Page 70 of Venice Vampyr: The Beginning

He shook his head and disentangled his limbs from her, scooting to the edge of the bed, where he dropped his legs to the ground, turning his back to her. “I can’t do this. I don’t want your body.”

He’d changed his mind? He was going to throw her out after all? A breath dislodged from her lungs and traveled upwards. She tensed her body, not wanting it to escape sounding like a sob. Had she done something wrong? Did he not like the way she’d sucked him?

“You can stay for a few days until we’ve figured something out. But you can’t be my mistress. Rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He leapt from the bed and gathered his clothes so fast, she had no chance to hold him back. A moment later, the door closed behind him. She was alone. And Lorenzo didn’t want her body.

That knowledge was like a slap in the face.

Chapter Seven

Something was seriously wrong with him. Lorenzo bolted for the next room and sought shelter from his warring emotions and from the enthralling naked Bianca in the next bedchamber. When had he ever developed scruples about fucking a woman? This wasn’t the first time he was taking advantage of somebody, and it wasn’t going to be the last.

Exactly, his cock chimed in. So, let’s go back in there and do it.

Lorenzo stared down at his hard-on and felt like slapping it into submission. He wasn’t going back into that bedchamber and take advantage of a young woman who’d had no choice but to offer her body to him so she would have a roof over her head. Not even he would sink that low.

He yanked his trousers up and pulled his shirt on, fastening the buttons quickly before he could change his mind. God, Bianca had gone so far as to suck him with those amazing lips, running her tongue along his shaft so tenderly, he’d thought he would burst. While he knew she wasn’t an innocent and clearly not a virgin, no decent woman should be subjected to having to service a stranger in such manner, no matter what hard times she’d fallen onto. It wasn’t her fault that her father had gambled away all the money.

Lorenzo stopped in his thoughts. He’d left money with the solicitor to give to the daughter so she would have something to tide her over. Had the bastard pocketed the money himself and not given it to her? Was that why she was destitute? No. Now he remembered. Bianca hadn’t even seen the solicitor yet. She’d arrived and come straight to the house. No wonder she didn’t know about the money, didn’t realize she wasn’t completely penniless. This could be corrected.

He would send word to Signore Mancini, making him aware that Bianca was temporarily staying at his house and that he should have the money delivered to her there. That would take care of it. Once she had the money, surely she’d be more than happy to depart and leave him to his debauchery.

Once she was gone, he would be no danger to her anymore. But right now she was in danger of him taking the last bit of her innocence and if he lost control, the last drop of her blood. And she didn’t deserve that, particularly because Lorenzo actually liked her.

Her strength when she’d been confronted with the news that the house wasn’t hers anymore had impressed him, and her determination to do anything to survive was admirable. He couldn’t bring himself to break the spirit of such a woman. It wasn’t her fault that she was in the situation she was in. She shouldn’t have to be the one to pay for her father’s sins.

Lorenzo finished dressing and stalked down the dark stairs, ignoring the enticing scent drifting to him from her bedchamber. He needed to get out of the house for a few hours while night was still upon them. And maybe somehow he could come up with a plan to help Bianca pick up her life and make a new one now that her father was dead.

If he was lucky, he’d find Nico at one of his favorite hells and enlist him in making a few inquires for him.

Half an hour later, Lorenzo marched into a nightspot which was part brothel, part drinking hall, and picked up Nico’s scent. He breathed a sigh of relief and headed for the upper floor where small rooms lined the long, dark hallway. The smell of sex, sweat, and unwashed bodies assaulted his senses, making his body aroused and repulsed at the same time. He’d spent many a night at this establishment to slake the unquenchable lust that always coursed through his body. He’d never known any different. It was a difficult vice to control, particularly for a vampire like him. His heightened vampire senses made all temptations that were thrown at him even more irresistible. Once a long time ago, he’d given in and instead of simply giving his body what he needed, he’d opened his heart. Only to have it ripped out in the process.

Elle. He hadn’t thought of her in years; he’d suppressed the memory of her quite successfully for a very long time. He didn’t understand why he was thinking of her now, other than the fact that maybe Bianca had reminded him a little of her. The same round eyes that could mimic innocence quite effectively.

Elle had been such a sweet and giving woman, and he’d fallen so hard for her that he’d believed that she would accept him for what he was. When he’d confessed to her that he was a vampire, she’d simply closed her eyes for a moment, taken a deep breath, and then proclaimed that she loved him anyway.

What a big lie it had all been. In truth, she’d been disgusted with him the first time she’d surprised him when feeding, but she’d hidden it well. She’d still warmed his bed and lulled him into the belief that she loved him. And if he wasn’t such a light sleeper, he would have gone to his grave believing in her love.

But he’d woken, finding her standing next to his bed, ready to plunge a stake into his heart. At that moment, his entire world had collapsed. His heart had turned to stone. Yet, he hadn’t been able to kill her for her treachery. He’d still loved her. His only option had been to erase her memory from everything that had happened, but there had been too much to erase, and as a result, her mind had scrambled, and she’d turned crazy. She’d ended up in an insane asylum where she’d killed herself a few years later. All because of him.

While he still had to use his skill of wiping human’s memories when he fed from them, he made sure to rarely feed from the same person twice. But he’d never gotten involved with another human woman for fear the fate that had befallen Elle would be repeated. So he’d confined himself to mostly whores from whom he didn’t feed so he wouldn’t have to use his vampire powers over and over again. A prolonged involvement with a human was too dangerous in his eyes, the repeated erasing of his victims’ memories too risky. By separating sex from feeding, he had managed to keep himself under control and neither lose his head nor his heart.

Lorenzo pushed the memories of his past away and inhaled deeply to find Nico’s whereabouts. As so many nights, Nico was hard at work fucking his way through Venice, and Lorenzo had no qualms about interrupting him. It wasn’t like this was a novelty.

He pushed the door open without knocking and entered the dimly lit room. Nico’s head snapped toward him, his alert body instantly relaxing when he recognized his visitor.

He winked. “Wanna join in?”

Did he? Lorenzo glanced at the woman, who was sprawled across the bed on her front, her ass high in the air as Nico’s hands held her hips tightly while he repeatedly thrust into her from his kneeling position behind her. Lorenzo smiled. It was one thing he and his friend had in common: they liked to take their women from behind for maximum impact.

“She can suck you,” Nico offered. “Won’t you, love?”

The woman lifted her head at his question and grinned at Lorenzo, revealing a crooked front tooth. While his cock was hard from the scent of arousal in the room, he merely shook his head. He wasn’t here for sex. Hell, if he’d wanted sex, he could have had it at home with a much more appealing partner.

Then why didn’t we? his over-eager appendage queried.

“Some other time,” he assured Nico. “I was wondering whether we could talk.”