

“I was just looking around,” she said. “That’s all.”

“Get out.” He pointed toward the door.

Anger flamed into rage. If he thought she was going to take off running because he was a big bad-ass with a deep voice, he was wrong. She didn’t back down from bullies.

“Hey!” She closed the distance between them and poked a finger into the middle of his chest. “You need to back off, Jack.”

She might as well have poked her finger into a steel plate.

He continued to stare, his brows thickened by a frown.

“Benjamin,” he said.

“Huh?”

“My name is Benjamin.”

She narrowed her eyes and dropped her arm to her side. Was he screwing with her? He actually sounded serious. “I know.”

“You called me Jack.”

He was serious.

“You don’t get out much, do you?”

Unsure if he was about to bellow another order or physically toss her out, Star watched, prepared to yell back or defend herself. Instead, he took several steps backward and returned to his position before the fire.

She stared at his wide back for a few moments, dazed, then turned and ambled toward the paintings. She’d leave the room in her own sweet time. Stopping in front of the oval portrait, she asked, “Who is this?”

He glanced over his shoulder and spoke with his back to her as he moved logs around. “One of my ancestors.”

“Looks just like you.”

“So I’ve been told.” He rose, picked up a pipe from the mantle, and packed it with tobacco from a leather pouch. He watched her from the corner of his eye.

“Who painted these?”

He struck a match and held it to his pipe. “Another ancestor.”

God, he looked like a duke or something standing in front of the fireplace wearing a coat from another century and kneehigh black boots. She’d never met anyone quite like him. Again, her belly quivered, and she wasn’t sure why. She wasn’t actually afraid of him. At least, not much.

“So this is like your family home, huh?”

He nodded as he drew on his pipe and puffed, filling the room with the sweet smell of pipe tobacco.

“You stay here all by yourself?” She couldn’t imagine living in a place the size of a hotel and not having it stuffed with people.

“At times.”

“A lot of space for one guy.”

He didn’t rise to the bait, and her anger faded. Maybe if you were raised in a place like this, you didn’t even know there were people out there living in cardboard boxes.

“Your ancestor, the captain, was he the one who built this house?”

“Aye.”

“How did he end up here?”

Benjamin studied her long enough to make her uncomfortable, then rested his pipe on the mantle, turned, and sat on the edge of his desk. “He was shipwrecked on the rocks just beyond the point, and nearly lost his life. No others survived. The captain was nursed back to health, and could never bring himself to leave. He started building the house a year later.”

“Who nursed him?”

“No one knows for certain.”

She searched the portrait for any sign of tenderness in the captain’s cold black eyes. “So, maybe it was some Native American woman who helped him and he fell in love with her. Maybe this place is the result of a fairy tale romance.”

She glanced at the modern Benjamin, who watched her intently with identical black eyes. Heat rushed through her and she swallowed hard. “Too bad fairy tales aren’t real.”

Dragging air into her lungs, she turned toward the door. “I guess I better see if the others are back.”

“They are,” he said.

She took one more look at him and nodded, then left the room.

Once she was hurrying down the dark hallway, she realized her hands were shaking and she couldn’t quite catch her breath. The man had a strange effect on her. Working hard to calm her nerves, she continued to the first floor and found it, too, dark.

“Wendy? Jack?”

A hint of music drew her toward one of the guest rooms where she found the three. Wendy had hooked up her MP3 player to tiny speakers and had strip music vibrating off the walls. Star closed the door behind her.

Wendy, dancing in front of the fireplace, winked at Star before turning her back on the two men. She was already down to her T-shirt, thong, and heels, and slowly, teasingly, drew her shirt up to her shoulders.

Jack lay back on one elbow, rubbing the bulge in the front of his jeans, and Kyle groaned.

Star sat in an armchair in the corner.

Wendy had wonderful skin, smooth and lightly tanned. The tat just above her butt was actually well done, not heavy-handed like the usual tramp stamp. And the woman knew how to move. Back at the Kitty Klub, she’d been the highest grossing stripper. No doubt Bud was missing her about now. He’d probably lost half his business when Wendy took off.

