Jess just shook her head. She had no idea why. She also had no idea what she could do or say to get her and Allison out of this mess. She found it incredibly difficult to think with him caressing her cheek as he was, and the way his body was pressing into hers wasn’t helping any either. She knew that her body’s response to him under these circumstances was utterly ridiculous, but it was responding. Apparently, her body didn’t give a fig that he was a vampire about to bite her and suck her dry . . . so long as he was touching her while he did it.
“Because you are me life mate,” he said solemnly, as if that explained everything, and then he smiled crookedly and added, “That’s why I find ye irresistible, and why ye find me so damnably attractive too. We are both helpless in the face of life mate passion.”
Life mates. Jess turned the words over in her mind. She had no idea what it even meant. Sure, she knew what she and the rest of the world thought of when you said life mate—a partner in life, a mate, and so on. But he said it with such reverence she suspected it meant something entirely different, or at least more, to him.
“Your skin is so soft and you smell so good,” Vasco murmured now, and she refocused on him to see that his gaze was now fixed on her lips. Even as she noted that, he glanced briefly to the door, but then his eyes returned to her mouth as if drawn by some sort of magnet, and he muttered, “Ildaria can wait,” before lowering his head and kissing her.
Jess tried to resist. Truly she did. He was a vampire, for God’s sake, and a pirate captain vampire at that, a vampirate, with a ship full of vampires under him who planned to bite and probably kill every nonvampire on this ship and throw their bodies to the sharks afterward. That knowledge terrified and repulsed her, but damn, he was an amazing kisser. That was the last even half-sensible thought Jess had before she groaned and gave in to the passion he brought to roaring life within her.
The next few moments were a blur of sexual frenzy as Jess tried to get as close to and touch as much of him as she could. Apparently, he felt the same way, because Jess felt him tug her T-shirt up, and half expected him to break their kiss to pull it up over her head and remove it. Instead, she heard the tearing sound as he ripped it apart from hem to neckline. Much to their mutual frustration, it still left her swimsuit top in the way . . . briefly. Jess added that last thought as Vasco grasped the top between the cups and simply jerked, tearing it off.
Warm evening air washed over her skin. Jess sighed at the ethereal caress, and then groaned as his hands kneaded her eager flesh briefly, before he broke their kiss to peer down at her with wonder.
“I felt it,” he told her with amazement.
“What?” she asked with confusion, and then gasped and clutched at his shoulders as he caught her nipple between thumb and finger and tweaked and then rolled it.
“That,” he groaned, bending to press a kiss to her forehead. “I am feeling your pleasure. The shared pleasure life mates enjoy.”
“Oh,” Jess murmured, a little nonplussed. She had been quite enjoying herself until he’d started to talk, but now she was remembering the business about vampires. As well as Tyler’s chewed-up tchotchke, and the—Her thoughts ended on a startled gasp as he scooped her up in his arms.
Clutching at his shoulders, Jess glanced around, alarmed to see that he was carrying her to the bed. Oh, that couldn’t be good, she decided as she recalled the conversation on deck about marathon sex with her while he fed on Allison. How the hell did he think that would work? Was he planning to do both at the same time?
An image came to mind of his laying her on the end of the bed, and then standing there thrusting into her as he sucked on—also standing—Allison’s neck. Jess gave her head a shake. That so wasn’t going to happen. In fact, none of it was happening. Though it pained her to even consider it, she wasn’t having sex with him. And he wasn’t biting Allison. Or her.
“Vasco,” she began tentatively, searching her mind for a way out of this. “Perhaps we should . . .” Unfortunately, her mind didn’t suddenly fill the blank for her mouth.
“Celebrate our finding each other,” he suggested.
“Yes!” Jess grasped eagerly at the suggestion, thinking champagne, a party, a chance to escape.
“We will, my sweet,” Vasco assured her, crawling onto the bed and settling to sit cross-legged with her in his lap. “I am going to fuck you until you bleed,” he proclaimed as if it was a good thing. “And then I will lick away every drop of blood and fuck you again.”
“Oh . . . my,” she said weakly. Wasn’t that a pretty picture?
“I want you naked.”
Jess blinked at that announcement and then grabbed frantically for her shorts as he began to drag them off. Too slow. They were flying through the air before she could get her hand anywhere near her waistline to stop him. Damn, he was fast, she thought with dismay, and then gasped in surprise as he slid a hand between her legs and pressed against her, through her black bikini bottoms.
