Luxuria part six
Disclaimers in part one
Henry's bedroom was masculine in its general lack of adornment, but tasteful and sensual like its occupant. The walls were painted a vivid burnt orange color with expensive trim done in some wood with a reddish hue. Vicki had been in it before, and in the king-sized bed that dominated the room in shades of black and gray. That had been on one of the oddest days of her life, as she lay beside a corpse-like Henry watching his nearly-mortal wounds heal.
Every movement made with controlled strength, Henry placed her like a jewel upon a cushion, on the bed. He followed her down, to sit with his arms on either side of her. "It was wonderful to wake up to you, that night," he said.
Vicki felt herself smile. Here, in this enclosed room, where even the window had light-proof metal shutters bolted over it, she felt engulfed by his presence. That sense of maleness was everywhere, though she couldn't call it a scent, exactly. She was in a den, a burrow, the innermost chamber of some animal's hideaway. The place where they dragged their prey for later consumption.
Stop being ridiculous, she admonished herself. She gazed at Henry's youthful face, glowing with affection and surprisingly innocent desire. She put her hand to his face and he tipped his cheek into her palm. She ran her hand farther back, so she could play with his curls. He half closed his eyes and continued rubbing his cheek against her hand like a cat, his breath quickening. Vicki remembered him in Mendoza's chains, eyes gone unnaturally black, teeth irretrievably bared in hunger, an animal in a man's body, but the memory brought her no fear of him. Even then she'd felt the strength of his presence, his personality, his sheer will. Human will. Controlled, well-dressed, contained and disguised, Henry was unquestionably the strongest individual she'd ever met. And for some reason, he wanted her.
"Why me?" she asked.
He opened his eyes, wide. Grey eyes, she saw. She'd never been sure of their color before.
"Because," she felt she needed to explain, "I've wanted to ask, but I didn't want to sound so self-serving. So, really. Why me?"
Henry leaned down for a kiss, but slowed as he reached her, for permission. She met him willingly, though she hoped he'd try to answer her. His lips were cool, his tongue busy, begging further entry. She opened to him, tasting his lips for herself, her own tongue exploring. She slid her hands around his back, caressing muscles and ribs through his light cotton shirt. He lay partly on her, a pleasant weight. Abruptly she remembered how unsatisfied she'd been and how much she needed this. She squirmed, and one hand went searching, stroking, seeking a zone that would stoke him, but could only reach back and buttock. Henry made a low, hungry hum into her throat. He broke the kiss, and rolled to lie beside her. From this position she had better access to the areas she wanted to stroke; his chest, his crotch, and, concentrating on reaching his skin beneath the cloth, alternating with giving him quick teasing kisses, she almost didn't notice how deftly he freed her from her own clothes. There came a moment when they had to part enough for both to complete the disrobing by yanking over heads, arms and legs. Vicki kicked violently free of her jeans and underwear, like a schoolgirl racing her friends to be first in the pool. Henry shed his clothing with an economy of motion that spoke of long practice.
Then they embraced again, gloriously free of obstacles. Henry pulled away just long enough to gaze at all of her, then he was kissing her again, his hands on either side of her jaw. "Don't you know," he said, "how beautiful you are?" He kissed her throat. "Why you?" He kissed her throat on the other side. "Your strength, your power . . ." He claimed her mouth then released it. "You are a beacon, a bonfire, a lamp of . . . life." He mumbled the last word against her breast as he kissed and licked his way to her nipple. Vicki's brain began to misfire, and nothing truly interesting had even happened yet. Henry looked up at her and said, "Don't you know your power?"
Hadn't someone else said that to her recently?
###
Mike stood, grabbed the boy's shoulder and pushed him upright. The boy caught his head from falling back and focused blankly on Mike. His face paled.
"What are you talking about?" Mike gave his shoulder an angry shake. "Tell who?"
"I cannot say her name," the boy said weakly. "You know her. You must deliver my message."
"I must do nothing. And you can say anything you want. Don’t give me this BS." Mike grabbed the boy's upper arm. The boy sagged, almost falling from the chair. Mike hauled him back into place and gave him a good look. He'd seen this stressed out look on junkies and on starving street kids.
