Tempting The Gorgon: A Gorgon / Vampire Romance

Chapter 23

“What?” Vinni asked. I clenched my teeth at the way they bombarded my mate with this ridiculous request.

“It’s a young gorgon. She was sold to a vampire club in Portland. We are… familiar with their operation.”

I knew exactly which club they were speaking of, which is why there was no way my mate was going to go to this fucking club. She had her own club here to worry about. She wasn’t going to waltz right into danger when I had something to say about it.

“When can we leave?” Vinni asked, getting to her feet.

“Wait a minute,” I interjected before these females could steamroll me. “We don’t know nearly enough about any gorgon. This isn’t like last time, Vin. Anya said she just got the request through her channels an hour ago. And it wasn’t even a reliable source, it was someone new. We can’t just go rushing off?—”

“I can’t speak for we, but I can tell you if there is a gorgon, especially a child gorgon in a club of vampires who was just sold into it.” Vinni paused to catch her breath. She was clearly furious that I was trying to stop her. “I will not stand by and let what happened to me happen to anyone else, regardless of how the information came to be,” she snarled at me.

I flinched.

I tried to stifle down the anxiety biting at me from within my soul. I wasn’t an anxious person, generally speaking. But when my mate—FUCK! Luxor and Titi were in my head if she’s in the room with me.

He thinks we didn’t already know about his vampire mating bond. Luxor sounded amused.

He truly doesn’t understand the power in us, Titi said.

Wait, you both know? I asked.

Obviously. Why do you think we bit you when we did?

Huh. I wasn’t sure what to make of that.

Does Vinni know?

Obviously not, Luxor hissed.

She is not yet healed, Titi added.

She doesn’t need to know, they both said in unison.

Well, at least we agree on something.

“Do you have an address?” Vinni asked Cliona and Anya, ignoring me completely.

“We do,” Cliona asked. “But I need to urge caution. Arch isn’t entirely wrong here, but I knew keeping it from you would be too fucked to come back from for our coven’s level of trust. I know you’re busy with Venom, and this isn’t ideal timing.”

Cliona understood the need for revenge, or in Vinni’s case, the need to prevent anything else from happening to someone who was born with snakes that apparently made them a target for every supernatural entity.

“I’m going to send Guillermo with you. He’s the one who—” Cliona clenched her teeth. “He’s been there before.”

“I’m obviously going too,” I said, stating the obvious.

“No,” the three females answered me, despite me not asking a fucking question all at once.

The room froze, and the tension was palpable.

“Excuse me?” my voice had taken on a darker tone than intended. “I must have misheard. I thought you told me I wasn’t going with my m—” I took a deep breath before I called her my mate. “Why am I not going with Vinni?”

“Because you’re already being an ass about this,” Vinni muttered.

“Because the mission is for the gorgon, not to accompany Vinni on a trip,” Cliona said.

“Because you’d risk the young gorgon’s chances at escape if Vinni were in the slightest bit of danger. And Vinni can take care of herself. Guillermo, Patrick, and Rory will be enough to ensure she is safe while retrieving the gorgon. The girl needs to see someone who looks like her and that she can trust and communicate with that isn’t a fucking brute like the one’s she’s been passed around between for who knows how long.” Anya shook her head without removing the lethal stare down she leveled at me. “You need to stay here and make sure Vinni isn’t worried about her club while she is retrieving the girl.”

I looked at Vinni to see what her facial expressions gave away.

Yup. She was pissed.

But not at me, surely, just at the situation. I hoped. Unfortunately for me and my need to make her safe, this was a chance to prove my faith in her. To stifle my alpha need to rage and protect and hoard her for myself.

“Take Dominic too?” I asked, knowing I hadn’t the right after my initial display of alpha male bullshit but wanted as much muscle with her as possible.

Vinni’s lips turned up slightly at the ask.

“He should be available.”

