Chapter Three
THREE
Internal screaming was preferable to out-loud screaming, which was about all the silver lining Ben could find in this situation.
The sexiest woman he’d ever seen was standing in his living room. The sexiest vampire succubus he’d ever seen, who was also the only vampire succubus he’d ever seen. A stressful situation to begin with, but she was also apparently over six hundred years old and had threatened to torture him and eat his liver.
Cue freak-out.
How had that eBay listing been real? And what was he supposed to do now?
Despite her threats, Eleonore was now looking at him in a sultry way. Well, mostly sultry—she’d started blinking aggressively like something was in her eye, and he was tempted to ask if she needed eye drops—but then she licked her lips and lowered her voice, and that throaty murmur sent an electric tingle from the top of his head to the tips of his toes.
Still, the shift from hostility to seduction on her part was both abrupt and suspicious. People rarely tried to seduce Ben—that he was aware of, anyway—and when they did, they certainly didn’t open with threatening to eat his organs. Which meant she had another reason for the abrupt change in demeanor.
When in doubt, the standard assumption was that everyone secretly hated him. Or in this case, overtly hated him, sultry looks aside. “I’m so sorry,” he said, deciding to ignore the lip-licking and the way she was sticking a hip out like she’d dislocated something. “I bought the crystal when I was drunk. I saw the listing and thought it was funny, and I’d just come from a wedding, and—” He bit off the rest of that confession. She didn’t need to know how pathetically lonely he was.
She blinked, a sweep of long auburn lashes. “A wedding?” she asked in her French accent.
He winced. Well, he supposed he owed her this much. She probably hadn’t anticipated manifesting in his living room either. “Friends were telling me to try online dating. I…well, this is going to sound stupid, but the listing said you’d be a good girlfriend, and I thought it would be funny—” He broke off as she whipped his phone up again. Lycaon, she moved quickly.
She frowned and poked the black screen. “It’s broken.”
“It went to sleep and I have to put in my passcode.” He held out a trembling hand. “May I?”
Eleonore clutched the phone, looking suspiciously between it and his hand. Then she snapped her teeth in a clear warning before giving him the phone. “I wish to inspect the pad more once you’re finished.”
So long as she didn’t rip out his jugular, she could inspect whatever she wanted. The way she spoke, it was clear she hadn’t been around modern technology. He’d have to look up the last time a six-pack cost a dollar. “It’s a smartphone,” he said, keying in his passcode. “A phone that also works as an internet browser and…other stuff. Apps and things.”
Her eyebrows rose. “A phone?” she asked, sounding scandalized. “How can that be? Where is the cord?” When he held it out again, she snatched it fast enough to make him flinch. She touched the screen, then yelped when the page scrolled. “Incredible. And this will make telephone calls?”
“It will.” Though he wasn’t sure he wanted to introduce her to that functionality yet.
Eleonore dragged her finger over the screen, scrolling down the rest of the listing. Her nails were slightly pointed, and Ben shuddered as he imagined the tips of them sinking into his bare chest as she pinned him down for the evisceration.
Her expression darkened once more. “The rest of this advertisement is just as appalling as the title.”
“It’s very poorly written,” he agreed.
“She was never particularly good at writing. She used to dictate letters to me, and even her thoughts required substantial editing. Though I suspect vodka played a role in this, too.”
“She?”
Eleonore glared at him again, and it was incredible how those gorgeous, long-lashed green eyes could stab through him like icicles. “The witch you purchased this from.” Her gaze shifted over his shoulder and went distant. “Who I will strangle with her own intestines as soon as I find her.”
Apparently the brief interlude into flirtatious behavior was over, but this was far more effective anyway. Ben restrained a whimper as his heart rate spiked. Her bloodthirstiness shouldn’t be sexy. It really shouldn’t. But she was wearing thigh holsters , for goodness’ sake, and his fight-or-flight impulse was expressing itself in weird ways.
What was he supposed to do in this bizarre situation?
Her bared fangs triggered a realization. If she was a vampire and had been summoned for the first time in who knew how long…Well, he knew what his parents would say about a host’s duties. “I apologize if this is an indelicate question,” Ben said, “but…are you hungry?”
Her head snapped up in another whip-fast movement. He’d never met a full-blooded vampire either, but he’d heard a bit about them, and they were supposed to be preternaturally quick. “Yes,” she said, pupils widening until they nearly swallowed the green of her irises. Her gaze fixed on his neck. “Very hungry.”
Perhaps he shouldn’t have asked, because he’d now opened a can of worms. Antagonistic, hungry worms. Maybe those ones from Dune , bursting out of the sand to bare rows of razor-sharp teeth. And yet his body was responding, that naked hunger in her gaze scrambling his brain and making his pulse pound.
What was the etiquette for this? When he was a child, his mother had given him lessons about how to set a table or hypothetically introduce himself to the Queen, but she hadn’t covered the situation of accidentally purchasing a vampire succubus online. Was he supposed to offer his neck?
Eleonore was unbelievably sexy, but Ben was smart enough to recognize that might not be the best idea, considering her hostility. Then again, she was only half vampire. Unlike vampires or demons, succubi were a mortal species like werewolves, humans, or pixies—they might have a supernatural brand of magnetism, but they didn’t live forever. And although succubi were rare enough that Ben didn’t personally know any, he thought he remembered that they ate like humans did. “Do you need food or blood?” he asked.