Her long, fluid movements in time with the music were perfect as she pulled off her shirt and dropped it to the ground. Then she turned, her breasts squeezed between her arms, and leaned over as she ran her hands down the front of her thighs and back up the insides. Her parted lips and heavy eyelids suggested she was halfway to an orgasm already.

“Oh, shit,” Kyle moaned. He reached inside his pants to straighten his swelling prick.

Wendy hooked her thumbs in the sides of her thong, stretched it out, and wriggled it down her legs a little at a time.

“Yeah, baby, take it off,” Jack said.

She stepped out of the thong and shot it like a rubber band at Jack’s face. He laughed.

Wendy used the post at the corner of the bed like a strip-club pole, straddling it and riding slowly up and down with the beat.

Kyle shed his pants and then his shirt and patted the bed beside him. “Come on, Wen. Let’s get to the contact phase of this dance.”

Wendy raised one foot and placed it on Kyle’s leg, exposing her pussy to his view and marking his skin with the spike heel. Ignoring the spike, he reached out, grabbed her ass, and planted his face in her crotch. Grinning, she pushed him away.

“Damn, that smells good enough to fuck,” he said.

“To you, everything smells good enough to fuck,” Jack said.

Kyle shrugged and lay back to watch and stroke his cock.

Wendy danced in front of Jack as she raised his shirt off over his head. Then she turned and moved her ass inches over the top of his pants. He caressed her firm butt. She turned, pushed him to his back, and unzipped his jeans, and his thick cock sprang free.

Keeping the beat, Wendy leaned over and ran her tongue around the head of Jack’s cock, leaving it wet and harder. Jack’s body jerked with involuntary movements.

Something about the way Wendy controlled the situation turned Star on. She slipped her hand under her shirt, messaged her tightening tits, and pinched the sensitized nipples.

Wendy took Jack’s cock into her mouth, sliding her bright red lips down the length of the shaft.

“Hey,” Kyle said. “Where do I fit in?”

Wendy rose, grinning, and climbed up on the bed. On her hands and knees, she looked back at the redhead and slapped her own ass. “Right here.”

As Kyle worked his way into Wendy’s pussy, she slid her mouth back down Jack’s prick.

Star swallowed hard. She’d never watched like this before.

Finally buried, Kyle gripped Wendy’s hips and held her up close. Wendy groaned and raised her ass higher.

The music changed tempo to something slow and steady, and the three moved in time with it. Kyle withdrew halfway as Wendy raised her mouth up to the tip of Jack’s prick, and then both cocks disappeared again.

Star slid her hand down the front of her pants to her clit, easily finding juices to lubricate her fingers. As the fucking continued, punctuated with groans and grunts, her clit swelled with need and she rubbed it harder.

Kyle’s arm and shoulder muscles bunched and his buttocks clenched with each stroke, and he closed his eyes. Jack fondled Wendy’s puckering nipples as his prick reached full size, slick and hard.

Star closed her eyes and imagined the feel of big, strong hands around her waist, gripping her and pulling her back against a massive cock, slick with her juices and aching for her. She felt hot breath on the back of her neck.

“Oh, fuck,” Kyle groaned. “This feels too good.” He broke the rhythm, pounding flesh to flesh.

Star leaned her head back and rubbed her clit faster until everything tightened. She imagined a mouth crushed to hers, hands touching her flesh, urgent thrusts, a hard body. Pulling a nipple, she slid three fingers into her pussy. Spasms squeezed her drenched fingers, and she bit her bottom lip to remain quiet as release swept over her.

When she opened her eyes, she found Kyle lying on his back and Wendy riding Jack, her hands splayed on his chest.

As she watched Wendy approaching a climax, Star realized with a start whose hands she’d fantasized about, whose mouth and hard body.

Benjamin.

She drew her hand from her pants and swallowed hard. Why in the hell had she fantasized about him? He wasn’t even close to Brad Pitt.

Wendy’s head dropped forward and she grunted with each thrust as she came. Jack’s hips rose up from the bed as he matched her movements, groaning with pleasure. Finally, Wendy collapsed to her side and lay on her back between Jack and Kyle. The music continued on with its raunchy beat.

