Carinian's Seeker (11 page)

Of course, it was impossible to be turned into a vampire, but she could extend her life by mating with one. Correction, mating with
him
.

According to her notes, Carin had been using her own blood to experiment with skin cells introduced to the serum she’d created. It already had the ability to combat aging and introduced an incredible resistance to disease to the original cells. Unfortunately, the cells absorbed too much iron from her blood, resulting in a slight toxicity.

What she’d discovered and engineered so far was beyond amazing for someone who’d started from scratch with no firsthand knowledge of vampires. Even if she was the most sought after and brilliant mind in her field, what she’d accomplished was unheard of, especially for a human.

If what she was doing ever leaked out, uproar in both vampire and human communities would follow. But V.C.O.E. could use Carin’s research to find a way to fight their enemies. She looked soft and submissive in her sleep, but her disposition wouldn’t last long when he broached the subject of her research. May as well get this over with.

Bix nudged the top of her head with his chin. She moaned softly and turned into his body, instinctively seeking his warmth. “Wake up, sweetheart,” he whispered against her hair. She groaned and nuzzled deeper under the covers, trying to bury her head underneath his body.

“Carin,” he spoke a bit more sternly, “wake up, baby.”

She stretched with a well-deserved yawn, her nipples and breasts deliciously sore, still swollen and heavy. Her body felt well used, the strong muscles of her legs protested her movements, fatigued after spending so much time wide open under Bix while he pushed into her, filled her. Her eyes fluttered open reluctantly, and she scrunched her eyebrows together in an attempt to focus on the face mere inches from hers.

“Bix, whaaaat?” she grumbled, trying to roll back underneath his arm. Bix’s calmly stated words snapped her out of any remaining slumber.

“I know about your vampire research, Carin. What do you think I should do about it?”

Her dark brown eyes met his silver streaked honey ones as she bolted straight up in the bed. She dragged the covers up and over her bare breasts while running a hand through the tangled mass on her head that was supposed to be hair. Her mouth fell open, but she recovered in a flash and painted on a mask of indifference while her emotions reeled.

“You know about my research?” she asked as calmly as if he’d informed her the moon was full in the sky.

“Yes, sweetheart, I know all about it.”

“B-But how,” she sputtered, unable to believe all her hard work would be flushed down the drain now. After all, it was his responsibility to make sure the project his organization funded was on track. They held the purse strings and she doubted they’d appreciate their lead scientist deviating from what they were paying for.

“I took a peek at some of your notes. When you’re onto something, you’re like a dog with a bone, love. You didn’t even notice.”

“I-I, uh…” She paused and took a deep breath. Stuttering wouldn’t win the fight here. She appeared steady, but was far from it. Her mind ran a million miles an hour trying to figure a way to get him to keep her secret. Hell, nothing came to mind. Well, she’d just have to take it like a woman. Carin squared her shoulders and faced him boldly, trying to ignore the slightly hairy leg rubbing against hers under the covers.

“Bix, I take full responsibility for my actions.”

“I expected nothing less. But responsibility is not what I want from you.”

She arched a brow in question. He didn’t hesitate to explain.

“I want you to help me find out what Sidheon is doing.”

Sidheon? Hell, that was simple, even welcome. Just the mention of the man’s name sent nasty chills up her spine. After she’d accidentally ended up with his specimen cart, she’d seen some test results that hadn’t made any sense at first. Now she was beginning to make serious headway on it.

“So, you want my help? Is that all?”

He looked up at her from his pillow and traipsed a single finger up her arm, sending a chill of anticipation clear down to the back of her knees.

“Oh no, baby. That’s not all I want.”

Whoa, hold the door. If her cooperation wasn’t all he wanted, then what exactly
did
he want? Her thighs spread wide with him between them in some sort of permanent arrangement, perhaps? Not bloody likely. Well, at least not the permanent part.