"When was the last time you ate?"
The boy managed to focus his gaze on Mike, but said nothing. Mike thought he looked puzzled.
"You know, ate. Food."
Nothing.
Mike left the room with the boy slumped forward again and the uniforms on guard. He joined Coreen in the observation room.
"What does he mean, 'have faith in your vision'?" Coreen demanded.
"I don't know, I don't know. It may not mean anything."
"So he's just a loony tunes?" Mike saw tears forming in her eyes. Just minutes before, she'd been fine. Coreen was careening around the stages of grief. "He comes in and guns down Renee and it's for nothing? Not jealousy, not revenge, just nothing?"
"It's all right," Mike said. "You're the one who told me there might be something fishy about this. I'm going to hear him out. He's talking to me more than he did to MacReady."
Mike returned to the boy with a collection of candy and a Coke. He set them on the table and unlocked the boy's handcuffs. The boy brought his arms around to the front, slowly, stiffly.
Mike held his questions while he watched the boy carefully peel back the wrapper, study the candy and then place it in his mouth. He bit, then chewed, slowly. Eventually he swallowed. Mike thought he could feel Coreen's impatience through the wall.
"All right. Now, you said something about Renee Chien being chosen for sacrifice. What did you mean?"
"You know. You've figured it out." The boy eyed the Coke.
"Could you give me a straight answer?"
The boy looked calmly at him. "I am bound to say only what relates to my message. I'm sorry." He looked back at the Coke.
"Your message. Your message to some woman you can't name. Go ahead, drink it."
The boy opened the can and drank. He drank and drank until the can was empty.
"Now, talk some sense. If you've got a message for some woman, why not call her up on the phone, or write her a note?"
"She is marked. She is warded against me. I may not say her name, I may not speak to her. Any power who tries to take what it wants from her will die, because of the wards. What I want is to give her my message. If I try I will die, and then my message is lost. But you can speak to her. Speak for me. You must deliver my message."
Marked?
"So, how come I don't die when I talk to her?"
"You are in no danger. You must deliver my message."
"Do we play twenty questions? Should I name some names? Coreen Fennel?"
"No."
I can't believe I'm playing along with this. "Vicki Nelson?"
The boy said nothing.
"Vicki Nelson." I'll be damned.
"You must deliver my message."
###
As much as Henry yearned to study every inch and crevice of Vicki, his hunger insisted he get on with things. At least his hunger was largely under control, confident that it would soon be satisfied. Henry had been here many times before.
But never with Vicki. His heart pounded with joy as he moved into position, moved to make the connection that, though pleasant to him, was so much more meaningful to her. She gave him a smile he had never seen on her: impish, mischievous. It told him she had abandoned some of her judgments and barriers. Delighted, he entered her, gently, only to find there was little need for caution. She was warm and open to him. Arching into him, she accepted all of him at once. Tears stung the back of his eyes. How he had ached for her to accept all of him.
He gave in to an impulse to hug her tight, and she hugged him back, tenderly, her fingers playing with his hair. They lay on their sides, Vicki's leg on top, Henry's arm beneath them. Vicki's fingers trailed from his hair over his ear and jaw and down onto his throat. Henry's breathing quickened as she tickled one of his more sensitive areas. "Interesting," she murmured. She leaned in to kiss his neck and he couldn't suppress the shudder. He felt her smile against his throat and he tipped his head back to encourage more. More. He mustn't lose track of the promise he had made her of the greatest pleasure she had ever known, but his own erogenous zones had shifted in his long life, reflecting the changed priority of his needs, and Vicki was licking and breathing dead on one of them and he couldn't. quite. think.
A sound escaped him from deep in his throat. Move. He had to move. As he'd lain sheathed in Vicki's warmth he'd rocked minutely, instinctively, but nothing that distracted her from kissing his neck. He strengthened the motion now, and gasped as she tightened around him like a practiced prostitute. He loved how strong she was. She kissed his mouth, another hot spot for him. Desire intensified, its warmth suffusing him. His hunger hovered, close to the surface, ready. He used it to heighten his senses, feeling Vicki as pulsing patterns of life-bearing blood. Her arousal, so clear to his vision and sense of smell, now glowed in his mind's eye as every part of him that touched her sent detailed reports of where her blood pooled.