Star rested her head against the back of the chair and recalled the way Benjamin had looked at her when he discovered her in his study. He was angry for sure and surprised, but there was more, a touch of something like fear in his eyes. What could he possibly be afraid of?

Benjamin sipped whiskey and watched flames crawl over the newest log. At least the blasted music had stopped. He’d noticed it when he first rose and realized his house guests were still in residence. It was cheap music, suggestive of sex, and he’d tried not to picture the foursome from the night before.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t enjoyed watching them. He had. In fact, he’d wakened with a vision of Star, her hair darkened with sweat, her head thrown back in ecstasy, riding him with abandon, her nails digging into his chest.

He’d spent twenty minutes wrestling his hunger back to its corner.

And then he’d discovered her in his study. Had she arrived a few minutes sooner, she’d have seen him emerging from his hidden room. No one but Cassandra knew of his inner sanctum.

The most insane part of the whole encounter was that through his haze of anger, he’d wanted to grab her shoulders and drag her to him. He’d wanted to part her thighs and claim her as his own.

What the hell was he thinking? She was a vagabond, nothing more, wandering through. She’d soon be gone and he’d never see her again.

Why did that thought bother him? And what was it about her he found so damned appealing?

He watched the fire burn until the newest log was consumed.

Downing the last of the shot, he deposited the glass on his desk and rose. It was time for him to determine exactly what his guests had planned.

He found the four mortals in his kitchen making use of the stove. Scents suggested some form of food he wasn’t familiar with.

“Come on,” one of the men said. “Put olives in it.”

“Olives?” a woman answered. “In chili? That’s disgusting.”

“No, it’s—”

They fell silent as he entered the room.

Wendy and Kyle stood at the stove where they had been arguing over ingredients. Jack spread dishes around the table and Star filled glasses with a purple liquid. She glanced up, spotted him, and spilled some of the purple drink onto the counter before righting the bottle.

He stayed just inside the doorway, trying not to show his disgust at the strange aroma. “I take it you’re finding sufficient food?”

“We picked up some stuff at the Stop & Shop,” Jack said. “You want to join us?”

“No, thank you.” He crossed the room to lean against the counter near Star and noted the increase in her heart rate with a degree of satisfaction. “I apologize for the lack of rations. I’ll have some brought in for the morning.”

“Cool,” Wendy said. “Thanks.”

Star maneuvered around him to deliver glasses to the table, almost but not quite touching him. His fingers itched to reach for her, and a dull ache started at the base of his canines. He tried his best to ignore it.

“And your vehicle?”

“We had to order a fuel line,” Jack said. “Should be in tomorrow. Won’t take long to install.”

And then you leave.

Star glanced up from the table, met his gaze, and looked away.

Disappointment settled in his gut. Now he knew their plan. He should, by all rights, be happy to be getting his privacy back.

For some inexplicable reason, he wasn’t.

“Well,” he said, straightening. “I leave you to your meal and wish you all smooth sailing.”

Without looking back, he left the kitchen, anxious to get away from emotions better left unexamined. He’d long since abandoned loneliness, and had no intention of letting it back into his life.

No, he would take to the woods and taste the freedom of the night. He enjoyed the sounds of owls rising from low branches and bats overhead. He would savor the salt water in the air and let it wash away thoughts of this strange mortal woman.

His sense of restlessness had done nothing but increase since his visit to the Tangled Net. Perhaps Cassandra was close.

Benjamin slung his cloak over his shoulders and pulled the front door shut behind him.

“You feeling okay?”

Star glanced at Wendy and nodded. “Yeah.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.” Her heart still raced from being so close to Benjamin. Now when she saw him, she pictured him leaning over her to kiss her, taking her in his arms.

Insane.

“Think we’ll be able to get out of here tomorrow?” she asked Jack.

He shrugged and exchanged a meaningful look with Kyle. “Maybe.”

Star narrowed her eyes. “What do you have planned?”

