Heated Fantasies.

by Elizabeth Lapthorne.

Prologue.

Scooper's Pub, NewHope Earth Late 2205

Simeon Montague sat at the bar and nursed his drink. He watched with only lukewarm interest as his twin brother Rylan laughed and idly placed a curl of his shoulder-length, curly, dark brown hair behind his ear as he catcalled at the woman writhing around the stripping pole. The pole itself had been recently installed, whereas the escort who shimmied against it had been around the pub for at least a few weeks to Simeon's knowledge.

Their elder brother Michael also clapped, but had the presence of mind to restrain himself from jeering. Vasili, the brothers' best friend, had stood up next to Rylan and just begun to throw credits on the floor at the woman's feet.

Simeon shook his head as Michael scrounged in his pockets for some change as well, his s.h.a.ggily cut, dark brown hair falling into his eyes. Simeon smirked as he recalled the pains Michael had gone to a few nights earlier to place the blond tips in his hair just so.

Frowning, he ran a hand through his own shoulder-length, straight dark brown hair and recalled the exasperation both his elder brother and twin had shown at his lack of caring about his own locks. Sidetracked, an ear-piercing wolf-whistle brought him back to the scene at hand and Simeon wondered if he should tell his twin to tone it down a bit.

The woman on the stage seemed to lap up Rylan's and Vas' attention, and since she had decided of her own free will to be at the public tryouts for the new pole dancer position, Simeon decided she likely would not appreciate his attempt to tone down the more raucous section of her crowd.

Sighing, he took a long swig of his drink. The fizzy faux soda tingled on his tongue, reminding him he really should be more excited to see a stacked blonde wiggling her a.s.s and fondling a giant pole like a seasoned pro.

He let his eyes scan the pub in faint interest, noting every other patron who had turned out seemed entranced by the vixen pretend to get herself off on a giant, slick pole.

What the h.e.l.l is wrong with me? he wondered idly. A gorgeous woman twisted and writhed before his very eyes. Every other male-vampire, alien, human and otherwise-were all drooling over her, and here he sat with more interest in his fizzy drink than in the supremely enhanced, oiled-up female on the stage in front of him.

Maybe I'm sick? he questioned himself. Resting a hand on his forehead, he didn't seem unusually warm, neither did he ache nor feel less than a hundred percent.

"Something wrong, Si?" Michael spoke softly, leaning toward him across the bar.

"Look at them," Simeon stated, waving a hand at his twin and best friend. "You'd think they were celebrating their Majority Eighteenth birthdays and seeing a pole dancer for the first time. Don't get me wrong, she's good. But this whole compet.i.tion is not that exciting," he indicated at Ry and Vas who were now baying at the woman like a couple of wannabe wolves in heat.

I'd rather be back home and reading that latest conspiracy novel on how the Groders plagiarized their galaxy-renowned theory about the Warrior species coming into power over the rest of the planet, he sighed sadly to himself.

"Really enjoying that book Gav left you on the Groder Conspiracy?" Michael snorted.

Simeon made a face at his elder brother and quashed the urge to punch his shoulder. He had no idea if his elder brother simply knew him too well or if, in his mild self-pity party, he had let the thought slip and Michael had picked up on it.

"Very funny, Mike," Simeon retorted. "Actually it's a decent read and yeah, if it was a choice between that book and sitting here watching another stacked blonde 'shake her thang' for this huge crowd then maybe I would prefer to be back at the lodgings."

Simeon smiled as Michael caught his eye. At least his brother took his words seriously.

"You feeling all right?" he asked with concern. Simeon just shrugged, not really certain how to explain his itchy restlessness, let alone ease it.

"I think so," he replied as he tried to probe his own feelings with no luck. "I think I'm just feeling a bit off."

When Michael just watched him and waited, Simeon tried to explain himself more clearly.

