Bloodlust 00 The Talisman Read online

  “Let's start by dancing, Cassy.”

  She nodded and willing wentwent willingly into his arms. They danced several times, each time, slow and close together. As they moved around the floor, a bulge developed against his leg. She overcame the urge to press close to it to gauge its size. Later, they found a small table in a darkened corner of the patio and ate dinner.

  “So you're an electronic technician, Cassy?” He sipped his drink and looked at her. “What exactly does an electronic technician do?”

  “Oh, lots of things. Mostly I repair electronic components in cash registers, ATM's and computers.”

  “Do you enjoy it?”

  She nodded. “Oh, yes. I've always been curious about how things—electronic things work and getting to fix them at my own pace is great. What about you?”

  “Me?” He leaned across the table and smiled at her. “I'm an accountant, who would very much like to get to know you. Is that possible, Cassy? Are you seeing anyone?”

  She shook her head, not allowing herself to think of the man she'd like to see. “No.”

  “Then I'd like to see you.”

  “I'd like that, Frank.”

  She told herself she really liked Frank and was having a great time. Still when Frankhe bent to kiss her as they said good night, she closed her eyes and found herself pretending the lips kissing hers belonged to Chandler Raven.

  “I'll call you,” he whispered, running the tip of his tongue along her closed lips as he kissed her.

  She gasped and slipped her fingers through the short hair at the back of his neck. “Yes. Please do.”

  His arms tightened around her and he kissed her again, full on her mouth. This time, she allowed her lips to part and fought hard not to think of Chandler Raven. The tips of her breasts tightened against his chest as his cock hardened against her. For one insane moment, she toyed with the idea of inviting him to spend the night with her. She had needs and she ached to have them assuaged. But she'd never been a one-night stand kind of woman. And until she was certain she wanted a relationship with him, she wasn't about to sleep with him.

  It was clear he knew of her desire, when he tightened his arms around her waist and whispered in her ear, “I sure hate saying good night to you, Cassy. You feel so good.”

  As did he.

  “I know we've just met Cassy, but I wish we could—”

  “I know, Frank. I know, but we can't. I can't.”

  “Oh, baby.” He rubbed his lower body sensuously against hers and she shuddered. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.“ She pulled away from him, trembling. “Good night.”

  She found Derri standing alone on the patio. “Dare? Are you all right?”

  Derri turned to look at her with a slight smile. “Yes. I was just thinking.”

  “What about?”

  She shrugged. “Me and Karl and where, if any place, we're going.” She smiled suddenly. “You're leaving?”

  She nodded.

  “Alone?”

  She nodded again.

  Derri frowned. “But you and Frank at least exchanged numbers, I hope.”

  She grinned. “Oh, yeah.”

  “Good. Then I'll talk to you in a day or two.”

  They exchanged hugs and Cassy left the party. She spent the entire ride home, wondering if she'd made a mistake in not spending the night with Frank. All those slow dances with him, combined with her frustration at her failure to turn Chandler Raven on sufficiently to get him to stay with her, had formed into a knot of tension and need in the pit of her stomach.

  At home, she headed for her bedroom and her panty drawer. She removed the small couple from the jewelry box, half hoping that the male would have changed colors again. Hopefully, the male would now be black. He was not. She sighed, and put the couple back in their box.

  She then stripped and took a long cool shower. With the water pouring over her head, she began to fantasize about sex. She started off thinking about it with Frank. He would be a hot, insatiable lover who would probably take her to places she'd never been. She dried her body slowly, pulled on a sheer nightgown, and slipped into bed. By the time her head hit the pillow, Chandler Raven was again the focus of her sexual fantasies.

  Angry at her inability to stop thinking about him, it took her a long time to fall asleep. Before she did, she found herself wondering how she could possibly face him again. He probably thought she was a shameless hussy. What was she supposed to say to him the next time they met? She punched her fist in her pillow and decided she was worrying needlessly. They probably wouldn’t even have an opportunity to speak to each other again. She'd be very surprised if he didn't look right through her the next time they encountered each other.

  She found out on Monday morning. She was late and taking the shortcut across the parking lot, when she saw his car pull in just ahead of her. He got out and he reached the door a little before she did.

  “Good morning, Mr. Raven.”

  He didn't speak. He didn't even nod. He just held the door open without looking at her. It was hard to believe that this grim looking man was the same one who'd flirted with her just two days earlier.

  He clearly had no intentions of flirting with her today or even being friendly.

  “Thanks, sir,” she muttered as she slipped passed him.

  This time he inclined his head slightly, still without meeting her gaze.

  Feeling a ridiculous degree of disappointment, she turned and hurried down the hallway, aware that he followed much more slowly.

  By the time she saw him again in the dining room on Friday, she'd had plenty of time to regret her behavior and to convince herself that his interest in her wasn't serious, nor was it ever likely to be.