“We have to put the fuel line in, that’s all. Sometimes that isn’t as easy as it looks.” He tried his innocent look on her, but it didn’t work. “Besides, it won’t hurt my feelings to stay here a few days while we work on it.”

“You’re going to take stuff, aren’t you?”

Jack turned his attention to his bowl of chili.

“Don’t,” she said.

“He won’t miss it,” Kyle said. “Look at this fucking place, will you?”

The thought of stealing from Benjamin had grown from distasteful to downright rotten. But how would she stop them? If she told Benjamin and he called the cops, they’d all be in trouble.

A feeling of dread skipped up her spine. Jones always said he had connections with cops all over the country. Had he just been blowing smoke, or did he really know cops in Boston? If they picked her up, would he be the one to bail her out? Chances were good he’d be pissed that she’d taken off in the middle of the night. In his mind, it didn’t seem to matter that he’d been screwing around; she was still supposed to be his girlfriend. What the hell had she seen in him in the first place?

After polishing off the chili and halfheartedly cleaning up, the other three padded off to bed. They’d spent half the day walking to and from the gas station, and had then exercised, as Wendy called it. Star wasn’t the least bit tired. She’d spent most of the day sitting in the tower, daydreaming.

She washed the dishes, dried them, and put them away, then wandered back to the main room where she drew a book, Call of the Wild, from the shelf and blew off the dust. She settled onto a sofa directly in front of the painting of the ship, opened the book, and began to read.

The story quickly drew her in. She had no idea how long she’d been reading when the front door swung open.

Star jumped, spilling the book from her lap. “Dammit.” She spun around as she snatched the book from the floor, but forgot to be annoyed when she caught sight of Benjamin.

He shrugged off his cloak and hung it up as he stared at her. His hair was wind-blown and a stark contrast to the white shirt he wore. Black pants hugged muscular thighs, and his boots once again glistened with water, although it wasn’t raining. He strode toward her and all the air seemed to disappear from the room.

“It appears I’ve interrupted your reading,” he said. “Forgive me.”

She held the book at her side. “No big deal.”

“No?” Benjamin stopped two feet in front of her and glanced at the book, then continued on to the cold fireplace where he knelt. “Mr. London told quite exciting tales.”

In a few short moments, he had a fire roaring in the fireplace and stood, turning to face her. It had taken her half an hour to figure out how to get a fire started in the guest room, and it never had roared.

“Have the others retired?”

“Yeah.”

“I see. And you chose to read instead.”

She shrugged. “I wasn’t tired.”

He frowned and looked around as if studying new surroundings. “I wish to apologize for my earlier behavior. Please forgive me.”

He was apologizing? Since when did bullies apologize?

“No problem.”

He turned his frown on her, and then released it and nodded as if formally bowing. “Thank you.”

Star swallowed hard. The white shirt he wore showed off more of him than the black one had. In the kitchen she’d been too uncomfortable to look very closely. Now she had a chance.

He had to be well over six feet tall, his shoulders and chest were broad and muscular, and his belly showed no hint of a bulge. He must spend a lot of time working out. Jones was obsessed with working out, and he’d never looked half as good.

There was something truly different about this man, however. Star tried to find a single word for it, but couldn’t. He had an air of authority about him, as if he were used to having his orders followed without question. And even in his own home, he seemed a little out of place. He was…what was it?

Realizing she was staring, she mentally shook herself. “Uh, these are your books?” She used Call of the Wild to point to the bookshelf.

“Aye, that they are.” He clasped his hands behind his back and stood with his feet spread.

“How many of them have you read?”

“All of them.”

Was he serious? There were more books here than she could read in fifty years. “Holy crap,” she muttered.

His eyebrows arched up and one corner of his mouth rose.

Heat crawled up her throat to her cheeks. She hated being laughed at.

Clenching her jaw, she marched to the bookshelf, slid the book back into place, and then turned to leave. “Good night.”

“Wait.” He grabbed her arm.

Star tried to jerk her arm from his grasp, but nothing happened. Although he wasn’t hurting her, his grip was like a vise she couldn’t shake. “Let go.”