"I mean, what the h.e.l.l is the point?" he finally vented after a failed attempt to organize his thoughts. "I don't really feel any connection to any of the women. Lea is a hoot to talk to, and I like her lots, but otherwise all the women here just seem to be the same sultry cardboard cutouts. What's six or seven more going to help? Even if they can pole dance like the others can't?"

Simeon felt his frustration bubble but since Michael nodded understandingly he didn't bother to continue. The two brothers sat there in silence together for a moment. Simeon watched the blonde arch her body to the exact angle to place her silhouette at its most perfect positioning, and then she licked the pole suggestively, causing the already excited and largely inebriated crowd to roar in approval.

Simeon silently bet himself this one would make the cut without the need for a second audition.

"Maybe you just need a bit of a break?" Michael finally suggested. Simeon snorted.

"Or maybe I just need to get laid, you mean? Dammit, Mike, I thought you would give me a better suggestion. That's something I'd expect from Ry or Vas."

Simeon watched his brother merely shrug and gaze out over the crowd with his dark blue eyes. He ran a hand through his short and s.h.a.ggy hair, and Simeon had to admit to himself, the gold tips created the perfect contrast. Maybe he should try some in his own thick, annoyingly straight locks?

Simeon snorted to himself. Nah, the gold looks good with his blue eyes. Rylan's and my boring brown ones would never look that good or else Ry would have added tips decades ago.

"Maybe for once we'd have to acknowledge Vasili and Rylan's point. Not that I suggest we tell them that," Michael conceded after a moment's thought. "I think they both take the whole 'indulge thyself' business to the extreme, but maybe for once they could be utterly right here."

Both brothers turned to watch Rylan and Vasili jumping up and down on the spot, throwing credit after credit at the blonde and chanting some sporting call.

Simeon smirked.

"No s.h.i.t," he commented wryly. "I hope they leave themselves enough credits to cover their drinks. Scooper threw them out personally last time he had his wet shirt compet.i.tion. If they weren't such fantastic customers I'd bet he'd have blackballed them years ago."

Michael chuckled and the brothers settled together comfortably once again.

"Maybe at least try to find someone who interests you," he suggested gently. Where Simeon would have blown off Ry or Vas saying the identical thing, he listened since it wasn't a common thing for Michael to suggest. Ry thought a night with a woman could cure any ill, Michael and Simeon knew better.

"I can understand the boredom," Michael continued. "You're properly over your two hundred years, it's a hump period where you realize not every pretty girl is worth the effort. I remember that time well."

Simeon rolled his eyes.

"You've really become used to showing off the fact your road is so much better traveled." He poked his brother in the chest. "It's been a couple of decades since your three fifty years. Get over it. I understand you're the elder brother."

"What I meant was," Michael replied taking on a haughty tone, "there are certain times when you start to feel a bit down about the whole fact you can't truly connect with someone other than that special woman who can complete your Soul's Circle. It's just a fact of vampiric life."

Simeon shrugged, hoped to carry off nonchalance at the slight change in topic.

"I know there's only one or two women in the entire known galaxy who can do that for me. But a part of me wonders what the h.e.l.l the point is in indulging in physical and s.e.xual gratification when there's no connection. I know Ry and Vas love it to bits." Both men turned again to watch Ry attempt to climb on the stage like a randy teenager.

When the bouncer stepped on Ry's fingers to dissuade him from the notion, both Simeon and Michael snickered.

"But still, I can't help but think there has to be more to life than endless s.e.xpots strutting their stuff, and f.u.c.king woman after woman in an endless rotation."

Simeon watched as Michael merely shrugged and finished his mother milk draught.

"Well, Si, old man," Michael said with a pinch of jovial to his tone. "Out of the four of us, I bet you're the one to find out if there is more to life. With Gav and his never-ending quests, Ry's perpetual s.e.xual hunger, and with Vas to egg him on, that won't stop anytime this century. With my old age, I'm betting if any of us can find out if there's more to life, it would be you."

Simeon laughed as Michael slapped his shoulder and stood up.