He lifted himself into a semi-kneeling position, and slid his hands onto the firmness of her butt. Watching her face, he tilted her pelvis into position on his cock, his other arm behind her shoulders, following the messages her blood gave him. She put an uncertain hand on his shoulder, thinking she might need the balance. Neither the position he took, nor the angle he held her in, could be sustained for long by an ordinary man. He smiled, both with pride and in reassurance. "It's all right," he said. She faded from his view as he concentrated on other perceptions. Where did she . . . there. He found an internal region, highly sensitive, and not easily accessible.
Vicki's eyes flew open wide as she gasped in pure startlement. Possibly she didn't even know she possessed this ultra sensitive area. Celluci wouldn't be able to reach it for more than a stroke or two; no one could who couldn't support her properly. Henry's heart overflowed with gratitude that he could give her this.
He pumped experimentally, twice, and gasped, himself, as she tightened convulsively around him. Like the pressure had on her sore arms, this was giving her such pleasure it bordered on overload. Her grip on his neck became frenzied; she almost clawed at him with her hands. She looked at him with an expression of amazement and apprehension. Henry eased off; if there was one thing he knew about Vicki, it was that she hated having her control ripped from her. She panted against him, tickling again his neck. He moaned briefly.
"At what point," she panted, "do you drink my blood?"
Henry's grin was partly laughing at her. He would never make her a romantic. "At what point," he said in a low voice, "do you think?"
"You're kidding," she said, looking up at him. Her cheeks and breasts were flushed, blood suffusing her skin in delicate, delectable capillary webs. His hunger pulsed with her pulse, making him light-headed.
"Oh, I'm not," he said. He moved within her again, once, and gloried in seeing the delighted shock on her face. But he needed to let her do this. "You can move," he said. "Go ahead. I won't let you go." Never, ever. He just hoped she was in a hurry to enjoy him. He really couldn't last long, tonight.
She tested-wrapped her legs around him and tipped herself into position. Henry never wavered. She weighed nothing to him. He leaned down to lick her breast, the smell of blood there almost overwhelming. "Do I need to," she asked between breaths, "warn you?"
Henry grinned again and arched his torso so he could kiss her lips. "So not necessary," he said against them.
Vicki kissed him back, closed her eyes, and began to move.
###
Back in the observation room Mike held a tense conference with Coreen. She was an odd confidant, younger than most rookies, wearing eye makeup so thick it could have been for a costume party. At least she looked reasonably normal otherwise; apparently she "dressed up" for work, at home she wore jeans and a sweatshirt. Her hair had a single rubber band making a high ponytail, none of the odder hairstyles Mike had seen her in. Still, her relative experience with the supernatural made her an expert witness in Mike's book. Mike's book held few such experts.
"Do you think he's a demon?" Mike asked her.
He watched as Coreen shifted gears from frightened homicide witness to supernatural researcher. "He killed Renee," she said, her eyes welling again. She walked to the window, the back side of the one in the interrogation room, and looked in at the boy. Mike had left his cuffs off, so the boy could finish eating the candy. Unarmed, not on any drugs, the boy didn't seem much of a threat. Unless he could shoot people with only a beam of light from his palm.
"Maybe he's a rival demon, trying to oppose Astaroth. I mean, if he worked for Astaroth, why would Vicki be warded against him?" Coreen asked.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
"He said she was warded against any power that tried to take what it wanted from her," Coreen mused. "But he said you weren't in any danger."
"I may not be a 'power,'" Mike said, dryly. "Gee, I wonder if that includes vampires."
They looked at each other.
They both fumbled for their phones.
"You called her home?" Mike asked.
"And work and cell. Nothing. But that was hours ago."
"Did she call you back?"
Coreen studied her phone as it turned on. "No. No messages."
"Did you try Fitzroy's?"
"It wasn't dark."
"It is now. Call him."
"You call him! I can't explain this, not if Vicki isn't there."
"Oh, he so won't want to hear this from me," Mike said. "Just ask him if he's seen her."