  Although he didn't wear a wedding ring, he might be married. But even if he weren't married with a couple of kids, he surely had a supermodel type lady friend to keep him company and share his bed. It was sheer insanity on her part to imagine that he was attracted to her just because he'd been kind enough to give her a lift home and had flirted with her a little. As for his shaft hardening...well some men got hard just looking at a woman—any woman.

  * * * * *

  “She wants you, you want her. You'd be a fool not to go for it.”

  Chandler glanced at the tall, dark man standing next to him at the stadium bar, sipping a beer. Serge Dumont looked much the same as he had twenty years earlier when he and Chandler had shared a dorm rooman apartment in a frat house on the Temple University campus. While Chandler's hair had begun to gray, Serge, with his dark head covered by a Phillies' ball cap and sporting a diamond stud in his rightleft ear, still looked like a fresh-faced college sophomore.

  When Serge had called to tell him he was flying in from Boston for the Phillies' home opener, Chandler, although not a baseball fan, had gladly accepted the invitation to join him at Vet's Stadium. He and Serge didn't often see each otheroften and he welcomed the opportunity to discuss his growing obsession with Cassy Thompson with someone who would understand.

  “Why did I know you'd say that?” he asked.

  Serge grinned. “Come on Chan, you know how I like my ladies. It's about time you finally let that Cajun blood of yours have its way.”

  Chandler accepted his beer from the vendor and walked back towards their seats on the third baseline with Serge beside him. “My attraction to her has nothing to do with Cajun blood.”

  “Then what has it do with?”

  He sipped his beer and shrugged. “I don't know. It must be that damned statuette.”

  They sank into their seats. “If it's the statuette, Chan, why has it taken you nearly ten years to be attractingattracted enough to a black woman to want to do something about it? It's not the statuette, exquisite though it is. It's your nature; what you were born for. Don't fight it, go with the flow.”

  He took several swallows of his beer and watched the players begin to return to the field. “Is that what you do? Go around dating your employees? I'm sure Mikhel loves t
hat,” he said of Serge's older brother who he'd met several times.

  “You know Mikhel, he's a bit of a stuffed shirt. He talks big, but you can bet that if he finds his bloodlust partner in the company, he'll toss his high ideals to the wind and bury his incisors in her neck in a Philly second.”

  Chandler swallowed the last of his beer and slowly turned to look at Serge. He'd know since their senior year as roommates when Serge had invited him home to Boston over the Christmas Holidays, that Serge and his family were vampires. Now, nearly twenty years later, he still vividly remembered his shock on going into the family room one night and finding the whole Dumont family and several of their friends, not only naked, but engaged in a lustful orgy.

  The smell of the blood and the sex had acted like a drug on Chandler. He'd seen sexual positions that only vampires could possibly achieve or enjoy. Without quite knowing how he'd let it happen, he'd stripped off his clothes and joined in. His out of control behavior that week still bothered him. He'd gone from one female vampire's arms to another and come within an inch of being drained.

  There had been one particular woman, Deoctra, small, dark, and exquisite, who'd sucked his cock until it was sore. They had spent their days and nights fucking. She would frequently interrupt their fucking to insist he suck her bloody finger. After a day or two, he'd developed a taste for her blood and had sucked it every change he got. One night, near the end of his stay, as he eagerly sucked her blood, she'd leaped on him and sank her incisors in his neck.

  Although he'd been aware that she meant to kill him, he'd been strangely unable to protest. It had been Serge's sister, Katie, who had first noticed his distress. Unable to get Deoctra off him, she'd summoned her brothers. It had taken both Serge and Mikhel to pull Deoctra off of Chandler. He'd developed chills and a fever. He'd spent the next three days in bed, delirious. Katie had climbed into bed with him to hold him.

  Even with the fever raging in him, he'd wanted her.

  When he'd awakened one night to find her naked body pressed against his, he'd had her—over and over. As he'd plunged his cock in her pussy, he'd greedily sucked her blood from her finger. They had spent the remaining four days and nights of his time in Boston fucking almost nonstop. It had taken years to forget those lustful nights with her. She had wanted a relationship with him, but with his return to Philly, had come his sanity. Telling her he did not want a vampire for a wife had been one of the most difficult things he'd had to do.

  Serge and Mikhel, both protective of their younger sister had been furious with him. Strangely enough, it was Katie who held their rage in check.

  He and Serge had slowly mended their friendship and he had never gone back to Boston. Over the years he had almost convinced himself that he had never spent those wild two weeks with the Dumonts.

  Although he knew Serge was amused, heWhen he and Serge got together, they rarely mentioned his family.

  family. Now, Chandler felt some of the old guilt returning. “How is Katie?”

  Just for a moment, Serge's gray eyes darkened dangerously, then he smiled. "Yes's”She's well. Everyone's well.”