“Both.” She stood perfectly still, though an electric energy poured off her and her scent had deepened and grown more intoxicating. Ben found himself swaying toward her. Her lips parted…
The sight of her sharp white fangs—which seemed longer now than they had a moment before—was enough to break the spell. Ben shook his head and stepped back, heart racing. “I’ll make you a sandwich to start.” He hurried to the kitchen, then rifled through his fridge for turkey, lettuce, and cheese. When he turned toward the counter to grab the bread, he nearly had a heart attack seeing her standing mere feet away, having arrived with no noise whatsoever. “Jesus, do you have to jump out like that?”
A crinkle formed between her brows. “I did not jump.”
“Semantics.” He hurriedly assembled the sandwich and handed it to her.
She snatched it like a cobra striking and stuffed half of it in her mouth at once. Then she moaned, a sound of such pure, filthy delight that Ben couldn’t help but react. He laced his fingers in front of his crotch, praying the situation didn’t escalate. It was embarrassing to be in the kind of dry spell that made a man get hard over a sandwich.
Well, not the sandwich precisely, although if the bread had been suggestively shaped he wouldn’t put it past himself, pathetic as his love life had been the last few years. Then again, his heart was working overtime to get oxygen to his muscles in case he needed to flee; it made sense some of his blood had gotten misdirected.
The sandwich was gone in a few bites. Ben filled a glass of water and handed it over, and Eleonore drained it before sighing and sagging against the counter. “I’m always so hungry when I get summoned,” she said.
Her pupils were still huge, though, and her eyes were back on his neck, so clearly she hadn’t been fully sated. Ben swallowed. “I’ll get you some blood.” When she stepped forward, he held up a hand. “From a store. Not my neck.”
Her face fell. Her eyes fell, too, fixing somewhere in the vicinity of his groin. “There are other arteries,” she said hopefully.
Oh no. First the sandwich had gotten him going; now it was his femoral artery. He faced the cabinet, willing his body to behave reasonably. “How about I give you a tiny bit of blood to top you off while you wait for me to get back from the store?”
“Yes,” she hissed. Unlike her initial hisses, which had sounded like an angry cat, this one was more snakelike and oozed satisfaction.
It was like having a feral animal in his kitchen. He had no idea what she would do at any given moment or whether or not he would come out uninjured. He fumbled for a shot glass—unused for at least ten years—and a knife, then took a deep breath. He wasn’t fond of blood, but it was his fault they were in this situation, so he might as well gather his courage and feed his new vampire guest.
He cut the pad of one finger and held it over the shot glass.
There was a red-haired blur. The next thing he knew, he was pinned against the fridge with Eleonore’s lips wrapped around his finger. She sucked, and a bolt of pleasure arrowed through Ben’s veins straight to his groin. They moaned simultaneously, and Eleonore clawed him closer with a hand at his neck and a leg wrapped around his thigh as if to keep her prey from escaping. The tips of her nails dug into his skin, and fuck .
Ben’s head spun in a delirium of panic and pleasure. There must be some magical aphrodisiac in her saliva, because he was instantly fully erect. He ground against her lower belly, helpless to resist, and she met his movements, rocking her hips urgently.
This was madness. But her mouth, good heavens, her mouth …
He needed to put an end to this. The situation had spiraled wildly out of control, and no matter how good it felt, he couldn’t mindlessly hump his new houseguest like an animal. “Stop,” he choked out.
She instantly released him and was across the kitchen in the blink of an eye, back pressed to the wall as she panted. A trickle of blood escaped the corner of her mouth, and her nipples were erect beneath her shirt. “Sorry,” she said, tongue darting to collect the blood. “I lost control.” She squeezed her thighs together, and Ben groaned as he realized she had also been affected by the contact.
“It’s not just the blood,” she blurted when he didn’t reply.
“What?” he asked, having lost most of his cognitive ability.
“Losing control,” she said in that throaty succubus voice. “I could sense your arousal and…well, I feed on that, too.”
He nearly choked on his own spit for the second time in ten minutes. She could sense his boner ? Alarm bled into horror. “I’m so sorry,” he babbled, panic rising as he realized he’d inadvertently sexually harassed her. “I didn’t mean to make you feel disrespected or—or fetishized or anything else. It’s just—I haven’t been with anyone in a long time, and you’re very beautiful and terrifying, and I’m so sorry, I promise I’ll never have an erection again.”
Unrealistic, perhaps, but he was freaking out. He felt the urge to jump out of the nearest window. His house might only be one story, but there was a thorny bush he could head-plant into…
To his surprise, she smiled. “Oh, Ben,” she purred, easing closer again. “I’m half succubus. I like it when you have erections.”
He closed his eyes, willing himself not to do anything mortifying like whimper or come in his pants. Being near her was like riding a roller coaster of emotion. She switched between sultry and terrifying so quickly, he couldn’t find solid ground to anchor himself on.
“How does succubus feeding work?” he asked. “You drink blood and eat food, but you clearly also need…something else.” Maybe the technical details would take his mind off the image of her sucking sustenance straight from his dick.
“I need to experience sexual contact or be near sexual energy,” she said. “Fucking is the most efficient way to feed, of course, but I can also feed by watching people fornicate or being near someone pleasuring themselves.”
Ben whimpered, but at least he didn’t come in his pants. Technical details had betrayed him. “How…” He cleared his throat. “How often?”
“About once a week, similar to drinking blood.”
Well. This was a new logistical concern to iron out, ideally when he was far away from Eleonore and her dizzying scent. “Restaurant,” he croaked. “I’ll get you blood.” Before he could embarrass himself further, he turned and fled the house.