"But if you will excuse me, bro," he continued with a wicked twinkle in his eyes, "I do believe I see Lea stepping up to the plate to show these amateurs how a real pole dance ought to be done."

Simeon felt his eyebrows rise in surprise and he swiveled around in his chair to watch the short blonde bob of Lea's hair make her way through the crowd and up onto the stage. With her black band barely holding her b.r.e.a.s.t.s in place and just covering her nipples she somehow managed to look sweet and innocent at the same time as looking sultry and s.e.xual.

A tiny pleated skirt completed her ensemble, and the entire crowd roared as she started swinging her body around the pole as if she had been doing it all of her barely legal life.

Simeon smiled, but still felt no s.e.xual stirring. He finished his own drink and made his way to the back of the pub. He would certainly watch Lea's routine, but then he would head on back to his lodgings. He wanted to think over what Michael had said and then maybe do a bit of soul searching.

Something definitely seemed up inside him, and he wanted to work out the best way to tackle it. Somehow, he knew having raunchy or even kinky s.e.x would not solve his problems, however. He had the uneasy sensation his s.e.xual detachment ran deeper than that.

When a hazy memory from his recent erotic dreams reentered his mind, Simeon groaned. He couldn't remember the last time he had worn a public erection, but if he let his mind travel down the road it had just flirted with, he would be soon.

Simeon could never manage to see the woman's face as her back was always to him. She had a ma.s.s of blonde-brown curls tied neatly back in a bun.

For the zillionth time his fingers itched to reach out and touch the soft-looking strands, but he knew if he reached for her she would disappear. She always did. Besides, from his dreams over the last few nights he knew exactly what she was about to do anyway.

Her a.s.s was voluptuous, but not enormous. His dream-fantasy woman wiggled it for him, inciting a deep l.u.s.t in his groin no one else he came across could even hope to inspire. Simeon winced as the mere memory of this fantasy lady had his shaft hardening to steel-ore in the span of a second.

His mystery, dream lady reached a hand up and slowly removed the pins holding her bun together. Simeon felt his mouth dry as the vision only he could see enticed him and beckoned, more strongly than the sirens of old. He could imagine reaching out to her, pulling her to him, spreading her lusciously long legs and penetrating her with one fierce, desperately hungry thrust.

But he knew the instant he did reach out she would shimmer and disappear. That was how the last three nights had ended for him. True, he had been alone in his study doing reading and relaxing the previous nights she had come to visit him, but tonight he hoped he could see her now, and again in his dreams later in the night.

Simeon watched enthralled as blonde-brown curls slowly fell to mid-back length, running riot and creating havoc with his s.e.xual drive.

Needing to feed more than his next breath, Simeon drank in the l.u.s.t and emotion of the crowd. The energy in the room pumped around him like the beat of music, but it was the l.u.s.t this fantasy woman inspired in him that drove his frenzy, not Lea's s.e.xy little body grinding against the pole like anyone who looked at him would a.s.sume.

Simeon could feel the heady pull of the others' emotions, but more importantly he felt his own twisted, s.e.xual thrill from a dirty dream he simply could not get out of his head no matter how many times he reminded himself this was fantasy and not reality.

He had no idea who his fantasy woman was. From the well-outdated suit jacket and skirt she wore he had the strongest feeling she was pure imagination, and nowhere near real. Yet he would happily give anything in the entire galaxy to have this woman in front of him now, kneeling before him and taking his heat into her mouth, embracing him in the most intimate and trusting of ways.

He groaned softly, just the faintest thought of it having his c.o.c.k weeping with frustrated need and desire.

Instead of trying to force his dream woman to help slake his l.u.s.t, Simeon instead focused on where his sudden interest in ancient power-suit clothing the buxom women wore had come from. Maybe he had watched one too many twenty-first-century vid flicks?

As Lea wrapped up her dance, the crowd nearly deafened him with their approval. The ear-splitting roar made his fantasy woman disappear, and so Simeon slowly slipped out into the brisk evening.