  “Good.” He swallowed. “Is she...has she found her...someone special?”

  Serge's eyes darkened. “That would be extremely difficult given her line of work.”

  “You mean she's still...?”

  “Yes,” Serge said shortly. “No matter what we said.”

  “Oh.” He ran a hand through his hair. “So do you want the statuette?”

  Serge grinned, his mood lightening. “Absolutely, but not just yet. You keep it for awhile, Chan, and you go give that woman want she wants most: a good, hard fuck.”

  Serge's clavier attitude about women and sex still annoyed the hell out of him. “I don't fuck women I care about,” he said coolly.

  Serge leaned forward, baring his teeth. “Is that why you fucked the hell out of my little sister because you didn't care about her?”

  Chandler had quickly discovered two residual affects of his near brush with death at the hands of the female vampire and all the vampire blood he'd ingested: his cock stayed harder much longer than it used to was some larger than it had been before and the almost hidden fear he'd had of Serge had disappeared. While he knew he could not take Serge, he was no longer afraid to try. Now, he resisted the urge to shove Serge out of his face. “I didn't intend to touch her, Serge. You know that.”

  Serge slowly relaxed. “Yeah. I do. It was losing so much blood and ingesting Deoctra's putrid blood. I know. So did Mick, which is the only reason we didn't kill you.” Serge tossed off the last of his beer and leaned forward in his seat. “The game's about to start up again.”

  Chandler settled back in his seat, breathing slowly and deeply. One of these days, he was going to have to stop associating with a man who was half human and half vampire.

  * * * * *

  As if to underscore Chandler's lack of interest, Cassy didn't see him again for two weeks. When she did, she was working late, servicing two of Raven's own computers. It was well after seven before she left work that night. “Darn it!” she murmured when she saw the rain.

  She stood in the lobby looking out into the dark, wet night. Although it was last August, the night was unseasonably cool. By the time she walked the three blocks to the bus stop, she'd be cold and wet. But it couldn't be helped.

  “Nasty night, huh?”

  She cast a grimace over her shoulder at the guard sitting behind the desk in the lobby. “Tell me about it.”

  “I wish I had an umbrella to offer you.”

  She smiled at him. “Thanks, but it's only three blocks. I'll be okay.” Squaring her shoulders, she pushed open the door and stepped out of the building. She paused under the building canopy as a cold gust of wind-driven rain chilled her. Clutching her briefcase and shoulder bag in preparation for a mad dash through the rain, she heard the door behind her open.

  “Can I give you a lift?”

  Startled, she swung around to find Chandler Raven coming through the door, carrying a big umbrella. He pushed a button and held the umbrella over both of them as he waited for her answer.

  She was tempted. Riding home in his car would be a lot more pleasant than traveling on the bus, after getting drenched. But the bus was safer. Being in close proximity to him, would only serve to provide fresh fuel for her endless fantasies. Even though she'd been out with Frank twice since they'd met and they'd come very close to going all the way, she was still dreaming of Chandler Raven repeatedly, ravaging her in graphic and shameless detail.

  “No, thank you.” She ducked from the shelter of his umbrella and sprinted down the street.

  She'd only covered half a block when she realized she was no longer being pelted with rain. Chandler Raven ran beside her again, holding the umbrella over her head.

  She stopped and looked up at him silently.

  “Can I offer you a lift, Ms. Thompson?” he asked, just as though she hadn't already refused.

  She shook her head. His coolness towards her the last time they'd met made it clear to her that he regretted having been anything less than formal with her. Well, she regretted putting herself in the position of being on the receiving end of his coldness. And she wasn't about to go down that path again. He didn't want to be bothered? She wouldn't bother him.

  “Thanks, Mr. Raven, but—”

  “My name's Chandler.”

  Like she didn't know that.

  “And my car is that way.” He pointed back the way they'd come.

  “Well, yeah, but—”

  “You'd rather be drenched?” He sounded amused.

  “No, of course not, but—”

  “Good. Then come along.”

  She shook her head. “I don't understand you, Mr. Raven. One minute you're friendly, driving me home and telling me to call you Chandler and implying you might like me personally. But the next time we meet, you look at me as if I'm something that crawled out from a rock.”

  She shrugged, staring up
at him and trying to read the expression in his eyes. “And you know what, Mr. Raven? I'd rather be drenched then accept a ride with you and then have you look through me as if I'm not there the next time we meet.”

  She saw his lips thin and his eyes narrow. “You're making too much to this, Miss Thompson. It's cold, it's dark, and it’s it's pouring. I'm offering you a lift. Period. Take it or don't. It's your choice.”

  She nodded and thinned her own lips. “Thanks for the news flash, Mr. Raven. I'll pass.” She ducked from under the shelter of the umbrella.

  As before she didn't get very far before he was beside her again. “Wait a minute,” he said. “This is ridiculous. It's just a lift.”