Ignoring the goose bumps his caress inspired, Carin climbed out from under the covers, wrapped a quilt from the end of the bed around her body and went to stand in front of her dresser across the room. She needed some space if she was going to think straight. Anywhere within arm’s length of Bix and she forgot any coherent speech. Facing the mirror perched on top of her dresser, she shook her head on a snort and a smile. A solid, hard-muscled body reflected boldly back at her from across the room. Damn he was just too sexy for words, all golden and hunky and damned delicious. Thick, black, bed-head hair called to her fingers, even from way over here.

But something was going on here, especially if the man really knew about her research and wasn’t freaked out about it. Maybe he was bluffing. Turning to face him, she backed up against the dresser and crossed her arms over her chest. Bix sat up in the bed and leaned against the headboard, watching her from beneath hooded lids. In spite of the conversation he appeared at ease, his interlaced fingers cradling the back of his head.

“Why don’t you think I’m insane for researching how to exhibit the traits of a non-existent species? How come you aren’t tripping out because I want to be a vampire?”

“Because, Carin,
I’m
a vampire.”

“What? No way.” She laughed and waved him off. Until she noticed he wasn’t laughing with her. Oh, hell, was he serious? She sobered quickly.

“But you can’t be…I mean, I would know, right? I’d have bite marks or something by now, right?” It was times like this she wished she was truly psychic instead of just an empath, damn it.

His legs swung off the bed and he rose slowly. A half grin formed on one side of his mouth on her swift intake of breath. The man had the nerve to look down at the huge erection dancing healthily at his groin. “Bite marks?” he asked silkily. “Well, not necessarily.” He smiled like a rogue and let his incisors lengthen. Every muscle along her spine tingled erotically as his cock and teeth both reached for her.

He watched her closely while she eyeballed his fangs, her temper getting hotter by the second. The expression across his tight brow seemed a bit puzzled. What, he expected her to panic or something because he had elongated incisors? Well, panic wasn’t what he was gonna get, the bastard. Instead, her brows snapped together in a boiling frown. Her hand balled up into a strong fist and settled into the hollow of her hip with her toe tapping a mile a minute. She was pissed.

Bix’s eyes widened just long enough to recognize what flew towards his head. Moving with the speed obviously born of a vampire, he avoided the object. Barely. The empty crystal vase that had been sitting on her dresser shattered into a million pieces against the wall in the exact spot his head had been only seconds before.

“You son of a bitch. You knew what I was trying to do all this time? You’re the very thing I’m trying to create in myself and you didn’t say anything? Didn’t offer to help me? You bastard!”

One of several glass beakers sitting on her dresser flew. Damn, she wished her aim were better. She’d only clipped his shoulder that time.

“Look, Carin…”

“No, you look! I’ve worked my ass”—another beaker sailed towards him—“off for years trying”—a small metal specimen tray full of glass vials took off—“to figure out how to become a fucking vampire!”

Carin couldn’t believe it. Endless years of beating her head against a wall trying to find the keys to making herself long-lived and here she was sleeping with a damned vampire? How stupid could she be?

Her eyes went wide when he reached her side just as she picked up a heavy ten-gram scale weight from on top of a stack of magazines. He bared his fangs again, but this time a threatening snarl erupted from deep in his throat. In a flash he maneuvered around the bed and had her sandwiched between his hard naked body and the wall.

“Don’t ever,
ever,
do that again, Carin,” he ground out in clear warning. “I don’t care how mad you get at me, you will respect me at all times. Do you understand?”

His hands were gentle and the words spoken at a whisper, but the honed muscles stilling her movement, along with the tick in his jaw, made it pretty clear he’d reached the end of his tolerance. Never mind the fact he held her six inches off the floor. But she was no punk bitch. Hell, she could make her jaw tick, too.

“Fuck. You,” she hissed into his face. Pushing away from the wall, and away from Bix, Carin stuck her chest out and acted big and bad, but she knew her back left the wall because he’d let her. Her instincts told her Bix would never hurt her, but the man was no pushover. Inwardly acknowledging her inability to walk all over him freed her, made it all right to loose the reins of her carefully controlled life and give them to the bossy, protective, stubborn male. Carin never realized she liked that in a man. The knowledge brought with it a rush of steaming arousal and the urge to be thoroughly ravished.