Enjoying the slow and short walk back to his lodgings, he turned his mind over his dilemma. It would be ridiculous in the extreme to try and research the ancient clothing, yet the woman p.r.i.c.ked his mind. He couldn't search for her, as he had never seen her face, only the back of her head and body, and a teasing glimpse of full, round b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

b.r.e.a.s.t.s he wanted to suck more than he wanted to feed ever, ever again.

Something told him it would be another excruciatingly long night. He was losing his mind over a dream woman.

Oh, how his twin would laugh to know.

Present day

Middle America

Clare looked at the clock for what must have been the hundredth time in the last hour. With only ninety minutes left until the university library closed, she wondered how she could bear more shelving of books or answering hara.s.sed college students' essay queries.

She glanced down at the cheesy Victorian bodice ripper she had been about to shelve. She opened it up to a random page, just for the h.e.l.l of it.

Franchescha gasped in mingled shock and desire as she heard the delicate silk of her ruinously expensive evening gown torn into shreds. Her eyes widened as she watched the ragged strips of fabric flutter to rest on the floor.

Harold, the ever unrepentant rogue, grinned devilishly down at her, and she felt the resultant heated flush flow down her body, pooling as melted, flaming honey in her nether regions.

"Now you are mine," he said commandingly.

Franchescha gasped again as he roughly pushed her down onto the soft divan. She glanced down to the throbbing arrow of love she had craved all throughout the reckless masquerade they had both attended earlier in the evening.

Harold's throbbing red staff bobbed in front of her, burgeoning in its need, a mottled red-purple color and imposingly, threateningly erect.

Clare suppressed her giggles and slammed the book shut before a poor student could come wandering around looking for her and catch her reading the tasteless, old-fashioned, erotic thriller.

Placing the paperback on its proper position on the shelf, she headed back out to the end of the aisle where she had left the rickety, old wooden trolley, which must have been carrying books to shelve for at least the last fifty years.

Ding, ding, ding.

Clare looked up as the reception desk bell sounded with what seemed, from the still echoing noise, as a lot of force. She frowned, wondered what was going on.

As she stepped to the side and got a clear view of who stood at the desk, she groaned softly. The fleeting, childish impulse to duck back between the shelves and cover her eyes to hide like a kid ran through her so strongly Clare found herself turned in the direction of the shelves before she could stop herself.

Come on, Clare, she chided herself, at least the jerk has stopped trying to corner you after working hours.

"Ah! Clare...I mean, Miss Rooney," the man called out and began to stride toward her with the firmness of a man who held purpose.

Clare sighed to herself. Resistance is futile, she silently, sardonically acknowledged. Feeling as if she deserved an Oscar for not showing her mingled disgust and resignation, Clare held a politely interested smile on her face.

"I have something of a somewhat serious nature to discuss with you," the man began as he came closer to her. He stood well within her circle of personal s.p.a.ce, and Clare resisted the urge to step back.

She sighed inwardly and concentrated on keeping her smile intact. While mentally running through any number of rude things to say to rid herself of Mr. Nathan Pawlsine, she instead forced herself not to cringe but appear interested in his concern of the day.

If she were honest with herself it wasn't just his pompous, overly arrogant turn of phrase that made her want to escape the man's presence. Sad as it was to admit, she was becoming used to his penchant for speaking in such a dramatic and at times rather lurid manner.

It was the oddly bright expression in the greasy man's watery gray eyes that made her stomach churn and thin beads of sweat run down her back.

Not for the first time since having the presence of Nathan Pawlsine foisted upon her, Clare wondered why the h.e.l.l all the weirdoes had to focus on her. Clare bit down on her lip and pondered how she had managed to become some sort of lightning rod for idiotic and perverted men.

She pushed the thought of all the idiot men she had been dating and then promptly dumping over the last few years, out of her mind as well. Comparing them and Nathan Pawlsine's presence in her life would only depress her more.