“Good.” That was good. A dragon could take anyone down. “Leave us,” I demanded of the others. I was close to losing control. My fangs panged in my mouth, and I needed to claim Vinni before she left or I’d definitely follow her, and that wouldn’t do much to earn her faith in me to stand by her side and not stop her from doing things she wanted.

She was her own person, I sometimes needed a minute to catch up to that fact, though.

As demonstrated right now.

“We leave later tonight,” Cliona said before exiting with Anya, leaving Vinni and me in her newly furnished office together.

“Do you think you have any right to?—”

I cut her off, knowing she wasn’t actually mad at me since I controlled my alpha instincts in front of the others. Or I did enough anyway. I wouldn’t go with her because I knew how much Venom meant to her. I needed to stay here. I knew I could trust her safety to my friends even if it killed me to not go with her.

I also knew my mate was fierce, cunning, and more than capable of maiming anyone who sought her harm.

I lifted her out of her chair and put her on the desk, spreading her legs open and placing her boots on the arms of her office chair. Her raspberry tartness overwhelmed me, and the sight of her big eyes slowly darkening to a crimson shade of need nearly undid me.

“Tell me your safe word, Vinni.”

She gulped, knowing in her soul what I needed in this moment.

I needed control.

I needed her.

“Red.”

“That’s my good slut.”

I savored the way her pupils widened at the praising degradation, her body giving away how much those words affected her.

How much I affected her.

I leaned in, covering more of her body with mine before reaching for the buttons of her blouse and ripping them open, exposing her perfect tits trapped in a lacy black contraption I tried to savor. It didn’t work, and I used my fangs in the next moment to shred the lace with my fangs, freeing her from their prison.

“Hey! Those were expensive.”

Ignoring my mate’s words, I leaned down, tracing a line along her jaw and down the front of her throat in between her breasts. I traced circles, savoring every point of contact between her flesh and my tongue, almost slurping at her taste, and relishing the way her breathing increased as I took my fill of her.

“Are you going to be my filthy slut and let me eat your delicious pussy on top of your desk? Or are you going to fight me like a brat and take a punishment first?” I waited with one hand on each of her knees, waiting for her answer.

She nodded.

That would not do.

I bit at her chin, then met her gaze, showing her that her powers didn’t scare me.

“Use your words, whore.”

Her pupils widened at my command, and I knew she’d let me have my way with her. I just wasn’t sure how hard she wanted me to work for it.

“You can eat me out.”

I lifted one eyebrow at her, giving her a command without any words.

She mumbled something under her breath.

“You’re going to need to speak to me clearly, temptress.” I squeezed each of her knees to emphasize how serious I was and how I would not continue until she called me what she knew I needed to be called.

“Please eat my pussy, Daddy.”

Fuck.

“There’s my dirty slut.” I praised her in her own preferred, degrading way. I loved the way the crimson surrounding her eyes flashed an even deeper red.

“Are you going to let me drink from you down here, Vinni?” I asked in a more serious tone. She let me at her throat once, but I knew, especially now given her history, how she might not like my fangs in her unless she offered. But with her spread open like this, calling me Daddy and offering me her sweet cunt, I needed to ask.

I had taken liberties at the club, but I knew she’d liked it, and my bite made her come all by itself, so I hoped she’d grant this to me again when we didn’t have an audience.

“Yes, Daddy.”

Fuck, she was gorgeous when she commanded the room, when she let everyone know how in control she was… but when she let me take the reins? When she surrendered to me, even if it didn’t happen often?

She’d bring me to my knees every time.

I hauled her forward on the desk so her luscious ass squeezed over the sides, giving me my feast without the table to contend with.

“And your safe word?”

“Red,” she said. She wasn’t protesting anymore. She was more than ready to beg me for pleasure, but I couldn’t wait anymore either.

“You’re the only person in the entire world I’d get on my knees proudly for, temptress.” I know my eyes were shining with bloodlust as I spread her pussy wide. The wild scent of raspberries, vanilla, and mint swirled together, sending me over the edge and diving into the sweetness.