But she wasn’t going to tell
him
that. Then, he’d be an overbearing ass all the time. A gorgeous overbearing ass… Oh, snap out of it, girl. You can’t do this noodle-spined stuff right now.

Then again, if she was nice maybe he’d bite her and…and what? Because of the characteristics and behavior of DNA strands, her research concluded it was unlikely humans could be “turned” by simply introducing simulated vampire genes, but perhaps she could be enhanced? Wait a minute, the specimens she’d stolen from Sidheon’s cart… And Bix was after Sidheon. It all clicked into place in one
a-ha
moment. Sidheon was a vamp. It was his blood she’d stumbled on in the specimen cart, the blood with regenerative properties. But if she hadn’t recognized Sidheon or Bix as vamps, what else, and who else, had she missed? What else did she
not
know about his kind?

Carin paced back and forth in front of Bix as he half-sat on her dresser, oblivious to what his beautiful body was doing to her ability to think straight. She slowly got her wits together and urged Carin-The-Scientist to surface. Just as she opened her mouth to ask another question, he pressed against her mind, telling her what he’d rather be doing right now. It involved no talking, lots of honey and a little bit of rope. And so hot she couldn’t keep her lips from forming a surprised little “oh” as the wicked details streamed into her head.

A crooked, cheeky smile spread wide across his lips at the dark blush creeping up her chest. Arrogant man. Carin’s fingers wrapped around something new to throw when he sent another thought.

“You smell like my come, but not nearly enough. Come over here and get some more.”
Oh Lord, she was going to explode on the spot, his nasty thoughts enough to cause goose bumps to form on her bare arms at the same time her nipples drew up into tight little aching buds. Her gaze followed the large hand he lowered to his groin and slid up and down his hard cock.

Carin focused on the carpet. She tried to keep her gaze there, really she did, but she had a mutiny on her hands with her damned eyeballs. They were supposed to listen to her, not go off on their own to watch his fingers wrap around his magnificent rod. It was too hot in the room and her knees threatened to join her eyes in the whole mutinous business. Swallowing convulsively, throat tight with such a blitz of emotions that she couldn’t pin them all down—anger, hunger, and embarrassment at being so needy. Even with his fangs gleaming under the moonlight streaming in through the open blinds, he was such a handsome devil.
Her
handsome devil. She turned away and shook her head in an attempt to clear it. Yep, it was time to change the subject and hopefully get some answers.
And sound convincing when you open your mouth, girl.

Turning to face him, she said, “Look, Bix, I have some questions. Can you tell me…” Her mouth snapped closed. Without a sound he’d moved up behind her, close enough to rub her nose against his chest.

“Not now, baby. Later.” He backed towards the bed, crooking his finger. Her body started moving like a puppet on a string. Rubbery legs and all, she shuffled the short distance to where he stood with his cock waving at her. The man was a walking aphrodisiac.

Her ass clenched when the arousing scent of her sex mingled with his filled her nostrils. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she grabbed hold of his forearms, sank trembling fingers into his vein-roped forearms and held tight as her head fell back. His fangs, followed by his warm, wet tongue traipsed up her neck. The tickle-scratch set off a sweet shiver along her nerve endings, through her breasts, and down to her soaked pussy. With his thick mushroom-shaped tip positioned at her door, legs spread as wide as they could go, her belly did the butterfly dance, spurred by his deep, satisfied groan as he entered her willing body.

What had she wanted to know about vampires again?

Bix cradled her against his chest, tracing a relaxing path up and down her spine. Carin’s finger drew little circles around a tight male nipple. He sighed contentedly for the tenth time in the last ten minutes. Sated enough to think halfway straight while holding her securely in his arms, he felt sleep tug at the corners of his mind. Groaning inwardly, he winced when she rose up on her elbow and peered at him with clear determination. It was question time and he obviously wasn’t going to distract her.

“Bix, tell me about vamps? I never did buy into the whole undead theory. I’ve also seen you out in the daytime. Are we talking Blade the Daywalker or what?”

He chuckled, his fingers continuing their easy exploration of her body. He couldn’t stop touching her. If she wanted to talk about the consistency of pig shit, the woman would still manage to make it sound sexy.