Coreen dialed.
on to part 7
Henry's bedroom was masculine in its general lack of adornment, but tasteful and sensual like its occupant. The walls were painted a vivid burnt orange color with expensive trim done in some wood with a reddish hue. Vicki had been in it before, and in the king-sized bed that dominated the room in shades of black and gray. That had been on one of the oddest days of her life, as she lay beside a corpse-like Henry watching his nearly-mortal wounds heal.
Every movement made with controlled strength, Henry placed her like a jewel upon a cushion, on the bed. He followed her down, to sit with his arms on either side of her. "It was wonderful to wake up to you, that night," he said.
Vicki felt herself smile. Here, in this enclosed room, where even the window had light-proof metal shutters bolted over it, she felt engulfed by his presence. That sense of maleness was everywhere, though she couldn't call it a scent, exactly. She was in a den, a burrow, the innermost chamber of some animal's hideaway. The place where they dragged their prey for later consumption.
Stop being ridiculous, she admonished herself. She gazed at Henry's youthful face, glowing with affection and surprisingly innocent desire. She put her hand to his face and he tipped his cheek into her palm. She ran her hand farther back, so she could play with his curls. He half closed his eyes and continued rubbing his cheek against her hand like a cat, his breath quickening. Vicki remembered him in Mendoza's chains, eyes gone unnaturally black, teeth irretrievably bared in hunger, an animal in a man's body, but the memory brought her no fear of him. Even then she'd felt the strength of his presence, his personality, his sheer will. Human will. Controlled, well-dressed, contained and disguised, Henry was unquestionably the strongest individual she'd ever met. And for some reason, he wanted her.
"Why me?" she asked.
He opened his eyes, wide. Grey eyes, she saw. She'd never been sure of their color before.
"Because," she felt she needed to explain, "I've wanted to ask, but I didn't want to sound so self-serving. So, really. Why me?"
Henry leaned down for a kiss, but slowed as he reached her, for permission. She met him willingly, though she hoped he'd try to answer her. His lips were cool, his tongue busy, begging further entry. She opened to him, tasting his lips for herself, her own tongue exploring. She slid her hands around his back, caressing muscles and ribs through his light cotton shirt. He lay partly on her, a pleasant weight. Abruptly she remembered how unsatisfied she'd been and how much she needed this. She squirmed, and one hand went searching, stroking, seeking a zone that would stoke him, but could only reach back and buttock. Henry made a low, hungry hum into her throat. He broke the kiss, and rolled to lie beside her. From this position she had better access to the areas she wanted to stroke; his chest, his crotch, and, concentrating on reaching his skin beneath the cloth, alternating with giving him quick teasing kisses, she almost didn't notice how deftly he freed her from her own clothes. There came a moment when they had to part enough for both to complete the disrobing by yanking over heads, arms and legs. Vicki kicked violently free of her jeans and underwear, like a schoolgirl racing her friends to be first in the pool. Henry shed his clothing with an economy of motion that spoke of long practice.
Then they embraced again, gloriously free of obstacles. Henry pulled away just long enough to gaze at all of her, then he was kissing her again, his hands on either side of her jaw. "Don't you know," he said, "how beautiful you are?" He kissed her throat. "Why you?" He kissed her throat on the other side. "Your strength, your power . . ." He claimed her mouth then released it. "You are a beacon, a bonfire, a lamp of . . . life." He mumbled the last word against her breast as he kissed and licked his way to her nipple. Vicki's brain began to misfire, and nothing truly interesting had even happened yet. Henry looked up at her and said, "Don't you know your power?"
Hadn't someone else said that to her recently?
###
Mike stood, grabbed the boy's shoulder and pushed him upright. The boy caught his head from falling back and focused blankly on Mike. His face paled.
"What are you talking about?" Mike gave his shoulder an angry shake. "Tell who?"
"I cannot say her name," the boy said weakly. "You know her. You must deliver my message."
"I must do nothing. And you can say anything you want. Don’t give me this BS." Mike grabbed the boy's upper arm. The boy sagged, almost falling from the chair. Mike hauled him back into place and gave him a good look. He'd seen this stressed out look on junkies and on starving street kids.