“Don’t leave.”

Something in his voice stopped her. She looked up into his dark eyes and saw raw emotion that caused her chest to clench. She saw sadness, and loneliness, and a hint of desire.

Her belly did somersaults.

He drew her slowly toward him until they stood inches apart and he towered over her.

She fought to drag air into her lungs.

His gaze slid down from her eyes to her mouth, and she began to tremble.

Was he really going to kiss her?

God, she wanted him to kiss her. She wanted to know how his arms felt around her. As he leaned close, she caught a scent of wildness—the woods, wind, and dewy grass.

He caressed her jaw and drew her mouth up to his.

When his lips met hers, a jolt of excitement shot through her. His lips were cool and moist, and they demanded surrender.

Star sucked in a breath of surprise.

He drew back, then cocked his head and took her mouth completely, parting her lips.

She clung to his shirt.

His hand slid up her arm and across her shoulder, and he encircled her.

His tongue tested, explored, seduced. And she welcomed it.

God almighty, was this what a kiss was supposed to be like?

Her entire body turned to mush. She might have collapsed if he hadn’t held her.

She melted against him, warm mush to a wall of cold steel, and a soft, vibrating groan rose up through that wall.

They crashed into the bookshelves and he pinned her there with his weight as he drew her legs up around him. He tore his mouth from hers to press it to the side of her neck.

His hips bruised the insides of her thighs as he pushed against her, and his chest flattened her breasts. Bookshelves dented lines in her spine.

Christ. If she could have reached his waist, she would have ripped his pants open. But all she could do was push back, thrusting her crotch against his bulging hard-on.

And what a bulge it was. The feel of it swelling against her liquefied her insides.

With a handful of his hair in her fist and clinging to his massive shoulders, Star dropped her head back to a shelf.

Benjamin kissed her bare throat, and sucked on it, probably leaving a hickey. She didn’t care, she just wanted more of him.

His right hand rode up under her T-shirt to the side of her breast, and his thumb slipped across her nipple, creating lines of electricity between his touch and her crotch.

Her clit swelled with need and juices gushed from her pussy.

With one hand on her ass, he drew her up against him and eased her down, using her throbbing pussy to stroke his erection through their clothes.

No one had ever caused her body to do such crazy things. Goose bumps covered her from head to toe, and she shook with desire.

He covered her jaw and cheek with hungry kisses, took her mouth again as she struggled to breathe, and then locked his lips on the side of her neck as he rubbed harder, faster. Her neck tingled and then warmed.

Her body exploded with pleasure that quivered through her backbone and bounced off the bottom of her feet.

Gripping him tighter, she cried out. Amazing tremors of satisfaction racked her body and fogged her brain.

And the world disappeared.

Benjamin dragged the back of his hand across his mouth as he knelt beside the sofa. Star’s eyes moved back and forth beneath the lids as if she fought monsters in her dreams. Had she sensed the beast she’d just held while awake?

He hoped not.

He hadn’t meant to bite her, or even to kiss her. What was it about this mortal woman that drew him like a moth to a flame?

The intensity of her emotions had taken him off guard. He’d wanted all of her as a result, and that terrified him. When had he even come close to making a mistake such as this?

Never. Not since Cassandra taught him how to control the minds of his victims and leash his hunger.

But he’d sensed Star’s strength, even before he tasted her blood. Perhaps he’d felt it when he first met her. Something had caught his attention.

Now he knew it, the strength. She’d faced many difficulties in her short life and learned to survive alone. She didn’t need anyone. She stood with fists at the ready, protected by a wall of stone.

Damn. He wanted more of her, even now as she lay unconscious. The small holes in her skin puckered and lightened as he watched. If he drank from her again, she wouldn’t heal so quickly.

Benjamin pressed his lips to her warm forehead and pushed forward peaceful thoughts. Then he staggered to his feet. Plucking Call of the Wild from the shelf, he opened it, placed it face down on Star’s stomach, and rested her hand on top of it.

He must leave before she woke, and he wanted to be alone to enjoy the remnants of her in his system.