By all appearances, Jean-Luc "Jack" Courbet has the perfect life. His art critiques appear regularly in The New York Times. His Greenwich Village apartment is filled with tasteful antiques. And his finely chiseled face and body make him an object of longing for the men he meets in clubs and bars -- men who satisfy his dual need for pleasure and cruel pain. But beneath the glittering social whirl of Jack's elite lifestyle lies a deadly secret: he is a vampire, transformed a century ago in Paris by his powerful stepfather.

Now, driven by an age-old thirst for vengeance and locked in a game of cat-and-mouse with the mother who wants to destroy him, Jack haunts the streets of New York City, hunting for sex and blood -- until he falls for aspiring actor and model, Claude Halloran. In Claude, Jack glimpses the innocent he once was, and who gives meaning to a life lived in darkness. This erotic journey will take Jack beyond the threshold of desire into the pain of his own past -- from France's closeted nobility to the hidden obsessions of Victorian London -- and finally into a presentday world of flesh and fantasy where love and lust are more than appetites. . . they are the keys to survival.