Rick ducked his gaze to hide a smile. He handled Arturo by letting him think he was in charge. “That’s how it usually works, yes.”
“Excellent.”
“I assume the alcohol cabinet is included in the favor?”
“What? You’re having to get your girls drunk first now?” Arturo said in mock astonishment.
“Thank you, Arturo.” Rick slipped around him and into the parlor.
He returned to the room with a tumbler of ice and a bottle of whiskey. Helen was on the bed. Her jacket was off and lying on the dresser, her shoes were tossed in a corner, and she was peeling off her stockings. Rick started to apologize and back out of the room again, when she called him over.
“I’m sorry, I just wanted to get comfortable since I’m going to be here a while,” she said.
He set the tumbler on the dresser and poured a finger.
“Ricardo, is it?” she said. “Are you Mexican? Because you don’t look Mexican.”
“Spanish,” he said. “At least, if you go back far enough.”
“Spanish, hm? That’s romantic.”
He handed her the whiskey, which she sippe
d, smiling at him over the glass. “You only brought one glass. Don’t you want any?”
“I’m fine,” he said.
“Will you sit here with me?”
This was a turning point. He’d been in enough situations like it to recognize it. “Helen, I didn’t bring you here to take advantage.”
“Despite the bed and this being a brothel?” Her smile turned wry.
“You really will be safe here,” he said, though his protestations were starting to sound weak. Truth be told, he wanted to sit by her, and his lips grew flush from wanting to press against her skin.
She’d touched up her lipstick while he was gone. The top button of her blouse was undone, the hem of her skirt lay around her knees, and her legs were bare. She thought she was seducing him. But as soon as he sat on that bed, she wouldn’t be in control of the situation. She didn’t know that. And if he played it right, she never would know. So. What was the right thing to do, really?
She drained the whiskey and patted the bed next to her—right next to her—and he sat. He laid his arm across the headboard behind her, and she pressed herself against him.
“I don’t meet a lot of nice guys, working the way I do. You’re a nice guy, Rick.”
“If you say so.”
“Yeah, I do.”
Pressing her hand to his cheek, she drew him close and kissed him on the mouth. She was eager, insistent. Who was he to deny her? She tasted of whiskey and heat, alive and lovely. He drew the tumbler from her hand and set it on the floor, then returned to kissing her, wrapping his arms around her, trapping her. She scratched at the buttons on his shirt.
The fire that rose up in him in response wasn’t sexual. It was hunger. A visceral, primal, gnawing hunger, as if he hadn’t eaten in centuries. His only nourishment, his only possible release, lay under her skin. If he let that monster go, he would tear into her, spilling her over the bed, swimming in her innards to better feed on her blood.
There was a better way.
He worked slowly, carefully, kissing across her mouth and jaw, sucking at her ear as she gasped, then moving down her neck, tracing a collarbone, unfastening her blouse button by button, pulling aside her brassiere to gain access to a perfect handful of breast. She wriggled, reaching back to unfasten the whole contraption. When he’d first encountered the modern brassiere, he’d thought it was so much easier than a corset. But the undergarment had its own idiosyncrasies. And like undoing corsets always did, it gave them both a chance to giggle.
She sat up enough to yank at his shirt, and he let her pull it off and throw it aside. Then, once again, he pressed her to the bed and took control, peeling away her clothing—the girdle and garters were more pieces of modern clothing he was still coming to terms with—and running his cool hands over every burning inch of her, kissing as he went. Only after she came for him did he take what he needed, from a small and careful bite at her throat.
Her blood was ecstasy.
Her heart, aroused and racing, pumped a strong flow for him. He could have drained her in moments, but took in only a few mouthfuls. Not enough to completely satisfy, but enough to keep him alive for a couple more days. Vampires had learned this long ago—how much more efficient to keep them alive and producing. And how much richer to coax it from them, instead of spilling it.