"When was the last time you ate?"
The boy managed to focus his gaze on Mike, but said nothing. Mike thought he looked puzzled.
"You know, ate. Food."
Nothing.
Mike left the room with the boy slumped forward again and the uniforms on guard. He joined Coreen in the observation room.
"What does he mean, 'have faith in your vision'?" Coreen demanded.
"I don't know, I don't know. It may not mean anything."
"So he's just a loony tunes?" Mike saw tears forming in her eyes. Just minutes before, she'd been fine. Coreen was careening around the stages of grief. "He comes in and guns down Renee and it's for nothing? Not jealousy, not revenge, just nothing?"
"It's all right," Mike said. "You're the one who told me there might be something fishy about this. I'm going to hear him out. He's talking to me more than he did to MacReady."
Mike returned to the boy with a collection of candy and a Coke. He set them on the table and unlocked the boy's handcuffs. The boy brought his arms around to the front, slowly, stiffly.
Mike held his questions while he watched the boy carefully peel back the wrapper, study the candy and then place it in his mouth. He bit, then chewed, slowly. Eventually he swallowed. Mike thought he could feel Coreen's impatience through the wall.
"All right. Now, you said something about Renee Chien being chosen for sacrifice. What did you mean?"
"You know. You've figured it out." The boy eyed the Coke.
"Could you give me a straight answer?"
The boy looked calmly at him. "I am bound to say only what relates to my message. I'm sorry." He looked back at the Coke.
"Your message. Your message to some woman you can't name. Go ahead, drink it."
The boy opened the can and drank. He drank and drank until the can was empty.
"Now, talk some sense. If you've got a message for some woman, why not call her up on the phone, or write her a note?"
"She is marked. She is warded against me. I may not say her name, I may not speak to her. Any power who tries to take what it wants from her will die, because of the wards. What I want is to give her my message. If I try I will die, and then my message is lost. But you can speak to her. Speak for me. You must deliver my message."
Marked?
"So, how come I don't die when I talk to her?"
"You are in no danger. You must deliver my message."
"Do we play twenty questions? Should I name some names? Coreen Fennel?"
"No."
I can't believe I'm playing along with this. "Vicki Nelson?"
The boy said nothing.
"Vicki Nelson." I'll be damned.
"You must deliver my message."
###
As much as Henry yearned to study every inch and crevice of Vicki, his hunger insisted he get on with things. At least his hunger was largely under control, confident that it would soon be satisfied. Henry had been here many times before.
But never with Vicki. His heart pounded with joy as he moved into position, moved to make the connection that, though pleasant to him, was so much more meaningful to her. She gave him a smile he had never seen on her: impish, mischievous. It told him she had abandoned some of her judgments and barriers. Delighted, he entered her, gently, only to find there was little need for caution. She was warm and open to him. Arching into him, she accepted all of him at once. Tears stung the back of his eyes. How he had ached for her to accept all of him.
He gave in to an impulse to hug her tight, and she hugged him back, tenderly, her fingers playing with his hair. They lay on their sides, Vicki's leg on top, Henry's arm beneath them. Vicki's fingers trailed from his hair over his ear and jaw and down onto his throat. Henry's breathing quickened as she tickled one of his more sensitive areas. "Interesting," she murmured. She leaned in to kiss his neck and he couldn't suppress the shudder. He felt her smile against his throat and he tipped his head back to encourage more. More. He mustn't lose track of the promise he had made her of the greatest pleasure she had ever known, but his own erogenous zones had shifted in his long life, reflecting the changed priority of his needs, and Vicki was licking and breathing dead on one of them and he couldn't. quite. think.
A sound escaped him from deep in his throat. Move. He had to move. As he'd lain sheathed in Vicki's warmth he'd rocked minutely, instinctively, but nothing that distracted her from kissing his neck. He strengthened the motion now, and gasped as she tightened around him like a practiced prostitute. He loved how strong she was. She kissed his mouth, another hot spot for him. Desire intensified, its warmth suffusing him. His hunger hovered, close to the surface, ready. He used it to heighten his senses, feeling Vicki as pulsing patterns of life-bearing blood. Her arousal, so clear to his vision and sense of smell, now glowed in his mind's eye as every part of him that touched her sent detailed reports of where her blood pooled.
