Amazon
Barnes & Noble
iTunes
~ Part 1/5 of the Serenade Serial, a supernatural vampire story ~
For six centuries, the vampire Irene has hunted human prey to feed from their necks, sometimes taking them to her bed, too.
For almost as long, she has preserved her memories in music notes, composing on her piano but never sharing except with her offspring.
So when, during a trip to Paris, she stumbles onto a bar in which a pianist plays her music for the patrons, she’s flabbergasted that anyone might be enjoying her compositions and just as outraged that they’ve been stolen from her.
Her first instinct is to take the pianist’s life as retribution, but a few words exchanged with the talented, intriguing and insolent Rachid might change her mind…
Excerpt:
Stopping the pointless meandering of my mind, I focused
on the music and how smoothly, how flawlessly it rose under Rachid’s
touch.
“Nice choice,” I said, leaning a little more against
him. I rested one hand on the keyboard and accompanied him, the way
he had accompanied me, with just a few notes in counterpoint to the
melody.
“I have pieces for four hands,” I murmured. “If
you’d care to really play with me.”
“I’d like that, yes,” he replied, smiling as he
tilted his head toward me.
I think he only realized at that moment how close I now
was to him, and he licked his lips as his gaze dropped to my mouth.
Distracted, he lost his rhythm and missed a couple of notes. I
clucked my tongue.
“Come on, pay attention to what you’re doing. I
thought you were worried about playing badly for me?”
Say what you will, but it is my long-held belief that
there are few things quite as endearing as a grown man blushing. On
Rachid’s caramel complexion, it was simply lovely to watch all that
blood color his cheeks, the tips of his ears, his neck, and the
triangle of skin exposed by the open collar of his shirt. I wondered
how far down all that beautiful color went. I wondered enough,
actually, that I decided to find out.
Removing my hand from the keys, I reached for the first
button of his shirt. It easily came undone, as did the next one.
Rachid faltered a little in his playing, losing his rhythm again, but
another cluck of my tongue was enough to get him back on track.
For a second, I wondered if it was worry that had caused
that slight misstep, but there was no trace of fear in his scent.
Good. Earlier, I’d all but threatened him, but that had been before
he brought back to life a melody I’d been unable to finish for so
long. Did he understand I wouldn’t hurt him, or was it his
familiarity with vampires that kept him calm? I hoped it was the
former.
To the sound of chords not so much played as they were
caressed into existence, I slid a hand inside the opening I’d
created in his shirt and pressed it, palm down and fingers spread,
against the skin of his upper chest. He was warm, warmer than he
should have felt, even as devoid of heat as my hand was. Short of
stripping him down—and while I fully intended to get there at some
point, there was no rush—it was confirmation enough that his blush
extended further south.
All that blood roused just for me…
I didn’t withdraw my hand right away. Instead, I moved
it to the left until my palm rested over his heart. It was beating
faster than the tempo of the music, but as soon as I found it, I
forgot all about it, having discovered something much more
interesting: the tips of my fingers were brushing against his
nipple—and against the metal ring attached to it.
With a hum of surprise, I pushed at the ring with a
fingertip, causing Rachid to shiver, although he didn’t miss a note
this time. My hand moved to the right, but his other nipple, while it
tightened against my questing fingers, was free of adornments. I
pinched it gently once before returning to the left to tug at the
ring and play with it. In a moment, I’d get a good look at it, but
for now I enjoyed exploring the metal, warmed up by his skin, with
nothing more than my fingertips.
It was a full circle, smooth, not very thick, wide
enough that I could slip my thumb through it—then again, I have
small hands, so that didn’t mean the ring was particularly wide. As
I flicked the ring back and forth and ran my fingers along it,
delicate shivers coursed through Rachid’s body. His nipple was a
tight peak against the ring, and I imagined flicking my tongue
against it and through the metal. I’d had lovers with piercings
before, and they always were marvelously responsive to the smallest
sensations.
They also rarely limited themselves to a single
piercing…
“Where else are you pierced?” I asked, intrigued.
Still playing—though I admit I’d lost the thread of
the composition—he turned a tiny smile toward me.
“I guess that’s for me to know and for you to find
out.”
No comments:
Post a Comment