Page 18 of Kick the Candle (Knight Games 2)
Rick looked at the pig creature I'd slain behind me and then at the coat in his hand. I was so busy analyzing his expression that I didn't see the seizing man reach out and grab my ankle.
I hit the pavement so hard my teeth clacked together.
* * * * *
I came awake with a gasp, stretched out on my side in a Victoria's Secret ad-cherry red silk sheets, a plush velvet comforter. Rick leaned over me, blotting the back of my head with a rag. I grabbed his wrist.
"Where am I?"
"Inside Maison des Etoiles," he said, placing the rag on the nightstand.
I tried to look around the red-on-red decorated room but my head was throbbing. I closed my eyes and leaned into the pillows. "What happened?"
"The finfolk caught you off guard. You hit your head. He's dead."
"You killed him?"
"No. He committed suicide. When he shed his skin, he reverted to his water form. He suffocated."
"Finfolk? So he was a type of shifter, like a mermaid? A sea creature that turns into a human."
"Yes, but, usually, they must return to the sea within a few days or they die. I've never seen one this far inland."
I thought about the coat the man wore. Rick's explanation sank in. That wasn't sealskin; it was his skin, the finfolk's. I shivered at the thought of wearing my own skin as a coat. Eww.
"And what was that thing with him?" I asked.
"An Appalachian troll."
"Of course it was. Seriously, can my life get any weirder? You know, a few months ago, I'd never have believed any of this existed."
Rick sighed and resumed cleaning my head wound. "Would you like some of my blood?"
His blood would heal me. As the vessel of my soul, my caretaker was mystically designed to maintain my life. Vitamin Caretaker. But I balked. Not that I didn't want it; his blood was liquid orgasm, but something was bothering me about the finfolk attack and my injury was making it difficult to concentrate. I couldn't get distracted.
"Even though it's strange for finfolk to be this far inland, the troll bothers me more. We are a hundred miles from the Appalachians. Is that a misnomer?"
"No, it is not. I have never seen one in the city before."
"It's not like he could've taken a bus," I mumbled. "What was a troll doing here?"
"I am not sure, mi cielo, but the bodies are still in the alley and an investigator is on his way."
I sat up abruptly. "The police are coming? We need to hide the bodies!"
"Don't worry. This investigator is familiar with supernatural activity. He is a detective, but he's sympathetic to our cause."
I flopped back on the pillow, head pounding.
Rick scooped an arm under my shoulders, pulled one leg across his lap so I was straddling him, and tipped his head to expose his neck. "Come, mi cielo. Take of me."
His voice in my ear was as deep and soft as the velvet I'd been nestled in. Warm breath stroked my cheek. He adjusted the neck of his shirt to expose more skin. I nuzzled the smooth expanse over his artery. At the same time, his hand massaged behind my knee and began drifting up my outer thigh. When his hardened member grazed between my legs, even the fabric of my pants couldn't stop the pulse of need that jetted through me.
I bit down hard on the web of flesh between his neck and shoulder, his gasp an appetizer for the meal I was about to indulge in. The first drops spread across my tongue, salty and warm, enticing a deeper bite that proved prolific. I swallowed greedily, heat blossoming where he rubbed in just the right spot between my legs. I writhed in his lap. His fingers at the base of my skull massaged my neck, pulling slightly at the roots of my hair.
Rick's blood was a drug, building within me, coaxing me toward orgasm with every swallow. As I neared the brink, I had a vivid hallucination of a man's chest pressed up against my back, sandwiching me against Rick, and his hands sliding around my rib cage to roll my nipples between his fingers. That did it. I came so hard, only Rick's arms kept me from falling off his lap.
When I was capable of thought again, I sat up, feeling Rick's hands all over me. Looking down myself, Rick's hands were literally all over me! Or more accurately the hands of his two twins. One knelt by my side and one stood near my head.