“My God, I am the luckiest of men. You are beautiful,” he said, his voice deepening and the arm at her back lifting, raising her breasts nearer to his mouth.
“Oh,” Jess breathed, her eyes widening at the sweet words, and her legs shifting restlessly as his hand began to move, caressing her through the cloth. Dammit! She couldn’t catch a break here. How was a girl supposed to resist when—?
“You have nice big jugs. I just want to gnaw on them.”
Okay, that was a break. Calling her babies “jugs” totally wrecked the mood and vanquished to hell this pesky excitement and need he kept bringing about in her, Jess decided. The threat of his gnawing on them didn’t help much either, she thought, and opened her eyes, intending to push him away. Instead, she was just in time to see his head lower and his mouth close over one eager breast. At least it was all perky, the nipple hard and looking pretty eager to her as half of her breast disappeared into his mouth.
Jess’s eyes widened and then closed on a moan of despair as he began to suck at the sensitive flesh. But when his tongue rasped across the tender nipple, she groaned and opened her eyes so that she could see to thread her fingers through his long . . . really greasy hair, she noticed, and the desire to clasp his head to her chest fell away along with some of her passion.
Before Jess could grab ahold of the brief clearing of her thoughts and use it, Vasco nipped at her nipple, sending a new wave of excitement through her.
“Oh, God! This is so not fair!” Jess cried, clutching at his shoulders and squirming violently in his lap as his hand rubbed between her legs, sending wave after wave of increasing pleasure roaring through her trembling body and silencing her head again. Jess was so caught up in the need screaming through her body, and the promise of his easing it, that she hardly noticed when he shifted to sit on his haunches.
She did notice when he lifted her and then set her down to straddle his thighs on the bed, though, because he had to remove his hand from between her legs to do it. But his mouth continued its work at her breast, and his hand soon returned between her legs. He was just tugging the scrap of her bathing suit bottoms aside to touch her without it in the way when shouting suddenly erupted in the room and something slammed into them from the side.
Allison, Jess realized as she was knocked off Vasco’s lap and sent tumbling to the floor. Apparently, Vasco couldn’t control Allison and ravish her at the same time. Her cousin had come out of her blank state to turn into a woman raging with, of all things, jealousy. It seemed obvious; Allison still hadn’t cottoned on to what was going on here and that they were on a ship full of vampires. She didn’t even appear to realize that she’d been being controlled earlier. She was just ranting on about how Vasco was hers, and Jess was a slut for trying to steal him from her.
Vasco didn’t seem to take well to Allison’s calling her a slut. At least, that was the point that he got over his surprise and growled at the woman. Seriously, he growled like an animal, and then narrowed his gaze in the general area of Allison’s forehead and she suddenly went silent and still, all expression slipping off her face and leaving it blank.
The moment she did, Vasco leapt off the bed and hurried to Jess’s side.
“Are you all right?” he asked, helping her to her feet.
“Yes,” Jess said, forcing a smile as she tugged together the sides of her torn T-shirt to try to cover her breasts as she became aware of her lack of clothing.
“Do not hide them from me,” he admonished, brushing her hands away from the cloth. “I like your jugs.”
Jess winced at the words. Honestly, the man would be perfect if he could just keep his mouth shut. Well, and if he weren’t a bloodsucking vampire who wanted to fuck her until she bled and then lick it up. And the pirate thing maybe wasn’t a plus. Was that like his job? Really? Jess wondered, and then realized she actually didn’t know much about him at all, other than that he was her sexual kryptonite, and he talked like a combination of a pirate and a . . . well, honestly, she didn’t know what. She heard a lot of different influences in his voice and words. There was a hint of a Spanish accent, but some English too, and something else Jess didn’t recognize. There were also some salty words and phrases to his speech, but some antique terms as well.
Sighing, Vasco slid his arms around her waist and leaned his chin on her head, saying, “I suppose we cannot do anything with the lass here.”
Yes! Jess cried silently. She could stop trying to fight him off. Okay, she hadn’t really tried hard. But in her defense, he had some serious skills, and some powerful mojo working for him.
“Damn,” Vasco breathed. “One more minute and I’d have had my whore pipe in your tuzzy-muzzy too.”
“My what?” she asked, pulling back to stare at him with disbelief. “What does that even mean?”
“I was just about to slide you onto my cock and have you riding St. George,” he explained.
Vasco then turned to scowl at Allison, totally missing the way Jess grimaced and rolled her eyes at his description. Honestly, if he could just not talk she would be forever grateful.