He lifted himself into a semi-kneeling position, and slid his hands onto the firmness of her butt. Watching her face, he tilted her pelvis into position on his cock, his other arm behind her shoulders, following the messages her blood gave him. She put an uncertain hand on his shoulder, thinking she might need the balance. Neither the position he took, nor the angle he held her in, could be sustained for long by an ordinary man. He smiled, both with pride and in reassurance. "It's all right," he said. She faded from his view as he concentrated on other perceptions. Where did she . . . there. He found an internal region, highly sensitive, and not easily accessible.
Vicki's eyes flew open wide as she gasped in pure startlement. Possibly she didn't even know she possessed this ultra sensitive area. Celluci wouldn't be able to reach it for more than a stroke or two; no one could who couldn't support her properly. Henry's heart overflowed with gratitude that he could give her this.
He pumped experimentally, twice, and gasped, himself, as she tightened convulsively around him. Like the pressure had on her sore arms, this was giving her such pleasure it bordered on overload. Her grip on his neck became frenzied; she almost clawed at him with her hands. She looked at him with an expression of amazement and apprehension. Henry eased off; if there was one thing he knew about Vicki, it was that she hated having her control ripped from her. She panted against him, tickling again his neck. He moaned briefly.
"At what point," she panted, "do you drink my blood?"
Henry's grin was partly laughing at her. He would never make her a romantic. "At what point," he said in a low voice, "do you think?"
"You're kidding," she said, looking up at him. Her cheeks and breasts were flushed, blood suffusing her skin in delicate, delectable capillary webs. His hunger pulsed with her pulse, making him light-headed.
"Oh, I'm not," he said. He moved within her again, once, and gloried in seeing the delighted shock on her face. But he needed to let her do this. "You can move," he said. "Go ahead. I won't let you go." Never, ever. He just hoped she was in a hurry to enjoy him. He really couldn't last long, tonight.
She tested-wrapped her legs around him and tipped herself into position. Henry never wavered. She weighed nothing to him. He leaned down to lick her breast, the smell of blood there almost overwhelming. "Do I need to," she asked between breaths, "warn you?"
Henry grinned again and arched his torso so he could kiss her lips. "So not necessary," he said against them.
Vicki kissed him back, closed her eyes, and began to move.
###
Back in the observation room Mike held a tense conference with Coreen. She was an odd confidant, younger than most rookies, wearing eye makeup so thick it could have been for a costume party. At least she looked reasonably normal otherwise; apparently she "dressed up" for work, at home she wore jeans and a sweatshirt. Her hair had a single rubber band making a high ponytail, none of the odder hairstyles Mike had seen her in. Still, her relative experience with the supernatural made her an expert witness in Mike's book. Mike's book held few such experts.
"Do you think he's a demon?" Mike asked her.
He watched as Coreen shifted gears from frightened homicide witness to supernatural researcher. "He killed Renee," she said, her eyes welling again. She walked to the window, the back side of the one in the interrogation room, and looked in at the boy. Mike had left his cuffs off, so the boy could finish eating the candy. Unarmed, not on any drugs, the boy didn't seem much of a threat. Unless he could shoot people with only a beam of light from his palm.
"Maybe he's a rival demon, trying to oppose Astaroth. I mean, if he worked for Astaroth, why would Vicki be warded against him?" Coreen asked.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
"He said she was warded against any power that tried to take what it wanted from her," Coreen mused. "But he said you weren't in any danger."
"I may not be a 'power,'" Mike said, dryly. "Gee, I wonder if that includes vampires."
They looked at each other.
They both fumbled for their phones.
"You called her home?" Mike asked.
"And work and cell. Nothing. But that was hours ago."
"Did she call you back?"
Coreen studied her phone as it turned on. "No. No messages."
"Did you try Fitzroy's?"
"It wasn't dark."
"It is now. Call him."
"You call him! I can't explain this, not if Vicki isn't there."
"Oh, he so won't want to hear this from me," Mike said. "Just ask him if he's seen her."
Coreen dialed.
on to part 7