partner, he didn’t think for an instant Sommersby would take advantage of his time alone. Miss Lark was a beauty, but Sommersby wouldn’t try to seduce her. Sommersby seemed to like to punish himself by denying himself sex.
Hell. Women were like drink. Like solange. Guilt, regrets, fear, anger—all vanished when you had a woman’s heels hooked around your neck and you were pounding your cock deep in her wet, welcoming pussy. A mind-shattering climax was a good as a drunk any day.
There was something about Miss Lark that commanded Drake to stay near her.
All it had taken was the touch of his mouth to her satin-soft neck and she’d climaxed…he knew female ecstasy when he saw it. And she was a deliciously noisy woman when she came. Inside the studious governess there lurked a seductive woman.
Bloody stopper was stuck. With a snap of his thumb, Drake flicked the rubber wedge so savagely he snapped off the top of the vial. It tinkled as it struck the floor.
He knew the warnings about solange. He’d heard the other hunters speak of it. None touched the drug. All knew it destroyed faster than opium.
Drake didn’t have a choice anymore. He tipped up the vial.
It would make him forget. Forget Mary, the lost babe, his past—it would obliterate the memories and nightmares.
The vile taste hit his tongue. He grimaced, his stomach rebelled, but he swallowed fast. Christ, he hated this stuff. It rushed through him, and within moments he had a cockstand as rigid as iron. One thing about solange—it made a man hunger to fuck.
Drake tossed away the vial. The glass struck the ground, rolled beneath the fireplace fender. The faint glimmer from the moonlight touched the room with blue. Warmth spiraled through him, warmth that fought the cold in his heart, his limbs, his head. Within seconds, the shaking stopped.
“Where is Mr. Swift?”
Drake could hear Serena Lark’s voice. The room seemed to light up for him. Hell, he didn’t care if she and Sommersby found him in here. He soared now.
The solange changed his face, he knew it did. He’d seen his eyes in his ex-mistress’s mirror after taking solange. The pupils became mere dots in green irises. He’d looked mad but he’d felt like a king. He’d dragged his mistress—what had her name been?—back into bed, had thrust into her for hours. Until she’d been so slick they’d lost the friction and so weak from her orgasms she’d pleaded with him to stop.
Tonight, the mask hid his face and shadowed his eyes enough that Sommersby, or Serena Lark, wouldn’t notice the change.
As he strolled back into the hallway, he saw Miss Lark turn at the sound of his boots on the wood floor. Behind the gauzy veil of her mask, she glowed as she saw him. Relief. Happiness. Hell, it appeared the lady cared whether he lived or died.
She stood waiting for him. Her black hair curled over her shoulders, tendrils fell into the valley between her generous round breasts. Her cry of pleasure still rang in Drake’s head. He wanted nothing more than to sweep her into a bedroom and—
“Where the bloody hell were you?” Sommersby growled, but Drake ignored him.
Miss Lark glanced up and down the now-quiet hallway. “We must get to the servants’ stair at the end of the hallway—it leads down to the tunnels.”
Sommersby took the lead, striding down the hall, but Drake waited. He caught hold of Miss Lark’s wrist to keep her at his side. The drug was hot in his blood. He wanted to fill his senses with her.
He took her hand, and she moved to him—he knew she expected him to lead her down the hall. Instead, he cupped the neat indent of her waist and brought her into his embrace. He wanted to hear her quickened breaths. He wanted to smell her skin, her intimate honey.
In front of them a door creaked. A woman’s throaty laugh washed over Drake—the lush sound of a woman well pleasured. His cock responded; blood surged there, making him painfully hard.
He glanced up. A red-haired prostitute lounged in the doorway, stroking the jaws of two dark-haired vampires. She wore a robe of rose silk—loosely belted. Her enormous tits were exposed, her rouged nipples hard and jutting. Her neck was punctured, and blood smeared her pale skin.
Against his chest, Miss Lark gasped and Drake pulled her hard against him. He nuzzled her neck. “A bit of playacting, sweet,” he warned.
He traced the arch of her neck with his tongue and caught sight of the grins of approval from the pair of vampires who kneaded the courtesan’s breasts. Their caresses were rough but the woman tipped her head back in pleasure—most women enjoyed rough play. The vampire cocked his head—looked a question. He wanted to be invited to taste Miss Lark’s neck, too.
Drake gave a rueful shake of his head, staying in the character of the sexually driven vampire. Christ Jesus, it was no stretch of his acting skills—his cock throbbed against Miss Lark’s silk-clad belly. He forced himself not to reach down and fill his palms with her voluptuous arse as he suckled her neck.
The vampires’ courtesan was a beauty, with magnificent breasts that bounced as the vampires played, but she was no match for Miss Lark.
Hell, he was no gentleman, and Drake admitted it freely. When he’d burst into the billiard room where Miss Lark was a prisoner, he taken a long look at her naked form while battling her captors, and he’d savored the sight.
Miss Lark’s pulse fluttered in her throat, and Drake angled to get a better view of the scene before them. The vampires bent to their lover’s breasts, and two tongues flicked the hard nipples. Miss Lark gave a startled cry, then a moan—a husky moan that spoke to Drake’s soul.
He cradled her breasts, knowing he’d gone too far. Her sweet nipples rose at once at the scrape of his fingertip. Drake’s voice was a rasp from his dry throat. “Do you desire me as much as I want you, little lark?”
Serena knew she must stop. Lord Sommersby must have noticed they hadn’t followed—he would return any moment. She had to regain control of herself. Vlad Dracul’s journal—she needed the journal. And this was not a dream! What was to happen tomorrow, in daylight, after she’d let these two hunters touch her?
She had to concentrate on her goal—but Drake Swift’s body, lean and powerful and solid, pressed against her. She should push his hands from her breasts. But she couldn’t. She wanted them there. It thrilled to look down, to see him cupping and fondling.
“Of course, I desire you—” His thumbs strummed her nipples through silk, and she lost her voice. She struggled to speak. “Don’t all women?”
He chuckled. “Putting me in my place, little lark?”
She couldn’t answer his question. To her shock, she saw the vampires part the courtesan’s robe. Their hands disappeared inside, and the woman’s moan was pleading, agonized. Serena could imagine the way his fingers—in black gloves—would look as they played within glistening pink lips—
“The vampires want to perform for us,” Mr. Swift murmured. “If we leave, they might grow suspicious.” His voice sounded like Lucifer, urging the innocent to offer their souls. As dangerously seductive as a drug. She knew now why the other hunters called Drake Swift a madman.
He squeezed her bosom, his tongue slid up to her earlobe,
